Jon Lewis - The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

In 1963 Hugh Gaitskell suddenly resigned as leader of the Labour Party; he died shortly afterwards of lupus disseminata. So unusual was the disease in the UK that Gaitskell’s doctor is said to have reported the matter to MI5. Gaitskell had recently visited the USSR and, according to Soviet defector Anatoli Golitsin, the KGB Assassinations Department 13 was seeking to assassinate a European politician and put their man in his place. At this point, MI5 agent Peter Wright revealed in his memoir Spycatcher (1987), the security service became seriously interested in Gaitskell’s replacement as Labour leader: Harold Wilson.

Wilson had been a minor blip on MI5’s radar for a long while. He had flirted with Communists at Oxford in the 1930s, and in 1947 he’d made several trips to Russia as the government’s Secretary for Overseas Trade. If not already a Soviet agent, Wilson, MI5 believed, was recruited on these trips by the old means of a “honey trap”—a sexual liaison with a female KGB member. Filmed or photographed, the liaison opened up Wilson to perpetual blackmail. Proof that Wilson was “turned” ostensibly came during the Korean War, when the Labour MP was less than red-blooded in seeking North Korea’s eradication. James Angleton of the CIA is said to have confirmed to MI5 Wilson’s role as a Soviet stooge.

By any measure, though, MI5’s evidence against Wilson was meagre. This did not stop the spooks from running a major smear campaign against him, which was steadily stepped up over the course of Wilson’s four tenures as Prime Minister. Termed “Clockwork Orange”, the MI5 smear campaign dripped media stories that Wilson was having an affair with his aide Marcia Williams, and falsely alleged links between Wilson’s Labour Party and the KGB. According to Peter Wright, at least 30 MI5 officers were involved in the mid-1970s plot to destabilize Wilson, an accusation supported by MI6 chief Sir Maurice Oldfield and Captain Colin Wallace of Army intelligence. (Wallace was later framed for manslaughter because of his refusal to aid the Wilson plot; in 1996 a court quashed his conviction.)

With no prior warning, on 15 March 1976, Wilson announced his resignation as Prime Minister. The official explanation was that at 60 he was too tired to go on. Soon afterwards, however, he began briefing journalists about an MI5 plot against him, adding that in 1968 and 1978 “dark forces” had planned a military coup against him. So far-fetched did these claims seem that they met with all-round amusement, forcing Wilson to deny his own words.

In 1993 an official government investigation, MI5: The Security Service, asserts “no such [MI5] plot [against Wilson] existed”. Peter Wright’s Spycatcher has been proven to be exaggerated, and Wilson’s own cabinet colleague Dennis Healey (now Lord Healey) says Wilson “made Walter Mitty look unimaginative”.

Even so, there is enough evidence from Colin Wallace to incriminate sections of MI5 in the destabilization of Wilson’s 1970s governments. Wilson’s retirement is thus explained by the fatigue and depression caused by having his own security force turned against him.

Of Wilson’s alleged covert Communism, though, there is not a jot of proof.

Paul Foot, Who Framed Colin Wallace? 1990

Robin Ramsay and Steven Dorril, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State, 1991

Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer, 1987

In the aftermath of 9/11there resurfaced a popular early-1990s conspiracy that within Microsoft’s Wingdings font were secreted hidden messages. One such message was to be found if “NYC” [New York City] was typed in Wingdings. Up came:

Some conspiracists read the symbols as Microsoft’s approval for the killing of New York’s Jews, and eventually the brouhaha reached the New York Post, which excitedly reported “ANTI-JEWISH CODE LURKS IN POPULAR SOFTWARE”. Microsoft dismissed the charge, saying that the skull, Star of David and thumbs-up sequence was pure coincidence—a claim somewhat undermined by the admission of Microsoft spokesperson Kimberley Kuresman that the symbols for “NYC” in the somewhat similar Webdings font were intentionally designed to be associated with happiness. They were: an eye, a heart and a skyline. That is, I LOVE NEW YORK.

Then came 9/11, and someone on the internet decided Microsoft’s Wingdings had forecast—even signalled—the terror attack on the World Trade Center. As one email posted on AboveTopSecret.com put it:

The “Wingdings” Conspiracy. Has anyone heard of this? I’m shocked! Go to notepad, set the font to highest, select Wingdings font, and type in caps Q33 NY. This is the flight number of the first plane to hit the World Trade Center… Coincidence? I doubt it…

Q33NY in Wingdings is:

An airplane attacks two buildings and kills the Jews…

The conspiracy is undone by significant faults. Most notably, Q33NY was not the number of any of the aircraft involved in 9/11. Further, the 3–3 symbols are not “buildings” but lined documents. If you want a secret message from Wingdings, try this:

Microsoft’s Wingdings font is designed to convey secret anti-Semitic messages: ALERT LEVEL 1

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/wingdings.asp

One of the world’s bestselling computer programs contains a secret anti-Semitic message apparently urging death to Jews in New York City.

A computer consultant discovered the diabolic message while installing Microsoft’s new Windows 3.1 software for a client yesterday.

The consultant was testing a mailing-address use of the program when he noticed the letters “NYC” had been replaced by a hateful message—a skull and crossbones, the Star of David and an approving thumbs-up symbol.

Microsoft strongly denies any hidden message. Others disagree.

“There’s no way it could be a random coincidence,” said Brian Young, a friend of the consultant, who does not wish to be named.

“It’s pretty scary. I was pretty shocked by the whole thing.”

Computer owners who use Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word or any other Microsoft program containing a print font named “Wingdings” can duplicate the anti-Semitic message by typing the letters “NYC” on their screen.

Microsoft said “Wingdings” was designed by Bigelow and Holmes, an outside vendor, and denied that Microsoft intentionally designed the secret message.

Prof. Charles Bigelow confirmed that his company provided the symbols, but insisted that Microsoft made the final “mapping” decisions assigning his symbols to specific keys on the keyboard.

But a senior Microsoft spokesman said the charge that the fonts contain a hidden message is “outrageous”.

“It’s like saying that if you randomly type out characters on a keyboard to spell ‘Satan’, you can do that, but it’s incredible to say that there’s anti-Semitism in Microsoft or one of its vendors,” said Charles Hemingway.