Document

Mike investigates why black African soldiers, who had shed their blood for France and formed two thirds of Charles de Gaulle's Free French army, were denied the glory of liberating Paris in August 1944.

~Documents written in the lead up to the liberation indicate just how far the Allies went to ensure that the troops marching into the capital were white. The Tiralleurs Senegalais - soldiers from West Africa who had signed up to fight for France - were turned away from the capital, stripped of their uniforms and made to languish in holding camps before being shipped back to their own countries.

Why black soldiers in the French army were denied the glory of liberating Paris in 1944.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

Mike tracks down formerly secret reports from MI5 that describe how brainwashing techniques were being used inside British intelligence bases in North Africa during the Second World War. There, prisoners were exposed to truth drugs and other methods that shocked even a senior agent who went on to head the secret service. Allegations appeared in the press in 1960 and questions were asked in parliament. The claims were denied by then prime minister Harold Macmillan, but Document has evidence that he misled the country.

How Harold Macmillan misled parliament in 1960 over claims of war prisoner brainwashing.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

Mike investigates Britain's role during the 1970 coup in oil-rich Oman. History records that it was a family affair, but documents reveal London's hidden hand.

Offically, the architect of the coup was the Sultan's son, but in papers seen by the programme, Britain is seen to be calling the shots. Worried that the country's faltering regime could fall to communism and so threaten its vital oil interests, London decided to act. Formerly secret documents clearly show British civil servants and military leaders plotting regime change in Oman, by the use of force if necessary. They concealed their plans and only now can the real story be told.

Mike Thomson investigates Britain's role during the 1970 coup in oil-rich Oman.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

In May 1964 prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home declared in the House of Commons that British policy in the North Yemen Civil War was one of non-intervention. But with the security of British interests in Aden and South Arabia under threat, rumours spread of London's covert involvement in the war. Mike unravels the extent of Britain's underhand engagement in the region, told through high-level secret Whitehall documents, private papers and eyewitness accounts. As Yemen returns once more to the news headlines, Mike looks back at Britain's policy in the 1960s that went on to have far-reaching consequences for the Yemen of today.

Mike Thomson investigates Britain's secret involvement in the North Yemen Civil War.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson returns with Radio 4's investigative history series, examining documents which shed new light on past events. The news series begins with a paper trail surrounding an oil disaster - not the most recent example in the Gulf of Mexico - but one much closer to home, in the North Sea.

Whilst President Obama has told BP that it will be held fully responsible for cleaning up the damage caused by the massive oil spill off the American coast, papers seen by Document show that the oil company Occidental got off far more lightly after the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 off the Scottish coast, which left 167 people dead.

After seeing the recently released documents, the environmental pressure group Greenpeace claims too little was done to deal with more than five tons of highly toxic chemicals released in the disaster, marine contamination that led the Government to consider a fishing ban and which has had a lasting impact on the North Sea. The documents also shed light on the decision to topple the remains of the Piper Alpha platform, an operation which threatened to worsen contamination and which was fiercely opposed by relatives who wanted the search for bodies to continue.

Mike Thomson speaks to marine biologists, politicans from the time and survivors to find out if more should have been done to clean up after the disaster.

Producer: Julia Johnson.

What happened to the toxic chemicals released in the Piper Alpha oil disaster in 1988?

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

On August 16th 1951 a number of people in the quiet southern French town of Pont St.Esprit began to fall ill. Stomach pains were soon followed by violent and often terrifying hallucinations. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed and more than thirty people were taken to asylums in nearby towns. It was soon decided that the cause was bread poisoning and the evidence pointed to just one Bakery. The reason, it was believed was 'ergot', a fungal infection found in Rye bread which had often caused mass poisonings in Medieval times.

But documents obtained by the American writer Hank Albarelli suggest that rather than simple 'ergot' there was a strong possibility that the symptoms and the nature of the outbreak were not a tragic accident. In his research in to the mysterious death of the CIA biochemist Frank Olson and his post-war work on LSD and its uses as a biochemical weapon he got hold of papers implying Olson's connection with the Pont St Esprit outbreak.

Mike follows up the claims talking to experts in LSD and its impact, historians of the cold-war search for the perfect biochemical weapon and agricultural scientists specialising in ergot poisoning. He also visits the town of Pont St Esprit and talks to one survivor, the local postman Leon Armundier, about the events of 1951. Leon describes of the horrors he faced as a young man, being forced into a straight-jacket for a week as burning sensations and images of snakes raged around him.
Many in the town are uneasy at re-opening the old story about Le Pain Maudit - the evil bread - preferring the establishment 'truth' that it was just a tragic accident. But there are some who believe a proper examination of the facts still hasn't taken place.

Mike Thomson explores claims that the poisoning of a French town in 1951 was an LSD trial.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In the last of the current series Mike Thomson investigates how Britain covertly manipulated the democratic process in its South American colony, then known as British Guiana in the run up to its independence in 1966. Mike discovers new documents which show that they deliberately scuppered the outcome of their own conference organised to determine the country's future.

On the face of it the conference, held in London in October 1963, was designed to confirm the constitutional future for what was then British Guiana. Publicly Britain encouraged the country's Prime Minister Dr Cheddi Jagan - who had been fairly elected in 1961 - and the leader of the opposition Linden Forbes Burnham to agree terms for independence. However, behind the scenes, the documents reveal that the British were working to a different outcome - to ensure that agreement was never reached.

