Decision to Continue the SDS

The Special Demonstration Squad, then called the Special Operations Squad, was set up in July 1968 to ensure that the clashes of March 1968 were not repeated at the next anti-Vietnam war demonstration, planned for 27 October 1968. Founding of the SDS The Special Demonstration Squad was founded in July 1968 after meetings between the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police Special Branch discussing plans to deal with the anti-Vietnam war demonsatration to be held in London on 31 October 1968.

The October demonstration passed without too much trouble, as far as the police, politicians, and the media were concerned. Thus, the mission of the Special Demonstration Squad had been completed and its reason for existing had disappeared.

However, shortly after that march, Detective Chief Inspector HN325 Conrad Dixon HN325 Conrad Dixon Conrad Hepworth Dixon was born on 27 January 1927 in Gillingham, Kent. He joined Special Branch in 1950 and became the first senior officer of the SDS in 1968. He worked on other high profiles cases after leaving the SDS, before retiring in 1973. He died in 1999. Full page: HN325 Conrad Dixon  made a proposal to continue the squad. Senior Metropolitan Police managers exchanged a series of memos discussing this idea, beginning on 8 November 1968, less than two weeks after the 27th October demonstration. Minute Sheet on continuing the SDS after the Oct 1968 Vietnam demo, inc contributions from many managers and Commissioner John Waldron, 9 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730219.View Document

The first memo was sent from Chief Superintendent HN2857 Arthur Cunningham HN2857 Arthur Cunningham HN2857 Arthur Cunningham was a chief superintendent in Special Branch before and during the early years of the SDS. He was involved in the squad’s creation, becoming the superior officer of SDS head HN325 Conrad Dixon, and strongly supporting the expansion of the unit’s remit after the 27 October 1968 anti-Vietnam war demonstration. He was promoted to the post of Special Branch Commander in June 1969, remaining there until August 1971. Full page: HN2857 Arthur Cunningham , who headed C Squad, to the head of Special Branch, Commander HN151 Ferguson Smith. HN151 Ferguson Smith In 1968, as commander of Special Branch, Ferguson Smith was instrumental in the decision to continue to fund the SDS after the 27 October anti-Vietnam war march. In 1972, as deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, he acquiesced in a plan to mislead to the court by not revealing the true identity of undercover officer HN298 'Mike Scott' who was facing trial alongside activists in the anti-apartheid group he had infiltrated. Smith died in 2013. Full page: HN151 Ferguson Smith  On 11 November, Smith accepted Cunningham’s assessment that the SDS had been a success and should therefore continue. The only quibble was where to find the £3,000 to fund the unit. Minute Sheet on continuing the SDS after the Oct 1968 Vietnam demo, inc contributions from many managers and Commissioner John Waldron, 9 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730219.View Document

Smith mentioned in this memo that MI5 was pleased to hear the proposal to continue the SDS, and had offered to contribute to the funding. On 13 November, Metropolitan Police Commissioner HN1877 John Waldron HN1877 John Waldron John Waldron was commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from November 1968 to April 1972. He advocated to the Home Office to continue the SDS, assuring officials that the unit’s existence would remain secret to avoid embarrassing the home secretary. Full page: HN1877 John Waldron  accepted the proposal and agreed to request the required financing.  Minute Sheet on continuing the SDS after the Oct 1968 Vietnam demo, inc contributions from many managers and Commissioner John Waldron, 9 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730219.View Document

The first extension was only for six months, until May 1969. At this point, a second extension, until December 1969, was agreed.

The plan that Conrad Dixon proposed in a paper on 26 November 1968 may have responded to earlier discussions between Arthur Cunningham and Ferguson Smith. Minute Sheet on continuing the SDS after the Oct 1968 Vietnam demo, inc contributions from many managers and Commissioner John Waldron, 9 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730219.View Document

However, it is clear that although Cunningham and Smith saw Dixon’s plan on 26 November, they had by then already agreed to continue the unit. Therefore, the funding for the unit did not depend on Conrad’s version of the plan going ahead. 

Certainly, the way the unit operated soon deviated from Dixon’s original proposal. Tradecraft Tradecraft is the term used to describe the methods and processes that SDS and NPOIU undercovers and their managers use to create and maintain undercover identities and infiltrate target organisations. For much of these units’ history, tradecraft appears to have been rudimentary and largely learned on the job. It was only in 1995 that a written Tradecraft Manual was compiled. Particularly unpleasant tradecraft practices included using dead children’s identities and targeting female activists for sexual relationships to strengthen undercover identities. Much of the tradecraft remained unchanged over the five decades of the units’ existence. Full page: Tradecraft  For instance, one of Dixon's original 1968 squad members HN68 Sean Lynch’s deployment exceeded the maximum 12 months that Dixon had proposed in the paper by four years. HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’ was the cover name used by a former Special Demonstration Squad undercover officer deployed between 1968 and 1974 into groups related to political violence in Northern Ireland. He held a managerial position as second-in-command of the SDS between 1981 and 1983 and retired from the Metropolitan Police in 1993. He is dead. Full page: HN68 ‘Sean Lynch’  Lynch also took up positions of responsibility within some of the groups he infiltrated, again contrary to Dixon’s proposals.

