Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography since 1945 9780748646272, 9780748677566, 9780748677580, 9780748677573

Citation preview

INTELLIGENCE STUDIES IN BRITAIN AND THE US

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd i

21/02/2013 08:23

In memory of M. R. D. Foot (1919–2012), SOE Historian

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd ii

21/02/2013 08:23

IN T E L L IGE N C E S T U DI E S I N BR IT A IN A N D T H E U S Historiography since 1945

Edited by Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd iii

21/02/2013 08:23

© editorial matter and organisation Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy, 2013 © the chapters their several authors, 2013 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 10.5/13 Minion by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 4627 2 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 7756 6 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 0 7486 7758 0 (epub) ISBN 978 0 7486 7757 3 (Amazon ebook) The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd iv

21/02/2013 08:23

CONTENTS

The Editors The Contributors List of Figures Preface by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones Acknowledgements Introduction: Intelligence Studies Now and Then Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy

vii viii xiii xv xix 1

PART I AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE HISTORIOGRAPHY 1 CIA History as a Cold War Battleground: The Forgotten First Wave of Agency Narratives Richard J. Aldrich

19

2 The Culture of Funding Culture: The CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom Eric Pullin

47

3 ‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’? The CIA and the Representation of Covert Operations in the Foreign Relations of the United States Series Matthew Jones and Paul McGarr 4 Bonum Ex Malo: The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History Nicholas Dujmovic

65

90

5 Narrating Covert Action: The CIA, Historiography and the Cold War 111 Kaeten Mistry

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd v

21/02/2013 08:23

vi

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

6 FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation Melissa Graves

129

7 Reconceiving Realism: Intelligence Historians and the Fact/Fiction Dichotomy Simon Willmetts

146

8 The Reality is Stranger than Fiction: Anglo-American Intelligence Cooperation from World War II through the Cold War Frederick P. Hitz

172

PART II BRITISH INTELLIGENCE HISTORIOGRAPHY 9 A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals: The Historiography of the Great Game Robert Johnson

183

10 No Cloaks, No Daggers: The Historiography of British Military Intelligence Jim Beach

202

11 The Study of Interrogation: A Focus on Torture, But What About the Intelligence? Samantha Newbery

222

12 Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History: Editing SOE in France Christopher J. Murphy 13 A Tale of Torture? Alexander Scotland, The London Cage and PostWar British Secrecy Daniel W. B. Lomas

236

251

14 1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’ for the Study of British Intelligence? Adam D. M. Svendsen

263

15 Their Trade is Treachery: A Retrospective Chapman Pincher

281

16 Intelligence and ‘Official History’ Christopher Baxter and Keith Jeffery

289

Index

304

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd vi

21/02/2013 08:23

THE EDITORS

Christopher R. Moran is an Assistant Professor of US National Security in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. He is also a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. Previously, he was a Research Assistant on the AHRC-funded project ‘Landscapes of Secrecy: The CIA and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy’. In 2011, he was a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress. He is the author of Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (2012) and has published articles in International History Review, Journal of Cold War Studies and Intelligence and National Security. Christopher J. Murphy is a Lecturer in Intelligence in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences at the University of Salford and Programme Leader for the MA in Intelligence and Security Studies. He is the author of Security and Special Operations: SOE and MI5 during the Second World War (2006) and has published articles in Public Policy and Administration, Journal of Contemporary History and The Historical Journal.

vii

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd vii

21/02/2013 08:23

THE CONTRIBUTORS

Richard J. Aldrich is Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick and is the author of several books, including The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (2001) and GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (2010). He has spent time in Canberra and Ottawa as a Leverhulme Fellow, while working on a study of the impact of globalisation upon intelligence services. Since September 2008, he has been leading a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, entitled: ‘Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy’. Christopher Baxter is an Honorary Lecturer in Intelligence History at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is the author of The Great Power Struggle in East Asia, 1944–50 (2009) and co-editor of Diplomats at War: British and Commonwealth Diplomacy in Wartime (2008). Jim Beach is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth Century History at the University of Northampton. He has published a number of articles on British military history during the First World War. He is Secretary of the Army Records Society and has edited The Military Papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam, 1910–1942. Nicholas Dujmovic is a member of the CIA History Staff. He joined the CIA in 1990 as an analyst and later served as a speech writer for the Director of Central Intelligence, editor of the President’s Daily Brief and a manager of analysts. He received his PhD in 1996 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His unclassified work on Agency operations and culture has appeared in the Journal of Military History, Studies in Intelligence and Intelligence and National Security. In 2004, Yale University published his collection of quotations on intelligence and espionage, The Literary Spy. viii

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd viii

21/02/2013 08:23

The Contributors

ix

Melissa Graves serves as project coordinator and instructor at the University of Mississippi’s (UM) Center for Intelligence and Security Studies. She helped design and implement the Days of Intrigue – a realistic practical exercise conducted yearly at UM, involving participation from numerous intelligence agencies. She is also co-author of the textbook Introduction to Intelligence Studies (2012). She is presently pursuing a PhD in history. Ms Graves has been admitted to the Bars of Texas and Washington. Frederick P. Hitz is an Adjunct Professor at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law and an adjunct Professor at the University of Virginia, School of Law. From 1998 to 2006, he was a lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University and, from 1999 to 2000, he held the Weinberg/Goldman Sachs Professorship of International Affairs. From 1967 to 1998, he served extensively in the CIA in the Clandestine Service, as Legislative Counsel to the Director of Central Intelligence and as Deputy Director for Europe in the Directorate of Operations. He was appointed the first statutory Inspector General of the CIA by President George H. W. Bush and served in that capacity from 1990 to 1998, when he retired. He was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 1998 and received a Resolution of Commendation from the US Senate upon the fifth anniversary of his tenure as Inspector General in 1995. Among the many investigations he led at the CIA was the Aldrich Ames betrayal. He has written extensively about espionage and intelligence issues, including The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage (2004) and Why Spy? Espionage in an Era of Uncertainty (2008). He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University. Keith Jeffery is Professor of British History at Queen’s University, Belfast, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Among his books are Ireland and the Great War (2000), The GPO and the Easter Rising (2006), Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier (2008) and MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 (2011). Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones took his history PhD at Cambridge University. He is an Emeritus Professor of history at the University of Edinburgh and honorary president of the Scottish Association for the Study of America. His publications are evenly divided between American history and the history of intelligence. They include The CIA and American Democracy (1989) and The FBI: A History (2007). His next books will be The American Left: Its Impact on Politics and Society Since

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd ix

21/02/2013 08:23

x

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

1900 (Edinburgh University Press) and In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence. Robert Johnson is the Director of the Oxford Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford. His primary research interests are in the history of conflicts of the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the interactions between strategy, intelligence and conventional operations, war by proxy, insurgency and counter-insurgency. He has published a number of relevant books and articles and is the author of Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia (2006) and The Afghan Way of War: How and Why They Fight (2011). Matthew Jones is Professor of Modern History at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Britain, the United States, and the Mediterranean War, 1942–44 (1996), Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia (2002) and, most recently, After Hiroshima: The United States, Race and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945–1965 (2010). Daniel W. B. Lomas is a PhD student at the University of Salford. His doctorate explores the relationship between Clement Attlee, the Labour Government and the British intelligence community, 1945–51. Paul McGarr is Advanced Research Fellow in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of several articles and essays on Anglo-American political and cultural exchange with post-independent South Asia. He will shortly publish his first book, Britain, the United States and the Cold War in South Asia, 1947–1965. He is currently researching and writing on the Central Intelligence Agency’s role in shaping official narratives of American foreign policy, as part of a wider AHRC-sponsored project, entitled ‘Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy, 1947–2001’. Kaeten Mistry is Lecturer in American History at the University of East Anglia. He specialises in US foreign relations, the international history of the Cold War, and intelligence studies. He has held faculty positions at the University of Warwick and University College Dublin and has studied at the University of Birmingham, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Padua. He has been Visiting Fellow at New York University, University of Bologna and University of Oxford. His book Waging Political

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd x

21/02/2013 08:23

The Contributors

xi

Warfare: The United States, Italy and the Origins of Cold War is forthcoming. He has published articles in journals, including Diplomatic History and Cold War History, and has guest-edited a special issue of Intelligence and National Security. Samantha Newbery is Lecturer in Contemporary Intelligence Studies in the University of Salford’s Politics and Contemporary History Directorate. She holds a PhD from Trinity College, Dublin. Dr Newbery’s main research interest is intelligence ethics, specifically the use of controversial interrogation techniques to collect intelligence for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. She has published work on this subject in Intelligence and National Security and Irish Studies in International Affairs. Her forthcoming monograph – Interrogation, Intelligence and Security: The Origins and Effects of Controversial British Techniques, 1964–2003 – addresses the examples of Aden (1964–7), Northern Ireland (1971–8) and Iraq (2003). Chapman Pincher is a renowned investigative journalist and writer of espionage books. His original professional intention was to pursue an academic career, specialising in botanical genetics at King’s College, London. (Before taking his BSc Hons degree, he published two original papers on plant genetics, winning him the Carter Gold Medal.) The Second World War intruded, and, in 1940, he joined a tank regiment, being commissioned in 1941. Posted to the Military College of Science (now Royal), he completed the Advanced Class in Ammunition and Explosives and spent the rest of the war developing rocket weapons. In 1946, he was appointed Defence and Scientific Editor of the Daily Express, being named Journalist of the Year in 1964 and Reporter of the Decade in 1966. Retiring from Fleet Street in 1979, he has since concentrated on intelligence affairs, publishing the watershed book Their Trade is Treachery in 1981. This has been followed by Too Secret Too Long (1984) and four others, culminating in the large volume Treachery, of which the latest updated edition appeared in 2012. He is an Hon DLitt Newcastle University, Life Fellow of King’s College London (1979) and an Academician of the Russian Academy for Defence, Security and Internal Affairs (2005). Eric Pullin is Assistant Professor of History at Carthage College. He has published articles on Indo-US relations during World War II and the Cold War in Diplomatic History and Intelligence and National Security. He is currently writing a book on the ideological struggle between the Soviet Union, the United States and India. Adam D. M. Svendsen (PhD, Warwick) is an intelligence and defence strategist, educator and researcher, formerly based in the Centre for Military Studies

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xi

21/02/2013 08:23

xii

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

(CMS), Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been a Visiting Scholar at CPASS, Georgetown University, and has worked at Chatham House and IISS, London. He has also trained at various European defence colleges, lectured at the Royal Danish Defence College (FAK) and has multi-sector award-winning media and communication experience. He is the author of several publications, including Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror (2010) Understanding the Globalization of Intelligence (2012), and The Professionalization of Intelligence Cooperation (also 2012). Simon Willmetts is a Lecturer in American History and Culture at the University of Hull. He completed his PhD in late 2011 at the University of Warwick. His thesis, which explored the relationship between the CIA and Hollywood, is currently being prepared as a monograph. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters, including a piece in the Journal of American Studies.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xii

21/02/2013 08:23

FIGURES

Figure 1 British spy Eddie Chapman with an opium pipe in one hand and a horse pistol in the other

5

Figure 2 Chapman Pincher with the Queen Mother and former Secretary of State for War John Profumo

6

Figure 3 Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew with his book, The Defence of the Realm

10

Figure 4 CIA Director Allen Dulles poses for cameras in Washington, DC on 24 January 1953

20

Figure 5 CIA Director Robert Gates poses with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, 16 October 1992

71

Figure 6 Tim Weiner accepting the National Book Award for nonfiction for Legacy of Ashes, 14 November 2007

91

Figure 7 Philip Agee, the most famous whistle-blower in CIA history, holding his controversial publication On the Run

120

Figure 8 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover enjoying the company of Holly Spring of Ballerina, a boxer-dog champion

130

Figure 9 Actress Sissy Spacek waves to the crowd as actor Kevin Costner and Director Oliver Stone arrive for the world screening of JFK on 17 December 1991

163

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xiii

21/02/2013 08:23

xiv

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 10 Spy novelist John le Carré boards a Pan Am flight to Rome at Kennedy International Airport

175

Figure 11 Cartoon of English writer Rudyard Kipling writing in an Indian bush watched by a lion and a snake

184

Figure 12 Professor Keith Jeffery at the launch of MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949

296

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xiv

21/02/2013 08:23

PREFACE Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

Secret intelligence had always been an element in statecraft, but in the twentieth century, it acquired an altogether new standing as an ingredient in the security arrangements of nations that tired of ‘total warfare’. This applied to the Soviet Union, with its tens of millions of casualties in World War II, and equally to democratic countries, with their memories of Galipoli and Paeschendale. In fact, special factors applied in the case of the democratic nations, with their increasingly universal voting rights. Enfranchised male citizens – who supplied the infantry, yet could make or break the governments that sent them to the front – displayed a fondness for their arms and legs and for life in general. The arrival of the female voter only intensified the aversion to militarism and to body bags. War was no longer acceptable as a reflexive recourse in times of diplomatic crisis. The search for alternative methods yielded initiatives ranging from United Nations mediations to nuclear deterrence. The century’s commitment to secret intelligence stemmed from the same source. To be sure, secret intelligence is an ingredient in military success. It can help to make war more precise and more decisive. But for those very reasons, it can also make war less bloody, especially for the civilians so often caught up as ‘collateral’ casualties. Furthermore, it can yield information that anticipates, and helps to prevent, conflict. We are only too painfully aware that things do not always work out like this. There have been intelligence blunders with terrible consequences. The preference for more subtle means, nevertheless, remains. You have only to follow the dollar to appreciate the point – the United States intelligence community’s budget for 2009 was US$80 billion. Naturally, such a major phenomenon has attracted extensive study. Marjorie W. Cline’s Teaching Intelligence in the mid-1980s (1985) was a thorough survey of college and university courses across the US, which revealed how they had become pervasive. A 2003 survey by Aberystwyth University’s Paul Maddrell established that the teaching of intelligence was expanding in the United Kingdom, too. Off-campus, an appetite for books and articles in the intelligence xv

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xv

21/02/2013 08:23

xvi

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

field encouraged a growth in the literature. Intelligence studies developed into a distinctive genre, and its practitioners acquired a professional identity of their own. Intelligence studies faced a number of perils. Some of these were common to any fast-growing discipline. Those who have witnessed the expansion of, say, labour history or American Studies will recognise the pitfalls. Aspiring scholars, characterised more by opportunism than by ability, jump on the bandwagon, hoping for an easy ride. Able scholars in more established fields take a snooty, stand-offish approach to the new discipline. By refusing to engage in or offer competition, they ensure that the ride can, indeed, be too easy, with mediocrity as the natural result. Another common danger is hubris. It feeds on a feeling of being unappreciated and results in an exaggeration of the importance of one’s newly discovered topic. The proposition that intelligence is a missing dimension of diplomatic history can degenerate into the conviction that it is the missing dimension. Other perils inhere in the particular nature of the field. Secrecy has not resulted in a dearth of information, but too often it suppresses key information. The absence of key information can give rise to speculation and thus to damaging myths. In turn, this has occasioned official efforts to set the record straight. However, official efforts can be tainted with an official agenda. The temptation to whitewash affects the chroniclers of more than one type of government activity. But the opportunity to misinform is greater in the field of secret intelligence studies, where, in the interest of ‘national security’, information is withheld from relatively objective scholars and only made available to chosen insiders. Special mention might here be made of the American curse of the revolving door. This is the process by which scholars depart academia to join an intelligence agency, later rejoining the academic community to impart their insights based on practical experience. On the one hand, the advantages are plain. Bright-eyed professors entering the clandestine profession import the latest expertise from the academic world. Returning to the campuses with knowing looks, they are able to bring down to earth some of the more fanciful academic theories. On the other hand, there are disadvantages. Scholars in the intelligence community can ‘go native’, re-emerging in academia as propagandists. They may not have been the best scholars in the first place. Top scholars publish regularly and do not take kindly to the interruptions and controls involved in secret government service. Nor do they relish the contempt in which they are often held, once having dabbled in ‘dirty espionage’. To be sure, intelligence veterans have made thoughtful and successful teachers. But teaching and scholarship in the intelligence field is, to too great an extent, blighted by the presence of pensioners who are not only biased in favour

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xvi

21/02/2013 08:23

Preface

xvii

of officialdom, but also second-rate intellectually. Speaking anonymously (as such individuals do in the UK), the former head of a major intelligence agency recently told me that such problems do not exist in Britain. But it would be rash to assert that British intelligence writing has always been free of official odour. Awareness of problems such as these has given rise to a new and special branch of the intelligence studies profession. This is the study of intelligence studies. British initiatives are important here, and they tend to look beyond British shores. Perhaps this compensates for the lack of British official enquires into how other nations conduct their intelligence affairs (in contrast, there have been several American official enquiries into British intelligence). For an initial example, one can turn to the activities of Aberystwyth University’s Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies. One outcome of the Centre’s work was a book edited by R. Gerald Hughes et al., Exploring Intelligence Archives (2008). It is testimony to the strength of the profession that this appeared as the forty-fifth title in the Studies in Intelligence book series, edited by Richard J. Aldrich and Christopher Andrew. Hughes’ compilation provided scholarly commentaries on a series of intelligence documents from around the world. On one level, it was instructive about certain episodes in intelligence history. But on another level, it taught the reader how to study not just the documents, but also the interpreters of the documents. The book that you are about to read is a second example of a work that shows how important it is, before embarking on a study of intelligence itself, to study the study of intelligence. A sophisticated primer for those engaged in the field, it stems from another British research initiative in intelligence studies. This is the jointly run project by the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham, entitled ‘Landscapes of Secrecy: The CIA and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy, 1947–2001’. One of the book’s two young editors, Christopher Moran, was associated with that project, and the other, Christopher Murphy, teaches at Salford University – a centre of excellence in intelligence studies. In a preface of this kind, it is common to ‘plug’ the pages that follow and to urge the reader to plough through the text for worthy reasons. The task is not difficult in light of a cast of characters that includes Salvador Allende, George Blake, Fidel Castro, Winston Churchill, Mansfield Cumming, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Christopher Hitchens, Patrice Lumumba, Compton Mackenzie, Norman Mailer, Kim Philby, Stella Rimington, William Stephenson, George Tenet, Margaret Thatcher and Alfred Zimmerman. Notable, too, is the quality of the contributors. Fred Hitz, for example, was a hard-hitting Inspector General of the CIA in the 1990s. His report on the circumstances surrounding the treason of Richard Ames ranks with the incisive critique of the Bay of Pigs fiasco by his illustrious predecessor, Lyman Kirkpatrick.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xvii

21/02/2013 08:23

xviii

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Amongst the academic contributors, Richard J. Aldrich has few peers in the field of intelligence history. Just as promising is the clutch of younger contributors, from whom we shall hear a great deal in the future. The book is a thoughtful dissection of a wide variety of sources, ranging from works of history and official reports through memoirs, movies, novels and exposés. The historiographical prism is revolved in a way that provides a plurality of perspectives. Space is allotted both to critical works and to critiques of the critics: Nicholas Dujmovic of the CIA’s History Staff offers a self-aware defence of what official historians set out to do, while Keith Jeffery – the authorised historian of the MI6 – supplies a general vindication of the writing of official intelligence history. To accommodate their ambitious methodologies, the editors have restricted themselves to American and British themes. There is ample consolation here. For although the KGB has been influential in the past, and the rise of China, Brazil and the European Union point to a different future, the Anglo-American dimension has been the dominant feature of intelligence history over the last century. It makes this book a landmark study.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xviii

21/02/2013 08:23

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many debts of gratitude have been accumulated over the course of bringing this volume to print. We are grateful to the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for providing the financial support that set in motion a great deal of the chapters in this collection. Specifically, we would like to thank the AHRC for supporting the project ‘Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy 1947–2001’, administered jointly by the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham. Additional income was provided by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at the University of Manchester, for which we are also extremely grateful. The Centre also supported the ‘European Security, Terrorism and Intelligence’ conference at the University of Salford in January 2009, which included a panel on intelligence historiography, from which this project originated. We should like to give special thanks to the team at Edinburgh University Press. We are especially indebted to Nicola Ramsey, as Senior Commissioning Editor, for seeing the intellectual merit of this project. Moreover, this book would not exist without the literary midwifery of Assistant Editors Jenny Daly and Michelle Houston, who, from start to finish, have been unfailingly kind and helpful. Finally, we should like to thank our contributors for their patience, cooperation and good cheer in meeting tight deadlines – it is they who make this volume.

xix

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xix

21/02/2013 08:23

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd xx

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction INTELLIGENCE STUDIES NOW AND THEN Christopher R. Moran and Christopher J. Murphy

In both the United States and the United Kingdom, the field of intelligence studies represents one of the fastest growing subsets of international history, political science and strategic studies. This dynamism is evidenced not only by the vast volume of publications that are generated, but by the existence of dedicated departments and centres, specialist degree programmes, conferences and professional associations. In the US, intelligence is taught at a host of top universities, typically in the form of advanced option courses and special subjects. Beyond this, there are institutes specifically designed to prepare students for entry-level positions in the intelligence community, including the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi and the Mercyhurst College Institute for Intelligence Studies. A similar landscape exists in the UK, with centres at Brunel, Buckingham and Aberystwyth flanked by undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in intelligence at numerous major academic institutions, with the study of intelligence at Masters’ level at the University of Salford fast approaching its 25th anniversary year. The flourishing of intelligence studies is also reflected in the considerable group of content-specific journals. Founded in 1984, Intelligence and National Security is recognised as the most pre-eminent journal, but it is accompanied by Studies in Intelligence, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and the Journal of Intelligence History, the latter which was relaunched along new lines in 2012. A further illustration of the maturity of this field is the increasing willingness of funding bodies to support research in this area. In 2008, for example, the universities of Warwick and Nottingham received over £550,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to study the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In short, the study of intelligence is booming. Needless to say, intelligence studies as we know it today was not born overnight. Rather, it has evolved from humble beginnings over the course of several decades, constantly jostling for space and recognition among a myriad of other academic traditions. This collection, which features some sixteen specialist 1

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 1

21/02/2013 08:23

2

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

contributions by leading experts from a variety of professional paths, seeks to narrate and interpret the development of intelligence studies as an academic discipline in both the US and the UK. Specifically, it is concerned with historiography and aims to review some of the literatures, schools and tributaries of research that have contributed to this rapidly expanding area of enquiry. Scholars of intelligence seldom pause to reflect upon the historiography of their chosen subject. For some time, the field has been characterised by a desire for discovery, with discussion of the existing literature framed, to a significant extent, by the discussion of absence. To this point, intelligence studies has tended to take its lead from Christopher Andrew and David Dilks’ famous clarion call in 1984 for intelligence to no longer be the ‘missing dimension’ of modern history and international relations.1 No doubt there are certainly areas where such absences continue; but in our eagerness to move from the eradication of one ‘missing dimension’ to the next, we have failed to take stock and to acknowledge the considerable body of work that has accumulated – the end product of these labours. As a result, the study of intelligence historiography is itself a ‘missing dimension’. The fact that we have arrived at this position is perhaps unsurprising. The past two decades have seen an explosion of academic writing on intelligence, fuelled, to a large degree, by the unprecedented declassification of official materials that followed the end of the Cold War. With new archives to examine, intelligence scholars have made hay while the sun shines (so to speak), with good reason. Today, intelligence studies is hallmarked by a Rankean hunger for new documentation and an interpretative focus on the use (and abuse) of intelligence by state actors. Certainly, by the standards of other fields and disciplines, historiographical self-reflection has taken a backseat. A sizeable literature exists pertaining to the question of ‘what is intelligence?’, and it is refreshing to see a increasing body of work devoted to research methodology, specifically considering the dangers of hard-line empiricism.2 However, as intelligence studies shifts away, as a field of study, from a period of archival ‘first contact’, it is important to reflect upon the evolution of the secondary literature to this point. Scholarly neglect of intelligence historiography is explainable, but not justified. Mapping the history of intelligence history could not be more important or more urgent. A greater appreciation of how writers of intelligence themselves, over time, have approached, understood and recorded intelligence history demonstrates the important role of the intelligence scholar in garnering knowledge about the past and, thus, helps to dispel possible cynicism concerning the utility of the enterprise. While intelligence history has proved incredibly popular with the public at large, it has been relatively marginalised within the academic profession, often criticised for being prone to sensationalism and uncritical