The British, under pressure from the Kennedy administration which feared Dr Jagan's Marxist leanings, were determined that he would not lead the country to independence. To this end they suggested a form of proportional representation in forthcoming elections, knowing full well that Dr Jagan would not agree to these terms as they would favour his rival. When the conference ended in deadlock as the British hoped it would, PR was duly implemented and the following year Dr Jagan was ousted much to the relief of the super powers.

Mike talks to historians, eye witnesses and Guyanese commentators today to discover how democracy itself was destroyed in British Guiana and the legacy of these shady days in today's modern Guyana.

Producer: Paula McGinley.

Mike Thomson investigates how Whitehall undermined democracy in British Guiana.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

1. The Bomb, the Chancellor and Britain's Nuclear Secrets

In the first edition of a new series, Mike investigates documents which suggest that Labour Chancellor Denis Healey was kept in the dark over plans to modernise Polaris, Britain's nuclear weapons system in the mid-1970s.

Dubbed Chevaline, the upgrade programme was top secret and highly controversial, that would eventually cost hundreds of millions of pounds more than originally estimated. And all this at a time of economic hardship. Striving to keep his split party together on the highly sensitive issue of nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Harold Wilson restricted decision-making to a small circle of ministers.

But Thomson discovers papers which suggest that officials may have gone to extreme lengths to ensure that Chevaline was kept on track, proposing to withold key information from a sceptical Chancellor on the 'need to know' basis. Was national security the real reason or were other motives at play?

Mike puts the claims to former Cabinet Ministers Tony Benn and Lord Owen, formerly David Owen, Foreign Secretary in the late 70s.

Producer: Laurence Grissell

Also in this series, Mike Thomson will shed new light on what some regard as the first shots in the Cold War between Britain and Soviet Russia: an alleged plot to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in 1918 and to kill its leaders, Lenin and Trotsky.

Mike Thomson explores documents which shed light on plans to update Polaris in the mid-70s

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Producer: John Murphy.

Mike Thomson reveals the truth behind an alleged British plot to kill Lenin.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In January 1939 the IRA launched a devastating bombing campaign across England for the cause of a united Ireland. Bombs left at power stations, in litter bins and empty cinemas caused havoc in London, Manchester, Birmingham and other major cities. In August 1939 Coventry suffered the worst explosion when a bomb carried by a bicycle brought carnage to the streets and left five dead.

Ireland's Prime Minister ɀamon de Valera was in a difficult position as he had turned his back on the militant republicanism of his youth in favour of constitutional politics. With war looming he also wanted to keep Ireland neutral. Faced with an IRA campaign that was undermining his political efforts and ratcheting up the violence - at one stage the IRA even considered recruiting volunteers for 'death squads' - documents show that de Valera was secretly co-operating with his arch enemy - the British government - to stamp out his former brothers in arms.

Producer: Paula McGinley.

Mike Thomson investigates secret Anglo-Irish co-operation against the IRA in the 1930s.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

But black independence fighters waged a long struggle to oust Smith's regime. By the late 1970s, Joshua Nkomo and his ZAPU party, and Robert Mugabe and his ZANU party, were both engaged in a bush war against Smith's regime.

Resolving the situation had become one of the most pressing issues of British foreign policy. The Foreign Secretary David Owen believed he had to bring all parties to the table if a long-term settlement was to be achieved.

Both Owen and Ian Smith had favoured Joshua Nkomo as the first black majority leader of Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe - until, in 1978, Nkomo's ZAPU fighters brought down a civilian Rhodesian airliner, and butchered a group of survivors.

Mike unearths the famous interview shortly afterwards in which Mr Nkomo was heard to chuckle over this most destructive act in the long-running and increasingly bloody independence struggle.

The Rhodesian special forces immediately stepped up plans to assassinate Nkomo. On 13th April 1979, an audacious raid was launched against Nkomo's house in Lusaka - in Zambian territory - but it failed because he wasn't at home.

Veterans of the Rhodesian forces remain convinced today that their intelligence was good and that Nkomo's escape was the result of a tip-off. And a ZAPU leader agrees with that suspicion.

In this edition of Document, Mike Thomson investigates the accusation that it was the British, informed by someone inside the Rhodesian command, who tipped off Nkomo. And he also examines whether the British later did the same when attempts were made on Robert Mugabe's life in Mozambique.

Did the belief that getting all parties to the table was the only way forward mean that, where possible, men who were responsible for what some saw as terrorism were to be protected?

Memos within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office suggest that the survival of Nkomo and Mugabe was indeed due, in part, to British involvement.

In his bid to uncover the truth, Mike talks to members of the Rhodesian defence forces as well as senior British diplomats involved at the time.

Mike Thomson asks if Britain's part in Zimbabwean peace meant protecting terrorists.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

One option was obtaining a baptismal certificate which offered the hope of making it easier to acquire transit visas and move across borders.

The President of the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum has just discovered, to his surprise, one such baptismal certificate belonging to his great uncle.

Mike Thomson follows this certificate back to the Anglican Church in Vienna, where this and many other baptisms took place in a very short space of time.

He finds people who received these certificates and hears how they were useful in aiding their escape from Austria.

He finds out about the Chaplains who came up against the Gestapo as a result of conducting these baptisms, and asks what motivated them. He also unravels the arguments in the Church of England over what should be done to help Jews trying to escape Nazi Europe.

