[News] El Nacional: the British secret operation behind the boycott that almost bankrupted Venezuela's main newspaper in the middle of the Cold War

[S e u o n g]

 

On March 14, 1963, the newspaper El Nacional, at that time the main newspaper in Venezuela, informed its readers that after a change among its shareholders, it now had a new president, a new board of directors, a new director, and new statutes. of the writing.

The news did not say, however, that these changes had been forced by a brutal advertising boycott to which that newspaper had been subjected for two years and before which, after almost falling into bankruptcy, it had finally given up when accepting the exit of its founder, editor-in-chief and co-owner: renowned Venezuelan writer Miguel Otero Silva (MOS).

The episode left many questions unanswered because the origin of this maneuver against El Nacional was never known.

Up to now.

Declassified documents between 2019 and 2020 obtained by BBC Mundo reveal that this operation was created and orchestrated by the British intelligence services, which sought to weaken the newspaper, which they claimed to have sympathies with communism.

 

"Last year, by twisted means, this office persuaded the main economic organizations here to stop running ads in 'El Nacional.' This forced the newspaper - Venezuela's largest with communist owners and staff - to abandon its campaign. in favor of the expropriation of foreign companies and communist agitation, "wrote Leslie Boas, who at the time was first secretary of the UK Embassy in Caracas, in a secret report.

"It is a pleasure to be able to say that during 1962 'El Nacional' changed its tone in a great way," added Boas in the document dated January 1963, consulted by BBC Mundo in the National Archives of the United Kingdom.

The campaign against the newspaper was framed in a particular moment of the Cold War, in which the Western powers tried to contain the expansion of communism in Latin America after the triumph on January 1, 1959 of the Cuban Revolution, which was then in full effervescence.

 

 

Democracy in Venezuela was only in its early years and the government of President Rómulo Betancourt faced two types of threats: military uprisings that sought to reinstate a right-wing military regime, and attempts by the Communist Party and other radical left movements to overthrow it. government through an armed revolution like the Cuban one.

 

The recently declassified British intelligence documents dispel the doubts that existed for decades about who was behind the campaign against El Nacional.

Leslie Boas was the head of the Information Investigation Department (IRD) in Caracas, a secret office of the British Foreign Office dedicated to propaganda and influence tasks in the 1960s.

The IRD collected information on pro-communist groups and personalities and, at the same time, generated anti-communist informative material that it then provided to the media, personalities and other organizations, who disseminated it as if it were their own.

Boas was also responsible for the IRD for the rest of Latin America, which is why he not only spearheaded this operation in Venezuela, but also articulated a large number of covert propaganda actions in many other countries.

The maneuver against El Nacional had begun in 1961.

 

 

LINK: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-58647201