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 2

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

3

scholarship. According to John Ferris – a noted intelligence authority – the critique most commonly made about intelligence history is that it suffers from ‘Bloomsbury syndrome’, focusing on anecdote, instead of analysis.3 By being reflexive about the state of the literature, intelligence studies can achieve new levels of academic respectability. Greater knowledge of historiography will assist with the disciplinary identification of intelligence studies within the humanities and social sciences. Intelligence studies have long existed in a labile lattice of relationships with kindred disciplines, such as international relations, and subdisciplines, such as diplomatic or military history. Accordingly, its borders are difficult to determine. Unless there is a noted shift from doing intelligence studies to reflecting upon precisely how it is done and has been done in the past, there is a danger that the field will lose cohesion and direction. Intelligence scholars clearly need to pursue their own specific research agendas, but they also need to think about how this fits into the broader agenda or ‘project’ of intelligence studies. In order to continue to flourish, intelligence studies needs to recognise its historiographical traditions and start to think longer and harder about its future trajectory. This can only be achieved through gaining knowledge of the story of intelligence historiography. At all costs, intelligence studies must avoid marking time, being too intractably wedded to its original foci, conventional interpretations and Rankean exegesis. It cannot afford to lag behind methodological advances achieved in other areas. Once again, an engagement with historiography can help, for it encourages scholars to reconsider important questions about truth, evidence and method. In turn, this can breed dissatisfaction with approaches that appear intellectually shop-worn and drive innovation. * * * The essays contained in this collection are intended to provide a wide-angled view of the past formulation and emerging patterns of intelligence studies. As a collective, they advance three important and interrelated arguments: (1) Secrecy has never stopped people from writing about intelligence. Intelligence is an instrument of statecraft that governments have traditionally tried to shield from public scrutiny. Secrecy is justified as a necessary measure, in order to guarantee operational security, techniques of collection and the safety of human sources. The US is rightly lauded for its constitutional commitment to openness, but it is worth remembering that even George Washington – the nation’s first President and public symbol of the triumph of democratic values over kingly despotism – was firmly convinced of the need for secrecy in the realm of intelligence. During the War of Independence, he wrote:

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 3

21/02/2013 08:23

4

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged – All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in Most Enterprizes.4

In their dedication to secrecy, Western secret services, for much of the twentieth century, reflexively hoarded their records and suppressed public debate where possible, making the task of writing about intelligence extremely difficult. In the UK, it was even the practice for intelligence never to be mentioned in Parliament – the country’s supreme legislative body. In spite of this, intelligence historiography has a long lineage. Almost from the establishment of professional intelligence services, there have been veterans who have cleverly sidestepped and, in some cases, plainly ignored official restrictions placed upon them, so as to write about their careers.5 Adopting a position of ‘publish and be damned’, memoir writers have typically relied on the assumption that most sensible governments will not risk public scraps or costly legal battles to suppress the publication of works. Generally speaking, this has been the case; only in a handful of high profile instances have authors been frogmarched off to court by vexed secret agencies. The motivation for spies to write books is not uniform. In retirement, often with a modest income, some have turned to publishing, in order to pad out their bank balances. In 1953, for example, the infamous MI5 wartime spy Eddie Chapman published an autobiography largely out of financial necessity, having run up huge debts by living well beyond his means in London’s West End (see Figure 1).6 Some veterans have felt badly treated by their former employer and, therefore, have had no compunctions about breaking their secrecy agreement. Peter Wright, for example –author of the groundbreaking publication Spycatcher – was motivated, to a large extent, by the fact that MI5 had not taken seriously his belief that the Service had been penetrated by Russian spies and, to add insult to injury, had denied him a full pension. In the US, in particular, there is a rich tradition of whistle-blowing by ‘persons of conscience’. In 1977, for example, CIA analyst Frank Snepp published, without approval, Decent Interval, exposing Agency blunders in the run-up to the disastrous US evacuation of South Vietnam.7 Snepp ranks as one of the few memoirists who have felt the full legal fury of the official machine. After publication, he was hit with a government lawsuit, which he duly lost, requiring him to surrender every ‘ill-gotten’ cent he had made from the book’s publication. According to Bernard Porter – a leading imperial historian – some retired spies simply want to boast about their achievements. ‘It must be galling’, Porter suggested, ‘to have saved the world, and have no-one know about it’.8 Memoir writers are not the only group who have overcome secrecy to write about intelligence. From as far back as the early Cold War period, journalists

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 4

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

5

Figure 1 British spy Eddie Chapman with an opium pipe in one hand and a horse pistol in the other (Press Association, PA.10662703)

have been publishing stories about secret services, aided by disclosures from friends in high places.9 A number of journalists have gone on to enjoy lucrative second careers as bestselling writers on espionage – most famously, David Wise in the US and Chapman Pincher in the UK (see Figure 2). Self-declared

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 5

21/02/2013 08:23

6

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 2 Chapman Pincher (left) with the Queen Mother and former Secretary of State for War John Profumo (Courtesy of Chapman Pincher)

‘exposé-merchants’ have long been a thorn in the side of governments. Pincher’s sleuthing of the secret state even prompted Harold Macmillan – then Prime Minister – to ask in private: ‘Can nothing be done to suppress or get rid of Chapman Pincher?’10 However, stopping these individuals proved difficult. Most covered their tracks and did not keep incriminating evidence. In the UK, at least, there was a basic reluctance among officials to stir up too much controversy, knowing that that the likely source of the leak was a person of status and, thus, too important to be embarrassed. (2) The ‘real world’ of intelligence impacts intelligence historiography and vice versa. The writing of intelligence history has always been closely linked with contemporary, real-world events. For example, in the period between the end of the Second World War and creation of the CIA in September 1947, there was an outpouring of reminiscences by former members of the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Many of these veterans had, in fact, been encouraged to write by fabled OSS Chief General William J. Donovan, who had hoped that by disclosing stories of bravery and tales of derring-do, sceptical politicians would recognise the need for a permanent, centralised intelligence agency. Donovan’s campaign paid off, when President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which established the CIA. The first ‘explosion’ of serious academic writing on intelligence occurred in the late 1970s, largely as a result of developments in the real world of espionage. In the UK, scholars were given strong reasons to study intelligence when, in 1974, Whitehall finally bowed to the inevitable disclosure of the ‘Ultra Secret’.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 6

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

7

For three decades, it had been the policy of successive British governments not to reveal the success of code-breakers at Bletchley Park, fearing that disclosure of any kind would undermine the peacetime work of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). As a result, thirty years of scholarship on the Second World War was lacking in a crucial respect. When the decision was taken to ‘open up’ about Ultra, historical revisionism became the order of the day, as scholars sought to understand how prior knowledge of Hitler’s intentions had helped the Allies win the war. The objective was not simply to insert intelligence into the history of the Second World War, but to reconfigure the way in which that history was written. In the US, serious academic interest in intelligence was roused by the much-publicised ‘season of enquiry’ into the American intelligence community. Academics were forced to stand up and take notice as revelations emerged, both in the newspapers and in congressional hearings, linking the CIA with a string of illegal domestic operations. The second explosion of academic interest in intelligence occurred in the 1990s, again, largely as a corollary of changes in the real spy world. During this period, intelligence services in the West responded to the conclusion of the Cold War and the decline of direct threats to national security by embracing a degree of openness. In both the US and the UK, there was a move, on the part of the intelligence services, to become more visible and to do more in terms of outreach, explaining the role played by modern intelligence communities to the world outside. The old Cold War mentality that there could be no middle ground between absolute secrecy and absolute disclosure was replaced by a new attitude of common sense, predicated on the idea that it was necessary to have stronger safeguards around fewer secrets. As a result of this shift, the 1990s became the era of declassification, providing a major stimulus to intelligence studies. In the US, a significant milestone was reached in April 1995, when President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12958, which ruled that all classified documents older than twenty-five years would automatically become declassified, save certain exemptions on security grounds. By 2007, the CIA had declassified over ten million pages of material, stored on a massive electronic search and retrieval system, known as CREST, at the National Archives at College Park in Maryland.11 In the UK, a similar milestone was achieved with the 1993 Waldegrave Initiative on Open Government. To date, this landmark scheme has resulted in the declassification of over 200,000 highly sensitive files, including many files that had been originally exempt from the normal thirty-year embargo on public records. It has also been the case that intelligence historiography has influenced the real world of intelligence. It is far from being a ‘passive’ body of work; in some cases, it has formed an integral part of the ‘story’ of the very subject of

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 7

21/02/2013 08:23

8

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

study itself. In the early years of her premiership, Margaret Thatcher was twice required to respond in the House of Commons to accusations made by intelligence books. On 16 November 1979, she was forced, by the publication ten days earlier of Andrew Boyle’s Climate of Treason, to confirm that Anthony Blunt – a former MI5 officer and then Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures – had been a Soviet spy.12 This brought a fifteen-year cover-up to an end, which had seen Blunt confess to his crimes in 1964, in all probability expecting to be tried for treason, only to be granted immunity from prosecution, in return for revealing to MI5 all he knew about the Soviets. Two years later, the Prime Minister once again found herself in the House making a statement in relation to a spy book. Published in 1981, Chapman Pincher’s Their Trade is Treachery had made the sensational allegation that Sir Roger Hollis – a former Director General of MI5 – had, in fact, been a Soviet agent. Hotly disputed, even to this day, this allegation prompted Thatcher to admit to Parliament that Hollis had been investigated some years earlier and cleared of any wrong-doing.13 Later in the decade, another book, Spycatcher, would have far-reaching consequences for the real world of intelligence. Written by Peter Wright – an eccentric former MI5 officer – Spycatcher repeated the charge concerning Hollis and also alleged that MI5 had conspired to discredit Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.14 Rather than let the book sink without a trace, the British government foolishly attempted to block its publication and was sucked into a protracted and hugely embarrassing vortex of litigation, which ultimately ensured that the book enjoyed the widest possible circulation. The low point came in an Australian court room in late 1986, when Sir Robert Armstrong – the Cabinet Secretary – was forced to concede, under cross-examination by a brash young Sydney lawyer, that, in his earlier testimony, he had been ‘economical with the truth’.15 This, coupled with other farcical moments (including the surreal instance where Armstrong refused to confirm or deny that MI5 existed), brought ridicule upon the government’s case. The government’s hopeless mishandling of Wright’s book helped to convince officials in London that change was necessary, namely, that it was outdated and ludicrous to maintain the bipartisan taboo about intelligence. This paved the way for MI5 to be placed on a statutory footing for the first time in 1989. Moreover, Spycatcher led to the introduction of stricter procedures in MI5, as well as greater professionalisation and the removal of swashbuckling amateurs. (3) Governments are moving from a strategy of ‘policing the past’ to ‘writing the record’. In recent years, there have been a number of scholarly publications showing the behind-the-scenes dealings of the state censor, revealing the negotia-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 8

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

9

tions that take place between censor and author, concerning what should and should not be disclosed.16 Taken together, these works paint a picture of the state ‘policing the past’ by micro-managing publications, in order to protect national security and avoid embarrassment. Some of the chapters in this collection are supportive of this thesis, giving historical examples of where secret services have done everything in their power to suppress or redact intelligence books. Others, however, hint at a more progressive strategy of ‘writing the record’. By the early twenty-first century, there is strong evidence to suggest that intelligence communities, on both sides of the Atlantic, are becoming more interested in shaping their own history. Abandoning the old rigid approach of hindering intelligence historiography, secret organisations are now flexibly working to enrich intelligence historiography, albeit on their own terms. The lesson that seems to have been learned is that it is too dangerous to leave intelligence history to private authors, since ‘outsiders’ make mistakes and, worst of all, often have axes to grind. Hence, it has become increasingly common for secret services to release their own historical works, in order to set the record straight. The most obvious monuments to this strategy are the authorised histories of MI5 and SIS, published in 2009 and 2010, respectively, as part of the centenary celebrations of the two agencies (see Figure 3).17 The CIA, while declining to follow its ‘cousins’ and sponsor an official history, has nevertheless been extremely proactive in trying to promote its history. It maintains a public website – www.cia.gov – which provides links to streams of declassified documents, as well as hundreds of unclassified and declassified articles from its journal Studies in Intelligence. Visitors to the website can also find historical monographs on subjects such as the CIA’s relationship with Congress; Archangel (the CIA’s A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft); and CORONA (America’s first satellite programme).18 Moreover, the CIA has its own History Staff, with a clear public outreach mission.19 CIA Staff Historians can increasingly be found providing presentations for the purposes of think tanks, university seminars and academic conferences. Recent concerted attempts by secret services to influence public perceptions build on a string of ad hoc, one-off historiographical ventures, which were carried out during the Cold War. In 1963, for example, the CIA secretly assisted fabled former Director Allen Dulles with the production of his primer on espionage, The Craft of Intelligence, even ‘ghosting’ large parts of the text. The book, which made no mention of covert action, focusing exclusively on the far less contentious issue of intelligence analysis, was seen by CIA officials as a valuable public relations tool to offset some of the damage caused by the botched Bay of Pigs landings in 1961.20 In the early 1960s, British intelligence also sought

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 9

21/02/2013 08:23

10

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 3 Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew with his book, The Defence of the Realm (Press Association, PA. 7891135)

to ‘write the record’ by agreeing to an official history of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France, eventually completed by (the late) M. R. D. Foot in 1966. The book had been conceived in Whitehall as a political weapon designed to counter biased Soviet and American histories of wartime Resistance, which

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 10

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

11

had ignored the British contribution.21 In 1979, the British went a step further, publishing the first volume of Harry Hinsley’s widely acclaimed five-volume official history of British intelligence in the Second World War. Commissioned a decade earlier, with strong support from the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Burke Trend, Hinsley’s history was designed, at least in part, to rehabilitate the reputation of British intelligence after damaging disclosures about upper-class moles, including Kim Philby, who, from a safe haven in Moscow in 1968, had published a devastating memoir, which trumpeted his treachery and excoriated the British establishment.22 * * * This collection is divided into two parts, each comprised of eight chapters. Whereas the first part deals largely with historiography pertaining to American secret services, the second part focuses on British intelligence literature. In Chapter 1, Richard J. Aldrich illuminates the important role of activist writing by leftist journalists in the shaping of the early public profile of the CIA. Building on an in-depth case study of The Cloak and Dollar War (1953) – the first history of the Agency, written by a British Marxist, Gordon Stewart – Aldrich argues that the CIA exercised a peculiar fascination for a generation of activists over some two decades. Like Aldrich and many of the other contributors in this part, Eric Pullin is concerned with the development of CIA historiography, in this case, the literature that examines the CIA’s covert sponsorship of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). In a broad, yet meaningful, sweep of the extant literature, Pullin demonstrates how writers have had to overcome ‘routine obstructionism’ by the CIA, which has peremptorily refused to release documents on many aspects of its Cold War ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns. Pleasingly, argues Pullin, writers have refused to be held hostage to the fragmentary records that have surfaced; rather, they have found information elsewhere. In Chapter 3, Matthew Jones and Paul McGarr also explore the issue of declassification, as they chart the battles that have been fought over the incorporation of CIA activity within the State Department’s long-established documentary series, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). According to Jones and McGarr, the CIA’s part in the ‘declassification wars’ that have plagued the FRUS series provides fascinating insights into the CIA’s motivation for protecting its equity in the contested landscape of US foreign policy. In Chapter 4, CIA Staff Historian Nicholas Dujmovic considers the lasting impact of Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes (2007) – the most recently published one-volume history of the CIA. Dujmovic forensically takes the book apart, exposing not only the many factual inaccuracies, but Weiner’s judicious selection of source material. In a provocative central thesis, Dujmovic proposes that

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 11

21/02/2013 08:23

12

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the book should be taught to students of intelligence, if only to reveal to them how history can be twisted or ‘spun’ by authorial agenda. The next essay considers the evolution of historiography on CIA covert action. In his analysis of a myriad of books on the subject, Kaeten Mistry contends that historiographical controversies about covert action have framed the larger debate on US foreign policy and American power. In Chapter 6, Melissa Graves surveys the defining debates in the historiography of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Graves begins with the observation that books about the FBI were, for a long time, little more than sycophantic biographies of J. Edgar Hoover – the first and longest-serving Director of the Bureau. Some works, Graves reveals, were sponsored by Hoover himself, who was keen to promote the comic-strip image of a well-oiled machine, peopled by G-Men gunning down gangsters and thwarting communists with the latest scientific techniques. The next two chapters shift attention to the popular culture of intelligence. In Chapter 7, Simon Willmetts discusses the place of culture as both an object of study and an interpretive framework. In a bid to break the divide between spy fiction and the academic study of intelligence, he contends that scholars of intelligence should engage more with postmodern philosophers of history, such as Fredric Jameson and Hayden White, as well as literary turns and cultural theory. In Chapter 8, Frederick P. Hitz – a former Inspector General of the CIA and Chief of European Operations – draws upon his inside knowledge of Anglo-US intelligence, in order to compare a number of real espionage cases with fictional spies, who have been created by the likes of John le Carré. In doing so, he shows that spy fact is invariably stranger than spy fiction. Robert Johnson kicks off Part 2 with an overview of the literature on ‘The Great Game’ – the struggle for supremacy between Britain and Tsarist Russia in Central Asia, which was immortalised by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim. Specifically, he tours the literature that conceptualises The Great Game as an intelligence contest, carried out by brave and heroic clandestine agents, rather than just a symptom of geostrategy and great power politics. In Chapter 10, Jim Beach provides an authoritative survey of the historiography of British military intelligence. Military intelligence history, Beach notes, sits at the intersection between military history and intelligence studies; in view of this, there is no formal grouping of military intelligence historians and no universal adherence to an explicit and exclusive intellectual programme. The next essay, by Samantha Newbery, covers the historiography of interrogation and intelligence-gathering. Newbery shows that the current literature is divided into three main areas. First, there are works that consider whether interrogation techniques can ever be justified. Second, there are works that ponder the effectiveness of interrogation. And third, there is a body of scholarship concentrating on torture. According

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 12

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

13

to Newbery, the study of interrogation for intelligence purposes has a broad intellectual base, with inputs from political scientists, lawyers, psychologists and moral philosophers. The next four chapters all examine and reflect upon seminal spy books. In Chapter 12, Christopher Murphy draws on new archival evidence to expose Whitehall’s ‘vetting’ of M. R. D. Foot’s classic official history, SOE in France (1966). Murphy reveals that, in the months leading up to the eventual publication of the book in April 1966, the authorities screened the text from every possible angle, making particular efforts to ensure that the history did not offend the French, especially President Charles de Gaulle, who had the power to veto Britain’s application to join the Common Market. Daniel Lomas provides similar insights into official attitudes towards disclosure with a richly researched chapter on the genesis of The London Cage – the 1957 memoir of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Scotland. During the Second World War, Scotland had headed the section of the War Office that was responsible for interrogating enemy prisoners of war, known colloquially as the ‘London Cage’. Submitted for censorship in 1954, his memoir was published after a three-year delay, and only after all the incriminating material, including suggestions of torture, had been deleted. In Chapter 14, Adam Svendsen proposes that 1968 was a ‘Year to Remember’ for the study of British intelligence, owing to the publication of a number of landmark spy memoirs, including Donald McLachlan’s Room 39 and Kenneth Strong’s Intelligence at the Top. Such works, Svendsen argues, were symbolic of a new era of liberalisation in Whitehall concerning intelligence history. In the penultimate chapter, legendary investigative journalist and spy writer Chapman Pincher explores the origins and legacy of his most famous work, Their Trade is Treachery (1981), which publicised, for the first time, the allegation that Sir Roger Hollis – a former Director General of MI5 – had been a Soviet spy. In the final chapter, Christopher Baxter and Keith Jeffery offer a timely look at the commissioning and writing of official histories of intelligence. As discussed earlier, in 2009 and 2010, MI5 and SIS boldly celebrated their centenary with authorised accounts, with Jeffery penning the volume on the SIS. Certain cynics have suggested that governments should not be writing their own history, while other detractors bemoan the fact that the authors in question are allowed to inspect documents that the rest of the academic community may not see for generations, if at all.23 Baxter and Jeffery consider these issues and explore the type of access that official historians are given. Overall, this collection represents an original investigation of the moods and trends in intelligence studies, throughout its phases of development. It is hoped that readers will both widen and deepen their interest in intelligence historiography, which, in turn, should help to inform and enliven current debates in the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 13

21/02/2013 08:23

14

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

field. The time has come to think about what it means to be a scholar of intelligence today.

Notes 1 Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984); Oliver Hoare (ed.), ‘British Intelligence in the Twentieth Century: A Missing Dimension?’, Intelligence and National Security, Special Issue 17(1), 2000; Calder Walton and Christopher Andrew, ‘Still the Missing Dimension: British Intelligence and the Historiography of British Decolonisation’, in Patrick Major and Christopher Moran (eds), Spooked: Britain, Empire and Intelligence since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009); Hilary Footitt, ‘Another Missing Dimension? Foreign Languages in World War II Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 25(3), 2010, pp. 271–89; Philip H. J. Davies, ‘The Missing Dimension’s Missing Dimension’, Public Policy and Administration, 25(1), 2010, pp. 5–9. 2 Michael Warner, ‘Wanted: A Definition of “Intelligence” ’, Studies in Intelligence, 46(2), 2002; Arthur S. Hulnick, ‘What’s Wrong with the Intelligence Cycle?’, Intelligence and National Security, 21(6), December 2006, pp. 959–79; Loch Johnson, ‘Preface to a Theory of Strategic Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 16(4), 2003, pp. 638–63; Loch Johnson, ‘Bricks and Mortar for a Theory of Intelligence’, Comparative Strategy, 22(1), 2003, pp. 1–28; Wesley K. Wark, ‘The Study of Intelligence: Past, Present, Future?’, Intelligence and National Security, 8(3), July 1993, pp. 1–13; Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Did Waldegrave Work? The Impact of Open Government Upon British History’, Twentieth Century British History, 9(1), 1998, pp. 111–26; Richard J. Aldrich, ‘“Grow your own”: Cold War Intelligence and History Supermarkets’, Intelligence and National Security, 17(1), Spring 2002, pp. 135–52; Len Scott and Peter Jackson, ‘The Study of Intelligence in Theory and Practice’, Intelligence and National Security, 19(2), Summer 2004, pp. 139–69; Michael Goodman, ‘Studying and Teaching About Intelligence: The Approach in the United Kingdom’, Studies in Intelligence, 50(2), 2006; Len Scott, ‘Sources and Methods in the Study of Intelligence: A British View’, Intelligence and National Security, 22(2), April 2007, pp. 185–205; Richard C. Thurlow, ‘The Historiography and Source Materials in the Study of Internal Security in Modern Britain (1885– 1956)’, History Compass, 6(1), January 2008, pp. 147–71; R. Gerald Hughes and Len Scott, ‘“Knowledge is Never too Dear”: Exploring Intelligence Archives’, in R. Gerald Hughes, Peter Jackson and Len Scott (eds), Exploring Intelligence Archives: Enquiries into the Secret State (London: Routledge, 2008). 3 John Ferris, Intelligence and Strategy: Selected Essays (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 101. 4 Cited in Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 8. 5 See Christopher Moran, Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 6 Eddie Chapman, The Eddie Chapman Story (New York, NY: Messner, 1953).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 14

