MI5 Tracked NHS Founder Bevan for 27 Years

Newly released MI5 files show that the security service monitored Labour politician and NHS founder Aneurin “Nye” Bevan from 1933 until his death in 1960, suspecting links to communists and possible Soviet sympathies. The surveillance continued while he served in the postwar government and helped establish the National Health Service; at one point, MI5’s director general warned Prime Minister Clement Attlee about Bevan’s contacts with a known Soviet spy. The records also indicate that Bevan rejected efforts by communists to work with him and later strongly opposed the Stalinist Soviet Union. Some MI5 officers questioned whether the monitoring was justified, noting that Bevan expressed his views openly in Parliament, and a posthumous review described his file as remarkably tame.