Harry letters affair

The "Harry" letters, written by Peter Benenson, founder of the international human rights group Amnesty International, detail the funding during 1966 of Amnesty's mission in the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury, by somebody or something referred to as "Harry", which was commonly interpreted as code for the British government, which was headed by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

The letters were made public in March 1967 by Polly Toynbee, an Englishwoman who had worked for Amnesty in Salisbury as a 19-year-old gap year student in early 1966.

[2] When questioned in Parliament on payments by the government to Amnesty, Wilson said that his administration had indeed been "approached by a member of the organisation"[3] and had given a list of possible financial donors in response.

In early 1966, during her gap year from studies at the University of Oxford, Polly Toynbee served as the secretary for the peer and former West Indian cricketer Learie Constantine on an Amnesty International mission to Nigeria and Rhodesia,[1][4] two countries in Africa.

[1] During Toynbee's six weeks in Salisbury, she and other volunteers dispensed funds to the families of political detainees and tried to arrange legal aid for the prisoners.

"[6] When Benenson visited the group in Salisbury, Toynbee asked him where the funds came from and said there were rumours flying around the city that it was coming from Whitehall, the British government.

Alternately signed "Margaret" or "Peter" and addressed to the Amnesty representative in Salisbury, they contained frequent references to somebody or something called "Harry", which Toynbee interpreted as code for the British government.

"[1] Toynbee construed that as a reference to the previous month's Kingston upon Hull North by-election, which had increased the Labour government's majority in the House of Commons from three to four members.

[1] Toynbee's interest was aroused as Amnesty took pride in its declared apolitical stance, a concept very much at odds with the idea of funding from a national government.

[6] She claimed that Amnesty had been "bought off" by the British government: "Instead of dealing with legal test cases," she said, "it is wasting its time on welfare work which could equally well be done by the Red Cross".

[3] Wilson replied that the government had been "approached by a member of the organisation concerned for the humanitarian purpose of helping the families of men who have been oppressively detained.

[1] A private letter written by Benenson two months before Toynbee's interviews said that a third party, the hotelier Charles Forte, had been asked by Whitehall to provide £10,000 for the Rhodesia mission.