21/02/2013 08:23

Introduction

15

7 See Frank Snepp, Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle over Free Speech (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999). 8 Bernard Porter, ‘Secrets from the Edge’, Intelligence and National Security, 9(4), 1994, p. 763. 9 Christopher Moran, ‘Intelligence and the Media: The Buster Crabb Affair, Secrecy and the Press’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(5), 2011, pp. 676–700. 10 H. Macmillan to D. Sandys, 4 May 1959, TNA PREM 11/2800. 11 ‘Over 10 Million Pages of CIA Declassified Records Available’, available at: https://www. cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2007-featured-story-archive/ over-10-million-pages-of-cia-declassified-records-available.html. 12 HC Deb, 21 November 1979, Hansard, vol. 974, cc402–520. 13 HC Stmnt: [Security] (Roger Hollis), 26 March 1981, Hansard HC [1/1079-85], available at: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104603. 14 Peter Wright (with Paul Greengrass), Spycatcher (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1987). 15 Malcolm Turnbull, The Spycatcher Trial (London: Heinemann, 1988), p. 75. 16 Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119, September 2004, pp. 922–53; Nicholas Wilkinson, Secrecy and the Media: The Official History of the United Kingdom’s D-Notice System (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009); Christopher Moran and Simon Willmetts, ‘Secrecy, Censorship and Beltway Books: Understanding the Work of the CIA’s Publications Review Board’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 24(2), 2011, pp. 239–52. 17 Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009); Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service (London: Bloomsbury, 2010). 18 Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csipublications/books-and-monographs/index.html. 19 Nicholas Dujmovic, ‘Getting CIA History Right: The Informal Partnership between Agency Historians and Outside Scholars’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), 2011, pp. 228–45. 20 See Christopher Moran, ‘The Last Assignment: David Atlee Phillips and the Birth of CIA Public Relations’, International History Review (forthcoming 2013). 21 Christopher J. Murphy, ‘The Origins of SOE in France’, Historical Journal, 46, 2003, pp. 936–52. 22 Kim Philby, My Silent War: Autobiography of a Spy (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968). 23 See, for example, David Walker, ‘Just How Intelligent?’, Guardian Education, 18 February 2003, p. 15; Anthony Glees, ‘Can the Spooks be Spooked?’, Times Higher Education, 17 June 2005, pp. 16–17.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 15

21/02/2013 08:23

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 16

21/02/2013 08:23

PART I AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE HISTORIOGRAPHY

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 17

21/02/2013 08:23

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 18

21/02/2013 08:23

Chapter 1 CIA HISTORY AS A COLD WAR BATTLEGROUND: THE FORGOTTEN FIRST WAVE OF AGENCY NARRATIVES Richard J. Aldrich Where does the history of the history of intelligence begin? As a self-conscious academic subject, intelligence history is widely understood to have started in the 1980s. In Britain, Christopher Andrew and David Dilks proclaimed a deliberate manifesto for intelligence historians in 1984, urging scholars to explore the ‘missing dimension’. Broadly contemporaneous with this, the American historian Richard Immerman asserted that it was important to incorporate covert action into any sophisticated understanding of foreign policy. The mid-1980s also saw the creation of the journal Intelligence and National Security, edited by Christopher Andrew and Michael Handel.1 Since that time, we have enjoyed an increasingly rich and complex series of studies in the field of intelligence history, both official and unofficial. By far, the greatest volume of writing has focused on the history of the CIA.2 Even in the early 1980s, there was already a rich book literature on the CIA. This was the result of more than twenty years of exposure by investigative journalists and, latterly, disgruntled former officers. This ‘vernacular’ history of the CIA is often thought to begin in early 1960.3 Although the analytical role of the CIA had received some press attention in the 1950s, its more secret activities were spotlighted by the shoot-down of a U-2 spy-plane, which was piloted by Gary Powers in May 1960.4 This trend towards exposure was reinforced by the ill-fated Bay of Pigs operation intended to topple Castro in April 1961, which highlighted covert action. These dramatic events ‘lifted the lid’ on the CIA, encouraging journalists to be more aggressive in their writings about American intelligence and prompting them to probe the murky subject of covert action. Certainly, the first extended accounts of CIA activities to be written by American journalists, such as Andrew Tully, David Wise and Thomas Ross, were triggered by these events.5 The failed invasion of Cuba also hurt Allen Dulles personally. For more than a decade, Dulles had enjoyed the mystique of being America’s spymaster among Washington’s cognoscenti. Now, he had departed under a cloud. In April 1962, 19

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 19

21/02/2013 08:23

20

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 4 CIA Director Allen Dulles poses for cameras in Washington, DC on 24 January 1953 (Press Association, PA.4932615)

a year after the invasion, two of America’s most prominent Latin American correspondents – Tad Szulc of the New York Times and Karl E. Meyer of the Washington Post – published an account of the Bay of Pigs, which pinned the blame for the Bay of Pigs squarely on Allen Dulles and the CIA. Meanwhile,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 20

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

21

they exonerated John F. Kennedy and the White House. Szulc had, in fact, been extensively briefed by Arthur Schlesinger Jr and the Kennedy White House. The CIA complained that their descriptions of American intelligence were more acerbic than those to be found in the Soviet Press.6 The gloves were off, and this encouraged the CIA to put its own narrative into the public domain, beginning with Allen Dulles’s Craft of Intelligence in 1963 (see Figure 4). In fact, this book was partly ghost written by a team of CIA officials, who were working under the direction of Howard Roman.7 Over the next decade, there was a gradual increase of revelatory publications, beginning as a trickle in the early 1960s, but becoming a flood by the early 1970s. These accounts initially consisted of works by investigative reporters, inquiries by congressional committees and a growing corpus of memoirs, the latter of which were penned by disaffected officials. The CIA also enjoyed growing cultural representation in both films and fictions.8 In short, the early 1960s represented a period of exposure in which American journalists appeared to write the first draft of Agency history; to which, the CIA began to respond, with its first experiment in counter-narrative. The works of pioneering American journalists, such as Andrew Tully, David Wise and Thomas Ross, in the early 1960s are rightly regarded as the first mainstream popular ‘histories’ of the CIA. Yet, these were not, in fact, the first books produced on the CIA. The Agency enjoyed an even earlier pre-historiography of propagandistic works, which were inspired by the Soviet bloc. In 1964, when David Wise and Thomas Ross published their controversial book on the CIA, entitled Invisible Government, there was already a decade of world literature on the Agency. Between 1953 and 1964, approximately twenty books with a strong CIA focus were published, and most of these were produced outside the United States. During the 1950s, American journalists may have exercised self-restraint in their coverage of the CIA, avoiding operational detail and averting their eyes from covert action. However, this created a vacuum, which foreign writers and non-American publishers were more than happy to fill. Some of these foreign studies of the CIA were enterprising activities by independent journalists. However, the vast majority were themselves Cold War polemics, penned by writers working for the Soviet Bloc or by communistic fellow travellers in the West. The extent to which the intelligence services were engaged in a cultural Cold War during the 1950s and 1960s is widely understood.9 However, we have not yet appreciated the extent to which these intelligence services were themselves increasingly drawn into a competitive process of narrative and counter-narrative. Communist parties around the world vied with each other to produce propagandistic works on CIA misdemeanours, which – they claimed – symbolised American foreign policy in general. Moscow

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 21

21/02/2013 08:23

22

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

was especially keen to spotlight the CIA’s activities in the Third World as symptomatic of neo-imperialism. In other words, the first wave of CIA history was itself part of the Cold War struggle and constituted a propaganda battleground.10 In short, this essay asserts that the origin of CIA historiography lies within the dynamics of the Cold War conflict itself. Despite a professed commitment to the clandestine, the spies of both East and West were themselves the first to begin lifting the veil of secrecy around their own work. It is difficult to detect who fired the first ‘shot’ in the evolving battle of self-narration by the intelligence services. One candidate may well be the 1948 memoir of the Soviet Glavnoye Razvedovatel’noye Upravlenie (GRU) cypher clerk, Igor Gouzenko, who defected in Canada, shortly after the end of the Second World War.11 Alexander Foote’s memoir of his work as a member of the fabled Red Orchestra, which was published in 1949, is another strong contender. This latter work was effectively ghostwritten by the British authorities and was certainly read and cleared by Sir Stewart Menzies – then Chief of the SIS – prior to publication. The KGB, the Stasi, MI5, MI6, IRD and the CIA all sponsored book-length manuscripts concerning each other in this remarkable battle of the books.12 The forgotten first wave of Moscow-inspired writing on the CIA is as obscure as it is mysterious. Beginning in 1953, this essay seeks to explore five writers who were particularly important in its genesis: Gordon Stewart, Julius Mader, Bob Edwards, Carl Marzani and Joachim Joesten. While their work is different, they cross reference each other regularly, and their quarry is the same – effectively, they hunt as a pack.13 Although much of this first wave of writing was clearly inspired by Moscow and its satellites, its impact on public opinion outside the Eastern Bloc appears to have been limited. However, by the mid-1960s, the picture was changing, as mainstream authors began to draw on this material. The CIA’s negative public profile was damaging its relations with the developing regions, notably South Asia and South America. Perhaps unconsciously, these works had also begun to tap into America’s boundless appetite for conspiracy theories. Langley was now aware that it was a target, and the complex relationship between secrecy, public profile and reputation was looming ever larger during the meetings that the Director of the CIA held each morning with his senior staff. THE CLOAK AND DOLLAR WAR

The first book on the CIA appeared in 1953. Entitled The Cloak and Dollar War, it offered reprise of the CIA’s covert action programme in Europe, including its propaganda operations and its failed attempts to roll back communism in countries such as Poland and Hungary. Substantial space was devoted to justifying

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 22

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

23

the show trials of Western agents uncovered in Eastern Europe during 1951 and 1952. Produced in Britain as a political tract by a far-Left publishing company, its tone was propagandistic and shrill. Although it now appears to be a slender text, to write any sort of a book about the CIA, a mere six years after the Agency was created, was, nevertheless, a remarkable achievement. Moreover, some of the detail that it provided on the CIA’s operations in the East was compelling and, in places, wholly accurate. It covers not only the work of the CIA in Poland and Hungary, but also the growing architecture of US Cold War operations, including Truman’s Psychological Strategy Board.14 Its author, Gordon Neil Stewart, spotlights the remarkable openness of the CIA’s Cold War fighting campaign in the early 1950s. Stewart was then employed by the Hungarian News and Information Service and, although it is clear that the book was driven by a certain degree of inside knowledge, much of the detail – and, indeed, particularly its more compelling sections – are drawn directly from a close reading of the international press. Stewart used explicit references to respected Western media outlets and well-known journalists to great effect, in order to substantiate his story. For example, he quoted James Reston of the New York Times, giving details of the CIA’s ‘mushroom growth’ under Walter Bedell Smith, including its budget and its twenty-two buildings in central Washington.15 In his chapter on ‘The Department of Dirty Tricks’, he quotes New York Times correspondent C. L. Sulzeberger’s report of 9 April 1951, in which he asserted: Operational political warfare against puppet regimes in Soviet satellite states has now started . . . Leaflets have been scattered over Albania and Bulgaria. Special underground radio stations apparently are being erected to encourage opposition elements . . . A number of parachuted agents have landed in the (Albanian) mountains.16

In his chapter ‘West Berlin – Spy Centre’, Stewart used the British press to substantiate the charge that the CIA was helping to create a new German intelligence service with links to ‘neo-fascist organisations’. He quoted Sefton Delmer of the London Daily Express (and former Political Warfare Executive [PWE] Operative), who noted: For the time being the ex-Nazi graduates of the allied re-education camp again are on their best behaviour . . . The secret Intelligence organisation run by MajorGeneral Gehlen, former head of Hitler’s Soviet intelligence section, is an expel in point. General Gelen’s organisation is receiving $3 ½ million a year (about £11/4 million) from its American sponsors, a sum they are able to multiply into many times its dollar value by skilful market operations . . .17

Stewart’s book was published by Lawrence & Wishart – a company that specialised in Leftist books and Marxist political tracts. Indeed, Lawrence & Wishart

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 23

21/02/2013 08:23

24

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

was almost an arm of the Communist Party of Great Britain and was closely networked with groups of pro-Soviet figures moving between London and the continent. Gordon Neil Stewart was a colourful character. Born on 25 June 1912 to a wealthy family in Melbourne, who owned substantial amounts of land in the Bathurst district of New South Wales, he was the great-grandson of MajorGeneral William Stewart, who had been Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales in the 1820s. Stewart enjoyed a rather episodic education at The Scots College in Sydney, on account of the fact that his parents were great travellers. However, he soon developed a love of books, as a result of long summer holidays spent reading in the library of his uncle’s residence – the vast forty-bedroomed Abercrombie House in Bathurst. Stewart’s predominant educational and cultural influence was inter-war France. In his late teens, Stewart oscillated between Paris, where his father was working, and London, where other members of his family were living. He began to move in literary and artistic circles, attending an English language school in Paris, before studying at the Sorbonne. In his twenties, he moved permanently to London, where he worked as a journalist and writer of popular history. 18 Stewart served as an artillery officer in the Far East during the Second World War, before returning to a career in writing and journalism. By the late 1940s, he was working for the Hungarian News and Information Services in London19 and, by 1952, had become its London Director.20 Hungary was engaged in a vigorous propaganda war with the West. The British Council had recently been ‘ejected’ from Hungary, accompanied by ‘allegations of espionage’ relating to its employees during a wave of increasingly bitter show-trials, some of which involved Noel Field. Similar episodes were in train within Albania, Rumania and Russia, although the British Council was still working in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Bulgaria.21 Stewart was also becoming interested in American espionage. In 1952, he published an article in World News and Views called ‘Washington – World Spy Centre’.22 This magazine was the weekly equivalent of the Daily Worker – the newspaper of the British Communist Party.23 What Stewart had discovered was that Washington’s secret spy centre was, in fact, an open secret. As we have seen, a great deal of his material was culled by simply going to the British Library and carefully perusing the New York Times and the Washington Post. Most American journalists were cautious about mentioning intelligence in the 1950s, but the material was there, if you knew where to look. This research was mingled with Soviet Bloc news material on liberation activities. Yet, while Stewart’s book on the CIA was remarkable for 1953, it failed to cause a splash. The print run seems to have been respectable, and, yet, it attracted no mainstream press discussion

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 24

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

25

or reviews and was noticed primarily by like-minded individuals, who regularly purchased Left-wing tracts.24 Lawrence & Wishart – the publishing company who published the book – had long-standing connections with Soviet espionage, which stretched back into the 1930s. The first Director of Wishart Books, Douglas Garman, had lived in Leningrad in the 1930s. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1934, but resigned to become a secret member in 1935. Garman was the Director of Wishart Books from 1935. In 1936, Wishart books merged with Martin Lawrence Books – the Communist Party’s official publisher. In the late 1930s, the manager at Martin Lawrence was Douglas Parsons. Parsons joined the Communist Party in 1923. In the 1930s, he was also employed by the Daily Worker. In 1938, MI5 decided to give Lawrence & Wishart concerted attention, because of a dawning realisation that it ‘has employed and been directed for many years by Communists and persons suspected of espionage’.25 MI5’s interest in Lawrence & Wishart had been sparked by the famous 1938 Woolwich Arsenal case. This saw Percy Glading – a leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain – convicted of military espionage for the Soviets. Thereafter, MI5 applied to the Home Office with the request to tap the two telephones in the offices of Lawrence & Wishart, noting that it had become increasingly clear that these premises were used for ‘illegal and conspiratorial activities’. Five of the six Directors were active members of the Communist Party, and two were closely associated with soviet military espionage. The key figure under surveillance was Douglas Parsons, who was believed to have been the courier for Percy Glading and had regular contact with Soviet military intelligence operatives working out of Moscow’s London embassy. In 1956, MI5 were still working with the Metropolitan Special Branch to keep Lawrence & Wishart under surveillance.26 During the early 1950s, Stewart was himself under MI5 surveillance.27 In conducting his work for the Hungarians, Stewart also worked under the aliases Gordon Anderson and John Weston. He decided to leave Britain and return to Australia in June 1955, and MI5 handed his case to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), who tailed him assiduously, literally from the moment he stepped off the gangplank on arrival in Sydney. Thereafter, Stewart became the editor of Friendship – the magazine of the Australian–Soviet Friendship Society, and worked in Sydney as a labour journalist, largely covering the mining and construction industry. He was still attending meetings of the Bondi Beach branch of the Communist Party of Australia in 1969. However, his interest had now drifted away from espionage towards anthologies of Australian writings on the supernatural. In 1983, he retired to the family seat of Bathurst.28 In old age, he was

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 25

21/02/2013 08:23

26

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

fascinated by revelations about the cultural Cold War. A friend brought him a recent copy of The New Yorker. This contained a long article, which was apparently ‘very well researched’, showing how the US Government ‘had almost all the prominent writers spied on and under police surveillance’. He noted that even Edmund Wilson, who had studied Marxism in order to refute it, had a dossier with the FBI. Stewart pondered: ‘I wonder how much literary spying is done here?’29 But by this stage, it was the Reagan era, and Stewart regularly joked with his friend, Jack Beasley, that: ‘The great thing about modern literature is the writers don’t have dossiers with ASIO – they are all good conservatives!’30 He was especially fascinated to learn that Ronald Reagan had once informed on his actor colleagues. Stewart had now begun his own memoirs, which might well have contained their own revelations, but with the Cold War over and the Soviet Union dissolved, he was agonising over how to deal with communism without appearing ‘patronising’. The memoirs were still incomplete when he died on 15 February 1999.31 ALLEN DULLES AS SPYMASTER

During the late 1950s, the target of Eastern Bloc writing about the CIA shifted. The new focus was predominantly personal attacks on Allen Dulles – America’s emblematic spy-chief. Allen Dulles had served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as the head of the Berne station during the Second World War, and post-war, he had acted as a consultant on the structure of the early CIA in 1948. In 1953, he succeeded Walter Bedell Smith as the Director of Central Intelligence, having served as his deputy for the previous two years. Although the CIA had enjoyed a public relations effort since its inception in 1947, there was a step change with the advent of Allen Dulles. From his elegant house in the Georgetown district of Washington, Dulles sought to charm the press, inviting trusted journalists to his dinner table for ‘off the record’ briefings. Although concerted efforts were made to keep the CIA’s covert action programmes out of the public eye, Dulles was comfortable about general press coverage of the CIA as an intelligence machine and provided the press with exclusive interviews in the CIA headquarters building as early as 1954.32 Adopting a wistful air, he enjoyed being photographed in the DCI’s office against a map of the world, on which the Eastern Bloc was adorned with marker pins. In short, Dulles relished being the public face of American espionage. His wartime role as head of the OSS station in Berne was widely known, and Dulles himself had already published a book entitled Germany’s Underground.33 All this provided Moscow with a target of opportunity. As Paul Maddrell has demonstrated, perhaps the most interesting example of Eastern Bloc writers

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 26

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

27

on intelligence during the 1950s is Julius Mader. In 1959, he penned a study of Dulles and the CIA entitled Allen’s Gangster’s in Action. This book was expanded and re-issued in 1961.34 Like Gordon Stewart’s work, this study contained a great deal of factually accurate material, but, at the same time, it was also deliberately propagandistic and selective. Indeed, Mader’s book on Dulles draws largely on Gordon Stewart’s earlier study.35 As Maddrell demonstrates, Mader was working closely with the authorities and was regarded as on ‘special duty’ with the Stasi or Ministry of State Security from 1958, while simultaneously working for the East German publisher DieWirtschaft. 36 Mader’s real name was Thomas Bergner, and he was born in 1928 in the Czech village of Radejcˇín. His family was Sudeten German, and they were forcibly moved to the Soviet Zone of Germany in 1945. However, this offered him the opportunity to study political science and law at the Universities of Berlin and Jena, the Institute of Internal Trade in Leipzig and the German Academy for Political and Legal Science in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Mader wrote many books on espionage, and his main focus was West Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), and its sister agency, the West German Security Service or BfV. However, the CIA and its British sister service – the SIS – were always present, because of their sponsorship and tutelage of Bonn’s new security agencies. Mader’s approach reflected his primary audience – the population of East Germany. The central argument in all of his work – on both the BND and the CIA – was hidden Nazis and the collaboration with neo-fascists. Mader dwelled at length on the wartime credentials of the first head of the BND – Reinhard Gehlen – claiming that he was a Nazi war criminal. The distasteful idea of Nazi associations was also deployed in his treatment of Dulles, focusing on his wartime efforts with the OSS to search for an early peace and ‘secret surrender’ of some of Germany’s forces in northern Italy through mediation in Switzerland.37 In other words, Mader drew on themes already present in the writings of Dulles, albeit placing a malignant interpretation upon them. Thereafter, he spent a great deal of time researching the issue of Nazi gold.38 Some of Mader’s discussion of the CIA focused on intelligence analysis. He argued that the CIA’s Office of National Estimates was ‘the greatest falsifier in the world’, distorting its picture of global events and, therefore, warping US foreign policy. He also suggested that intrusions by spy-planes amounted to provocative activity by the CIA, which endangered peace. However, like Gordon Stewart, his main charge was to suggest that the CIA, SIS and BND were all engaged in ‘Cold War fighting’, which was dangerous and amounted to warmongering. The primary audience for Maders’ work was the Eastern Bloc, and its purpose was to alert the populations of the Soviet empire to be on watch for

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 27

21/02/2013 08:23

28

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Western subversion, meanwhile, extending a useful legitimacy to the activities of the Eastern Bloc security services. Accordingly, like Stewart, Mader dwells at length on the radio broadcasting of units, such as Radio Free Europe, and the campaigns of leaflet propaganda. He documents the contact between Western intelligence and émigré organisations, including the Ukrainians, who were undoubtedly fighting a terroristic campaign inside the Soviet borderlands in the 1950s.39 Perhaps his most serious charge was the interplay of the CIA and the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps with Germans of an unsavoury Nazi past. Mader’s personal attacks on Dulles also seek to cast up a pro-Nazi theme within the secret surrender negotiations, designed to knock out the German war effort in north Italy. Here, he employed a range of dubious ‘documents’, which seem to have been provided by the Soviets. Mader alleged that, during the Second World War, Dulles was pro-German, friendly to fascism and anti-Semitic. He added that Dulles owed primary allegiance to rich and powerful private commercial interests. The explicit assumption was that this new CIA was the servant of big business and corporate greed was a key theme in Mader’s writing.40 While his writings were highly propagandistic, few of his claims can be shown to be entirely untrue. In 1961, Moscow appears to have sponsored an attempt to replay Mader’s themes for Western audiences. Their chosen vehicle was the British Member of Parliament Bob Edwards, who had fought alongside George Orwell in the Spanish Civil War and had subsequently written the introduction to Homage to Catatonia. A long-serving member of the Chemical Workers Union, he had visited Moscow on their behalf as early as 1927 and, by 1947, had become Secretary of the Union. Transferring from the Independent Labour Party to mainstream Labour, he served as MP for Bilston (1955–74) and later as MP for Wolverhampton south-east from 1974 to 1987. Edwards was prominent in Europe, and, by 1966, he had become Vice Chairman of the Western European Union Defence committee. He was a frequent commentator on German issues and accused both Britain and the United States of conspiring to divide Europe, insisting that the German leader Adenauer was essentially a Hitler in Atlanticist clothing.41 Christopher Andrew’s recent studies of Soviet espionage describe Bob Edwards as a veteran KGB agent and an enthusiastic participant in Sovietinfluenced operations. In 1980, Moscow decided to award him the Order of People’s Friendship – their third highest decoration. His KGB case officer, Leonid Zaitsev, was allowed to take this medal to a meeting with him in Brussels in order to show it to him, although it was kept on file in Moscow.42 Edwards was an active part of the European Movement – ironically, an organisation

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 28

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

29

which was heavily subsidised by the CIA.43 One of his key tasks during the 1950s appears to have been to keep an eye on American efforts to support East European exile groups in Western Europe through the various components of the European Movement.44 As a veteran Europeanist, he was well connected in European security circles and ideally placed to report to Moscow on the politics of West European defence. Harold Wilson consulted him on the composition of UK delegations to the Council of Europe, while the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Council regularly asked his advice on administrative appointments within his organisation.45 In 1961, Edwards co-authored, with Kenneth Dunne, a short study of Dulles, entitled Portrait of a Master Spy. Edwards claimed that this book was ‘the first exposure of the CIA’.46 But soon afterwards, the CIA learned that the book was not written Edwards and Dunne at all, but merely fronted by them. The original text was researched in Moscow by Vasilli Sitnikov – a senior KGB officer – and only given a final polish in the UK before printing.47 Sitnikov was a career political-action officer and had served in Berlin and Vienna in the 1950s, before rising to the position of Deputy Head of Department D (Deception). The majority of his work was handling KGB contacts with Western newspapers, and one of his most important tasks was reputed to have been overseeing the placement of Kim Philby’s memoirs.48 The CIA’s response to the KGB’s campaign was to expose it. Allen Dulles chose to discuss the Master Spy book in a TV round table on 29 March 1964, which was chaired by Hanson W. Baldwin – the New York Times defence correspondent.49 Waving a copy of the offending book directly at the camera, Dulles publicly identified KGB officer Sitnikov as the real author. Dulles was joined on the chat show by Peter Deryabin – a Soviet intelligence officer, who had defected a few years earlier. Deryabin recalled serving alongside Sitnikov in his KGB Vienna residency in the 1950s. Dulles added: ‘He has a whole dossier on me, I’ve read some things here about myself that even I didn’t know’.50 Although Edwards had been publicly ‘outed’ by Dulles as a Soviet stooge, he continued to play the role of a dogged anti-CIA investigator. On 21 July 1964, only a few months after the Dulles riposte, Edwards questioned Duncan Sandys – the Colonial Secretary in the House of Commons – about CIA operations in British Guiana. In a heated exchange, Sandys openly asked if Edwards was accusing the CIA of conducting killings in that territory.51 Unsurprisingly, Master Spy replayed many of the ideas explored by Stewart and Mader. However, a new aspect of the narrative was the idea that US intelligence was spying on its own allies. It spotlighted the recent testimony of Martin and Mitchell – two recent defectors from America’s code-breaking service, the National Security Agency (NSA). The defectors had related how NSA deciphered the telegrams of more than forty countries, including NATO allies Turkey,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 29

