Yes; pre-war at university.

according to Wiki, Healey left the CP in 1939
But so did a lot of others who went "under cover" and cut all overt links with the Communist Party, but remained as secret members for years after
I have read (years ago) speculation that he was one of the purported "Oxford Spy Ring" the supposed undiscovered twin of the Cambridge ring but I don't think anyone has ever come up with any convincing evidence, let alone proof
However he was chums with Ted Heath, who did a pretty good job of wrecking the country, so maybe there is a ghost of truth in the theory...
Perhaps Healey, Heath and Thatcher were three of the Oxford four - after all the later two were both pretty destructive and arguably were partially the cause of the current collapse of the capitalist system (i.e Common Market, Banking deregulation....)

MM, nice one. She also f*ck*d communism so you could say she was even handed.

Whwn I was a kid in post-war London the Communist Party was still in full swing. One has to remember that the House of Commons reverberated to 'The Red Flag' after Atlee's election victory in 1945. The Daily Worker was as common as the Daily Mirror in the shops. In the sixties The Young Liberals was effectivly a Communist Front organisation.
It was fashionable for the intelligentia before the war to join the CP as Russia was seen as the cure for the world's troubles. Nowadays they join the Green Party or Friends of the Earth.

FareastDriver

There is a difference - FoE and the Green Party don't take instructions from the Comintern / KGB / Soviet representatives.

A friend of mine who was an active "overt" member in the 1960-70's has previously made it clear to me that there was significant Soviet "support" to the Communist Party in the UK during that period, and more so during the pre-war period

Wasn't there in the sixties a Liabor defence minister or Air Force minister that the RAF refused to nuclear brief because he was seen to be a security risk?

Regards

Air pig

AP, not proven I think. I know there was a move to get ministers security vetted but IIRC Harold Wilson for good reasons rejected that plan.

air pig

David Leigh's book "The Wilson Plot" relates how a Treasury Minister, Niall MacDermot was refused a security clearance because of unproved accusations over his wife's Russian origins / connections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_MacDermot

The same book (same chapter : 7) also relates how a Labour MP , prospective minister, and former CP member, Bernard Floud, was interrogated by Peter Wright (of Spycatcher infamy) and harrassed into committing suicide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Floud

You may be thinking of one or both of these

(Thanks for the reminder PN - I''d forgotten that book until your post)

It would have been entirely consistent for Healey to have been a covert CP member and also a medal winning pongo; during that period the Soviets were our allies - or at least, were fighting our enemies.

Not covert. It was entirely respectable to prefer communism to fascism during the Spanish Civil War, widely seen as a rehearsal for the French one. Attlee found it necessary to expel Stafford Cripps from the Labour Party in 1938 for over-enthusiasm for a Popular Front of all Left (= anti-facist) parties. Not readmitted to Labour until 1945: Churchill appointed him Minister of Aircraft Production, where almost his last contract award was to Preston to start Petter off on (to be) Canberra. As Chancellor, paying for it all, he was part of Attlee's Cabinet decisions to initiate the British Bomb (1/47, though excluded from the innermost circle), and in April,1948 to accept the Soviet Threat and Task (thus fund) Staffs to slow Sov. armour on the Luneberg Plain. On thus, to NATO, in which, again, Cripps, was involved. Red: 1936: OK; Red 1948, not. (There's a quote in the sense: if you are not Left in your 20s you have no heart; if still Left in your 40s, no head).

In 1948 the communists were getting elected in to executive positions in the Unions. Dennis Healey, then head of the International Department of the Labour Party was adept at passing annonymous reports from the Foreign Office Information Research Department to trades unions and other sections of the labour movement -p.407 The Defence of the Realm - Christopher Andrew

PN - you beat me to it. I was going to suggest that all the conspiracy theorists should read Chris Andrew's excellent (and official) history of the Security Service, know by lesser churls as MI-5.

Having said that, a relative who was a senior 'wheel' in the Chevaline development in the 1960s has categorically stated that they had been instructed by the Programme Director not to pass any sensitive 'special' material to Dennis Healey's office, becasue of Communist links. But, as Sir Humphrey Appleby stated:
Edited to add: Fellow PPruners should take with a grain of salt anything written by either Chapman Pincher or Peter Wright. Both were fantacists who did the public and political image of the intelligence community grave harm.

Chapman Pincher! That rings a bell. They did a one off trial rear facing ejection from a Valiant in the early 60s.. CP got hold of this and he wrote a premonition that must have been composed after a hefty liquid lunch. He forcast that Comets and Brittanias would be fitted with rows of these seats and paratroopers would be fired in broadsides from them into action.
The laughing in the Air Ministry was heard in both the War Office and the Admiralty.

FED, but you forgot to mention where the liquid lunch was served.

Press baiting was a popular sport in the main bar of the RAF Club in he days when liquid lunches were the norm and many MoD wallahs had virtual digs in the Club.

Points awarded no doubt if your line was swallowed and appeared in the following day's paper. Also known as Teddy baiting as he was one of the main targets.:}

'Teddy' Donaldson baiting at the RAF Club was indeed a well-known sport, so one of my bosses once related and the results often made interesting reading in the national chip-wrappers!

For younger readers, 'Teddy' was Air Commodore Edward "Teddy" Mortlock Donaldson CB CBE DSO AFC*, a WW2 ace, CO of the RAF's first jet squadron and the former holder of the world air speed record in a Meteor IV, who later became the air correspondent for the Daily Torygraph.

I'm sure the sneaky old bugger actually knew he was being spoofed, but the odd comment in the paper served to keep him popular amongst the MoD-box inmates.

Fellow PPruners should take with a grain of salt anything written by either Chapman Pincher or Peter Wright. Both were fantacists who did the public and political image of the intelligence community grave harm.


That book by Leigh about "The Wilson Plot" does a pretty good job of outing Peter Wright as the uncontrollable lying conniving conspiracy schemer he really was. By implication Leigh also destroys much of Pincher's work as well - as Wright was one of Pincher's major sources
I suspect Leigh probably also has inaccuracies - but its interesting to read as a counterbalance to the raving hysteria of "Spycatcher", and Pincher's related offerings.