Britain: Another Blow to the BBC

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For the second time in a month, the independence of the British Broadcasting Corporation was called into question. First the BBC acceded to a government demand that a TV documentary about Northern Ireland be killed (officials later announced that a modified version of the program would air at a future date). This time the furor is over the revelation that MI5, Britain's domestic counterintelligence service, has for decades been a secret participant in decisions to hire, fire and promote BBC employees.

The weekly Observer said that the BBC maintained an MI5 liaison office, now under the guidance of Brigadier Ronnie Stonham, an ex-army intelligence specialist, and that MI5 spied on some BBC staff members, collected information about employee political views, and too often got things wrong. Reporter Isabel Hilton allegedly was refused a job in 1976 because investigators had confused an apolitical group to which she belonged with a leftist organization.

Alasdair Milne, the BBC's director general, called the disclosures "greatly overdramatized." But BBC journalists fear that any link with MI5 could feed suspicion that the corporation is a government front.