21/02/2013 08:23

30

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Italy and France. They also discussed the deliberate sale of American cipher machines, so as to compromise the communications of allies. Edwards and Dunne were perhaps the first to point to the possibility of CIA espionage inside Britain. They stated that, in Britain alone, there were some 4,000 American officials and service personnel, and they openly speculated as to what their real intentions were. They noted that academic commentators had critiqued the CIA for failing to assess the impact of de Gaulle on France’s position in NATO. Edwards and Dunne concluded that the CIA was busy collecting intelligence on Western Europe and, indeed, within Britain. The wider theme that emerged was clearly American neo-imperialism.52 Inevitably, the book also dwelled on ‘the famous negotiations that took place in Switzerland’. They insisted that Dulles had compromised British agents and was seeking to turn Hitler against Russia by concluding a separate peace.53 Like Stewart’s 1953 tract on Cold War fighting, the text, which was produced under the names of Edwards and Dunne, presents a puzzle. If Moscow wished to use its agents of influence to write anti-CIA literature, why issue it through obscure Leftist publishers, whose footprint was marginal, at best? The chosen outlet was Housmans’ – a small, independent, radical publisher, whose traction was modest. The initial publication seems to have reached only readers of farLeft literature and was not widely reviewed. However, their work was re-issued in Spanish and widely circulated in Latin America. It was issued in an expanded edition, with an essay on Challe and the CIA by Claude Krief, an article on the CIA and ‘Operation 40’ in Cuba by Drew Pearson and an essay on the CIA and Guatemala by Gregorio Selser.54 More importantly, Master Spy was reproduced, with only limited changes, as an American magazine article by Fred J. Cook. Later authors, including Carl Marzani and Joachim Joesten, drew on the book in their own writings on the CIA. Master Spy exploited the first American academic literature on intelligence. It picked up and amplified concerns being voiced by mainstream American academics, such as Harry Howe Ransom. In the 1950s, Ransom was a professor of Political Science at Michigan State College. In 1959, he published a path-breaking academic analysis of the US national intelligence structure, entitled Central Intelligence and National Security. In 1970, a second edition appeared as The Intelligence Establishment. Its main focus was intelligence analysis and national estimates, and many officials regarded this as a sober and reliable account of the US intelligence system. Master Spy cited Ransom, in order to buttress the claims that the CIA had its own secretive foreign policy. Ransom had voiced his own concerns at the idea of a shadow state department, which spent large sums on ‘undercover political intrigue’. Observers, Ransom continued, ‘often get the impression that CIA agents, and the Intelligence operatives of other

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 30

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

31

Government agencies, are in uncoordinated fashion in every dark alley, behind every bush’.55 In April 1961, this emerging theme – an undercover element to foreign policy, which was a public menace – was given new life by the advent of the Bay of Pigs.56 Moreover, the visible and high profile failure of the Cuban escapade also allowed pro-Soviet writers to intensify their focus on Dulles.57 CARL MARZANI AND THE BAY OF PIGS

Carl Marzani was an extraordinary figure. Over a career that spanned half a century, he rubbed shoulders with Bill Donovan, Dick Helms, Arthur Schlesinger, John Ford and Walt Rostow. An Italian–American immigrant, he pursued several careers over his lifetime, as an intelligence officer, diplomat, writer, editor and publisher. Having served in the wartime OSS, it is now clear that he was also an operative for the KGB. In 1947, he was prosecuted for concealing his Communist Party membership and sentenced to three years in prison after a trial that reached the American Supreme Court. From the 1950s onwards, he used his Left-orientated publishing companies as a vehicle for Moscow’s information operations, and, indeed, his enterprises were kept afloat by sizeable Soviet financial subsidies. In the early summer of 1961, Marzani joined with Robert Light to rush out the first book on the CIA and the Bay of Pigs, entitled Cuba vs. the CIA. Like Gordon Stewart’s contribution, this was little more than a pamphlet, since it was a mere seventy-two pages. Nevertheless, books with the term ‘CIA’ in the title were not commonplace in 1961. Marzani and Light consciously replayed the familiar themes that were favoured by previous pro-Soviet writers. They traced the career of Dulles and claimed to publish: ‘for the first time in the US we believe – a Hitler SS document covering Dulles’ meeting with a Nazi representative in 1943’. They explained that they were ‘indebted’ to Bob Edwards – a British MP – and his book Portrait of a Master Spy, for ‘many of the facts on Allen Dulles’.58 The main focus of the book was a detailed dissection of the decision-making process behind the Bay of Pigs, and, for this, they fingered the CIA. Like Stewart, they used the writings of mainstream American news outlets to substantiate their claims, quoting Newsweek on what it called the ‘astounding ineptitude’ of Allen Dulles.59 They also attacked the American press for censorship, pointing out that the Latin American press had been reporting on CIA training camps, which had been preparing for the operation for the best part of a year. Everyone in the world seemed to have had advanced warning of the Cuban invasion, except for the American public. The question no one was asking, they insisted, was why US involvement in the invasion came as a surprise to Americans:

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 31

21/02/2013 08:23

32

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US That it should have been a shock to the reading public is a black mark against American newspapers. Few stories have been more grossly mishandled and the public rarely has been lied to more wilfully [sic]. The story was there for all to see but the editors chose to wear blinkers. While the CIA operation was an open secret in Florida and throughout Latin America, U.S. publications pretended that the invasion preparations and the training camps were being handled by exiles.60

They were quite correct. The efforts of Tad Szulc – the top Latin American correspondent at The New York Times – to write a report on the Bay of Pigs a mere week before the event had caused a mixture of elation and anguish amongst the paper’s editors. The extent to which Szulc’s original story was ‘suppressed’ is still hotly debated, but there can be no doubt that references to the CIA were stripped away from the version that eventually appeared. Other outlets pulled their coverage altogether, at the request of the White House.61 Marzani and Light’s book was also one of the first to list the CIA’s major covert action operations. They discussed the coup against the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953 and the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. They insisted that the CIA had helped Nasser to power in Egypt and cited a British press report, which stated that the CIA had ‘disposed of Patrice Lumumba’ in the Congo. They also made assertions relating to the CIA’s activities in Laos, Algeria and Burma. They insisted that CIA policy was influenced by the secret police in countries aboard and also by exile communities, both of which were rabidly anti-communist and lacking in balance.62 Marzani and Light were advancing a wider proposition, arguing that the CIA was a proponent of Cold War fighting, insisting that it was a destabilising influence in the international system and an enemy of peace. They asserted: ‘Perhaps the most important consequence of the failure of the Cuban invasion is that for the first time the American people have had a glimpse of the sinister influence of the CIA in foreign policy’.63 What Marzani did not reveal was his personal Cuban story. In September 1960, Marzani had visited Europe and the Soviet Union. In January 1961, he returned to New York and began working on a Spanish-language edition of his book on the Cold War, to be published in Havana. The Cuban delegation at the United Nations arranged for him to visit Havana in February, in order to do the final checking on the proofs. Staying at the Havana Hilton, he met up with an old friend, Eddie Boorstein – an economist who had served alongside Marzani in the Research and Analysis Division of OSS during the war. Like Marzani, Boorstein was Leftist and was now on the staff of Che Guevara and was the head of the Cuban National Bank. He also met up with his old friend and fellow KGB agent Cedric Belfrage, who had served alongside the OSS in British Security Coordination in New York during the war.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 32

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

33

Belfrage introduced him to Colonel Jacob Arbenz – the President of Guatemala – who explained the details of how he had been overthrown by the CIA in 1954. Meanwhile, Eddie Boorstein arranged for him to meet Che Guevara. Marzani had been formally invited to discuss economic policy with Che Guevara, but they never got around to the proposed subject: My OSS buddy, Eddie Boorstein has ushered me into Che’s office. Che, at his desk, waved his cigar in greeting. Without preamble, Che said in Spanish: ‘Will their [sic] be an invasion?’ I said ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘When?’ I said, ‘Tomorrow evening . . . a week . . . a month . . . as soon as Kennedy gives the word’ ‘That’s what we think, too’ he said.

This exchange took place precisely six weeks before the Bay of Pigs occurred. They then proceeded to discuss military details and the likely size of the invasion. Marzani hazarded a guess that the Americans would put in two divisions with airpower, adding that the force of Cuban exiles trained by the CIA in Guatemala was just a ‘fig leaf’. Che, who loved discussing military affairs, was supremely confident that they would be defeated.64 During the last days of his visit to Cuba, Marzani had discussions with Rodriquez, one of Castro’s more influential aides. Marzani, always a fan of détente, argued for a rapprochement between Cuba and the Kennedy administration, suggesting that, on his return, he should contact Arthur Schlesinger – one of Kennedy’s close aides – in order to see what could be done. Marzani had offered advice to Schlesinger during the Kennedy campaign, relating to how to reach voters on the Left. He had also known Schlesinger in the OSS, and, while there was not exactly amity, there was courtesy and a trusted line of communication into the White House. He returned to New York on 10 February 1961, ready to begin his ‘small operation’. However, extreme turbulence in his private life delayed him in his efforts.65 He wrote to Schlesinger in late March, briefly setting out his ideas, and, on the first day of April, Schlesinger responded that he was aware of the arguments for rapprochement, but was not convinced.66 In November 1961, in the wake of the failed invasion, Marzani told Walt Rostow, another friend and former OSS comrade, that he felt a strong sense of guilt about not making the effort to go and see Schlesinger personally, although he thought that such an intervention would probably have made no difference.67 Carl Marzani felt at home with Che and Castro, because, for the last twenty years, he had also been a committed international revolutionary. Although Marzani was born in Rome in 1912, his family had immigrated to the United States in 1924, settling in Pennsylvania. Marzani was an outstanding student and won a scholarship that took him to Williams College. Here, he studied alongside Dick Helms – a future CIA chief – with whom he regularly reconnected with at various points throughout his life, including during his time in the OSS. He

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 33

21/02/2013 08:23

34

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

graduated in 1935, and, a year later, Williams College informed him that he had won a Moody Fellowship, taking him to Oxford University. En route to Oxford in 1936, he immersed himself in Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. He arrived to find European socialism convulsed by the Spanish Civil War. Marzani suspended his studies at Oxford to join the Durruti Column – the main anarchist group in Spain. Influenced by events in Spain, Marzani and his new wife, Edith, both joined the British Communist Party. Returning to New York in the summer of 1939, he was greeted by his professors at Williams College, ‘like returning Marco Polo’. Marzani told them: ‘I had been very impressed by the Communists in Spain, had found at Oxford that Marxism was a satisfying philosophy, and had joined the British Communist party. I was awaiting transfer to the American party’.68 In the late summer of 1939, many Leftists had been repulsed by Stalin’s decision to sign the Nazi– Soviet Pact, but Marzani praised its pragmatism. Indeed, he joined the American Communist party on 25 August 1939 – the day of the Nazi–Soviet Pact – and left on 23 August 1941. It seems likely – though by no means certain – that he was recruited as a KGB agent during this period. Accordingly, he attempted to keep his membership of the American Communist Party secret, joining under the alias of Tony Wales and deliberately seeking US Government service in late 1941.69 ‘The Soviet Union was invaded on June 22, 1941’, recalls Marzani. ‘A comrade’s phone call gave us the news; Edith and I were at section headquarters by five o’clock [in the morning] . . . we got coffee and Danish at an all-night deli’.70 Marzani’s opportunity to join the American government service came a few months later, with the advent of Pearl Harbor. His wife, Edith, also a lifelong communist, thought it ‘foolhardy’ to seek work in Washington, given his salience with the FBI, both as Tony Wales and Carl Marzani, but he pressed ahead, regardless. As a trained economist, he headed for the newly formed Board of Economic Warfare. He soon found himself in front of Hu Barton, who worked in the Economic Division of the Research and Analysis branch of a new organisation called the Coordinator of Information, led by General William J. Donovan. The head of the Economics Division, James Phiney Baxter II, and, indeed, his assistant, were both from Williams College and recalled Marzani’s Oxford fellowship. In short, Marzani was in on the ground floor of America’s newest intelligence organisation and was soon promoted. In 1942, this organisation was renamed the Office of Strategic Services or the OSS.71 There were numerous Leftists in the new OSS. Marzani was open about his Marxism, but insisted that he had broken with the Communist Party. For most of his OSS colleagues, many of whom were academic economists and social scientists of Left persuasion, this was enough.72

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 34

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

35

For the next three years, Marzani served alongside Donovan’s core staff in the headquarters of the Office of Strategic Services. In 1943, Marzani was ‘drafted’, but this was a mere technicality, since he was sent back to his old job in the OSS as soon as he had completed basic military training. At the end of the war, the OSS was broken up. The Research and Analysis Branch in which he worked was relocated to the state department. So Marzani found himself among the diplomats, serving as the Deputy Chief of the Presentation Division of the Office of Intelligence. Despite Marzani’s honourable service in the OSS, his past membership in the Communist Party led to an eleven-count indictment in January 1947 on charges of fraud. Specifically, he was charged with receiving his government pay, while concealing pre-war membership in the Communist Party. On 22 June 1947, Carl Marzani was convicted in a federal court in Washington. The Appeals Court threw out nine counts, and the Supreme Court granted Marzani a rare rehearing. The Supreme Court was split four–four on the last two counts, and so Marzani served thirty-two months of a thirty-six month sentence.73 In prison, Marzani began his first book, We Can Be Friends: The Origins of the Cold War (1952), asserting that Truman started the Cold War. In 1950, Marzani tried to smuggle the manuscript of his book out of prison, but was caught and sentenced to seven months of solitary confinement. After his release from prison in 1951, Marzani worked for the United Electrical Workers, as editor of one of their magazines. In 1954, he joined with Angus Cameron – a radical editor – to run the Liberty Book Club. The publishing venture became Marzani & Munsell, which also operated the Prometheus Book Club. Titles included Marzani’s autobiographical novel, The Survivor, published in 1958, concerning his prosecution and time in prison.74 David Caute considers The Survivor to be ‘the best and one of the most important novels of the Cold War, albeit Marzani remains a divisive figure’.75 Marzani’s main value to Moscow was his publishing activities. Given the codename ‘NORD’, Marzani was admired by his KGB handlers as someone with great energy and who was visibly ‘devoted’ to his ideological cause.76 Oleg Kalugin – a KGB officer working under the cover of a Moscow radio reporter in New York – recalled that he had close ties to the Soviet government and the KGB. Moscow encouraged his Liberty Book Club and its more commercial sister company, the Prometheus Book Club. Together, they had produced many progressive books, which were mostly distributed to some 8,000 club members. The model was clearly borrowed from the Left book club in Britain. Christopher Andrew notes that in the spring of 1960, Moscow sanctioned a secret subvention of 15,000 dollars – more than double the subsidy suggested by KGB officers in New York residency. A year later, the CPSU Central Committee approved another 55,000 dollars for the next two years, in order to allow

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 35

21/02/2013 08:23

36

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Marzani to develop new publications, and he was also given yet more money for publicity purposes.77 Oleg Kalugin, in his memoir, Spymaster, recalls that, by the early 1960s, the receptions at his offices enjoyed an element of Cold War farce. His parties were ‘filled with a motley assortment of Communists, liberals, and KGB spooks – all of them watched, undoubtedly, by FBI informers in attendance’.78 Ironically, some American Communist Party members considered him to be a deep penetration agent for the CIA: ‘important enough to warrant the elaborate cover of trial and jail’. Marzani recalled that, in the mid-1950s, a member of the American Communist Party, Dan Rubin, came to see him at his office at the Liberty Book Cub to ask if he would join a Committee in Aid of Smith Act Families. Marzani agreed, but Rubin’s demeanour had been so hostile that he said, ‘You don’t like me much, do you?’ Rubin admitted that he didn’t. Marzani probed a little. ‘In fact, you think I am a CIA agent’. Rubin looked him squarely in the eye and said, ‘That’s right’.79 Marzani did, indeed, have friends in the CIA. In the 1960s, Marzani again rubbed shoulders with Dick Helms – Deputy Director and then Director of the CIA – through the Williams College alumni network. He regarded Helms as ‘a decent ‘liberal’ man, of high intelligence, vitiated by pragmatism’. Marzani recalled hearing Helms speak at a Williams College alumni gathering in 1961, telling everyone that ‘they could trust the CIA because they were all “honorable men” (i.e. Williams men) and his classmates nodding in full delighted agreement because they were titillated by having one of their own running the CIA’. Marzani added, in retrospect: ‘At the same time they were contacting the Mafia to kill Casto . . .’80 Marzani later drew on these ‘off the record’ presentations by Dick Helms to Williams College alumni in a book written in 1966. Never published, it was entitled A Text for President X. Essentially an appeal for détente, it was a prescription for ending the Cold War, opening with an account of Helms’ speech to Williams College alumni and the discussions that followed. Marzani wrote to Helms, asking for permission to discuss the speech in his book. Helms replied, asking Marzani not to refer to him, explaining that: ‘The Agency and I have had enough special attention here of late, and I feel it might quite sticky for me to have you make reference to me’. It was a courteous exchange. Helms thanked Marzani for asking for his permission and wished him luck with the project.81 Arthur Schlesinger did not like the manuscript of the book either and chided Marzani for suggesting that Kennedy was planning a second attempt at invading Cuba in 1962, prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Schlesinger insisted that whatever contingency planning was going on in the Pentagon, this was not happening in the White House.82 The book never appeared, and Marzani seems to have become

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 36

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

37

distracted by his private life, for, in 1966, he remarried, this time to Charlotte Pomerantz – a children’s book writer. In December 1968, his publishing company, Marzani & Munsell, was destroyed in a mysterious fire.83 Marzani reduced his publishing activities and went on to purchase, renovate and rent out four brownstones in Manhattan, in which he had his own apartment. In the 1970s, Marzani abandoned his long-standing association with Moscow for environmentalism, writing a well-regarded book entitled The Wounded Earth. With this publication, he anticipated the move of many on the far Left towards single-issue campaign causes in the 1980s. This was followed by The Promise of Eurocommunism – a book in which he which advocated European Communist Parties distancing themselves from Moscow.84 As late as 1979, Marzani kept up his Washington intelligence contacts and was corresponding with friends about the minutiae of the intelligence debacle over Iran, recent CIA analyses of China and changes to the analytical mechanisms around DCI Stansfield Turner.85 In the late 1980s, as his health declined, he concentrated on a multi-volume autobiography. He died on 11 December 1994. JOACHIM JOESTEN AND THE JFK ASSASSINATION

Carl Marzani was also an important figure, as a publisher of books on intelligence. In 1964, Marzani’s company published a book by Joachim Joesten, called Oswald: Assassin or Fall-Guy? This was the first time the accusation that the CIA had been involved in the JFK assassination had appeared in print in a book in the United States. Joesten argued that the assassination was a plot by Right-wing racists, pointing the finger at the CIA, the FBI and the oil tycoon H. L. Hunt, who had created a rather strange organisation called the International Committee for the Defence of Christian Culture. Joesten’s book had previously appeared in Britain with the Merlin Press – a small publishing house that specialised in Leftwing literature. The extent to which anti-CIA literature often appeared in Britain before being published in America is striking. Joesten argued that the extreme Right had been alarmed by a range of Kennedy’s policies, which they considered to amount to the appeasement of Moscow, including the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and his cuts in arms budgets. He insisted that Oswald was an FBI agent provocateur, complete with a CIA background. Considered expendable, he argued that Oswald was killed after the event by Jack Ruby, so as to cover any tracks. A press release for his book set out his thesis succinctly: My investigation also brought out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Oswald never was a genuine Communist. His ‘Marxism’ was nothing but a pose, his propaganda for Castro a sham, his ‘defection’ to Russia a flimsy cover for an intelligence

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 37

21/02/2013 08:23

38

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US assignment, which he bungled. Oswald went to the Soviet Union as an agent for the C.I.A., was found out and neutralised at Minsk where he worked practically as a slave labourer. Upon his return to this country, he became a stool pigeon and agent provocateur for the F.B.I. on whose instructions he set up a phony ‘fair Play for Cuba Committee’ in New Orleans. At the same time he was being trained for another intelligence missions, this time to Cuba, which he botched again.86

This double failure as a secret agent, he claimed, made Oswald ‘expendable’ in the eyes of his employers. Accordingly, when various intelligence officers joined the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, they arranged for Oswald to be sacrificed as the most convenient scapegoat. His book developed themes which were to repeatedly resurface in KGB Soviet active measures for decades. Appearing in the same month as the Warren Report, it was initially overshadowed by the official findings, so Marzani went on to produce a second publication, entitled Gaps in the Warren Report.87 Joesten’s book appeared on 15 June 1964, and Marzani wrote to a friend, explaining that he had been working ‘head over heels’ to produce Joesten’s book on Oswald, adding that they had got it out ‘in five week from manuscript to bookstore which is quite an achievement’. He noted that although Joesten’s controversial book had been ‘getting the silent treatment from the press’, there was considerable radio interest, and the author had made it onto several Saturday night chat shows.88 Although Marzani was an ardent propagandist for Moscow, in this case, he seems to have believed in his own material. Obsessed with stories concerning the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Repository, he had driven his office staff mad by repeatedly running up and down the flights of stairs at Marzani & Munsell, stopwatch in hand, to see what was possible.89 He told his close friend Cedric Belfrage that, within two or three months of the JFK assassination, he had come to believe that it was ‘a conspiracy’ and that it was it was ‘politically motivated’.90 Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? was, nevertheless, an orchestrated KGB creation. Oleg Kalugin recalls Moscow’s horror at the fact that Oswald had been a low-level defector (and disillusioned returnee), and so KGB officers were ordered to do everything possible to dispel the notion that the Soviet Union was involved in the assassination. ‘We were told’, he continued, ‘to put forward the line that Oswald could have been “involved in a conspiracy with American reactionaries displeased with the president’s recent efforts to improve relations with Russia” ’.91 In the 1990s, Vasily Mitrokhin – a KGB archivist – succeeded in smuggling thousands of KGB documents out of Moscow. These documents show that Joesten visited Dallas after the assassination and then went to Europe. A few months later, his book was published by the Merlin Press in Britain and was then republished by Marzani. The first American reviewer of this book,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 38

