258 • INDUSTRIAL SECURITY LIAISON OFFICERS
tion from financial and commercial sources—and leaked heavily to
Winston Churchill. Among those recruited to keep the IIC well in-
formed wasWilliam Stephenson, a Canadian industrialist with pre-
war interests across Europe. In 1940 Churchill appointed Morton his
special assistant to liaise with the intelligence services.INDUSTRIAL SECURITY LIAISON OFFICERS.The Protective
Security Branch of the Security Service is responsible for offering
advice on physical security to government departments and to con-
tactors undertaking classified work. Industrial security liaison offi-
cers also provide useful points of contact for individuals in sensitive
positions likely to be the target of entrapment and recruitment opera-
tions mounted by hostile intelligence agencies, and they give an op-
portunity to gather information from businessmen traveling overseas.
During the Cold War, the C Branch headquarters was located in Cork
Street, Mayfair.
INFORMATION RESEARCH DEPARTMENT (IRD).Created in
February 1948 byChristopher Mayhew, the Information Research
Department acted as a covert channel of anti-Soviet propaganda.
Headed by (Sir) Ralph Murray, IRD began with a staff of 16 and in
September 1948 had a budget of £100,000, funded through thesecret
vote, to analyze Soviet policy and develop conduits to counter the
Kremlin’s propaganda. It operated independently of theSecret Intel-
ligence Service(SIS), although it was headed by an SIS officer,
Nigel Clive, between 1966 and 1969. IRD was closed down in 1978
by David Owen when Ray Whitney (a future Conservative MP) was
its head.
INFORMATIONSHEFT GROSSBRITANNIEN.In 1940 theSicher-
heitsdienstissued a document for the use of the Gestapo in anticipa-
tion of a Nazi occupation of Britain that included a largely accurate
chapter outlining the structure and organization of British Intelli-
gence. The handbook was captured at the end of the war and an anal-
ysis of the sections dealing withMI5and theSecret Intelligence
Service(SIS) suggested that the information had been obtained from
the interrogation of CaptainSigismund Bestand MajorRichard
Stevens, the two SIS officers abducted during the Venlo incident in