Producer: Neil McCarthy.

Mike Thomson investigates the secret baptism of Jews in Vienna's Anglican church, in 1938.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In the first programme of the new series, Mike investigates the role played by the French Government and defence industry during the Falklands War.

30 years on, it's well documented that French President Francois Mitterrand was supportive of the British war effort - not least in the memoirs of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Yet Mike discovers papers which suggest there was a deep split within the French government.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

Mike Thomson investigates the role the French government played in the 1982 Falklands War.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In 1946, against the general post-Second World War retreat from Empire, Britain acquired a new territory: Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

Before its cession to the British, Sarawak had, for over a hundred years, been ruled over by the so-called White Rajahs.

They were, in fact, the Brooke family from Dorset and the decision by Vyner Brooke to hand over to British rule was a controversial one both within his family and within the country of Sarawak in general.

By 1949 it appeared that those opposed to the handover or 'cession', led by Anthony Brooke, were losing the argument.

It was then that a new governor, Duncan Stewart, was appointed. But a few short weeks after his arrival, he was fatally stabbed while inspecting a school in the provincial town of Sibu.

Stewart bravely tried to hide his injury and was flown out to Singapore. He clung to life long enough to see his wife who had hurried from London to see him.

The death of a young and promising British officer was blamed on the final, violent convulsion of the anti-cession movement, with the implication that Anthony Brooke should share some of the responsibility.

But was that really the motive for the attack? With the help of documents discovered by historian Simon Ball, Mikr Thomson explores the British attempts to play down and even hide the real reason for the assassination.

And Mike speaks to Anthony Brooke's grandson and Duncan Stewart's daughter about the legacy left to them by this forgotten outburst of colonial violence.

Producer: Tom Alban.

Mike Thomson unearths the motives behind the 1949 murder of a British colonial governor.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In 1942, the Vichy regime ruled a large part of France, after striking a deal with Hitler when France fell in June 1940. This left France officially neutral, with a severely limited 'Armistice Army'. Yet British troops were fighting Vichy forces in Madagascar, as they had done in Syria in1941. France, it seems, was more neutral towards Germany than towards Britain; here its collaborationist regime, under Marshall Petain, was viewed with contempt by Winston Churchill and the British people, who instead supported Charles De Gaulle, leader of the Free French.

Yet in this edition of Document, Mike Thomson presents evidence that, not only were the British Chiefs of Staff meeting with representatives of the Vichy army to discuss supplying them with arms, but they were doing so behind the backs of Prime Minister Churchill and the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

To investigate, Mike enlists the help of Eric Grove - Professor of Naval History at the University of Salford, Vichy historians Robert Paxton, Henry Rousso and Simon Kitson, eminent French historian Jean-Louis Cremieux-Brilhac - who was one of De Gaulle's intelligence officers, and military historians Max Hastings and Colin Smith, as well as Gerald Bryan, who was badly injured fighting Vichy forces in Syria.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Why were the British Chiefs of Staff in secret contact with enemy Vichy France in 1942?

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

The 'Easter Rising' - the Dublin Rebellion of 1916 - appeared to catch the British Cabinet by surprise. Writer and broadcaster Nick Rankin investigates what the British Cabinet really knew, and how.

The Easter Rising is the seminal event in modern Irish nationalism. The execution of its leadership made it an enduring symbol of Irish freedom from British rule. For Great Britain it was a rebellion in its own backyard whilst fighting World War I; the fact that the Germans were involved in supporting the Irish rebels only added to its seriousness.

However, it's unclear at what point the British authorities knew about the imminent rebellion. The Intelligence Services knew a lot but how much were they passing onto the Cabinet?

The Royal Commission into the 1916 Easter Rebellion laid the blame firmly at the door of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who duly resigned. Officially, the Cabinet had been caught unawares. But in the unpublished private papers of the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's wife, Margot, we hear a different story.

Nick Rankin pieces together the events running up to the Easter weekend of 1916. Joining the dots between diary entries, decoded messages, warning telegrams, a shipment of German arms, agents landed by U-Boat off the west coast of Ireland, he sees that the PM may well have known about the Rebellion in Ireland but chose not to act. He investigates why.

Producer: Neil McCarthy.

Did the 1916 Dublin Rising catch the cabinet by surprise? Author Nick Rankin investigates.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

The 'Easter Rising' - the Dublin Rebellion of 1916 - appeared to catch the British Cabinet by surprise. Writer and broadcaster Nick Rankin investigates what the British Cabinet really knew, and how.

The Easter Rising is the seminal event in modern Irish nationalism. The execution of its leadership made it an enduring symbol of Irish freedom from British rule. For Great Britain it was a rebellion in its own backyard whilst fighting World War I; the fact that the Germans were involved in supporting the Irish rebels only added to its seriousness.

However, it's unclear at what point the British authorities knew about the imminent rebellion. The Intelligence Services knew a lot but how much were they passing onto the Cabinet?

The Royal Commission into the 1916 Easter Rebellion laid the blame firmly at the door of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who duly resigned. Officially, the Cabinet had been caught unawares. But in the unpublished private papers of the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith's wife, Margot, we hear a different story.

Nick Rankin pieces together the events running up to the Easter weekend of 1916. Joining the dots between diary entries, decoded messages, warning telegrams, a shipment of German arms, agents landed by U-Boat off the west coast of Ireland, he sees that the PM may well have known about the Rebellion in Ireland but chose not to act. He investigates why.