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

39

Victor Perlo, was also revealed as an undercover KGB operative.92 Joesten went on to produce four additional, lesser-known books on the assassination, including one that alleged the involvement of Lyndon B. Johnson.93 As with previous KGB books, it was a matter of getting ideas into circulation, which then resurfaced elsewhere. Joesten’s first book was dedicated to an American radical lawyer and Civil Rights activist, Mark Lane. In 1966, Lane published the bestseller Rush to Judgment, also alleging that Kennedy was killed by Right-wing American conspiracy. Lane was a more talented writer than Joesten; indeed, his book topped The New York Times bestseller lists.94 Lane was not a KGB agent, but was merely a conspiracy theorist; however, he had drawn on some of Joesten’s material. With the conspiracy now fixed in the public mind, these books were followed by similar books by the investigator Jim Garrison, which also claimed a CIA-related conspiracy. Garrison first wrote A Heritage of Stone in 1970 and eventually published On the Trail of the Assassins in 1988.95 Garrison’s books helped to inspire the controversial Oliver Stone movie, JFK. While the KGB undoubtedly contributed to the wild mythology that surrounds the JFK assassination, it is hard to resist the conclusion that they were simply lucky in tapping into the uniquely American obsession with conspiracy theories. It is unlikely that Moscow understood what the American essayist and commentator H. L. Mencken once called ‘the virulence of the national appetite for bogus revelation’.96 Joesten’s own background remains obscure, as is the precise nature of his associations with Marzani. However, the texture of his publications suggests that he had been working with Moscow for more than a decade. For example, in 1958, he published a book in Germany concerning the CIA, entitled How the American Secret Service Works, which followed in the same footsteps as similar books by Gordon Stewart, Julius Mader and Bob Edwards.97 Born in Cologne in 1907, he studied first at several German universities, before moving to the universities of Nancy and Madrid. A member of the Communist Party in Germany, the rise of Hitler prompted him to leave for Scandinavia. In 1938, Victor Gollancz published his first book, in which he predicted the invasion of Denmark by Hitler, which subsequently occurred twelve months later. Joesten then fled the German armies via Sweden, Russia, Japan, Costa Rica and, finally, the United States. Arriving in New York in the spring of 1941, he found work as an Assistant Editor for Newsweek magazine. In 1944, he resigned, in order to become a full-time writer. He produced some twenty popular works on war, crime, terrorism and espionage, including The Luciano Story (1954), The Red Hand (1962) and Spies and Spy Techniques since World War II (1963).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 39

21/02/2013 08:23

40

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US CONCLUSION

In September 1965, CIA Director Admiral Raborn wrote to Clark Clifford to express his concern about the growing Soviet campaign of disinformation. He explained that the KGB had set up its disinformation department in 1959, which now numbered approximately forty staff. One of its primary objectives was to ‘neutralise’ the CIA and disrupt its intelligence-sharing relationship with other Western agencies. The KGB’s foremost theme was the assertion that the ‘CIA is an instrument of American imperialism’ and was ‘racist’. He noted that one of its favourite techniques was to use quotes and citations from reputable American publications, often taken out of context. The flood of anti-CIA books and pamphlets appearing throughout south-east Asia, Africa and the Near East, he noted, ‘reflect substantial budgets for this activity’.98 Covert action was undermining the efforts of American diplomats to make friends in the developing world – the most fluid of the Cold War’s battlegrounds.99 ‘Our active measures knew no bounds’, recalls Oleg Kalugin, adding, ‘we went after everybody’. He explains that, when the UN Secretary General, Dag Hammerskjold, was killed in a plane crash, he and his fellow officers ‘did everything we could to fuel the rumours that the CIA was behind it’.100 However, the CIA’s biggest reputational problem was not Soviet propaganda, but its own covert action disasters. Above all, it was the Bay of Pigs which prompted a tidal wave of hostile writing on the CIA by mainstream independent American journalists. These writers then acted as a transmission belt, often drawing uncritically on previous Moscow-inspired books and pamphlets. In 1962, Andrew Tully – an American crime reporter – wrote the first independent full-length book on the CIA. Tully was by no means Leftist and, indeed, was greatly admired by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Yet, Tully repeatedly drew on the Master Spy book of Bob Edwards for his treatment of Dulles and the Swiss surrender talks.101 He also echoed the frequent Soviet charge that the CIA ‘had seized the broad responsibly for making policy that had belonged to the State Department’.102 In the coming decades, the provocations offered by obscure Moscow-inspired political tracts would be overtaken by the work of mainstream investigative journalists, and, later, by the memoirs of disaffected CIA officers. The forgotten first wave of CIA ‘history’, therefore, presents some puzzles. How influential were these works? And did any of them contribute to the early stirrings of Cold War revisionism? Some of these Moscow-inspired books, notably those by Gordon Stewart and Julius Mader, are well-researched and, for their time, constituted revelatory texts. Yet, even the more substantial works in this first wave achieved limited circulation in the West. (The question of the impact of such books in the global South remains to be explored). Given that there was clearly

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 40

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

41

public appetite for non-fiction spy writing throughout the post-war period, why did the Soviets and their Western nebulae not secure better circulation for their product? Distributed through Left book clubs and bought in bulk by affiliated union organisations, these texts were largely preaching to the already converted. Overall, one has to conclude that their impact was probably limited. Soviet active measures had a menacing profile, but, in this realm, they lacked the services of that most important of all field operatives – a good literary agent.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Matthew Jones, Katrina Lee Koo, Paul McGarr, Kaeten Mistry, Christopher Moran and Simon Willmetts for their comments, discussion and assistance, all of which contributed to this chapter. Any errors remain the responsibility of the author. The support of the AHRC ‘Landscapes of Secrecy’ project (RES–451–26–0480) based at the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes 1 C. M. Andrew and D. Dilks, Government and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century, (London: Macmillan, 1984); R. H. Immerman, ‘Guatemala as Cold War History’, Political Science Quarterly, 95(4), 1980–1981, pp. 629–53. 2 A title search of Hathi Trust Digital Library reveals some 818 books with ‘CIA’ in the title, compared to 274 for FBI and 122 for KGB. MI5 and MI6 score ten and three, respectively. 3 Discussion of the historiography of the CIA is surprisingly limited, but see R. Jeffreys-Jones, ‘The Historiography of the CIA’, Historical Journal, 23(2), 1980, pp. 489–96; John Ferris, ‘Coming in from the Cold War: The Historiography of American Intelligence, 1945-1990’, Diplomatic History, 19(1), 1995, pp. 87–115. 4 The surprising amount of press attention given to the CIA before 1960 is documented in D. M. Barrett, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006). 5 A. Tully, CIA: The Inside Story (New York, NY: Crest Books, 1962); D. Wise and T. B. Ross, The U-2 Affair (New York, NY: Random House, 1962); D. Wise and T. B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York, NY: Random House, 1964). 6 T. Szulc and K. Meyer, The Cuban Invasion: The Chronicle of a Disaster (New York, NY: Praeger, 1962). 7 C. Moran, Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 315. 8 S. D. Willmetts, ‘Quiet Americans: The CIA in Early Cold War Culture’, Journal of American Studies, forthcoming. 9 See, for example, F. S. Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York, NY: The New Press, 1999).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 41

21/02/2013 08:23

42

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

10 Other books discuss the CIA prior to 1953. For example, L. Natarajan, American Shadow Over India (Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1952) devotes many pages to the CIA in discussing the triangular relationship between India, Communist China and Tibet. I am indebted to Paul McGarr for drawing this to my attention. 11 I. Gouzenko, This was My Choice (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948). Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and External Affairs were already discussing a worldwide publishing deal in 1946. See M. Kristmanson, Plateaus of Freedom: Nationality, Culture, and State Security in Canada, 1940–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), p. 273, n. 67. 12 A. Foote, A Handbook for Spies (London: Museum Press, 1949). The full story is given in KV 2/1615 and KV2/1616, TNA. 13 It attempts to build on the work of Christopher Andrew and Paul Maddrell, who have already written eloquently on this subject. 14 Gordon Stewart, The Cloak and Dollar War (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1953). 15 Gordon Stewart, The Cloak and Dollar War, p. 19. 16 Gordon Stewart, The Cloak and Dollar War, p. 28. 17 Gordon Stewart, The Cloak and Dollar War, p .50. 18 P. H. Johnson, Important to Me: Personalia (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 81. 19 In 1950, he published Journey to Hungary 1950 (London: Hungarian News and Information Service, 1950). 20 Memo to ASIO Regional Director, ‘Gordon Stewart: Applicant for permit to enter Papua New Guinea’, 22 April 1974, ASIO file, ‘Stewart, Gordon Neil’, Volume 1, 5/43/22, A6119/4961, National Archives of Australia. 21 Johnstone to Jowett, 15 March 1950, Brice No. 34, FO 924/838, TNA and minute by Dove 12 May 1950, ibid. 22 G. Stewart, ‘Washington: World Spy Centre’, World News and Views, 45, pp. 536–7. 23 A. Croft, A Weapon in the Struggle: Cultural History of the British Communist Party (London: Pluto Press, 1998), p. 157. 24 See, for example, the copy in the papers of Richard Albert Etheridge (1909–1985), trade unionist and communist, MSS.202/5/53, Modern Records Centre, Warwick University. 25 PF.40756, ‘Patricia Jesse Garman, formerly Miles, Ayriss and Hardy’, KV 2/2348, TNA. 26 VGR to Maxwell (HO), 4 May 1938, KV2/2327, TNA. See, also, the Memo to Commander Special Branch, ‘Lawrence & Wishart Ltd’, by A. Russell (MI5), 20 April 1956, SF.455/15/F.1.A/AR, KV 6/89, TNA. 27 SLO Australia to DG ASIO, 6 December 1955, ASIO file, ‘Stewart, Gordon Neil’, Volume 1, 5/43/22, A6119/4961, National Archives of Australia. Also, B.1 Surveillance Report, ‘Neil Stewart’, 27 June 1955, ibid. 28 Memo to ASIO Regional Director, ‘Gordon Stewart: Applicant for Permit to Enter Papua New Guinea’, 22 April 1974, ASIO file, ‘Stewart, Gordon Neil’, Volume 1, 5/43/22, A6119/4961, National Archives of Australia. 29 Stewart to Beasley, 8 January 1988, Beasley papers, National Library of Australia, ibid. I am indebted to Katrina Lee Koo of ANU for inspecting these papers on my behalf.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 42

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

43

30 Stewart to Beasley, 19 August 1989, ibid. 31 He also blamed ‘CIA sponsored American Abstract expressionism’ for infecting Australian modern art with mediocrity; Stewart to Beasley, 8 May 1992. 32 Typically, the CIA intervened to persuade the New York Times to remove its coverage of the coup in Guatemala in 1954. 33 A. W. Dulles, Germany’s Underground (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1947). See, also, Zoltan Peterecz, ‘Sparrow Mission: A US Intelligence Failure during World War II’, Intelligence and National Security, 27(2), 2012, pp. 241–60. 34 J. Mader, Allens Gangster in Aktion [Allen’s Gangster in Action] (Berlin: Kongress Verlag, 1959). 35 Mader, Allens Gangster in Aktion, pp. 112, 115. 36 P. Maddrell, ‘What we have discovered about the Cold War is what we already knew: Julius Mader and the Western Secret Services During the Cold War’, Cold War History, 5(2), 2005, pp. 235–58. 37 One of the first references to secret surrender appeared in John Chamberlain: ‘OSS: The cloak-and-dagger boys of “Wild Bill” Donovan Office of Strategic Services waged a successful secret war behind enemy lines and have demonstrated the need for a coordinated intelligence office for the US’. See Life, 19 November 1945, p. 128. 38 Maddrell, ‘What we have discovered’, pp. 235–44. 39 Maddrell, ‘What we have discovered’, pp. 235–44. 40 Mader’s book on Dulles was widely reviewed by Soviet newspapers and magazines; see, for example, Soviet Aviation, 19 August 1960, p. 5. 41 S. Berger and N. LaPorte, Friendly Enemies: Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990 (Oxford: Berghan Books, 2010), pp. 61–3. 42 C. M. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Penguin, 2009). 43 Minutes of a meeting of the Executive of the UK Committee of the European Movement, 21 July 1954, File European Unity, Box 3, Robert Edwards papers, Peoples History Museum, Manchester. 44 S. Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Secret Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), pp. 446–8. The first person to associate Edwards with a Soviet-sponsored propaganda campaign against the CIA was S. Steven, Splinter Factor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974), p. 235. 45 Wilson (PM) to Edwards, 25 April 1970, File: European Unity, Box 3, Robert Edwards’ papers, Peoples History Museum, Manchester; Deshornes to Edwards, 16 July 1970, File: Defence, ibid. 46 ‘Bob Edwards MP – Resume’, no date, File: autobiography, Box 5, ibid. 47 Raborn (DCI) to Clark Clifford, 20 September 1965, enclosing CIA memo. ‘The Soviet and Communist Bloc Defamation Campaign’, September 1965, 2002/09/03: CIA- RDP80B01676R000500010047-7, CREST, NARA. 48 H. Romerstein and E. Breindel, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors (New York, NY: Regnery, 2000), p. 422; R. S. Staar, Public Diplomacy: USA versus USSR (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), pp. 48, 61. 49 Dulles and Baldwin were old friends, having co-chaired the armaments group of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Studies of American Interests in the War and the Peace.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 43

21/02/2013 08:23

44

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

50 Raborn (DCI) to Clark Clifford, 20 September 1965, enclosing CIA memo. ‘The Soviet and Communist Bloc Defamation Campaign’, September 1965, 2002/09/03: CIA- RDP80B01676R000500010047-7, CREST, NARA. 51 Alden to Edwards, 5 March 1982, discussing his exchange of 21 July 1964, File: Research Enquiries, Box 2, Robert Edwards papers, Peoples History Museum, Manchester. 52 The previous year, Edwards had reproduced a pamphlet entitled ‘America – Ally or Master?’, by Bob Edwards, pp. 20, DDC/5/268, Record of the Union of Democratic Control, University of Hull Archives. 53 L. Hajek, ‘Target: CIA’, Studies in Intelligence, 6(1), 1962, pp. 29–56. 54 Bob Edwards, M. P. Dunne and Kenneth Dunne, Study of a Master Spy (London: Housmans, 1961), p. 79. An expanded edition was published in Spanish as Allen Dulles: Espía Maestro (Buenos Aires: Palestra, 1961), p. 159. 55 L. K. Johnson, ‘Harry Howe Ransom and American Intelligence Studies’, Intelligence and National Security, 22(3), 2007, pp. 402–28. 56 Edwards and Dunne published their book on Dulles in early May 1961, so they were unable to address Bay of Pigs, which had occurred two weeks before. William Hetherington (Company Secretary, Housmans) to author, 11 October 2011. 57 Hayek, see, also, Leslie D. Weir, ‘Soviet Publicists Talk about US Intelligence’, Studies in Intelligence, 4(3), 1960, pp. 19–26. 58 Light and Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA, p. 3. 59 Light and Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA, p. 8 60 Light and Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA, pp. 38–9. 61 Divergent accounts appear in Woody Klein, The Inside Stories of Modern Political Scandals: How Investigative Reporters have Changed the Course of American History (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010), pp. 22–38; W. Joseph Campbell, Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010), pp. 80–110. 62 Light and Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA, pp. 7–11. 63 Light and Marzani, Cuba vs. the CIA, p. 6. 64 C. Marzani, The Education of a Reluctant Radical: Reconstruction (New York, NY: Topical Books, 2001), Book 5, pp. 53–8. 65 C. Marzani, The Education of a Reluctant Radical: Reconstruction, pp. 53–8. 66 Schlesinger to Marzani, 1 April 1961, Box 20, Marzani papers, Tam.154, Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. 67 Marzani to Rostow, 1 November 1961, Box 20, ibid. 68 C. Marzani, The Education of a Reluctant Radical: From Pentagon to Penitentiary (New York, NY: Topical Books, 1995), Book 4, p. 10. 69 Marzani, Pentagon to Penitentiary, pp. 3–4. 70 Marzani, Pentagon to Penitentiary, pp. 46–7. 71 Marzani, Pentagon to Penitentiary, pp. 68–72. 72 At least six individuals within the OSS were handing material to the Soviets: J. E. Haynes and H. Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 220–2. It seems likely that Marzani was one of these individuals, but it is by no means certain. See, also, H. B. Peake, ‘OSS and the Venona Decrypts’, Intelligence and National Security, 12(3), 1997, pp. 14–34.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 44

21/02/2013 08:23

CIA History as a Cold War Battleground

45

73 Marzani, Pentagon to Penitentiary, pp. 79–81. 74 C. Marzani, The Survivor (New York, NY: Cameron Association, 1958). 75 D. Caute, Politics and the Novel during the Cold War (New York, NY: Transaction, 2009), p. 230. 76 Others suggest that his codename was ‘Kollega’; see Romerstein and Breindel, The Venona Secrets, p. 295. 77 C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 226–7. 78 O. Kalugin, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp. 45–7. 79 Marzani, Pentagon to Penitentiary, pp. 56–7. 80 Marzani to Michelson, 20 January 1979, Box 17, Marzani papers, Tam.154, Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. 81 Helms to Marzani, 9 May 1966, Box 19, ibid. 82 Schlesinger to Marzani, 4 August 1966, Box 19, ibid. 83 Marzani to Curtis, 13 Jan 1969, ibid. 84 Marzani believed the CIA to be behind the assassination of the Italian Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, who tried to bring Eurocommunists into government in Rome, Reconstruction, pp. 96–8. 85 Michelson to Marzani, 24 April 1979, Box 19, Marzani papers, Tam.154, Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. 86 Press release related to the book: ‘The Joesten Report: The Truth about the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy’, 00002443 Box 8, Folder 7, JFK Collection, City of Dallas archives. 87 J. Joesten, Gaps in the Warren Report (New York, NY: Marzani & Munsell, 1965); Marzani, Reconstruction, pp. 85–6. 88 Marzani to Joe Murray, 18 June 1964, Box 20, Marzani papers, Tam.154, Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. 89 Marzani, Reconstruction, pp. 85. 90 Marzani to Belfrage, 3 May 1966, Box 19, Marzani papers, Tam.154, Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. 91 Kalugin, Spymaster, p. 58. 92 Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, p. 229. 93 Other books by Joesten on the subject included Marina Oswald (London: Peter Dawnay, 1967); Oswald: The Truth (London: Peter Dawnay, 1967); The Garrison Inquiry – Truth and Consequences (London: Peter Dawnay, 1967); How Kennedy was Killed: The Full Appalling Story (London: Peter Dawnay, 1968); The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (London: Peter Dawnay, 1968). 94 M. Lane, Rush to Judgment (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966). 95 J. Garrison, A Heritage of Stone (New York, NY: Putnam, 1970); J. Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins (New York, NY: Sheriden Square, 1988). 96 M. Holland, ‘After Thirty Years: Making Sense of the Assassination’, Reviews in American History, 22(2), 1994, pp. 191–5.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 45

21/02/2013 08:23

46

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

97 J. Joesten, Wie American Geheimdienst Arbeitet (München: Isar Verlag, 1958), p. 190. 98 Raborn (DCI) to Clark Clifford, 20 September 1965, enclosing CIA memo, ‘The Soviet and Communist Bloc Defamation Campaign’, September 1965, 2002/09/03: CIA- RDP80B01676R000500010047-7, CREST, NARA. 99 As early as 1962, the CIA’s in-house journal ran an essay that identified Moscow’s policy of encouraging propagandistic and selective accounts of CIA history, but this did not really capture the scale or importance of the developing battle over public profile and reputation; see Hayek, ‘Target CIA’. 100 Kalugin, Spymaster, p. 53. 101 Tully, CIA, pp. 40, 159. 102 Tully, CIA, pp. 257–9.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 46

21/02/2013 08:23

Chapter 2 THE CULTURE OF FUNDING CULTURE: THE CIA AND THE CONGRESS FOR CULTURAL FREEDOM Eric Pullin

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was the largest and longest of the covert operations run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Lasting from 1950 until 1967, the purpose of the CCF was to promote an international anti-communist consciousness among intellectual liberals and non-communist Leftists. The CCF established organisations throughout the non-communist world, sponsoring concerts, art exhibits and scholarly lectures to promote anticommunist activism among intellectuals and artists. From 1966 to 1967, The New York Times and Ramparts – a New Left magazine that offered criticism of politics and culture – exposed the ‘secret’ that the CIA had covertly funded the CCF since its establishment in 1950. Within months of breaking this scandal, the CCF could not withstand the blow to its reputation and ceased functioning as an effective organisation. The circuitous and exciting story of the relations between the CIA and the CCF has been discussed in detail by a relatively small number of historians, which are discussed below. These historians have been limited in their ability to explore the topic fully, because the CIA’s documents regarding covert funding of the CCF remain closed. The CIA’s history of pathological secrecy is ‘old hat’, but its routine obstructionism continues to rankle historians. Despite changing its mind in May 2012, in September 2011, the CIA decreed: that declassification reviews would now cost requesters up to $72 per hour, even if no information is found or released. To even submit a request – again, even if no documents are released – the public must now agree to pay a minimum of $15.1

Nevertheless, the historians considered in this chapter have initiated a penetrating discussion, not only concerning the connections between the US Intelligence Agency and free intellectual activity, but also relating to the nature of the Cold War, particularly its cultural theatre. In assessing this connection, historians have divided historiographical considerations into three main categories: first, the question of how to judge the 47

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 47

21/02/2013 08:23

48

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

CIA–CCF collaboration (condemnation, celebration or something else?); second, the reasons why the CIA and the CCF chose to collaborate with one another; and finally, the degree to which the CIA controlled or influenced the activities of the CCF’s intellectuals. Despite lively and substantive disagreements, it appears that these historians’ work maintains a high degree of interdependence. Even as one historian challenges the conclusions of another, there is genuine acknowledgement that previous historical work has proved indispensable for moving the study of the CIA’s largest covert operation forwards. It might reasonably be argued that Christopher Lasch’s article, ‘The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, initiated the historiography of the relationship between the CIA and the CCF.2 Lasch’s article – a slightly different version of which originally appeared in Nation magazine (the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States that describes itself as ‘the flagship of the Left’) – offered not only a historical survey of the CCF, but also formed part of the contemporary controversy during the late 1960s in the wake of revelations that the CIA had secretly funded the CCF since its inception. The revelations sparked a heated debate, which was subsequently waged in the press over the next two decades, concerning the autonomy of the CCF and the role of CIA in funding culture. Lasch’s article was, in part, a response to prominent liberals, who either minimised the role of the CIA in cultural affairs or even tried to justify it.3 For instance, John Kenneth Galbraith, George F. Kennan, Robert Oppenheimer and Arthur Schlesinger Jr all attempted to explain their involvement with the CCF in light of the revelations. They did not deny connections to the CIA, but simply insisted that the CIA had never compromised the CCF’s intellectual independence. Others, such as Melvin Lasky, Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol – the latter who had edited the CCF’s literary journal, Encounter, in the United Kingdom – co-wrote a similar defence.4 In contrast to the almost apologetic tone of these participants, Tom Braden – Director of the CIA’s International Operations Division (IOD) during the 1950s and, later, a journalist – actually celebrated the Agency’s covert funding of international cultural activities in two confrontational pieces – ‘I’m Glad the CIA is “Immoral” ’ and ‘What’s Wrong with the CIA?’.5 Lasch’s article, which established the condemnatory tone on the subject of the CCF’s involvement with the CIA, characterised much of the Left’s press commentary throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as well as some later historical writing. Lasch denounced CCF intellectuals, who had ‘lent themselves to purposes having nothing to do with the values they professed’.6 He reviled their collaboration with the CIA as a corruption of free intellectual discourse, little different from that of doctrinaire communists. The intellectuals’ claim – that, ‘in the present crisis [the Cold War], a moral man could not remain neutral from the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 48

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

49

struggle of competing ideologies’ – betrayed their intellectual bankruptcy.7 According to Lasch, the CCF’s members engaged in a self-negating project, which, despite loud protestations on behalf of intellectual freedom, revealed their lack of intellectual independence. They ‘confuse[d] intellectual values with the interests of the intellectual class, just as they confused freedom with the national interests of the United States’.8 Thus, the refusal of the CCF’s intellectuals to admit the possibility of neutrality exposed their service to the state. Frances Stonor Saunders’ Who Paid the Piper? extends Lasch’s moral critique by marshalling an enormous amount of evidence, which identifies where, when and to whom the CIA provided funds. Although admitting the story is incomplete, because obtaining CIA documents proved nearly impossible, Saunders draws upon multi-archival sources, ranging from the papers of the International Association for Cultural Freedom at the University of Chicago, to US Government and private archives, to numerous personal interviews.9 Who Paid the Piper? aims to discredit the myth of the “ ‘blank cheque” line of defence’ that allowed CCF intellectuals to disingenuously claim that CIA support had no effect upon their writing or opinions. On the contrary, Saunders believes intellectuals were ‘animated by the dictates of American policy-makers rather than by independent standards of their own . . .’10 In an interview with historian Scott Lucas, Saunders emphasised the point, by stating that the CCF’s intellectuals viewed culture as a ‘Trojan horse’, which ‘secretly carried [a] political agenda’.11 Saunders, though reluctant to condemn unwitting intellectuals, has little sympathy for witting intellectuals, who believed that ‘the ends justified the means, even if they included lying (directly, or by omission) to one’s colleagues; ethics were subject to politics’.12 Saunders describes her work as a ‘corrective’ to Peter Coleman’s The Liberal Conspiracy,13 which she dismisses as ‘official history’.14 Although certainly an interested partisan (Coleman served for over twenty years as editor of the Australian CCF journal, Quadrant), his work should not be so easily cast aside. In Coleman’s view: cloak-and-dagger questions of who paid whom, how, and for what are in fact less important than the astonishing story . . . of the idealistic, courageous, and farsighted men and women of the Congress for Cultural Freedom who fought in this war of ideas – with its attendant suffering and atrocities – against Stalinism and its successors.15

