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TREVOR HUDDLESTON cont'd

"Speaking," he said. What could he do for me? "Well, sir, I am from SA and I would very much like to obtain the AAM’s list of national committee members." "No, I am afraid I am not at liberty to disclose those names." "Why not? Is it a secret society?" "No, but I am curious as to why you should want it . . ."

"Because I am told that there is a very strong communist influence in the national committee, which might account for the strength of the movement’s hostility to SA . . ." "I deny that absolutely . . . who are you?" "My name is Aida Parker . . ." Bang. End of conversation.

INTERNATIONAL DOGHOUSE

In 1979 a Liberation publication on "The Multinationals" contained an "open letter" addressed to "Dear Friend" over the signature of Fenner Brockway. This informed friends that Liberation was "responsible for the launch of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Campaign for Peace in Vietnam, Algeria and Nigeria" and "made its services available to all struggling for freedom whether in Puerto Rico or Southern Africa . . ." But not, apparently, in Afghanistan, the Baltic states or anywhere else in the then Soviet empire.

This reinstated my interest in AAM. Thanks to a friendly Anglican priest in London, somewhat less than entranced with His Lord Bishop, I had by now gained an early list of the 30 AAM national committee members. Of these, at least ten were known British or listed SA communists. One name that stood out was that of one of my earlier clients: Mike Terry, listed as AAM’s executive secretary. When I first came across Terry, he was General Secretary of Britain’s radical National Union of Students (NUS), at the time very busy arranging anti-SA pickets and demos. I knew him to be a prominent member of the CPGB.

I wrote a short piece at the time, saying that although AAM fielded a goodly number of liberals, there was little doubt that it was part of the international communist machine, part of the international movement directed from Moscow. And that this, rather than the unique heinousness of apartheid, should account for SA’s place in the international doghouse.

Much later, with APN now in production, I wrote a lengthy piece, stating that I believed AAM to be a major communist front, that I had great difficulty in accepting the Huddleston was not fully aware of this; that, like all fanatics, he believed that the end justified the means, with legality a minor consideration.

Weeks later, I received a letter from a firm of London attorneys, threatening action against me in the British High Court. I wrote back, enclosing certain of the evidence on which I based my claims, and inviting them to go ahead with their action. That was the last I heard of it.

Oddly enough, around this time, in a lengthy interview with The Morning Star, mouthpiece of the British communist party, Huddleston spoke of his close collaboration with "people like Ruth First and the Communist Party." In a later article, in the London Times, 13.6.86, he quite understandably made no mention of "working closely" with communists.

There is more to the Huddleston story. And here I am grateful to the Ephraim Hardcastle column in the London Daily Mail, 23.4.98, which read: "The impressively long obituaries of the Rt Rev Trevor Huddleston, former Bishop of Stepney, were rather oblique about the private life of this bachelor who became a monk. But one church expert alleged that Mr Huddleston was moved from Stepney to the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius 20 years ago ‘to hush up a scandal which would raise few eyebrows today.’

"No other details were provided. Here’s the background. An East End mother complained to police about the bishop’s relationship with her five sons. Nothing was proven. The investigation petered out. Shortly afterwards, the bishop moved to Mauritius. The episode provides a delicate problem for his official biographer, the Rev Robin Denniston."

"A true saint"? I think not.