Producer: Neil McCarthy.

Did the 1916 Dublin Rising catch the cabinet by surprise? Author Nick Rankin investigates.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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Mike Thomson examines controversies surrounding the disclosure of the Hanslope files, British government papers detailing brutality against Kenyans during the Mau Mau crisis of the 1950s.

The Hanslope papers had been airlifted back to the UK as Kenyan Independence approached - but were never incorporated into the National Archives.

Mike Thomson looks at the story behind the disclosure of documents and examines the implications for the keeping of public records in the UK.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

Mike Thomson examines documents revealing British brutality in Kenya in the 1950s.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson explores the implications of a secret CIA report made in the 1960s that suggested British and American diplomatic cables and reports were being decrypted by the Japanese with the help of an American Cryptologist.
He tells the story of the colourful founder of American Cryptology, Herbert O Yardley. Yardley's publication of a book explaining his cryptographic success, particularly against the Japanese was a cause celebre in 1931. However, new documents coming to light suggest that Yardleys work for the Japanese continued long after, and that he may have been involved in deciphering British and American diplomatic messages giving the Japanese a clear understanding of the lack of preparedness for the attacks on Pearl Harbour and Singapore.

Producer - Tom Alban.

Mike Thomson explores a document pointing at American treachery prior to Pearl Harbour.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

Mike uncovers papers which accused the BBC of biased reporting as Iran descended into revolution in 1978 and 1979. The documents show that the BBC's Persian Service found itself attacked on all sides, with the most vociferous critics claiming that the Corporation was not simply reporting events but influencing them in favour of regime change. As Ayatollah Khomeini sat in exile in Paris, the BBC stood charged with galvanising the radical cleric's supporters and acting as his mouthpiece in Tehran.

Featuring interviews with then Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, the then Iranian Ambassador, senior BBC figures and academic experts.

Uncovering papers which accused the BBC of biased reporting of the Iranian revolution.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

In the last week of October 1962, the world famously held its breath as two superpowers teetered on the precipice of nuclear war. The incident has gone down in history as a war of nerves between the Kremlin and the White House, but what role was the British Government playing, and what decisions was Prime Minister Harold Macmillan making on behalf of his people? How close did he bring Britain to all out nuclear war?

Mike examines the events surrounding a massacre of Allied POWs by the Japanese in 1943.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

Mike uncovers Winston Churchill's paper trail of secret deals, bribes and broken promises in wartime Spain.

If Spain entered the war, Britain's supply lines would have been cut and Gibraltar and the entire North Africa campaign put in peril. Desperate to stop this happening, the prime minister paid Franco's top generals multi-million pound bribes. Churchill believed disaster could only be averted by using vast sums of money and a shady entrepreneur known as the Last Pirate of the Mediterranean.

Mike Thomson on Churchill's desperate efforts to keep Spain out of the Second World War.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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Fu Bingchang was the Chinese ambassador to Moscow as the Second World War became the Cold War. During his time in Moscow, as the two great communist powers felt their way towards their own kind of post-war settlement, Fu Bingchang kept a personal diary in which he recorded not just the details of his meetings and engagements, but also about his personal life and private hopes and fears for the future.

There are very few records of the birth of post-war Chinese diplomacy, and the diaries are an important piece in the jigsaw of national alignments during the 1940s. In this Cold War edition of Document, his granddaughter Yee Wah Foo of the University of Lincoln opens up the diaries to the public for the first time and shares the inner thoughts of China's man in Moscow.

Producer: Hannah Loy.

The diaries of Fu Bingchang, Chinese Ambassador to the Soviet Union as the Cold War began.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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Fu Bingchang was the Chinese ambassador to Moscow as the Second World War became the Cold War. During his time in Moscow, as the two great communist powers felt their way towards their own kind of post-war settlement, Fu Bingchang kept a personal diary in which he recorded not just the details of his meetings and engagements, but also about his personal life and private hopes and fears for the future.

There are very few records of the birth of post-war Chinese diplomacy, and the diaries are an important piece in the jigsaw of national alignments during the 1940s. In this Cold War edition of Document, his granddaughter Yee Wah Foo of the University of Lincoln opens up the diaries to the public for the first time and shares the inner thoughts of China's man in Moscow.

Producer: Hannah Loy.

The diaries of Fu Bingchang, Chinese Ambassador to the Soviet Union as the Cold War began.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

The document was a journalist's notebook. Passing through the hands of a barmaid, a landlord and the local police, it got perilously close to disclosing vital secrets about British surveillance - secrets that thousands of workers had taken strenuous efforts to preserve.

Why had a journalist been able to conduct interviews about all this? What impact would the revelations have had on the secret services, our foreign policy and our relations with America?

These questions confronted senior security service officials at a moment when they were already deep in the greatest peacetime crisis they faced in the twentieth century.

The last thing they needed, in the fevered weeks after the flight to Moscow of the Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, was the threat of yet another major breach of security.

In this edition of Document, Mike discovers exactly how close they came to facing a fresh calamity.

Producer: Tom Alban.

Mike Thomson discovers how close Britain's greatest cold war secret was to being exposed.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson investigates the story behind the German prisoners of war forced to work in Britain for three years after the Second World War had ended.

