It has often been said that self-praise is no praise; a three page letter issued by conspiracy crank Larry O’Hara, self-styled number one enemy of Searchlight, which recently came through my letter box, is living proof of that. O’Hara has that in common with Searchlight, ie a totally unwarranted regard for his own “researches”. He has something else in common with this vile magazine too: a flagrant disregard for truth, or in this instance, a case of cognitive dissonance verging on wilful blindness.
In his latest outpourings, O’Hara, who is “committed to the struggle or concerned with anti-fascism, anti-racism and the need to confront anti-Semitism”, informs us yet again that he has “consistently illustrated just how close Searchlight are to MI5”. What are the true facts?
O’Hara is the author of two pamphlets: A Lie Too Far (which he co-wrote with one Tim Scargill); and At War With The Truth. He has also published a small book called Turning Up The Heat: MI5 After The Cold War. The first of these publications is extremely garbled, by his own admission, so it was quickly superseded by the far more professionally produced At War With The Truth. Both pamphlets contain some useful information, but both draw unwarranted conclusions from insufficient evidence. And, for the record, most of this evidence, for what it is worth, came into O’Hara’s possession purely by chance. As for his book, Turning Up The Heat is simply long on speculation, short on facts. Its thesis - not a new one by any means - is that with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, Britain’s security services have turned their beady eye on the so-called radicals of the far left as part of their empire-building programmes, or even to justify their continued existence.
Part of O’Hara’s thesis is that Searchlight magazine and the odious people who control it are working to the “Secret State’s” agenda. So what is the evidence for this?
Searchlight magazine is said to smear anarchists, the Animal Liberation Front and sundry others. Including himself. On top of that they ignore “the threat” [sic] posed by sophisticated fascists/anti-Semites such as David Icke, and encourage political violence by running moles in far right organisations including “Violent fantasist Ray Hill” and “Special Branch tout Dave Roberts” who are both said to be “still under investigation”. Let’s deal with these one at a time.
The fact that people across a broad political spectrum are smeared as fascists ad nauseam is proof of nothing as far as the “Secret State” is concerned. David Icke is no manner of fascist, if anything he regards himself, sincerely, as an anti-fascist. In spite of his endorsement of the Protocols Of Zion, I would go so far as to say that Icke is no manner of anti-Semite either. He is though most certainly a mystic; his writings, in particular his ill-researched Robots’ Rebellion, peddle a revealed truth totally in keeping with the Protocols and other nonsense; the likes of Icke should be ignored, either that or exposed for the credulous dupes they are, not boycotted as O’Hara suggests, or hounded, as some of his fellow travellers advocate.
O’Hara’s claim that Ray Hill is a violent fantasist is nonsense; he is simply an evil bigoted bastard who sold his soul to Organised Jewry in South Africa, as documented in my definitive unauthorised biography, which, unlike O’Hara’s ravings, is based on thoroughly researched and easily checkable public domain documents. O’Hara’s claim about Dave Roberts is even more absurd; Roberts, who died in 1982, was a dedicated communist (unlike Hill), who, together with Searchlight’s then controller Maurice Ludmer, led Special Branch up the garden path with tall stories about a quasi-mythical Nazi Underground called Column 88. This was after Roberts, together with two Nazi fantasists, found himself charged with conspiracy to assault the staff of an Indian restaurant - and worse. A strange pastime indeed for such a dedicated “anti-fascist”. There is nothing further to investigate, either about Hill or Roberts. All the necessary work has been done. Not by O’Hara, but by me. By the same token there is nothing lef!t to research concerning the activities of the obviously unbalanced Tim Hepple.
O’Hara claims too that Sonia Hochfelder – the future Mrs Gerry Gable – “infiltrated” a Maoist group in the 1970s. Again the facts are very different; at that time she was not “the editor’s ‘wife’”, rather she was a mixed-up Jewish girl who, after leaving this group, entered the far right, in particular the National Front and the League of St. George. She was no manner of mole here either because, contrary to later claims, her ethnic origins were no secret and she was, to some extent, paraded by the far right as one of its Court Jews.
The claim that “Leeds thug/Nazi” and “self-confessed Special Branch asset” Tony White is part of this network of subversion is, likewise, nonsense. In any case, Tony White was uncovered not by O’Hara and his fellow “radicals” but by the BNP. What is the explanation for White?
