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Security Service files on African nationalists and independence leaders were among those released to The National Archives on 1 March 2005.
These are the first set of Security Service files to have been released relating to prominent figures connected with pan-African and independence movements. They include:
The reason for the Security Service's interest in these figures was because of actual or suspected links to Communist organisations or to the Soviet Union, rather than because of their pro-independence or pan-African activities. The Service's files on Kenyatta and Robeson are briefly summarised below.
File ref KV 2/1787-1789
Jomo Kenyatta (1892-1978), the first prime minister and president of independent Kenya, came to Security Service attention in 1929 when he arrived in Britain and was kept under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch because of his suspected links to the International Committee of Negro Workers.
The first file follows Kenyatta's activities in the period 1930-1940 through Special Branch reports, and from 1934 through intercepted mail. There are many reports of his speeches. Other elements that emerge on the file are pressures from Kikuyu organisations in Kenya for Kenyatta to return home, and details of Kenyatta's financial worries.
The warrant on Kenyatta's mail was reapplied following a request from the Kenyan police in 1939, since he was now suspected of engaging in subversive work in Kenya. Kenyatta returned to Kenya in 1946, but the watch on his activities continued, and particular interest was taken in his involvement in the Mau Mau movement. He was arrested in connection with Mau Mau activities in October 1952.
One interesting aspect of the last file is the allegation made that even while he was in custody, Kenyatta was able to continue exchanging covert messages via secret radios with George Padmore, the Trinidadian Communist and pan-African nationalist and writer, who was at the time working as the personal assistant of Kwame Nkrumah, another African nationalist and later prime minister and president of Ghana.
File ref KV 2/1829-1830
Son of pastor and former slave William Drew Robeson, Paul Robeson was born in New Jersey in 1898. He abandoned work in the legal profession in America when it became clear that racial prejudice would hold him back, and took up a career in the performing arts where from the mid-1920s he was an outstanding trans-Atlantic success.
He was at this time a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and a strong supporter of extreme left-wing as well as civil rights causes, and it was these connections that brought him to the attention of the Security Service.
In 1935 the Service concluded that there were "no indications that Paul Robeson has taken more than an academic interest in Communism." However, because of his links to extreme left-wing causes, and the regularity with which he was approached for support by individuals in whom the Security Service was taking a close interest, reports on Robeson and his activities continued to be gathered. His trips overseas to the Soviet Union and Spain from the UK were of particular interest.
The file contains reports made by officials of Robeson's concerts in Trinidad in December 1948 and Gateshead in May 1949, which combine meticulous recording of political aspects of his performance with admiration for the qualities of his voice. Perhaps the most interesting element of the file is the Security Service's response to the possibility in 1951 that appeals would be made from Britain that Robeson be allowed to return to the UK from the USA, despite the American authorities having impounded his passport. There are indications that Sir Adrian Boult was to be enlisted to put pressure on the Home Office to secure Robeson's admission.