The International Red Cross condemned the ongoing use of forced PoW labour after the end of hostilities and the British public and the press voiced strong opinions about the deployment of 'slave labour'. But the government had other plans: there was a drastic shortage of manpower after the war - with one million British troops still posted overseas - and the availability of nearly 400,000 PoWs in camps on British soil was seen as the quickest solution to the crisis. Before long, German forced labour made up a quarter of the nation's agricultural workforce. They were put to work on the roads and they even made up a third of the workers who prepared Wembley for the 1948 Olympics.

Mike unravels the political and moral debate about the repatriation of the Germans; he also hears some of the unintended consequences of captivity by meeting a former PoW who decided to stay behind once he fell in love with both the Scottish Borders and his future wife.

Mike Thomson investigates the story behind the German PoWs forced to work in Britain.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

When Anne McElvoy met and wrote about the East German Economist Jurgen Kuczynski back in the 1980s she was aware of his reputation as a fringe player in the collection of Soviet spies operating in Britain in the years leading up to the 2nd World War. Now, with the help of recently released documents from MI5 and the intelligence services in both the US and Germany, Anne pieces together a fuller story of Kuczynski, his family and their role in the Atomic bomb spy scandals that rocked the British in the years after the second World War. She talks to academics who have been exploring the way the Kuczynski family were able to operate in spite of a full and detailed operation by MI5 intended to keep them under surveillance and she talks to surviving members of the family about Jurgen and his sister Ruth, better known as the soviet spy Sonya, and why they never felt any need to excuse the work they did in allowing a Stalinist regime in Moscow to dramatically accelerate their development of Nuclear Weapons.

Producer: Tom Alban.

Anne McElvoy explores the documents telling the story of the emigre agent Jurgen Kuczynski

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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When Anne McElvoy met and wrote about the East German Economist Jurgen Kuczynski back in the 1980s she was aware of his reputation as a fringe player in the collection of Soviet spies operating in Britain in the years leading up to the 2nd World War. Now, with the help of recently released documents from MI5 and the intelligence services in both the US and Germany, Anne pieces together a fuller story of Kuczynski, his family and their role in the Atomic bomb spy scandals that rocked the British in the years after the second World War. She talks to academics who have been exploring the way the Kuczynski family were able to operate in spite of a full and detailed operation by MI5 intended to keep them under surveillance and she talks to surviving members of the family about Jurgen and his sister Ruth, better known as the soviet spy Sonya, and why they never felt any need to excuse the work they did in allowing a Stalinist regime in Moscow to dramatically accelerate their development of Nuclear Weapons.

Producer: Tom Alban.

Anne McElvoy explores the documents telling the story of the emigre agent Jurgen Kuczynski

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike examines allegations that CIA agents sabotaged consignments of British Leyland buses bound for Cuba in the 1960s. The British government's support of a deal to export hundreds of buses to the island, which was in the early days of its revolution, incensed the American government, which was trying to enforce its economic blockade. With anti-Castro rhetoric and communist fears mounting within the Kennedy administration, the CIA was given special powers to undermine the regime in Cuba.

Mike examines official papers which point towards concerns that the coveted Leyland buses had been sabotaged on Cuban soil or en route to Cuba. With 'spymania' in the air, these fears were heightened when in October 1964 a ship carrying 42 buses to Havana was struck by another ship on the Thames and sunk.

The programme investigates just how far the US was prepared to go to sabotage the Cuban economy and asks whether the CIA could really have sent the buses to the bottom of the Thames.

Mike examines allegations that the CIA sabotaged a shipment of buses from Britain to Cuba.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Jeremy Duns examines leaked documents which suggest close links between MI6 and the British press during the Cold War.

In December 1968, the British media was shaken by a series of secret documents leaked to Soviet state newspapers. The documents claimed a range of key Fleet Street correspondents and news chiefs were working for the intelligence services. Further papers alleged close links between the BBC and MI6.

At the time, the documents were dismissed by the British media as forgeries, part of an escalating propaganda battle played out in the Russian press. In this edition of Document, Jeremy Duns uncovers evidence which suggests that the papers were genuine and examines how they might have found their way into Soviet hands.

Notorious spies George Blake and Kim Philby are among those under suspicion of having leaked the documents.

Jeremy Duns speaks to distinguished Sunday Times journalist Phillip Knightley, and historian of the intelligence services Professor Christopher Andrew.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

Jeremy Duns examines links between MI6 and the British media during the Cold War.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera investigates a secret slush fund belonging to the Chief of British Intelligence in the years after World War Two. What did it make possible? Who was the mysterious American who donated it - and why did they do it?

With: Dr Rory Cormac, Stephen Dorril, Gill Bennett, Hugh Wilford

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Gordon Corera investigates a secret fund belonging to the MI6 chief in the 1950s.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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With the Bloody Sunday Inquiry due to submit its report to the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Mike investigates how the tragic events of 30th January 1972 sparked a murky propaganda battle which was fought in the world's media. Mike discovers how a secretive foreign office department working alongside a covert army intelligence unit spun stories against Republicans and Loyalists in the years after Bloody Sunday: stories which are now known to be untrue. He hears how this black propaganda campaign included tall tales of devil-worshipping among paramilitary groups and deliveries of Soviet weapons to the IRA. Through documents from the time and eyewitness testimonies, Mike finds out just how far this blending of fact and fiction went to distort what was really happening in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

Mike Thomson investigates the shadowy world of black propaganda in Northern Ireland.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Radio played a key role in the propaganda campaigns of Nazi Germany. The most notorious personality in this radio war was William Joyce, or 'Lord Haw-Haw' - who came to be known as the English voice of Nazi Germany. But he wasn't alone in this effort.
Professor Jo Fox of Durham University discovers the lost transcripts of Radio Caledonia, a 'secret station' designed to disseminate defeatist propaganda to the people of Scotland and sow seeds of dissent among its listeners. Set up by the German Propaganda Ministry in 1940, the presenter was Scottish national Donald Grant.
Jo Fox examines the Nazis' attempts to appeal to Scottish nationalist feeling through these broadcasts and asks why, unlike Joyce, Donald Grant was spared execution.

