“I believe Thatcher did it because she didn’t see why the system should cover things up. This was early in her prime ministership. I think she wanted to tell the civil service that the politicians decide policy, not the system. She wanted them to know who was the boss.”
Sir Bernard Ingham — Thatcher’s press secretary
November 16 2022 — On November 16 1979, Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher named Sir Anthony Blunt — a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen — as the “fourth man” in the Cambridge spy ring. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY
RELATED POST: Book Review — “Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain”
RELATED POST: Former Double Agent : “Self-destruction of humankind has been put back on the agenda”
RELATED POST: The search for the “Fifth Man” — Spooks and Chess Players
RELATED POST: UK — National Archives Release Prime Ministerial 1993 Papers, Withhold Lockerbie File
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“There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place (…) There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — The Downing Street Years (Memoirs 1993, pp 448-9)
UPDATE (November 16 2022) — So according to Sir Bernard Ingham, Thatcher didn’t see why the system should cover things up… Really?
Tam Dalyell was MP for Linlithgow for 43 years and Father of the House of Commons when he retired from Westminster in 2005.
During an official dinner, Dalyell asked Thatcher why in 800 pages of her Memoirs, she did not mention Lockerbie once?’
Mrs Thatcher replied:
“Because I do not know what happened and I do not write about things that I do not know about.”
This answer can not be entirely true. In her memoirs — The Downing Street Years (Memoirs 1993, pp 448-9) — British prime minister Margaret Thatcher wrote:
“[Operation El Dorado Canyon] turned out to be a more decisive blow against Libyan-sponsored terrorism than I could ever have imagined. …
There were revenge killings of British hostages organized by Libya, which I bitterly regretted. But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place. (…)
There was a marked decline in Libyan-sponsored terrorism in succeeding years.”
Published two years after the indictment of Fhimah and Megrahi, Thatcher’s Memoirs is evidence that the Iron Lady was well aware that Libya had no involvement in the Lockerbie tragedy.
On July 24 2018, the UK National Archives released files from the Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet Office predominantly covering the year of 1993. A Lockerbie file dated 1992-93 was however withheld.
Two years before, on November 2 2016, the UK Government [Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)] decided to withhold all Lockerbie air accident investigation reports [dating from 1990 Jan 01 to 1992 Dec 31] until at least 2026, and possibly indefinitely. Why on earth?
Why on earth would the UK Government decide to withhold these technical reports if they did not reveal foul play or gross incompetence?
RELATED POST: RELATED POST: Lockerbie — Why I ruled out the bomb theory [Technical Analysis of the Debris Lines]
If ever released, these reports will show that the AAIB investigators knew all along that there was no bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, and that they knew the real cause of the tragedy long before the crash even happened.
PS — Ask yourself a simple question. What did Thatcher actually mean when she wrote: “But the much-vaunted Libyan counter attack did not and could not take place.”
END of UPDATE
“Because I do not know what happened [at Lockerbie] and I do not write about things that I do not know about.”
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher
[Answer to Tam Dalyell]
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
To make it easier for the readers to retrieve various chapters of my book, I have created a special page “Lockerbie” where all the links to the chapters will be listed with a brief description. You can access that page directly as it appears at the far right of the top bar of this blog.
Lockerbie — Three Decades of Lies: J’Accuse…!
On November 16 1979, Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher named Sir Anthony Blunt — a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen — as the “fourth man” in the Cambridge spy ring.
The announcement – given in a written answer in the Commons – ended a 15-year cover-up.
Mrs Thatcher revealed he had confessed to the authorities in 1964 but under a secret deal was granted immunity from prosecution.
Minutes after the Prime Minister’s statement, Buckingham Palace said he was being stripped of his knighthood.
He had been part of a Cambridge spy ring made up of Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Harold “Kim” Philby – who was in charge of British intelligence’s anti-communist counter-espionage from 1944 to 1946.
Burgess and Maclean defected in 1951 following a tip-off from Philby, who himself defected to Moscow in 1963.
Blunt Outed as Soviet Spy – 1979 | Today In History | 15 Nov 1979
On November 15, 1979, the British government publicly identified Sir Anthony Blunt as the “fourth man” of a Soviet spy ring. Here is Blunt’s public statement in the aftermath.
REFERENCES
Anthony Blunt — Wikipedia
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On This Day — Thatcher Names Blunt as the “Fourth Man” (November 16 1979)
Intel Today 
Why are the rest of the British media not reporting that MI5 went after Rupert Murdoch over phone hacking? Instead of trying to ridicule the messenger? Is it because they know he and his hench people can bring the media down with themselves?
I’ll make sure it happens now.
You have to look at what is not being said and who isn’t saying it to see exactly what is going on. When you take that into consideration you can see the power holds.
They are all fake bastards when it comes to the truth. Now, we see twitter wanting blue ticks to be paid for. This will mean media companies and journalists having to hand over bank. details. Something I predicted a long time ago
Sorry, but that is hilarious. Watch them panic. Piers Morgan going on about free speech being important forgot his own piece of advice when at the hacking trial he accused the whistleblower – Steven Nott on voicemail hacking of being deranged and a liar to which Lord Leveson replied “Well, we now know he (the whistleblower) was telling the truth.” Morgan still sat and denied it after the media were caught out.
Piers Morgan is a disgrace! If he has lied about that, what else is he lying about or hiding?
I want to know who these people are who keeps awarding MI5 directors with Knighthoods while the public are denied the basic truth! They are the traitors in my opinion!
People go to prison for a lot less.
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Don’t miss Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce in A spy Amongst Friends about Kim Philby and if you haven’t read it yet, Ben Macintyre will be disappointed!
The secret world of MI6 can be a small one. As all espionage cognoscenti know, Kim Philby was a member of the infamous Cambridge Five along with Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and John Cairncross. Philby knew John le Carré (aka David Cornwell) and ended le Carré’s career in MI6 by treacherously informing on all his East European secret agents.
Philby (and maybe other Famous Five members) also knew Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE in the fifties when Pemberton was ADC to Field Marshall Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer and fought in the guerrilla war known as the Malayan Emergency. Philby was sniffing around for information to help the communist Malayan insurgents but got little useful data from Templer’s camp and the insurgents (the Malayan National Liberation Army) were eventually defeated by the British.
In the early seventies Alan Pemberton recruited one Bill Fairclough for MI6 (codename JJ). They worked together on and off for the next twenty years or so. Before 2014 Fairclough’s links with various intelligence agencies became public knowledge and to quash any fake narratives Fairclough set about publishing a series of factual autobiographical novels known as The Burlington Files, only one of which (Beyond Enkription) has been published to date.
Given Alan Pemberton (Fairclough’s original MI6 handler knew Kim Philby) it is unsurprising that John le Carré turned down Bill Fairclough’s offer in 2014 to collaborate on the action packed factual Burlington Files series. David Cornwell responded along the lines of “Why should I? I’ve got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?” An expected but realistic response from a famous expert in passive fiction who refused to visit theburlingtonfiles.org in case his photo was snatched while on line! Or maybe because Pemberton’s People in MI6 even included Roy Astley Richards OBE (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) and an eccentric British Brigadier (Peter ‘Scrubber’ Stewart-Richardson) who was once refused permission to join the Afghan Mujahideen.
Do look up the authors or books mentioned on Amazon, Google The Burlington Files or visit https://theburlingtonfiles.org and read Beyond Enkription.
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I often wonder what Guy Pearce is doing since leaving that Australian soap!
Thanks for clearing that up.
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No problem!
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