For Coleman, the Cold War was neither a ‘false construct’, nor an excuse to impose pax Americana (as Saunders repeatedly asserts); rather, it was an existential crisis. Neither were intellectuals dupes of the state. Coleman admits ‘doubt’ about the integrity and autonomy of the organisation and offers several critical assessments of the relationship between the CIA and the CCF, but he believes

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 49

21/02/2013 08:23

50

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

assessments such as those of Lasch and Saunders obscure the ‘real’ threat to intellectual freedom posed by the Soviets, especially in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Asserting that the goals and purposes of the CCF outweighed the risks of CIA involvement, he proposes that there would have been danger if the CIA had not funded the CCF. Indeed, the danger for Coleman ‘was not the immorality of covert funding’, but the difficulty of keeping secrets in democracies such as the United States. Rather than cynically view the CCF as a tool for imposing pax Americana, Coleman believed that ‘it was America’s principal attempt to win over the world’s intellectuals to the liberal democratic cause’.16 Coleman subsequently amplified this contention: It is unfair that it [the CIA] should be so bitterly condemned for its failures, and should then go unpraised when it does something constructive and sensible. And the Congress [for Cultural Freedom] would itself have been remiss if it had failed to take money which came to it from good intent and wholly without strings or conditions.17

This celebratory view is not shared by Giles Scott-Smith, who, nevertheless, avoids the condemnatory approach of Lasch and Saunders. Yet, neither is Scott-Smith’s view of CIA-funded intellectuals a middle approach; instead, he regards morality as beside the point. Scott-Smith grants that intellectuals acted as ‘cultural personnel’ in the service of the state, but contends ‘that there was a more complex process of ideological alignment going on between key elites in the political, economic and cultural realms, and on an international scale’.18 Scott-Smith sidesteps making ‘a moral argument against the hypocrisy of those involved’, because it ‘reduce[s] the Congress to being simply another CIA front’.19 While the CIA certainly provided money and influenced the organisation’s direction, ‘the ideas [advocated by CCF intellectuals] were already common among the intellectual community both in the US and Europe before their stabilisation and institutionalisation’.20 Scott-Smith places the CIA’s support of the CCF as part of a larger ‘battle between contesting hegemonies over the post-war world . . .’21 * * * Historians of the relationship between the CIA and the CCF differ as to why the CIA decided to fund the CCF. According to Saunders, the answer is simple and direct. She describes the CIA as a collection of ‘Park Avenue cowboys’ and ‘paladins of democracy’, whose ‘job it was to establish and then justify the post-war pax Americana’. Saunders argues that the CCF became, almost at its inception, part of the ‘CIA’s “Propaganda Assets Inventory” ’.22 The close involvement of the CIA in the CCF was evidenced by the activities of Frank Wisner – head of the Office of Policy Coordination – which conducted the CIA’s covert opera-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 50

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

51

tions. After the CIA funded the CCF’s first conference at Berlin in 1950, Wisner dictated the removal of Melvin J. Lasky from the CCF leadership. According to Saunders, the nickname ‘Wisner’s Wurlitzer’ serves to indicate ‘how these “assets” were expected to perform: at the push of a button, Wisner could play any tune he wished to hear’.23 Apparently, the CIA began to play even more loudly with the creation of Tom Braden’s IOD, which formalised the CIA’s connection to the CCF, thus making the CCF ‘answerable’ to the CIA. The IOD relished the connection to the CCF and the non-communist Left: not to destroy or even dominate, but rather to maintain a discreet proximity to and monitor the thinking of such groups . . . and in extremis, to exercise a final veto on their publicity and possibly their actions, if they ever got too ‘radical’.24

The CIA did not conceive of the CCF as an intelligence-gathering organisation, but simply as a body devoted to pressuring the intellectual elite, who, in turn, influenced Europe’s political decision-makers.25 Coleman offers a somewhat more complex and counter-intuitive argument as to why the CIA decided upon a programme of covert funding. The decision occurred at the same time as a ‘quiet revolution’ – in the phrasing of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. – occurred in the State Department. Under the influence of such figures as George F. Kennan, Charles ‘Chip’ Bohlen and Isaiah Berlin, the State Department decided to support the previously marginalised non-communist Left, but, for domestic political reasons, could not openly exploit this strategy, which fell to the CIA. Though ironic, Coleman regards this strategy as unsurprising. As support, he cites Braden’s justification that: ‘in much of Europe in the 1950s, socialist people who called themselves “left” . . . were the only people who gave a damn about fighting Communism’.26 Precisely because the organisation was composed primarily of liberals and the non-communist Left, ‘it was also necessary to keep the arrangement secret, since otherwise European intellectuals would refuse to cooperate with the Congress’.27 Hugh Wilford lends support, though not uncritically, to this argument. He offers that: ‘it would therefore be on the terrain of the European left that the battle for “hearts and minds” would be at its most intense; and anti-communist leftists were potentially Washington’s most valuable allies in this fight’. Moreover, the strategy ‘was not simply a case of the American intelligence service “using” a left wing intellectual’.28 Often, the reverse occurred, as the non-communist Left attempted to impose its views upon the CIA.29 Other historians have taken a more systemic approach to explain the CIA’s interest in intellectuals. Scott Lucas’ book, Freedom’s Crusade, argues that: ‘the United States, just like the Soviet system, with which it contended for so long, has an “ideology” ’.30 Though not as rigid as Marxism–Leninism, American

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 51

21/02/2013 08:23

52

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

ideology works to justify and organise political, economic and cultural activity. This view presents the Cold War as ‘a clash of cultures and ideologies’.31 Thus, while CIA interest in the CCF resulted from the dictates of American ideology, the regnant Cold War ideology of the United States was not foisted upon populations. Lucas observes that the US Government promoted ideology by cooperating with an elaborate network of ‘state–private’ organisations (for example, National Committee for Free Europe, Committee for Free Asia and MIT’s Center for International Studies). Although the CIA might have provided significant funding to these private organisations, the ‘impetus’ came from private individuals, ‘with their own interests in ensuring the triumph of freedom’.32 Giles Scott-Smith also takes a systemic view, but argues against Lucas’ ‘ideology’ thesis. Despite recognising value in examining the state–private network, he contends that the ideological approach contains reductionist elements. According to Scott-Smith, it has the ‘tendency to collapse all activities into this framework of interpretation, so that every cultural event, philosophical declaration and musical interlude becomes defined solely by its Cold War ideological context’. Scott-Smith, though respectful of the force of American ideology in the Cold War, does not regard ideology as monolithic. On the contrary, he argues that: ‘in the ideological struggle, different traditions, motives and methods worked in parallel, in combination, sometimes even in opposition’.33 In The Politics of Apolitical Culture, Scott-Smith frames his discussion of the collaboration between the CIA and the CCF in terms of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of ‘hegemony’ – the notion that society’s dominant classes have formed and disseminated a prevailing culture that appears to be shared by all classes in a society. Whereas Lucas considers state–private networks in terms of cohesion and goals, Scott-Smith attempts to explore causes. American hegemony in Western Europe was comparable to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, except that the American form had to be maintained by persuasion, rather than coercion. Employing the Gramscian notion that political and civil society were connected by the alliance and coordination of political, economic and cultural groups, Scott-Smith assesses ‘culture as a complex set of norms in the domain of ideas, and how such norms are solidified through the influence of specific networks operating in the interests of a ruling group in the economy’.34 Thus, for Scott-Smith, the reasons why the CIA funded the CCF and why the CCF accepted CIA funding are indistinguishable. Both the CIA and CCF were, from their very beginnings, institutions created and shaped by the political demands of the Cold War.35 Unfortunately, fleshing out this relationship is complicated, because the CIA’s image ‘always brings with it the whiff of conspiracy’.36 This ‘whiff’ obscures the intimate role of the CIA as a component of the state. Indeed, ‘the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 52

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

53

importance of the CIA is exactly that its personnel were able to operate on a large scale with a separate mandate, yet its hierarchy was always in touch with the workings of democratic government and legitimacy’.37 In pursuit of hegemonic goals, the CIA collaborated with ‘a transnational network of elite groups and institutions in political and civil society in order to solidify any social-ideological consensus’.38 During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the CIA took an increasingly autonomous, and somewhat ironic, approach to achieving US hegemony in Europe. Scott-Smith observes that, ‘while US foreign policy (and general public opinion) was ostensibly moving against all positions on the political left, the CIA began to employ a strategy of undermining communist organisations and support by promoting more moderate leftist social democratic movements’.39 Although the process did not run smoothly, the CIA believed that ‘Atlanticism [that is developing close connections between the United States and Europe] needed to be institutionalised not only economically, politically and militarily, but also socially, culturally and intellectually’.40 The CIA considered the CCF as a covert operation and attempted to use it to organise European intellectual life ‘around the concept of Atlantic unity’.41 However, the CIA could only foster a common US–European Atlantic culture, ‘because of its connection to already existing concerns among the European intellectual community about the future of intellectual-cultural freedom in the post-war world’.42 In other words, the CIA could not have even attempted to work with intellectuals unless the intellectuals of the CCF already shared Atlanticist goals. In order to understand why the CIA looked to support intellectual and cultural groups during the Cold War, Volker Berghahn’s America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe takes a less consciously theoretical, yet no less sophisticated, approach than Scott-Smith’s work. In order to make the CIA’s funding of the CCF ‘comprehensible’, Berghahn examines the ‘U.S. government and the funding of culture’, and also, though not using this phrasing, the US culture of funding.43 He explains that US agencies were deeply involved in the physical, political, economic and cultural reconstruction of Europe during the post-war years. The United States devoted significant effort to rebuilding a devastated Europe for its own sake, but saw containing Soviet expansion as the primary motivation for restructuring the continent. Several overt initiatives (for example, the Marshall Plan and NATO) and covert operations (for example, the subsidisation by the US High Commission for Germany of journals such as Die Neue Zeitung and Der Monat) funnelled millions of US dollars into fostering democracy and capitalism in Europe. Early in the Cold War, the United States established a pattern of investing in ‘contain[ing] the spread of leftist radicalism . . . to foster the idea of an “Atlantic community of nations” in its fight against “totalitarianism” in both its Stalinist and fascist guises’.44 More to the point,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 53

21/02/2013 08:23

54

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

cultural covert activities in Europe began well before the CIA’s decision to fund the CCF. However, the Americanising aspects of these efforts generated significant ‘cultural resistance’ among Europeans. Such activities necessitated building alliances with Europe’s non-communist Left and its liberals, but the cost-conscious US Congress looked negatively at funding programmes devoted to encouraging these groups. Thus, opposition from the Left, abroad, and the Right, at home, necessitated secrecy.45 What were the alternatives to CIA funding? Although not explicitly addressing the subject, Lasch would not have thought the question important. He equated ‘foundations’, such as the Ford Foundation (multi-billion dollar charitable organisation that funded international cultural and economic development), with the ‘state’, describing both ‘modern bureaucracies’ as ‘money spending agencies’ that manipulated ‘professionalised intellectuals’. Moreover, Lasch did not take seriously the intellectual integrity of the CCF’s members, because, as mentioned above, they confused their own values with the interests of the state. Thus, they made no meaningful or independent choices.46 Saunders grants her subjects slightly more autonomy. In evaluating the motivations of intellectuals’ collaboration with the CIA, Saunders asks whether they were ‘suckers or hypocrites?’47 Her short answer is hypocrites. Saunders concedes that: not all of them were ‘witting’ in the sense that they were active participants in the deception. But they all knew, and had known for some time. And if they didn’t, they were, said their critics, cultivatedly, and culpably ignorant.48

As for seeking funds from large philanthropic organisations, she regards the Ford Foundation as part of the problem, as just another front, effectively no different than the Fairfield Foundation, created by Julius Fleischman as a CIA front or ‘dummy’ organisation. ‘At times’, she argues, ‘it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of the government in the area of cultural propaganda’.49 For Saunders, the fact that the CCF even sought out the Ford or Rockefeller Foundations indicates the reach of the CIA, because the CIA had agents moving in and out of all of these organisations. Although the CCF received $7 million (the equivalent of over $52 million in 2012) from the Ford Foundation by the early 1960s, she does not seriously regard the Ford Foundation as a legitimate funding alternative for the CCF.50 According to Coleman, the ‘major fault’ of secret funding ‘was less in the initial CIA funding – the early post-war years were an “emergency” – than in allowing it to continue until 1966’.51 Coleman suspects that it would have been a relatively easy matter for the CCF to obtain private funding, from, say, the Rockefeller Foundation, after the initial ‘emergency’. Lucas and Scott-Smith, though, counter this statement, arguing that this was never a meaningful option.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 54

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

55

Lucas notes that the Ford Foundation was ‘wary’ of receiving political direction from the US Government, and Scott-Smith describes the major foundations as being ‘never more than bit player[s] in Congress funding’.52 Coleman thinks it reasonable that the CCF turned to the CIA. After the initial CIA-funded conference in Berlin, the CCF had no reliable source of funds, because neither the State Department nor the US Congress would fund the CCF. Only the CIA proved a viable funding source, but the CCF wanted ‘to keep the arrangement secret, since otherwise European intellectuals would refuse to cooperate with the Congress’.53 The CIA indirectly provided funds to the CCF, through ‘actual foundations or ones created for the purpose’ – that is, ‘dummy’ organisations, such as the Fairfield Foundation. Despite efforts to conceal the money connection, the ‘covert’ relationship between the CCF and the CIA seemed to be an open secret around the world. Indeed, Coleman comments that British and French intellectuals often nettled CCF officials about being tools of the American government. Margery Sabin observes that, ‘the origin of American money was less shrouded in secrecy in India than in America, where the mystery of who-knew-what-when about the CIA sponsorship is still being disputed’. Thus, as Coleman shows, ‘the attempt at cover was hardly successful’. ‘Whatever the rumors or allegations’, asserts Coleman, ‘they were in the early 1950s of secondary importance to the Congress intellectuals, who had been desperately calling for a greater American commitment if European freedom were to survive’. His apologia notwithstanding, Coleman concedes that ‘if it had not been possible to find other sources of funds, it could be said in hindsight that it would have been better to have reduced the Congress’s range of activities’.54 Although many intellectuals would have preferred the CCF be funded openly by the State Department, Berghahn offers that they had little choice. He explains that, having successfully participated in World War II against Nazi totalitarianism, they saw nothing nefarious in the cooperation between government and private organisations in the fight against communist totalitarianism. On the contrary, they ‘viewed the Cold War against the Soviet Union that followed in 1945 as a comprehensive conflict that justified the continued application of the principles of close cooperation that had guided the hot war against Hitler’.55 Nevertheless, intellectuals loathed covert funding. Michael Josselson – Administrative Secretary of the CCF – initially hoping that support would come from the AFL–CIO, reluctantly accepted CIA money, because he ‘received assurances that there would be no interference by the agency with any activity’ and that ‘no attempt [would] ever be made to use the new organization for any intelligence or penetration purposes’.56 Josselson basically trusted the CIA, but realised that public exposure of the connection with the CIA could damage the CCF’s credibility, as well as the personal reputations of the intellectuals involved

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 55

21/02/2013 08:23

56

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

in the organisation. Thus, he continuously, yet unsuccessfully, sought an income that would free the CCF from its dependence upon the CIA.57 Obtaining alternative funding sources proved increasingly difficult throughout the 1950s. The Ford Foundation provided some grants to the CCF, but believed that ‘the covert CIA connection constantly put its worldwide prestige in jeopardy’.58 The more the CCF became dependent upon the CIA, the less the Ford Foundation wanted anything to do with the CCF. In 1962, the Ford Foundation examined the CCF’s annual budget of $1.8 million and found that $1.4 million came from ‘government sources’.59 In the early 1960s, efforts to attract institutions, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Sloan Foundation (multi-million dollar private international philanthropic organisations, established and operated by members of the Rockefeller and Sloan families), foundered for similar reasons. Ironically, these foundations refused to make significant grants to the CCF, ‘without heavy Ford participation’. Thus, it seemed that CIA funding was a vicious circle, from which the CCF could not escape.60 * * * Perhaps the most troubling issue related to the CIA’s covert funding of the CCF is that of influence. Historians differ not only as to the nature of CIA influence over the CCF, but also as to the extent of CIA control. With the CIA paying the CCF’s bills, many have wondered what the CIA’s return on investment was. Lucas, Scott-Smith and Berghahn offer indirect analyses of the CIA’s influence over the CCF. As discussed above, these historians believe that the context in which the CIA and CCF entered into collaboration helps to explain the nature and extent of the CIA’s influence. Lucas’ Freedom’s War is relatively indifferent as to whether or not the CIA controlled the CCF, but it does argue that the CIA’s covert activities undoubtedly contributed to the ‘drive for ideological consensus’.61 Scott-Smith argues that ‘the boundary between state and civil society becomes more blurred as the liberal idea of an independent social sphere becomes indefensible’.62 In essence, his point is not that the CIA exerted influence as an arm of the state over the private CCF. Rather, he contends that the two acted in cooperation to mobilise cultural opinions on behalf of the state’s hegemonic goals. Although Berghahn delves deeply into the origins of the CCF and its relationship with the CIA, his goal is to explore the networks established by Atlanticists during the Cold War. Unconcerned with the issue of influence, he asks the broader question relating to ‘how far the entire culture war effort was a success or failure’.63 He concludes that, despite enormous power, the CIA’s covert support of the CCF ironically contributed to the European antiAmericanism that it tried to combat.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 56

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

57

Interestingly, Lasch did not accuse the US Government of dictating editorial policy to the CCF. Instead, he questioned whether the CCF’s intellectuals ‘criticized the American government or any aspect of the officially sanctioned order’.64 So assimilated and internalised were the opinions of editors of CCF organs, such as the British CCF journal Encounter, that there was no need for the CIA to dictate editorial policy. The editors self-censored and did so in a way that masked any connection to the US Government. Although many CCF intellectuals protested that they had never been pressured by the CIA, Lasch countered that, even if true, this did not ‘prove their independence from the official point of view’.65 When the revelations exposed the CIA’s funding of the CCF, the intellectuals ‘continued to protest their innocence, as if innocence, in the narrow and technical sense, were the real issue in the matter’.66 Few positions exposed the CCF’s absorption of official perspectives as much as its strong stand against nonalignment. When India demanded its right to pursue independent policies in the Cold War, the CCF lamely chastised ‘the immorality of neutralism’.67 Instead of considering that non-alignment might represent free thought, the intellectuals condemned non-alignment as a form of fellow travelling or cowardice. Although sympathetic to Lasch’s assessment, Saunders does not feel that it goes far enough in considering the CIA’s means of control. As the title to the British edition (Who Paid the Piper?) suggests, Saunders contends that the CIA maintained tremendous influence over the CCF and did so primarily through the means of funding. In the early 1950s, the CIA paid for the first conference in Berlin and later boosted its ‘slush fund’ by diverting $200,000 to the CCF from the Marshall Plan. Above all, ‘dummy’ organisations, such as the Miami District Fund, the Hoblitzelle Foundation and, of course, the Fairfield Foundation, provided significant ‘grants’ to the CCF. She further points out that the CCF received increasing amounts from the CIA in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, she concedes that Josselson constantly worried about CIA funding as the CCF’s ‘Achilles’ heel’ and that he devoted significant energies to freeing the CCF from financial dependence upon the CIA.68 Though sensitive to Josselson’s anxiety, Saunders contends that his exertions only emphasised the CIA’s influence over the CCF. The signal example used by Saunders to illustrate the CIA’s ‘Wurlitzer’ was the quashing of an article by Dwight Macdonald concerning US conduct in the Korean War for Encounter (Fall 1958).69 ‘By axing the Macdonald article . . .’, Saunders asserts, ‘the credibility of the claim that CIA support came without strings attached was jeopardized’.70 Unsurprisingly, Coleman’s argument is quite different. He claims that the CIA exerted a deleterious influence on the CCF, not by shaping or controlling its opinions, but by moving the CCF to the Left. According to Coleman, the CCF continued cleaving to the non-communist Left even after the Soviets withdrew from

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 57

21/02/2013 08:23

58

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the culture war in the mid 1950s, because of the CIA’s ‘misjudgement that this was where the leadership of the intellectual community remained’.71 He argues that such an approach might have been appropriate in the early 1950s, but it no longer worked in the 1960s. As for covert funding, Coleman regards it as a viable short-term approach, because, as mentioned above, the means of funding mattered less than the end goals. Nonetheless, over the long-term, the CCF, under the patronage of the CIA, remained fixed in Left thinking, until its demise in the late 1960s. Although moving, and keeping, the CCF to the Left appears to be the CIA’s most important influence on the organisation, Coleman, in any case, favourably assesses the work of the CCF and laments its demise: ‘In contributing in so brilliant and timely a way to this public awareness throughout the world in a period of great danger, the Congress for Cultural Freedom was a historic success’.72 Hugh Wilford’s work occasionally echoes that of Coleman, but lacks his admiration for the CCF. Rather than hold a brief either for or against the CCF, Wilford sets his task as determining the degree to which the CIA exerted influence over cultural affairs. As such, his two critical books – The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? and The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America – both directly challenge Saunders’s ‘tacit suggestion that the Agency called the tune of those intellectuals who received its secret patronage’.73 Although genuinely impressed by her thorough research, Wilford contends that her ‘portrayal of the Agency’s cultural influence’ needs revision.74 Above all, he argues that ‘the implied claim in the British title of Saunders’s book, Who Paid the Piper? – that America’s Cold War spy establishment called the tune of western intellectual life is problematic in several respects’. He agrees that Saunders has correctly identified some examples of CIA influence (for example, the removal of Lasky from CCF leadership and the editorial intrusions at Encounter – indeed, he confirms Saunders in describing Encounter ‘as very much a joint Anglo-American intelligence operation’), but believes her narrow focus on such episodes leaves a distorted picture of CIA influence. He argues that the CIA actually had a difficult time accounting for its investment in culture. Above all, ‘the CIA could not always predict or control the actions of the musicians, writers, and artists, it secretly patronized’.75 Neither was the CIA able to ‘dictate’ how cultural elites would react to the ‘cultural blandishments’ promoted by the CIA.76 For instance, several British intellectuals of the CCF obstructed and hampered the American Cold War effort in a number of ways. They were quarrelsome (arguing incessantly amongst themselves and with the CCF’s leaders); they often defined culture at odds with the CIA; and they ignored the wishes of their benefactors. Yet, there was little that the CIA could do, other than complain behind closed doors, because secrecy prevented the Agency from exposing the intellectuals’ non-compliance.77