Producer: Sarah Shebbeare.

Jo Fox discovers the transcripts of a Nazi secret radio station broadcasting to Scotland.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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As part of Radio 4's Cold War season, Document unearths new evidence from key moments in the 1940s and 1950s.

In the first edition of the series, Gordon Corera re-examines the CIA's attempt to subvert Albania's communist government in the early 1950s.

The failure of the operation has been blamed for decades on the Soviet spy Kim Philby. But with the help of new evidence provided by historian Steve Long, Gordon investigates whether this story really stands up.
And he asks why, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA was secretly meeting agents of a communist power.

With: Steve Long, Beatrice Heuser, Rory Cormac, Albert Lulushi.

PRODUCER: Phil Tinline.

For Radio 4's Cold War season, Gordon Corera examines CIA attempts to subvert Albania.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

As part of Radio 4's Cold War season, Document unearths new evidence from key moments in the 1940s and 1950s.

In the first edition of the series, Gordon Corera re-examines the CIA's attempt to subvert Albania's communist government in the early 1950s.

The failure of the operation has been blamed for decades on the Soviet spy Kim Philby. But with the help of new evidence provided by historian Steve Long, Gordon investigates whether this story really stands up.
And he asks why, at the height of the Cold War, the CIA was secretly meeting agents of a communist power.

With: Steve Long, Beatrice Heuser, Rory Cormac, Albert Lulushi.

PRODUCER: Phil Tinline.

For Radio 4's Cold War season, Gordon Corera examines CIA attempts to subvert Albania.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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In March 1944 German troops occupied Hungary. In doing so they brought the Final Solution to the largest remaining Jewish population in Europe. Within months over 400,000 people were deported and killed by a now almost perfect mass killing machine.

Mike Thomson investigates documents which suggest that the BBC was directed not to broadcast crucial information and examines claims that it could have saved thousands of lives.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Dublin 1922. Irish rebel leader Michael Collins has signed a new Treaty with Britain. The new Irish Free State is taking shape.

But even as Collins was establishing the Free State, a rebellion from within Irish Republican ranks broke out against the new state and the Treaty with Britain. The anti-Treaty forces seized the 'Four Courts' legal complex in central Dublin.

Meanwhile, in London, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, was assassinated by Republicans outside his Chelsea home.

The British Government urged Michael Collins their recent foe - and now fellow national leader - to act.

Mike visits Dublin to examine what a soldier's forgotten memoir reveals about Britain's true role at the start of the Irish Civil War.

Producer: Neil McCarthy.

Mike Thomson returns with the investigative history series, starting in Dublin in 1922.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

As Britain joined the EEC, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger became increasingly annoyed at the lack of support by Edward Heath's government for American foreign policy. Mike uncovers papers which suggest that in retaliation, the US switched off the supply of intelligence to the UK.

Among those Mike speaks to are former Defence and Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Lord Powell, later Margaret Thatcher's Private Secretary.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

Mike Thomson investigates the collapse of the US UK special relationship in 1973.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In the 1940s and 50s, as technology raced forwards and the Cold War intensified, many states came to rely on encryption machines to keep their secrets safe.

But what if the founder of a leading code-machine company gave the US National Security Agency secret access to their best machines - machines they were selling to states across the world?

Gordon Corera reveals new evidence of a secret 'gentlemen's agreement', and examines its implications at the height of the Cold War.

With Richard Aldrich, John Alexander, James Bamford, Stephen Budiansky, David Easter, Paul Reuvers, Scott Shane, David Sherman, Betsy Smoot

PRODUCER: PHIL TINLINE.

Gordon Corera reveals evidence of a secret deal between a code-machine company and the NSA

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

In May 1974, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were at their height, but all eyes were on a new power-sharing arrangement. The highly controversial Sunningdale Executive had recently taken over administration of the province. Sensing that the Executive would not survive, Prime Minister Harold Wilson drew up a secret plan to cut Northern Ireland adrift from the rest of the UK.

In 1974, Harold Wilson drew up a plan to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

1/3. The Ghosts of Greenham

In June 1980, it was announced that American Cruise missiles were coming to Greenham Common in Berkshire - within months the iconic women's anti-nuclear campaign was born.

But what neither the women nor the local residents knew was that scientists at nearby Aldermaston had concluded in a secret report that Greenham was the most dangerous of all the possible UK sites, with over ten million people at risk in the event of an accident.

Mike Thomson asks why the 'UK-US special relationship' placed American operational needs above the safety of British citizens.

