John Baker White

John Baker White (12 August 1902 – 10 December 1988) started his career as a political activist and became a director of a private organisation dedicated to fighting left-wing subversion. He became an amateur spy in Nazi Germany before becoming a propaganda agent during World War II. In 1945, he was elected a Conservative politician. He was also a journalist and author and his work reveals a colourful, possibly, eccentric personality. Career Baker White graduated from Malvern College in 1920. In the early 1920s he was a member of the Anti-Socialist Union and was part of a tendency within that group that sought to co-operate with the British Fascists. He then worked for the Economic League, a privately funded anti-Communist pressure group and intelligence organization, serving as its Director from 1926 to 1939. Immediately before the war, he spent time in Germany as a spy; accepted there as an ardent anti-communist, he was invited to attend the Nuremberg Rally of 1937; he wrote about this experience in Dover-Nürnberg, Return. After publicly exposing Nazi propaganda and fifth column activity, he was obliged to slip out of Germany in April 1939. In the early days of World War II, he joined Section D. He was a leading figure in Britain's propaganda campaign, including attempts to convince German soldiers of a failed German landing attempt along the south coast of England. The job of Baker White and of his handful of co-workers was to cook up stories to be fed to the enemy and give him a quite false impression of the state of Britain's defences. Writing in 1955, he recalled his wartime experiences in The Big Lie. He was elected Member of Parliament for Canterbury in the 1945 general election and served until 1953, when he left Parliament through the method of becoming Steward of the Manor of Northstead. The subsequent by-election was won by Leslie Thomas.