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A Date With Bevin
Mike Thomson investigates Jewish insurgency in Palestine
after WWll and a plot to assassinate Britain’s Foreign
Secretary, Earnest Bevin
Broadcast by BBC Radio 4 - 07/24/06
In 1946, not long after the Second World War
was won, Britain was again under threat. Jewish insurgents, who
had long been fighting a bloody insurgency campaign against
British troops in Palestine, were about to take their war to
London. Previously top secret documents reveal that
assassination squads were being sent to the capital armed with a
hit list. On it were the names of several top government
figures. These included Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Earnest
Bevin.
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Extremist groups like The Stern Gang (or Lehi) and Irgun,
were determined to end the British mandate in Palestine and
replace it with a Jewish homeland. Hundreds of their
fighters, along with many British soldiers, were killed or
injured in a struggle that escalated after the end of the
war. Desperate to achieve a breakthrough after the arrest or
deaths of many of their members, the two groups set up
underground cells in Britain. It wasn’t long before British
security services got wind of what was happening and in
early 1946 they issued this top secret internal warning:
“Members of the Stern group are now being organised and are
under training. It is expected that they will be sent to the
United Kingdom to assassinate important members of his
majesty’s government, particularly, Mr Bevin.”
In the months that followed a number of bombs exploded in
London and an attempt was made to drop on a bomb on the
House of Commons from a hired plane. This last effort was
only stopped after French Police discovered Stern Gang
members preparing to cross the channel in a plane containing
a large bomb.
Mike Thomson and the Document team track down the assassin
sent to kill Earnest Bevin and the man who gave him the
explosives to do it.
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