How Greenham Common was classed as one of the most dangerous missile sites of all.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Nick Rankin examines a detailed document, written in French and discovered in the wartime files of the Iberia Section of S.O.E., the Special Operations Executive. This personal account by Squadron-Leader Hugh Mallory Falconer tells how he established a secret wireless network covering the Western Mediterranean and linking Gibraltar with North African cities including Casablanca, Tangier and Oran. This network not only helped pave the way for Operation TORCH, the Anglo-American invasion of Vichy French North Africa in November 1942, but when the US armed forces went into combat, it was Falconer's radio network that held up when the other Allied communications systems failed. For three days in was the low level radio post housed in a cave in the Rock of Gibraltar that kept the Allied Commander Eisenhower in touch with his ground forces. In an increasingly challenging situation Mallory's network helped ensure this pivotal moment in the war did not turn into a disaster. Later in the North Africa campaign, Falconer was captured by the Germans on an S.O.E. mission in Tunisia and was held in a variety of prisoner of war camps until he was liberated in 1945.
Nick talks to historians of the period, operators who explain the challenges and brilliance of the S.O.E. operatives and he tracks down Falconer's daughter who has her own recollections of her father's wartime exploits. She had no idea that Downing Street, in a memo of 19th May 1943 had described the work of Mallory and his team in glowing terms. 'It is abundantly clear that the operators handling the signals... were as essential to the operations as the organ blower to the cathedral organist.'

Producer: Tom Alban.

A document in French leads Nick Rankin to the exploits of an SOE operative in Gibraltar.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

3/3. The Gift of Democracy?

This edition investigates allegations in the unpublished memoirs of a former colonial civil servant that the British tried to rig Nigeria's first democratic elections before independence in 1960.

Mike Thomson asks whether the British tried to rig Nigeria's first democratic elections.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

When Rodney Dennys, a counter-intelligence officer working in the feverish atmosphere of The Hague in July 1939 received a phone call from a German agent working for the British and warning that Germany would invade Poland in just over seven weeks time, he insured the message was cyphered back to Britain immediately. In the event the warning was accurate to within days, in spite of a sustained belief that Hitler might still be placated.

Historian Heather Jones explores the document in which Rodney Dennys recalls his intelligence coup and the subsequent inaction of the British authorities. She asks why it was that the Foreign office and leading figures in the Joint Intelligence Committee failed to act on such a detailed warning and she finds out about the German agent, Wolfgang Zu Putlitz who gave it. It was the last in a long series of accurate intelligence reports he'd supplied by way of his link on the British side, a certain Klop Ustinov, father of the famous actor and playwright, Peter.

The programme examines the state of the British intelligence community at the time, the split between appeasers and those who distrusted every German move and why this Document and the later Venlo incident in which two British intelligence officers walked into a trap laid by the Germans, was a Secret Intelligence Crisis.

Heather Jones explores a lost intelligence report warning of Germany's invasion of Poland.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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When Rodney Dennys, a counter-intelligence officer working in the feverish atmosphere of The Hague in July 1939 received a phone call from a German agent working for the British and warning that Germany would invade Poland in just over seven weeks time, he insured the message was cyphered back to Britain immediately. In the event the warning was accurate to within days, in spite of a sustained belief that Hitler might still be placated.

Historian Heather Jones explores the document in which Rodney Dennys recalls his intelligence coup and the subsequent inaction of the British authorities. She asks why it was that the Foreign office and leading figures in the Joint Intelligence Committee failed to act on such a detailed warning and she finds out about the German agent, Wolfgang Zu Putlitz who gave it. It was the last in a long series of accurate intelligence reports he'd supplied by way of his link on the British side, a certain Klop Ustinov, father of the famous actor and playwright, Peter.

The programme examines the state of the British intelligence community at the time, the split between appeasers and those who distrusted every German move and why this Document and the later Venlo incident in which two British intelligence officers walked into a trap laid by the Germans, was a Secret Intelligence Crisis.

Heather Jones explores a lost intelligence report warning of Germany's invasion of Poland.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Using recently discovered documents, Mike Thomson investigates a largely forgotten massacre in independent India. It happened a year after the Partition violence and took place right in the heart of India, in the large state of Hyderabad. 30,000 people were killed. This was a time when the Muslim prince of Hyderabad was resisting integration with India and the Indian Army was sent in to overthrow his forces. When, a few months later, Prime Minister Nehru heard reports of massacres of thousands of Muslims by Hindus he commissioned a report to find out what had happened. That report was called The Sunderlal Report and it has been rarely seen by scholars since 1948. 'Document' has obtained a copy. Thomson shows it to historians of the period and hears from first hand witnesses as he pieces together the real story of the 'Hyderabad Massacre'.

Producer Neil McCarthy.

Using new documents, Mike Thomson investigates a largely forgotten massacre in India.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In the first of the new series of Document, Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate theories about the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

He begins with newly-discovered documents written by the late novelist and investigator of the far-right, Stieg Larsson.

But the trail leads him to the role of various secret services, to questions about elements of the Stockholm police, to South African dirty tricks, and ultimately back to Britain, where he makes a surprising discovery.

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate the assassination of a prime minister.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

In the first of the new series of Document, Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate theories about the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

He begins with newly-discovered documents written by the late novelist and investigator of the far-right, Stieg Larsson.

But the trail leads him to the role of various secret services, to questions about elements of the Stockholm police, to South African dirty tricks, and ultimately back to Britain, where he makes a surprising discovery.

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate the assassination of a prime minister.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past.

