Mountbatten defended

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 8

Mountbatten defended

NZPA-Reuter London Sir Harold Wilson has said that it was true there was a plot to take over the British Government when he was Prime Minister but he strongly denied that the late Lord Mountbatten was behind it. Sir Harold was referring to a “Sunday Times” story which said that British intelligence had investigated a plot hgainst his Labour Government in 1968 and that his former political secretary. Lady Falkender. had named Lord Mountbalten as a prime mover.

In a statement"'to the Press Association, the domestic news agency, he described the story as an unwarranted slur on the memory of Lord Mountbatten. "It is true, as the newspaper says, that one or two people high up in the press approached Lord Mountbatten to discuss their plan for a coup to take over the machinery of government,” he said. “Mountbatten and Sir Solly Zuckerman (then scientific adviser to the Government) sent them packing in the best quarter-deck manner.”

Lord Mountbatten, a former Viceroy of India and an allied commander in World War 11. was assassinated by Irish guerrillas in. 1979. The “Sunday Times” said that a former MIS chief, Sir .Martin Furnival Jones, had reported the facts and names involved in the plot to the Home Secretary at the time, James Callaghan, who was “not slow to act.” Sir Martin told the newapper that he ■ saw no reason to tell the Prime Minister personally and described the conspirators as a “pretty loony crew.”