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 58

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

59

Wilford’s description of the CIA’s attempts at controlling intellectuals evokes the image of herding cats. Despite confirming Saunders’ appraisal that many intellectuals were, in fact, witting, Wilford believes that the same evidence that indicates their knowledge of covert funding also indicates their distaste for it. They knew of it, but they did not like it. This basic fact mattered a great deal. Whatever intellectuals ‘knew or did not know about the CIA’s hand in their affairs, it did not prevent them from treating the organisation as if it were a genuine, privately run committee, indeed, as if it were their own’.78 Moreover, the risks to the CIA’s covert operations in cultural spheres were significant, because of ‘literary intellectuals’ notorious unpredictability and fierce sense of independence’.79 Passionate disputes among the CCF’s intellectuals and the organisation’s leadership in Paris show further difficulties in managing an international covert operation. In particular, ex-communist intellectuals thought ‘they had a much better understanding of the Cold War enemy than the U.S. government’ and often defiantly made that point to their paymasters.80 Even money itself was a risk for CIA officials, as they often fumed in impotent rage as ‘intellectuals had a habit of appropriating CCF subsidies for their own private purposes, which was to become a chronic problem in the United States’s cultural Cold War effort’.81 The few studies that have considered the CCF’s activities in specific countries tend to confirm Wilford’s arguments about the CIA’s limited ability to call the tune. Ingeborg Philipsen’s study of Denmark describes the Danish CCF as a contentious group that could not be ‘characterized by internal unity. From the start there were disagreements among the intellectuals about its aims and purposes’. Moreover, the CCF in Denmark was ‘not . . . one big propaganda machine controlling everything’. The Danish CCF ‘played out of tune, they played a different tune – or they refused to play at all’. Tity de Vries, comparing the Dutch CCF as ineffectual in relation to the affiliates in Britain, France or Germany, sees the affiliate in the Netherlands as a fairly lacklustre organisation, which had little connection to international intellectuals. Dutch intellectuals held an ambivalent perception of American culture and society and tended to be politically apathetic. For de Vries, uniquely Dutch considerations had ‘more influence on the intellectuals’ position concerning the CCF than the Cold War policy of the Dutch government or their individual political positions’. In addition, my own work and that of Margery Sabin draw similar conclusions about the activities of the CCF in India. Sabin argues that, in order to understand the attraction of Indian intellectuals to the CCF, one has to attend to the factional struggles within Indian politics after independence. ‘It was not love of America’, she asserts, that attracted these figures to the Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom (ICCF), but ‘a hope that they could use rather than be used by their

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 59

21/02/2013 08:23

60

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

new sponsors’. My work contends that Indian intellectuals ‘certainly received CIA money, yet they disagreed vehemently with US foreign policy’, and they used ‘the ICCF as a vehicle for promoting their own domestic opposition to the Nehru government’. Indeed, ‘they routinely ran the organization according to concerns having very little to do with the dictates of American foreign policy’.82 In many ways, Wilford (along with several other authors who focus on specific countries) shows the ineffectiveness of the CIA at the precise moment – the late 1940s and 1950s – when the agency was at the height of its power. Wilford’s work suggests that the cultural Cold War was a collaborative exercise, in which the CIA cooperated with – not dictated to – international partners in the private sphere. The ‘cultural war’ waged by the CIA and its intellectual collaborators often appears as a multifarious and irregular affair, in which minor actors frequently wielded unanticipated power. Although recognising the significant role played by the CIA in the cultural Cold War, Wilford suggests that intellectuals acted with more independence and less hypocrisy than is argued by Lasch and Saunders. In this regard, many of Coleman’s arguments resonate with Wilford, but, it bears repeating, Wilford has no stake either in rehabilitating or condemning the CCF. He intimates that, despite her formidable archival work, Saunders’ interpretative conclusions actually obscure the actual influence that the CIA possessed over the CCF. Wilford’s work suggests that a sober assessment of CIA influence necessitates looking past celebratory or condemnatory appraisals. * * * Together, the historians discussed in this chapter have developed a rich and diverse assessment of the relationship between the CIA and the CCF. Unfortunately, they have done so, despite conducting painstaking multi-archival work, without the benefit of CIA documents. Therefore, their engaging disagreements, valuable interpretations and conclusions must remain contingent. Indeed, the CIA’s retention of documents, many which are now over a half-century old, prevents historians from exploring the degree to which the CIA coordinated its CCF operations with other international covert activities. Berghahn and Wilford convincingly demonstrate the limits of the CIA’s power to influence intellectuals, but inspection of the CIA’s records will enable historians to assess whether or not the CIA believed it earned a good return on its investment in intellectuals. Historians still need to know what the CIA expected culture to accomplish. Indeed, did the CIA regard itself as trying to impose the pax Americana described by Saunders? Or was its approach to culture more complex? Moreover, documents can address questions as to how much the international covert operation with the CCF actually cost. In the event that

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 60

21/02/2013 08:23

The Culture of Funding Culture

61

the documents remain closed, perhaps the best avenue for continued research on the subject of the CIA’s involvement with the CCF is transnational history. Historians must continue to have an expansive notion of the cultural Cold War. Scholars would be wise to follow Berghahn’s integrative approach, which examines the CIA’s ‘cultural war’ as part of a broader ‘culture’ of international ‘cultural conflict’. It is absolutely imperative to examine the Soviet side of the equation, especially during the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, the historians discussed in this chapter have prompted a valuable debate about the cultural Cold War. Lasch, Saunders and Coleman carried the arguments of the cultural Cold War into historiography, though they have all provided valuable foundational work. Although Scott-Smith, Lucas and Wilford have moved beyond mere debate, their theoretical affinity with one another is by no means clear. If Lucas focuses upon goals and Scott-Smith upon causes, then Wilford concentrates upon results. Despite disagreements over emphasis, Scott-Smith and Lucas both assert that the CIA’s Cold War was a negotiated process. Scott-Smith respects Lucas’ recognition of the state–private network as a vehicle for promoting ideology, but ultimately regards the ideological approach as reductionist. Meanwhile, Berghahn’s discussion of historical context establishes that there needed to be a US culture of funding before the US Government could fund culture. The current discussion of the relationship between the CIA and the CCF appears to have moved beyond condemnatory and celebratory approaches, but, until the CIA becomes more forthcoming, our conclusions about the cultural Cold War must remain provisional.

Notes 1 Nate Jones, ‘The CIA’s Covert Operation Against Declassification Review and Obama’s Open Government’, Unredacted: The National Security Archive, Unedited and Uncensored, available at: http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-ciascovert-operation-against-declassification-review-and-obamas-open-government/; Nate Jones, ‘CIA Stops Charging Declassification Fees . . . For Now. White House and Congressional Intervention Still Needed’, Unredacted: The National Security Archive, Unedited and Uncensored, available at: http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/ cia-stops-charging-mdr-fees-for-now-white-house-and-congressional-interventionstill-needed/. 2 Christopher Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, in Barton J. Bernstein (ed.), Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York, NY: Vintage Books: 1967), pp. 322–59. The article first appeared as ‘The Cultural Cold War’, The Nation, 11 September 1967, pp. 198–212. Citations refer to the book. 3 Irwin Unger, ‘Book Reviews: Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History’, Journal of American History, 55(2), September 1968, p. 369. Unger described

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 61

21/02/2013 08:23

62

4 5

6 7 8 9

10 11

12 13 14

15 16

17 18

19 20

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US the article as ‘little more than red baiting in reverse’. David Donald, ‘Review Note: Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History’, American Historical Review, 74(2), December 1968, pp. 532–3. Here, Donald mocked Lasch’s as the ‘voice of outraged youth’. Stephen Spender, Melvin J. Lasky, and Irving Kristol, ‘Letter’, New York Times, 10 May 1966, p. 44. Thomas W. Braden, ‘I’m Glad the CIA is “Immoral” ’, The Saturday Evening Post, 20 May 1967, pp. 10–14; Thomas W. Braden, ‘What’s Wrong with the CIA?’, Saturday Review, 5 April 1975, pp. 14–18. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 325. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 325. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 328. Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta Books, 1999). This book was published in the United States as The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York, NY: The New Press, 1999). Some will certainly regard Saunders’s conclusions as strident, but most will agree that she has performed a valuable service, in terms of crafting a broad and detailed narrative of the activities of the CCF. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, pp. 4, 6. W. Scott Lucas, ‘Revealing the Parameters of Public Opinion: An Interview with Frances Stonor Saunders’, in Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 19, 26; Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 415; Scott Lucas, ‘Introduction: Negotiating Freedom’, in Helen LaVille and Hugh Wilford (eds), The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006), pp. 3–4. Lucas regards Who Paid the Piper? as ‘part of a continuing response to a Cold War history that presents itself as official, triumphal or definitive’. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 415. Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989). Lucas, ‘Interview’, p. 30; Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008), p. 279, note 11. Wilford describes The Liberal Conspiracy as ‘a semi-official account, which nonetheless remains useful’. Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy, pp. xiii, 246. Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy, pp. xi, 246–7. See, also, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 87. Coleman argues along lines similar to Jeffeys-Jones – in the wake of the funding revelations, the CIA was the ‘victim of an excess of democracy’. Peter Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, New Criterion, 18(1), September 1999, p. 63. Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and Post-War American Hegemony (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2002), p. 3. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 84. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 84.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 62

21/02/2013 08:24

The Culture of Funding Culture 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

32

33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

63

Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 84. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, pp. 35, 37 Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? p. 85. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? p. 98 [emphasis original]. Hugh Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune? (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003), p. 105. Wilford agrees that Wisner removed Lasky from CCF leadership, but argues that Lasky’s removal indicates the difficulties, not the power, of CIA attempts to manage cultural activities. Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, pp. 46–7. Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, p. 220. Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War, p. 88. Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War, p. 90. Scott Lucas, Freedom’s Crusade: The American Crusade against the Soviet Union (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1999), p. 2. Though not focusing upon the CIA–CCF relationship, Lucas explores the context of state–private relationships. Elke van Cassel, ‘The Reporter Magazine (1949–1968), The US Government and the Cold War’, in Helen LaVille and Hugh Wilford (eds), The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006), p. 118. Van Cassel, ‘The Reporter Magazine (1949–1968), The US Government and the Cold War’, p. 135. This emphasises the ‘connections’ between the private ventures and the US intelligence community in promoting American ideology. Giles Scott-Smith, ‘Building a Community around the Pax Americana: The US Government and Exchange Programmes during the 1950s’, in Helen LaVille and Hugh Wilford (eds), The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006), pp. 85–6. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 1. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 3. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 66. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 66. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 72. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 82. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 82. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 82. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 82. Volker R. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe: Shepard Stone between Philanthropy, Academy, and Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 112. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 112. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 215. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, pp. 328, 346. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 139. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 142. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 395. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, p. 409. Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy, p. 244. Lucas, Freedom’s Crusade, p. 108; Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 63

21/02/2013 08:24

64

53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US p. 123. Neither narrative continues past the mid-1950s or gives extended discussion of foundation activities. Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, p. 220. Margery Sabin, Dissenters and Mavericks: Writings about India in English, 1765–2000 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 143; Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, pp. 48–9, 221. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 174 Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, pp. 219–20. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 222. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 224. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, pp. 233–5. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, p. 237. Lucas, Freedom’s Crusade, p. 282. Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture, p. 24. Berghahn, America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe, pp. xviii, 284–95. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 331. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 331. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 332. Lasch, ‘The Cultural Cold War’, p. 332. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?, pp. 91, 106–7, 125–7, 341. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper?, pp. 320, 322. Lucas, ‘Interview’, pp. 22–3. Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, p. 245. Coleman, ‘Supporting the Indispensable’, pp. 246–7. Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War, pp. 2, 263. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, p. 9. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 113–14. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 113–14. Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War, p. 217. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 86–7. Wilford, The CIA, The British Left and the Cold War, pp. 103, 109, 114. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 91, 97. Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 84–5, 114. Ingeborg Philipsen, ‘Out of Tune: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Denmark 1953–1960’, in Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 237, 250; Tity de Vries, ‘The Absent Dutch: Dutch Intellectuals and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, in Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (eds), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe 1945–1960 (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003), p. 265; Sabin, Dissenters and Mavericks, p. 143; Eric Pullin, ‘“Money Does Not Make Any Difference to the Opinions That We Hold”: India, the CIA, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1951–58’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), April–June 2011, p. 379.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 64

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 3 ‘REAL SUBSTANCE, NOT JUST SYMBOLISM’? THE CIA AND THE REPRESENTATION OF COVERT OPERATIONS IN THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES SERIES Matthew Jones and Paul McGarr In March 1967, the Harvard economist and former US Ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, noted wryly in the pages of The Washington Post that recent events had confirmed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to be ‘a secret agency . . . with an excellent instinct for headlines’.1 A month earlier, to the horror of senior CIA officials, the American west coast magazine Ramparts had disclosed the Agency’s long-standing financial connection to a number of international educational and cultural organisations. In a series of damning exposes covered simultaneously in The New York Times, details of covert CIA operations conducted in the United States, Europe and Asia were laid bare.2 Ever since the blanket press exposure given to CIA indiscretions in the wake of the Ramparts revelations, and the international media circus that developed in the early 1970s around Congressional probes into the American intelligence community, the CIA has fought to keep much of its remaining operational and institutional history secret. Nonetheless, the Agency’s association with the surveillance of political groups inside the United States during the Johnson and Nixon administrations (Operation CHAOS), links to the global narcotics trade and, following the events of 11 September 2001, controversial role in prosecuting the United States’ ‘War on Terror’ have served as particularly toxic forms of public diplomacy.3 Until relatively recently, the Agency’s most prominent adversaries in the battle for control of CIA history have been former intelligence officers turned memoirists, journalists and historians. Over the past two decades, however, the CIA has come under increasing pressure to open up its archives from a new and, in many respects, much more formidable body inside the United States Government.

65

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 65

21/02/2013 08:24

66

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US THE CIA AND OFFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NARRATIVES

On 28 October 1991, the US Congress passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (PL 102–138). This legally mandated the State Department’s Office of the Historian to ensure that its flagship publication, The Foreign Relations of the United States series (widely known as FRUS), provided a ‘thorough, accurate and reliable’ documentary account of US foreign policy, not more than thirty years after the fact.4 Given the central role that post-war American presidents assigned to the CIA in the pursuit of US foreign policy objectives, the 1991 Act carried far-reaching implications for the CIA’s ability to retain control over its organisational history, wider public image and (some within the Agency have argued) operational effectiveness. During the presidency of John F. Kennedy, a total of 163 covert actions were formally approved between early 1961 and late 1963 by the ‘Special Group’ and ‘303 Committee’ – the executive bodies established to review clandestine operations. Under the Johnson administration, a further 142 covert actions were sanctioned by the executive up to February 1967. The 1976 Final Report of the Church Committee, however, estimated that of several thousand operations undertaken by the CIA since 1961, only 14 per cent were put forward for formal presidential approval.5 The prospect of the US Government publishing official accounts of CIA Cold War interventions in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, the Congo, Indonesia, Japan and elsewhere deeply troubled many in the CIA. Indeed, efforts undertaken by the State Department’s Historian’s Office since the early 1990s to incorporate ever greater amounts of CIA documentation into the FRUS series have provoked feelings of consternation, outrage and, on occasions, panic inside the Agency’s Langley headquarters. In early 2001, one former member of the CIA’s covert action arm – the Directorate of Operations (or, as it is now known, the National Clandestine Service) – publicly articulated the fear that: the CIA is in danger of losing control of its own declassification process to the nongovernmental academic community. It is increasingly apparent that the FRUS series is being written for, and according to, criteria and standards of the domestic US academic community.6

Such a troubling development, it was contended, threatened to have ‘serious, cumulative, and long term deleterious effects on the Agency . . .’7 The CIA has demonstrated a willingness to endorse official representations of some of the less controversial aspects of its past in the FRUS series. Most notably, two FRUS volumes – The Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, 1945–1950 (1996) and The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955 (2007) – have comprehensively documented the origins, organisation and growth of the CIA in the decade after 1945.8 The latter volume, in particular, although published by

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 66

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

67

the Department of State, was compiled and edited by Michael Warner – then a member of CIA’s History Staff – and can be seen as a high-water mark in collaboration between the Office of the Historian and the Agency. More generally, however, the CIA has actively resisted attempts, from both inside and outside government, to document its covert Cold War operations. In part, the Agency’s response, to what it invariably perceived to be wholly unwarranted and irresponsible pressure from the State Department to open up its archives, can be attributed to a natural and ingrained (some have argued excessively so) institutional culture of secrecy.9 Intelligence services are, after all, extremely vulnerable if they do not keep many of their activities hidden from view. Equally, the Clandestine Service retains a genuine and deeply held conviction that, by publicising the less savoury aspects of CIA history, the State Department’s historians risk sabotaging important liaison relationships with foreign intelligence services and imperilling American lives. In the words of one CIA officer, moves towards greater transparency threatened to ‘increase [the] counterintelligence and/or terrorist activity directed against [the] real or imagined CIA presence [abroad], making the C[landestine] S[ervice]’s job more difficult and risky, and occasionally lifethreatening’.10 The CIA, he added, ‘need[ed] to drive the “openness train”, not ride in the caboose, if a major wreck was to be avoided’.11 ‘PLAYING GAMES WITH HISTORY’: THE CIA AND THE FRUS SERIES

Back in the early 1980s, the threat – operational and otherwise – posed by the State Department’s attempts to examine the CIA’s past barely registered with senior Agency officials. In 1983, State Department historians failed to persuade the CIA to sanction the inclusion of documents detailing the Agency’s role in the 1954 coup that ousted Guatemala’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman.12 Special operations or ‘covert actions’ have always been notoriously difficult to keep hidden. Unlike the gathering of intelligence, which is largely passive, such activity is often ‘noisy’, intrinsically insecure and can require the recruitment of large numbers of people from unchecked backgrounds. The 1954 Guatemalan episode is a case in point. In 1982, The New York Times reporter, Stephen Kinzer, in partnership with the political commentator, Stephen Schlesinger, brought the CIA intervention in Guatemala to public prominence with the publication of Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Kinzer successfully utilised the methodological toolkit of investigative journalism to roll back the frontiers of state secrecy in much the same way as his contemporaries, such as Bob Woodard, Carl Bernstein and Seymour Hersh.13 Notably, Bitter Fruit drew extensively upon

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 67

21/02/2013 08:24

68

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

witness statements from former State Department officials and CIA officers to reveal that the Eisenhower administration, which feared that Guatemala’s Left-leaning government would provide the Soviets with a ‘beachhead in the Western hemisphere’,14 had ordered Langley to remove Guzman from power in an operation that was codenamed PBSUCESS. A more authoritative study of the CIA’s complicity in Guzman’s demise arrived later the same year, from the historian Richard Immerman. Immerman’s meticulously researched book, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, mined new US archival sources obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and utilised interviews conducted with some of PBSUCCESS’ central protagonists.15 Once the CIA’s intervention in Guatemala had become the subject of public debate, historians within the State Department argued that by whitewashing the CIA’s role in the 1954 coup, the FRUS series would face ridicule. The credibility of an official history that had been inaugurated back in 1861 during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and which was lauded the world over as the ‘gold standard’ of foreign relations documentary collections, was at stake. Stephen Kane – the editor responsible for compiling the FRUS volume on Guatemala – complained to David Trask – the State Department’s senior historian – that by continuing to airbrush the CIA out of official US history and ‘permitting silence to substitute for substance’, the FRUS series’ ‘reputation as a credible and objective official documentary publication will not endure’.16 Fifteen of Kane’s colleagues in the Historians Office felt likewise. In a formal letter to Trask, his staff urged that the CIA’s veto on the representation of intelligence activity in the Guatemala volume be challenged and, failing that, a disclaimer be inserted into its preface, thereby explaining the omission. In the absence of either, Trask was encouraged to suspend the volumes’ publication.17 Trask’s discomfort increased when Betty Unterberger – a Professor of History at Texas A&M University and Chair of the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee – got wind of the CIA’s plans to conceal its role in Washington’s official history of US–Latin American relations. Echoing Kane’s earlier warning, Unterberger demanded that Trask avoid sending a: signal to the CIA that if it defers a decision [to release documentation for] long enough, the H[istorians] O[ffice] will [demur] . . . thereby encouraging the CIA to employ the same tactics of inaction in other cases with, of course, disastrous results for future Foreign Relations volumes (emphasis added).

For good measure, Unterberger added that she had felt obliged to share her concerns regarding the CIA’s attitude towards the FRUS series with prominent senators and Congressmen.18 In the heightened Cold War climate of the early 1980s, however, and with

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 68

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

69

the Agency enjoying somewhat of a renaissance under the Reagan administration, few senior State Department officials or American legislators felt inclined to champion the case for greater transparency on the part of the CIA. The zeitgeist in Washington was firmly against the disclosure of CIA misdeeds of the type that had emerged from the Church and Pike Committees in the mid1970s and which had all but crippled the Agency. Prior to entering the Oval Office in January 1981, Ronald Reagan had publicly championed the CIA. In 1975, he took a sympathetic view of Langley’s transgressions when serving as a member of the Rockefeller Commission, which his Republican predecessor, Gerald Ford, had established to investigate internal CIA reports detailing illegal or inappropriate Agency activities – the so-called ‘family jewels’.19 On entering the White House, Reagan adopted a light-touch approach to CIA oversight and promised to ‘unleash the CIA’ in an effort to counter what he characterised as an aggressive and relentless bid by the Soviet Union to expand its ‘evil empire’.20 In August 1982, Reagan made his administration’s position on the declassification of government documentation abundantly clear by issuing an executive order that removed the requirement for federal agencies to systematically review their records for public release. The economic and social libertarianism that defined Reagan’s political outlook did not extend to open government, which the new President viewed as an anathema to executive authority, in general, and the work of the intelligence services, in particular.21 Unsurprisingly, in 1983, when the Foreign Relations volume covering US–Latin American relations in the early 1950s was published, it contained no reference to the CIA or the Agency’s intervention in domestic Guatemalan politics. Following the Guatemalan episode, questions surrounding CIA representation in the Foreign Relations series lay dormant for nearly a decade. It was not until 15 February 1990 that the issue was once again thrown into sharp relief, when the then Chair of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation (or, as it is more widely known, Historical Advisory Committee), Warren Cohen – a distinguished professor from the University of Michigan – tendered his resignation to the Secretary of State, James Baker. Rationalising his decision in the op-ed pages of The New York Times, Cohen lamented that he had felt compelled to stand down from his post on the Historical Advisory Committee, as he could no longer guarantee the integrity of the FRUS series. The State Department, Cohen charged, was guilty of ‘playing games with history’.22 Cohen’s ire centred on a FRUS volume documenting US relations with Iran between 1951 and 1954, which had been published the previous year. In common with its Guatemalan predecessor, the Iran volume omitted reference to the CIA’s long-established role in an AngloAmerican covert operation, that, in August 1953, had contributed to the removal

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 69

21/02/2013 08:24

70

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of Iran’s Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in a coup d’état. Dwight Eisenhower – America’s President at the time of the coup – had hinted at his administration’s involvement in the downfall of Mosaddegh, whose decision to nationalise the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company had alienated policymakers in London and Washington, in a ghostwritten memoir, Mandate for Change, published in 1963. In subsequent years, David Wise and Thomas Ross’ book, The Invisible Government, which appeared in 1964; Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1976; and Kermit Roosevelt’s self-serving account of his role as the CIA’s man on the spot, Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran, published in 1979 all fleshed out the detail of America’s part in the events of 1953.23 The Iran FRUS volume, Warren Cohen trumpeted loudly, was simply ‘a fraud, a gross distortion of American activity [in Iran]’.24 Disquiet over the CIA’s exclusion from the FRUS volume on Guatemala in 1983 had generated few ripples outside the Historians Office and the ivory towers of academia. In marked contrast, Cohen’s resignation in 1990 over the Iran volume provoked a public outcry. Here, serendipity played its part. The appearance of the FRUS volume on Iran in 1989 dovetailed neatly with the end of the Cold War. As the Berlin Wall tumbled, and the Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe fractured, the political climate in Washington shifted fleetingly in favour of open government and greater public accountability. Rallying to Cohen’s side, The New York Times, Washington Post and a host of other leading American newspapers noted that whilst post-communist Russia had opened up its archives to Western scholars and released documents confirming Moscow’s culpability for the liquidation of Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940, the State Department continued to publish misleading and fictitious accounts of US foreign policy. Moreover, Congressmen from across the American political spectrum, including Claiborne Pell – the Democratic Party’s Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – Jesse Helms – its senior Republican Party member – and David Boren – Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – all endorsed Cohen’s call for the passage of primary legislation obliging the FRUS series to uphold strict standards of historical accuracy.25 The subsequent passage of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1991 raised hopes amongst advocates of open government that, moving forward, the State Department would be able to circumvent resistance from the CIA and other federal government agencies, such as the Departments of Defense and Energy, to publish ‘thorough, accurate, reliable’ and timely documentary records of US foreign policy.26 Encouragingly, the 1991 Act furnished a reconstituted Historical Advisory Committee staffed by nine senior US academics, with a mandate from Congress to police the production of future FRUS volumes. Warren Kimball – the combative diplomatic historian from Rutgers University,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 70