It revolves around the lesser known moment when Afghanistan began to fall apart: 1978, two years before the Soviet invasion. Lesser known, partly because the world wasn't really paying attention but also because evidence of state murder and disappearance was covered up after the co-called Saur Revolution. That is, until now. A war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime in 1978 / 79.

This 'Death List' has less than half the total number of people unaccounted for during that period but it has finally given families of the disappeared confirmation of the fate of their loved ones and allowed them to mourn. The reverberations of this are being felt strongly in Afghanistan. This story is told through the eyes of a remarkable survivor of these purges whose name is on the list of the dead.

This 'Death List' leads us to the issue of justice and accountability for war crimes in Afghanistan, not just from 1978 but over the following three decades. Post 9/11 the West dealt with warlords whose very poor human rights records went unquestioned and many of them now hold powerful government positions in Afghanistan. It raises the question: when will the country be able to face the crimes of its recent past and bring the perpetrators to justice? It's a question on the lips of many ordinary Afghans.

Producer Neil McCarthy.

David Loyn investigates how a lost record is helping Afghanistan address its painful past.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past.

It revolves around the lesser known moment when Afghanistan began to fall apart: 1978, two years before the Soviet invasion. Lesser known, partly because the world wasn't really paying attention but also because evidence of state murder and disappearance was covered up after the co-called Saur Revolution. That is, until now. A war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime in 1978 / 79.

This 'Death List' has less than half the total number of people unaccounted for during that period but it has finally given families of the disappeared confirmation of the fate of their loved ones and allowed them to mourn. The reverberations of this are being felt strongly in Afghanistan. This story is told through the eyes of a remarkable survivor of these purges whose name is on the list of the dead.

This 'Death List' leads us to the issue of justice and accountability for war crimes in Afghanistan, not just from 1978 but over the following three decades. Post 9/11 the West dealt with warlords whose very poor human rights records went unquestioned and many of them now hold powerful government positions in Afghanistan. It raises the question: when will the country be able to face the crimes of its recent past and bring the perpetrators to justice? It's a question on the lips of many ordinary Afghans.

Producer Neil McCarthy.

David Loyn investigates how a lost record is helping Afghanistan address its painful past.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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Dominic Streatfeild tells the story of The Strange Voyage of the 'Blonde Angel'. Captain Alfredo Astiz had waged a very dirty part of Argentina's 'Dirty War'. As part of the notorious ESMA he had kidnapped and disappeared mothers, daughters, sons - even nuns. As part of 'Operation Alpha' Astiz led a detachment of Argentine commandos to seize South Georgia island, raising the Argentine flag on 2 April 1982, a crucial act in the escalation of the Falklands conflict. His surrender and capture quickly became a problem for the British. Both the French and Swedish governments were under public pressure to discover the fate of their own nationals who Astiz had disappeared, but Britain, anxious over the fate of its own P.O.Ws in Argentine hands and bound by the Geneva convention, felt it could do little to help. What happened next was an extraordinary voyage to Britain for Astiz, the first P.O.W. to be held on British soil since World War Two.

Using newly declassified documents, the writer and historian Dominic Streatfeild explores the dilemmas that Astiz posed and finds those who dealt with the 'Blonde Angel of Death'.

Producer
Mark Burman.

Dominic Streatfeild investigates the case of Argentine POW Alfredo Astiz in 1982.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

2/3. The White House Coup

As the Great Depression gripped the US during the 1930s, some of Wall Street's most famous names plotted to replace the new liberal-minded president Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a fascist leader.

During the 1930s, some of Wall Street's most famous names plotted to overthrow Roosevelt.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Popular history tells us that women did not get the vote until 1918.

Though they could technically vote in local elections before that, many historians have argued that in practice they had no vote until the 1860s at the earliest. And evidence that they ever did vote has proved almost impossible to find.

But now a poll book, discovered in a box of papers in a local record office, clearly shows 25 women voting in elections for important local posts in Lichfield in 1843.

In this week's Document, the historian Sarah Richardson follows the trail of these women, to reveal a picture of Victorian women's involvement in politics which challenges many of our assumptions.

She discovers that they represented a surprising cross-section of society - old and young, poor and prosperous - and attempts to trace their descendants today.

She finds out how, when even universal manhood suffrage was seen as a radical, dangerous idea, these women may have been just a few of many more who could vote at a local level.

And she explores how, decades later, campaigners for Votes for Women at the Westminster level had to contend with this complex legacy.

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Sarah Richardson discovers a document which shows that women in Lichfield voted in 1843.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting poin

Popular history tells us that women did not get the vote until 1918.

Though they could technically vote in local elections before that, many historians have argued that in practice they had no vote until the 1860s at the earliest. And evidence that they ever did vote has proved almost impossible to find.

But now a poll book, discovered in a box of papers in a local record office, clearly shows 25 women voting in elections for important local posts in Lichfield in 1843.

In this week's Document, the historian Sarah Richardson follows the trail of these women, to reveal a picture of Victorian women's involvement in politics which challenges many of our assumptions.

She discovers that they represented a surprising cross-section of society - old and young, poor and prosperous - and attempts to trace their descendants today.

She finds out how, when even universal manhood suffrage was seen as a radical, dangerous idea, these women may have been just a few of many more who could vote at a local level.

And she explores how, decades later, campaigners for Votes for Women at the Westminster level had to contend with this complex legacy.

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Sarah Richardson discovers a document which shows that women in Lichfield voted in 1843.

Historical investigation programme, taking a document as a starting point

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