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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jason Burke in Johannesburg

Revealed: how UK targeted American civil rights leader in covert campaign

Stokely Carmichael at an anti-Vietnam war rally at the United Nations in New York, circa 1967.
Stokely Carmichael at an anti-Vietnam war rally at the United Nations in New York, circa 1967. Photograph: Images Press/Getty

The British government targeted the American civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael and sought to weaken the Black Power movement with covert disinformation campaigns, recently declassified documents have revealed.

The effort was the work of a secret unit known as the Information Research Department, based in London and part of the Foreign Office, which created and distributed literature from fake sources as part of a broader effort to destabilise cold war enemies.

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