It is undoubtedly true that, at a low level, members of certain political extremist organisations are targeted by Special Branch, and possibly by other agencies. I know of one case, also in Leeds, from many years back, in which a police agent provocateur was actually planted in a far right group. This sort of thing happens more often, or has in the past, in the United States, and there is now hard evidence - declassified COINTELPRO papers - to prove it. Be that as it may, the activities of the “Secret State”, as far as any such entity exists, are largely a matter of speculation and will remain so for the forseeable future. Evidence of covert activities from official sources seldom if ever comes into the public domain within thirty years, sometimes not for considerably longer, and all such files are pruned by anonymous civil servants according to unspecified criteria before being declassified.
None of this concerns Searchlight though, for the proof of any pudding is in the eating. In case Mr O’Hara hadn’t noticed, Searchlight magazine has been involved in a certain amount of litigation of late. Who has been paying its legal bills: Stella Rimington? Nuff said.
This doesn’t mean that Searchlight magazine or the odious people who control it have never at any time received “information” from the “Secret State”, but it does prove that MI5 don’t give a monkey’s about Searchlight. The fact is that disinformation is peddled to and through the media all the time by central government and other agencies for all manner of reasons. Is O’Hara not familiar with that immortal quote about being “economical” with the truth? Probably half the journalists at the BBC have been used at one time or other to mislead the public in some minor or not so minor way for one reason or another. O’Hara should also bear in mind that the Searchlight Organisation’s controller is Jewish, so that if he is caught in the act, as he has been, his machinations can be blamed on the International Jewish (or Zionist) conspiracy and his detractors written off as lunatic anti-Semites.
As to information going the other way, from Searchlight to MI5 ad nauseam, a dispassionate examination of the facts shows clearly that most of this “information” has been ignored, indeed, Searchlight itself has whined from time to time that in spite of masses of evidence about bombing campaigns and the like which they have brought to the attention of the police, the authorities have refused to act against “Nazis”. The quite separate issue of this organisation’s gratuitous misleading of both the British and European Parliaments will not be discussed here.
I would add that although in my biography of Ray Hill I paid lip service to O’Hara’s researches, by the time the book was published I had all but discarded any of this “Secret State” nonsense. I will make an appropriate correction to the second edition - if ever there is one - and indeed have already gone on record as such in my previous critique of O’Hara, (which was published at the same time as my Hill biography).
O’Hara’s vanity and cognitive dissonance are exceeded only by his paranoia. One far right activist informed me that O’Hara had told him that he believed I was working for the “Secret State”, ie that someone was “pulling my strings”. Once or twice when loony Larry ordered pamphlets from me he made sure to pay by postal order, obviously afraid that I’d pass on his banking details to my masters in MI5. As if the “Secret State” didn’t know, or couldn’t obtain, his banking details if it so desired.
O’Hara has also made this ridiculous charge of working for MI5 against Red Action, a group of “anti-fascist” thugs who, up until recently, were well in with Searchlight, but they, like the rest of the goyim, are slowly waking up.
If then Searchlight is not run by the “Secret State”, what is its real agenda? O’Hara surely knows this already, but he is too blind or too spineless to acknowledge it. In the words of Rabbi Moshe Menuhin, “Anti-Semitism is not always a ‘one-way street.’” In short, the blind, fanatical racial hatred of many Nazis for the Jews is alive and well in modern Britain, only the boot is on the other foot.
I will end this dissertation with a few words about Turning Up The Heat. On page 45, O’Hara reports that Eddie Morrison is said to have issued a circular in August 1992 “containing such nonsense as the suggestion that Searchlight might have seen the possibility of libel action...as a ‘real threat to their nasty little activities’”. Nonsense? Res ipsa loquitur. O’Hara calls this nonsense because Searchlight is a company with no share capital and dummy names and addresses “and doesn’t even seem to submit accounts”. This is just plain wrong. While it is true that Searchlight Magazine Limited has a miserly share capital of £100, it does (as required by law), submit accounts, and, in the words of Patricia Wynn Davis, legal correspondent for the Independent: "Anyone claiming libel can sue not only the author, editor and publisher, but also bookshops and libraries." She might have added distributors and printers. Is that clear, Larry?
Finally, on page 42 of this book, O’Hara makes much of the use of police camera surveillance at the October 1993 Welling riot. Again, it’s all a plot by the “Secret State”. The truth though is that some people need to be watched; both the “Secret State” and police intelligence have some legitimate functions. O’Hara’s Green Anarchist friends are living proof of that. People who incite the murders of police officers (as does Green Anarchist) or who (simply?) throw bricks at them, as do “anti-racists” in Welling, need to be watched, and when they are brought to book, dealt with severely.
Issued by Alexander Baron,
93c Venner Road,
Sydenham,
London SE26.
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