The British Punk Band That Fooled Reagan, Thatcher And The CIA -
How a small British punk band fooled Reagan, Thatcher, the MI6, and American spies.
The full story of a hoax recording of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher can now be disclosed after a raft of secret documents were declassified in London. A crackly tape purporting to capture a confrontational phone call between Reagan and Thatcher in 1982 was created as a prank in the Essex bedroom of an English punk band, and yet we now know it was being analyzed by the British Prime Minister and top officials in Washington years later.
The tape, which was delivered anonymously to the offices of a Dutch newspaper, apparently recorded a serious disagreement between the leaders of the “free world” over Britain’s controversial conflict with Argentina in the Falkland Islands.
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After the publication of the documents this week, Steve Ignorant, Crass’s lead singer, said it was incredible that their hoax had caused such high-level discomfort for so long. “It makes me a bit worried about governments because if they could be fooled by something so ridiculous… well, someone told us that there was an MI5 dossier on us but we didn’t take it that seriously,” he said.
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