Home Office civil servant James Waddell agreed to the extension to summer 1969, with reservations:

I also felt, however, that in an enterprise of this kind there was some slight danger of innovations like the one we are considering becoming an accepted part of the scene, so that discontinuance might be thought to be a drastic change hence the suggestion that we want to look at the matter again in mid-summer. Home Office letter from James Waddell to Peter Brodie concerning expenditure on accommodation, 16 Dec 1968, Home Office, MPS-0724116.View Document

1969-1989

A letter from Special Branch dated 27 May 1969 acknowledged that, unlike in the run-up to the 27 October 1968 demonstration, there was no imminent threat of disorder. In fact, Assistant Commissioner HN1876 Peter Brodie HN1876 Peter Ewan Brodie Peter Brodie (6 May 1914 – 7 September 1989) was a British police officer. He joined the Metropolitan Police in London in 1934 and later the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). After spells in Ceylon and Scotland, in April 1966, he returned to the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Commissioner "C", which included oversight for Special Branch. He retired in 1972. Between 1967 and retirement, Brodie was involved with preparation for the VSC demonstrations in 1968 and was aware of the setting up and continuation of the Special Demonstration Squad.  admitted that there had been a downturn in disorder and that the ‘protest Movement [no longer had a] unifying cause’. It requested the extension on the grounds that this might change. SDS Annual Report 1969, inc letter from Asst Commissioner seeking authorisation to continue, 27 May 1969, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0728973.View Document

Financial support and authorisation for the SDS to continue for a further six months was granted on 6 June 1969 by civil servant David Stotesbury, an assistant under-secretary of state, who was signing the memo on behalf of his boss James Waddell, who was on leave. David Stotesbury (Home Office), Home Office letter from David Stotesbury to Peter Brodie about expenditure on accommodation, 6 Jun 1969, Home Office, MPS-0724109.View Document  

Stotesbury’s only concern was the ‘unusual’ accommodation arrangements for the undercover officers – and that should the squad’s existence become public knowledge, it would embarrass the home secretary.

Towards the end of the second six-month extension, Special Branch managers decided to ask to renew the squad’s authorisation for a further 12 months, from December 1969 to December 1970. Minute Sheet on continuing the SDS after the Oct 1968 Vietnam demo, inc contributions from many managers and Commissioner John Waldron, 9 Nov 1968, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730219.View Document  Justification for the request was that Special Branch did not consider it was ‘out of the woods yet’ and so needed to retain its undercover officers as a preventative measure. SDS Annual Report 1969, inc letter from Asst Commissioner seeking authorisation to continue, 27 May 1969, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0728973.View Document

An extension was again granted in a letter dated 21 December 1970 from James Waddell, who had consulted the new Conservative Party Home Secretary Reginald Maudling. Home Office letter to Commissioner authorising expenditure on accomodation, 21 Dec 1970, Home Office, MPS-0724130.View Document  This is also the first explicit mention of a consultation with a home secretary. From 1970 onwards, both political parties governing Britain were aware of the existence of SDS during its years of operation.

And so the unit’s existence and Home Office support became normalised, exactly as Waddell had anticipated. From 1972 to 1983, the annual letter from Special Branch to the Home Office was apparently enough to continue authorising and funding the squad. 

The Inquiry’s interim report noted that a Home Office file that contained information about interaction with the SDS was missing. It is not clear whether that file contained evidence that the squad’s operational details were communicated to the Home Office beyond the scant detail provided in the funding letters. 

However, the interim report assumes that Waddell, the Home Office civil servant who received the letters requesting the continuation between 1969 and 1975, must have been aware of the squad’s operational details, at least in general terms. Tranche 1 Interim Report, 29 Jun 2023, UCPI.View Document

In 1984, the Home Office requested more details about the squad’s operations, but approval for the squad continued. In 1989, the Home Office said the unit could continue without annual approval. 

Instead, it asked only for notification, for the purposes of consultation, in case there was ‘any significant change to the squad’s role, targeting and operational practice’. The 1989 SDS Annual Report will soon be available.