FO tried to hire Benn as propagandist

A SECRET-SERVICE unit in the Foreign Office tried to recruit Tony Benn, the left-wing MP, and offered him a generous salary to write anti-Communist articles for the media. He turned it down on his father's advice.

The Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), a covert unit set up after the war to fight Soviet influence, sought out the young Anthony Wedgwood Benn in the 1950s, describing him as "a really brilliant young man". IRD documents recently released by the Foreign Office show Mr Benn was approached in 1950 by Colonel Leslie Sheridan, a former Daily Mirror journalist and wartime Special Operations Executive officer. Mr Benn had just been elected MP for Bristol East when Sheridan offered him the job.

Despite the offer of what was then a generous salary - pounds 1,100 - the approach was not a great success. Sheridan told his boss in a memo: "I had a long conversation with young Wedgwood Benn on December 13 and I thought it doubtful he would agree." Mr Benn sent a note turning down the offer. "Dear Colonel Sheridan, I have been thinking over the matter we discussed yesterday + have come to the conclusion that I cannot take on the work. I feel that it would be incompatible with my independence as an MP + in any case it's not really up my street at all. I wouldn't be any good at it."

Yesterday Mr Benn said: "My dad told me to turn it down ... pounds 1,100 was a lot of money at that time ... But it was also completely illegal. An MP taking an office of profit under the Crown is required to resign their seat. They wanted me to join and defy the law. It just shows that the secret services are out of political control - then as now."