MacEwen was the son of the leading Scottish Nationalist Sir Alexander MacEwen, but his path through political life took a very different route from his father. These files detail the close interest that the Security Service took in MacEwen’s career from the first time he came to attention. This was in 1938, when he was noted as a passenger on a ship taking visitors from London to Leningrad for a month’s visit (in KV 2/2985, 1938-1945). At this time MacEwen was still a Labour Party member, and had gained election as a councillor in Banff, but he resigned from the party in protest at its attitude towards the Soviet Union. While the Soviets were at peace with Germany, MacEwen followed a strongly anti-war line, and stood as the Communist at the Dumbartonshire by-election in 1941 on this basis (and a copy of his election pamphlet is at serial 13a). Serial 12a in this piece contains a lengthy analysis of his attacks on the Labour Party reflecting his changed allegiance.

MacEwen became legal adviser to the Scottish Daily Worker, and soon transferred to the Daily Worker in London, where he became parliamentary correspondent in 1943, and later news editor (KV 2/2986, 1945-1951). This file shows how information on MacEwen’s activities passed through the hands of Kim Philby at the Secret Intelligence Service (e.g. serial 62x). MacEwen’s stint as news editor caused considerable unrest at the Daily Worker, and there is much analysis of his management in the file (e.g. at serial 128z: “The trouble is that MacEwen not only sends his reporters on so many unnecessary jobs that he tires them out for nothing. He has antagonised so many that he had only a few left he could rely on.” The dénouement, with MacEwen being disciplined and moved to the post of features editor, is carefully recorded in KV 2/2987 (1951-1956).

By November 1956, MacEwen’s loyalty to the party seems to have been fast draining away, and the file records how by this time, “MacEwen’s political views are apparently on the wobble.” The file includes a lengthy analysis of Communist “inner party democracy” in an essay written after Kruschev’s secret speech (serial 181b).

MacEwen resigned from the Daily Worker in November 1956 (KV 2/2988, 1956-1958), and the file contains intercepted correspondence and conversations which detail the intense debate this move caused among Party circles. MacEwen was at last expelled from the Communist Party in 1958 (KV 2/2989, 1958), though he resisted the move.

This file includes photographs of MacEwen, and a copy of his 1948 passport application form. Through all these files, MacEwen’s steady stream of correspondence was intercepted and recorded, and the results give an insight into the changing opinions of Communist Party members through the Second World War and beyond, up to the disillusion brought on by the invasion of Hungary.