MI5 spied on NHS founder Bevan, secret documents show

British spies monitored Nye Bevan, the much lauded architect of the National Health Service, for three decades because of his links to the Communist Party and criticism of Britain’s government in World War Two, newly released papers show. Declassified secret documents from MI5 made public by the National Archives on Thursday reveal that Bevan’s activities in parliament, and his movements and meetings outside, were closely watched by MI5 from 1933 until his death in 1960. MI5 had suspected that Bevan, a committed socialist and one of the most prominent parliamentary critics of Winston Churchill and his wartime coalition, was a communist sympathiser. However, the agency’s investigations seem to have determined that there was nothing to worry about. “What information we have on Bevan’s relations with the Communist Party since 1943 show that from time to time both the Communist Party and the Trotskyists have made attempts to get him to work with them without success,” a 1955 note said. Bevan, who died in 1960, became health secretary after the war and is credited with founding the state-funded NHS in 1948. While the one-time Welsh coal miner was heralded for his oratory skills, he was also seen as a highly divisive figure, not just within the Labour Party but the country as whole. Two years after his death, a review of his MI5 case file stated: “Considering what a controversial character Nye Bevan was, the file is remarkably tame.” The other newly material released also included MI5 files about Wolfgang zu Putlitz, a German diplomat who leaked information about Hitler’s plans to Britain, and Soviet agents and suspected operatives such as Frank Bossard who was jailed for 21 years for passing defence material to Russian spies.