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

71

who replaced Cohen as Chair of the Historical Advisory Committee – reacted to the passage of the 1991 Act with cautious optimism. ‘This is not “Open sesame!” ’, Kimball noted in October that year, ‘Considerations of privacy and national security still pertain . . . [but] this legislation is a step in the right direction’.27 EMBRACING ‘OPENNESS’

Back in Langley, signs emerged that senior CIA officials were willing to listen to calls from legislators, academics and the US media, in order to shed a Cold War mentality, predicated on extreme secrecy, and open up the Agency’s archives to greater public scrutiny. In February 1992, the Director of Central Intelligence, Robert Gates, addressed the Oklahoma Press Association in Tulsa on the subject of ‘CIA Openness’ (see Figure 5). Conceding that many would view the title of his address as ‘oxymoronic, like bureaucratic efficiency or jumbo shrimp’, Gates

Figure 5 CIA Director Robert Gates (far left) poses with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, 16 October 1992 (Press Association, PA.8676941)

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 71

21/02/2013 08:24

72

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

boldly promised, ‘a real shift on the CIA’s part toward greater openness and a sense of public responsibility’.28 In the short-term, this translated to a commitment on the part of the CIA to accelerate the declassification of Agency records covering the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Guatemalan coup in 1954, the abortive Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Moreover, Gates announced that CIA staff would become more accessible to the media, links would be forged between the CIA and American universities and the creation of a new Centre for the Study of Intelligence would drive forwards the CIA’s declassification effort.29 Gates’ initiative was received with a good measure of cynicism. Asked for his impressions of the Oklahoma speech, Senator Alan Cranston – a Democrat from California – responded that he had ‘seen too many [CIA] documents classified that shouldn’t be’. ‘I’d like to talk with Gates’, Cranston announced, ‘and spur him on to explore what further can be done’.30 Much of the substance behind the Agency’s declassification drive came from recommendations put forward by a CIA ‘Openness Task Force’, which Gates had established shortly after becoming DCI in November 1991. As a consequence, the credibility of Gates’ commitment to a more open and accountable CIA suffered from an early and self-inflicted blow, when the Task Force’s report was labelled as confidential and withheld from public view. ‘It was an internal document’, an unfortunate CIA spokesman struggled to explain to guffawing journalists, ‘portions of which were classified’.31 False starts aside, in the first half of the 1990s, Gates’ successors at the CIA continued to evidence willingness in theory, if not always in practice, to endorse the mantra of ‘openness’. In 1993, DCI R. James Woolsey publicly acknowledged the Agency’s role in eleven covert operations undertaken between the late 1940s and early 1960s in countries such as Italy, Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, British Guiana and Laos. A commitment by Woolsey to initiate declassification reviews of the CIA’s archives appeared to offer up the prospect of a genuine breakthrough, both in the Agency’s culture of secrecy and the representation of intelligence operations in future FRUS volumes. Cautiously applauding Woolsey’s stance, Mel Leffler – a diplomatic historian from the University of Virginia – spoke for many academics when he observed: ‘All of us who research the cold war think its [sic] great. If the C.I.A. really is opening this material up, that’s real substance, not just symbolism’.32 In more tangible terms, many FRUS volumes published after 1991 did evidence the fruits of closer collaboration between the CIA, the State Department’s Historians Office and its Historical Advisory Committee. Significantly, the FRUS series broke new ground in the mid-1990s with volumes on Vietnam that, for the first time, officially acknowledged US Government policy deliberations about major covert operations.33 In May 1997, the CIA released 1,400 pages of

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 72

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

73

documents relating to the Guatemalan coup of 1954, along with its own 116page in-house history of the operation. Moreover, a retrospective FRUS volume on Guatemala followed in 2003, effectively rectifying ‘the incomplete history of US relations with Guatemala’, which the State Department had published in 1983.34 Other FRUS volumes, however, continued to be plagued by disputes between the Historians Office and the CIA, largely over the declassification of Agency records. In 1992, the State Department and CIA clashed over the release of documents detailing the provision of covert funding for Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party during the Kennedy administration. A total of 13.5 per cent of the documents the Historians Office had selected for publication in the FRUS volume on Japan (from 1961 to 1963) were denied classification by the CIA. In response, when the volume finally went to press in 1996, its preface included a disclaimer from the Historical Advisory Committee, baldy stating that, in its view, the volume did not constitute a ‘thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of major United States foreign policy decisions’.35 Similar problems plagued the FRUS volume on the American Republics, from 1961 to 1963. The CIA initially refused to declassify documents implicating the Agency in plots to oust British Guiana’s leader, Cheddi Jagan.36 In this instance, however, the HAC proved more successful in overturning the CIA’s decision, with the result that a majority of the denied documents, albeit heavily redacted, eventually made it into the volume. Further declassification issues plagued FRUS volumes dealing with Lyndon Johnson’s administration. In one instance, the CIA’s objection to the FRUS volume on Greece (from 1964 to 1968), which exposed Agency plans to funnel covert payments to Right-wing Greek politicians in 1965 and 1967, halted the volume’s release after 750 copies had already rolled off government presses.37 INDONESIA AND THE OFFICIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF CIA COVERT ACTION

However, perhaps one of the best places to see the problems and issues generated by the interactions between the CIA and the FRUS series over the representation of covert action is in the various volumes produced on US relations with Indonesia by the Historian’s Office. Indonesia was a ripe field for outside intervention in the Cold War years. Having achieved independence from the Dutch in 1949, the early Indonesian republic was beset by instability, economic difficulties and regional tensions. Parliamentary democracy and the institutions that supported it were fragile, a multi-party political system struggled to form stable coalition governments and the influence of the Army and the centralising

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 73

21/02/2013 08:24

74

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

tendencies of the administrative bureaucracy of the new state soon fostered tensions between the Outer Island provinces of this huge archipelago and Java. The country was also home to a growing Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) – the largest in Asia outside the People’s Republic of China – whose emerging electoral strength on Java was beginning to attract anxious attention in Washington from the early 1950s onwards. Indeed, American policymakers were ever more inclined to see Indonesia, with its large and disparate population, its abundant natural resources, including oil, tin and rubber, and its position astride important sea lines of communication, as the most strategically significant state in the region, whose loss to communism would be a major defeat for the US in the Cold War with the Soviet Bloc. Indonesian foreign policy had, moreover, struck out on an independent, non-aligned path, hosting the Bandung Conference in 1955, courting friendly relations with the Soviet Union and voicing its support for the continuance of anti-colonial struggles against America’s European NATO allies (not least the Dutch, who retained a presence in Indonesia’s backyard in the contested territory of Western New Guinea). Under the unpredictable and flamboyant leadership of President Sukarno, who began to assert his own leadership credentials as the political parties floundered in the mid-1950s, US officials feared that communist strength within Indonesia would eventually allow the PKI to take complete control. In this volatile setting, there seemed to be great scope for external intervention and, therefore, during the 1950s and 1960s, it is hardly surprising to find that American policymakers were ready, on occasions, to turn to the CIA, not only for intelligence information and analysis on the constellation of political forces swirling around Sukarno, but for its capacity to engage in various forms of covert action, which might help to counteract PKI influence on the domestic political scene.38 With this kind of backdrop, US relations with Indonesia were always likely to be a thorny topic for the FRUS series to tackle. Another relevant issue was that ever since the eventual ousting from power of Sukarno by the Indonesian Army from 1965 to 1966, the US Government had maintained close relations with the repressive and corrupt regime led by his hard-line anti-communist successor, General Suharto. During the 1990s, as the FRUS series began to publish its Indonesia volumes, the country itself was going through social and political changes, which could have had an impact on US interests and general relations with the West. Indeed, following the Asian financial crisis, Suharto was forced to step down as president in May 1998, and his regime began to be subject to greater critical scrutiny within Indonesia after 2000, leading to prolonged (and ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to lay corruption and human rights violations charges against the former president. Several nervous US officials may well have

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 74

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

75

thought that this was an inopportune time to rake over the recent past, where American involvement in internal Indonesian affairs was so pronounced. Until the 1990s, despite all the attention given to other CIA interventions, in Iran, Guatemala and Chile, for example, relatively little had emerged in the public domain about the nature of CIA involvement in Indonesia. Of steadily growing interest, however, was the Agency’s role in the Outer Island rebellion of 1958 – an episode that, for a time, appeared to threaten to break up the Indonesian republic entirely.39 By the mid-1950s, it was clear that US concern with the rising power of the PKI, and frustration with Indonesian policies of non-alignment, had spilled over into outright antipathy toward Sukarno himself. To the Eisenhower administration, Sukarno was seen as ‘playing the Communist game’,40 with his bids for PKI support and his attempts to counterbalance the Army’s domestic political influence. In late 1957, when dissatisfaction with Javanese dominance of the Indonesian federation and concerns over the rise of PKI influence led to declarations of autonomy from regional military commanders in the Outer Islands of Sumatra and Sulawesi, Washington decided to extend covert support to these factions. In February 1958, regional defiance became full-blown rebellion, with the establishment of a new provisional government on Sumatra; the CIA moved to provide arms, ammunition and even air support for the rebels, as the US Government seemed intent on bringing about Sukarno’s downfall and breaking up centralised control of the islands. By the spring of 1958, however, the central government forces had managed to quell the regional risings, and the Indonesian Army leaders, alarmed by the further boost given to communist popularity by the PKI’s opposition to the rebellion, quietly began to solicit aid from the United States. Eisenhower and Dulles quickly switched horses and authorised assistance to the Indonesian Army, while aid to the remaining rebels was curtailed. Sukarno’s rule was now tolerated, precisely because he seemed more ready to see the PKI curbed by the Army, while the electoral process and parliamentary system were steadily sidelined. The Outer Island rebellion was a topic which had not yet received sustained attention from historians or interested commentators (as many of the crucial records remained closed), and the compilers of the FRUS volumes on Indonesia, dealing with the latter portion of the Eisenhower administration, were bound to provide new material and findings that would help shape views of this controversial episode in US foreign policy. In the aftermath of the furore that had greeted the publication of the FRUS volumes on Iran and Guatemala, moreover, there would inevitably be extra attention paid to how subsequent volumes in the series would deal with another important covert operation (and one which the Agency, in 1993, had formally acknowledged). With the credibility of the FRUS series increasingly on the line, it would be very hard to overlook or completely

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 75

21/02/2013 08:24

76

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

deny CIA involvement in the events of 1958, even though this contradicted the official US position of ‘neutrality’ towards the rebellion. Indeed, at the time of the rebellion, the US authorities had been much embarrassed when a CIA contract pilot, Allen Pope, had been shot down and captured by Indonesian forces when conducting a bombing run over Ambon in May 1958 – this at the very time when John Foster Dulles – the US Secretary of State – was claiming non-involvement in the fighting. Pope had been put on trial in December 1959. Sentenced to death, he kept to his cover story of being merely a soldier of fortune in the pay of the rebels. However, the subject received further publicity in early 1962, when Pope was finally released, following Robert Kennedy’s visit to Indonesia and after personal appeals from Pope’s wife to President Sukarno. A further issue from the mid-1960s, that was beginning to receive more coverage by the early 1990s and that was looming for the FRUS series, was the possible complicity of the United States in the destruction of the PKI and the large-scale massacres of those suspected of Left-wing sympathies, which was overseen and, in some cases, carried out by the Indonesian Army after the failed coup of October 1965. The CIA had always vigorously maintained that it had played no role in the events that led up to the coup and its bloody aftermath, and that this was an entirely indigenous, Indonesian affair. Nevertheless, drawing attention to CIA activity, particularly its ties to the Army, was likely to revive discussion of its role in this controversial area of recent Indonesian history. The build-up to the 1958 Outer Island Rebellion had featured in volume XXII of the subseries for 1955 to 1957, which covered South East Asia as a whole, and was published in 1989, before the storm over the Iran and Guatemala volumes had broken. These were, though, still very early days of cooperation between the Historians Office and the CIA over access to historical records. The editor of the volume, Harriet D. Schwar, had been given very limited access to some CIA documents when preparing her volume, but the collection that she produced contained significant redactions, when discussing the CIA’s part in policy deliberations and the decision to open channels to the rebels, with some documents retained in their entirety.41 There was also very little to indicate how the reporting of the CIA on the internal situation –which had often been at variance to the US Ambassador to Jakarta – contributed to policy debates in Washington or when and why crucial decisions on covert action were taken by the administration, including the efforts they made to solicit the support of allies, such as Britain and Australia. In fact, far more material on the latter subject was already being released in the UK and Australia, allowing researchers to piece together some of the story from non-US sources.42 Nevertheless, Schwar’s volume did provide broad clues for the general trajectory of US policy toward Indonesia, even if the CIA was more conspicuous by its absence.43

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 76

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

77

By the time that the Historians Office came to publish volume XVII of the 1958 to 1960 subseries – which was focused exclusively on Indonesia – in October 1994, the series as a whole was still adjusting to the changes occasioned by the reverberations of Warren Cohen’s resignation from the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee, only four years previously. The Outer Island rebellion of 1958 formed the centrepiece of the new volume. The documents had actually been compiled by the eminent historian of US relations with Indonesia and US foreign policy more generally, Robert J. McMahon, who had completed his task while working at the Historians Office many years previously, in 1981. The fact that the volume had taken about fourteen years to appear indicated the difficulties that it had presented for the declassification process. It also attracted attention because, unlike earlier volumes on Iran and Guatemala, it formerly acknowledged the CIA’s role in the rebellion or, as The New York Times put it, previous FRUS volumes had ‘been written as though the CIA did not exist’.44 ‘For the first time since the Foreign Relations volumes on Vietnam for 1963 were published’, the volume’s preface proclaimed, ‘the U.S. Government has acknowledged the existence of and policy deliberations about a major covert operation. In this respect, volume XVII is a transitional volume on the road to a fuller release of information of important intelligence operations’.45 Nevertheless, McMahon later criticised the heavily excised version published by the Historians Office, which was quite different from the volume that he had worked on, as it ‘obscures, omits, and deletes from the official record nearly as much as it reveals’.46 Even with his security clearances as a State Department historian, McMahon stressed that he did not have full access to the entire US Government documentary record. McMahon had been allowed a one-day visit to Langley, where he took notes on a sanitised internal history of CIA involvement in the rebellion, but none of the editorial comments that he wrote, which were based on this insight, found their way into the published volume. ‘I was not allowed to see any complete documents of the sort that scholars would find most useful’, McMahon later wrote, ‘not any cable traffic between the CIA station in Jakarta and headquarters . . . not any internal memos to Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, not any records of meetings’.47 He was particularly concerned that influential CIA reporting on the internal Indonesian political scene was never available to him. Throughout his work on the volume, in fact, McMahon had the sense that he was not seeing the full record, even of high-level State Department meetings involving John Foster Dulles, for example, where the covert operation was discussed. Some of the documents reproduced in the volume were ‘sanitised’ to such an extent that they lost almost all meaning.48 Moreover, his attempts to signal, through the device of editorial notes, the apparent absence of records of meetings involving Dulles – which he knew, from

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 77

21/02/2013 08:24

78

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

unclassified appointment books, had, in fact, taken place – were even removed from the final published volume.49 In its preface, the 1958 to 1960 volume also featured a statistical indicator of the effects of the declassification process, the reader being informed that this review process had resulted in a decision to withhold 1.7 per cent of the documents that were originally selected for publication.50 Such statistics contributed to the reassuring impression that relatively little had been held back. However, they took no account of the relative importance of the material that was being retained. Just the withholding of a very small portion of a document could prove crucial to appreciating its significance or even render it incomprehensible or misleading. McMahon confessed to being unsure as to what the 1.7 per cent figure referred to. Was it 1.7 per cent of the total number of documents selected in the editorial process were denied in full? And did it include the editorial notes that were omitted?51 More recent FRUS volumes have, in fact, discontinued the practice of citing the percentage of text denied declassification. Finally, McMahon decried the removal of the material in the volume that covered US liaison with other states in its conduct of the Indonesian operation.52 The Indonesia section of volume XXIII of the 1961 to 1963 subseries, also published in 1994, had relatively few excisions from documents that referred, in some way, to CIA participation in the 1958 rebellion. Moreover, the volume’s editor, Edward C. Keefer, did have access to CIA documents when carrying out his work of compilation in 1990 to 1991, marking a distinct difference from McMahon’s experience of ten years previously.53 What perhaps did not fully emerge, despite this, was the degree of CIA scepticism over the wisdom of attempting to court Sukarno – as the Kennedy administration was then trying to do – when the Agency had no confidence in his basic desire or capacity to move against the PKI (though a full version of a very important March 1961 memorandum from Richard Bissell – the CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans – which called Sukarno’s regime ‘essentially unacceptable’ was reproduced).54 At this time, the CIA’s preference was to continue to cultivate its own contacts in the Indonesian military and security apparatus, in preparation for the time when an eventual ‘showdown’ with communist influence in Indonesian society finally occurred, but no material on this track of policy appeared. However, probably the most controversial aspect in the story of the FRUS series and coverage of US relations with Indonesia was its handling of the period covered by the Johnson administration and, in particular, the events surrounding the suppression of the PKI, following the failed coup attempt of October 1965 and the large-scale massacres that followed in many parts of the archipelago.55 It had long been a staple of critics of US foreign policy that Washington had some foreknowledge of the coup, that he might even have provoked it, in the hopes

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 78

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

79

of triggering the Army’s backlash against the PKI, and that he was complicit in the mass killings that followed. Contentious areas which might be expected to be included in the volume included CIA knowledge of – and perhaps its satisfaction with – the extent of the massacres carried out in late 1965 and early 1966, payments to some of the groups involved in anti-PKI action and the covert supply of certain forms of aid, such as communications equipment to anti-communist Army leaders.56 Furthermore, one of the most explosive accusations to surface against American officials in the period after the coup was the story that lists of alleged PKI members, supporters and sympathisers had been provided by the Embassy in Jakarta to the Indonesian authorities. In May 1990, the Washington Post had published a piece by Kathy Kadane, based on a detailed interview with an ex-Embassy officer, Robert J. Martens, along with others, which were conducted with named retired State Department and CIA officials, which made the allegation that US officials had systematically compiled lists of communists ‘from the top echelons down to village cadres’,57 and then, with the approval of the then US ambassador, Marshall Green, passed the thousands of names to the Indonesian authorities. Embassy officers later checked those killed or captured off their lists.58 Martens wrote to the Post soon after, in order to confirm that he had, indeed, passed over names of senior PKI figures, but that these were simply based on widely available information in the Indonesian communist press and were not those of ‘rank and file’ members of the party. Maintaining that he had taken this action on his own initiative, Martens argued that none of the information was derived from ‘classified’ or secret sources and that the Post’s article had been wrong in picturing him as leading a group at the Embassy which had been busy compiling the lists for two years prior to the coup or that the names had been handed over with the Ambassador’s approval.59 The following month, The New York Times published a follow-up piece, which carried denials from CIA figures that classified sources had been used in compiling the lists or that they had any involvement with Martens’ activities, while also asserting that there was little Agency involvement in Indonesian affairs immediately before, during or in the aftermath of the coup attempt.60 Many hoped that publication of the relevant FRUS volume would help to clarify the extent and nature of US involvement. Featuring material on Malaysia and the Philippines alongside that on Indonesia, and edited by Keefer, once again, volume XXVI of the 1964 to 1968 subseries was delivered for printing by the Historians Office in the summer of 2001, and advance copies were sent for distribution to several US Government Printing Office bookstores. However, it would seem that these were despatched before the final approval for the release of the volume had been given from the CIA, even though a final declassification review had been completed in 2000. Despite efforts to recall all of the volumes initially distributed, this horse had

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 79

21/02/2013 08:24

80

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

already well and truly bolted. A copy was soon obtained by the National Security Archive (NSA) – a non-profit organisation based at George Washington University’s Gelman Library that, since 1985, has championed improved public access to US Government records – and was posted on the NSA’s website at the end of July 2001.61 The appearance of the volume on the Internet meant that further steps undertaken to limit the damage were largely redundant. From its front matter, it was made clear that the volume had created several problems for the CIA, in that some of the documents selected for inclusion would effectively acknowledge the conduct of a covert operation.62 In 1997, a special high-level panel was formed, composed of representatives from the NSC, State Department and CIA, with the task of adjudicating on the declassification issues that this raised. The panel considered six documents selected for inclusion in the volume: three were denied declassification in full and three were released with excisions. The latter three contained material relating to the controversial funding of civilian militia groups, who were targeting alleged PKI, or Left-wing, sympathisers. The high-level panel and the CIA apparently decided, in August 1998, to officially acknowledge this covert intervention in Indonesian affairs. The denials and excisions were made on the grounds that the disclosure of the intelligence sources or methods that they would reveal would ‘clearly and demonstrably’ damage US national security interests.63 However, from the attempts made to block the release of the volume when it had already reached proof stage, it would seem that last minute doubts arose, despite these previous efforts at ‘sanitisation’. According to The New York Times report on the affair, a CIA spokesman had said there was a decision to delay publication, so as ‘to avoid roiling relations at a time of political turmoil in Indonesia’, more specifically, as Sukarno’s daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, took over the presidency; therefore, the shipment of the volume had been ‘accidental’.64 The areas of the inadvertently released volume that captured the most attention were obviously those relating to the mass killings that followed the failed coup attempt of 1 October 1965, where the Army, with support from civilian militias, attempted to expunge all traces of the PKI from Indonesian society. Estimates of the numbers killed in the massacres, which took place primarily on Java, in northern Sumatra and on Bali, are often cited as up to 500,000. The FRUS volume’s documents confirmed that Embassy personnel were very much aware that large-scale killings were underway. An editorial note dealing with the Embassy’s knowledge of the extent of the purges cited an airgram to Washington from April 1966, which included the admission that: ‘We frankly do not know whether the real figure is closer to 100,000 or 1,000,000 but believe it wiser to err on the side of the lower estimates, especially when questioned by the press’.65 The volume also cited an article published in 1970 in the CIA’s classified publication,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 80

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

81

Studies in Intelligence, which contained the Agency’s own estimates that around 105,000 ‘communists’ were killed in the months following the coup.66 This would, however, appear to be underplaying the extent of the killings; the FRUS volume reproduced a State Department paper from June 1966, which had been sent to President Johnson, putting the figure of those killed between October 1965 and March 1966 as ‘perhaps as many as 300,000’.67 By citing from various telegrams despatched from the Embassy, the FRUS volume also confirmed that lists of leading PKI figures, as well as officials in a number of other Left-wing groups, had, indeed, been provided to the Indonesian Government in December 1965 and were being used by the security forces, who seemed to lack such basic information. The new documents tended to back-up, however, the rebuttal that Martens had delivered to the original press reports from 1990, in terms of the length of the lists and the circumstances in which they were compiled.68 A further document in the FRUS volume revealed that in December 1965, the Ambassador, Marshall Green, confirmed his agreement to a scheme to provide funding to an army-coordinated, but civilian-staffed, ‘action group’ or movement, the Kap-Gestapu, which was ‘still carrying burden of current repressive efforts targeted against PKI, particularly in Central Java’.69 The CIA’s attitude to what Green described as a ‘black bag operation’ was not recorded in the volume, a memorandum on the scheme from the then Chief of the CIA’s Far East Division in the Directorate of Operations, William E. Colby, to the State Department Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs, William P. Bundy, having been denied declassification in the pre-publication review process. Documentation in the volume also made clear that communications equipment had been supplied by the US to the Indonesian Army; it was this kind of logistical support that critics of US policy have seen as aiding and abetting the massacres that took place, by facilitating communications between army units carrying out the anti-PKI sweeps and attacks.70 Yet, despite the acknowledgement of the assistance offered to the military during the course of the massacres, and the tacit approval that was given to destroy the PKI, whatever their human cost, the volume also served to dispel some earlier theories, regarding CIA involvement in the October 1965 coup and its aftermath. For example, there was nothing in the documentary evidence to show that the Agency had foreknowledge of the coup or had played any role in its instigation in the hope of provoking the military crackdown that followed. Just as many former officials had maintained, the FRUS volume showed that Washington had been taken completely by surprise by the events of October 1965. Far from orchestrating the actions of the Indonesian Army in moving rapidly against the PKI, US officials had trouble keeping up with the shifting internal scene and wondered if the PKI might even seize the chance of domestic

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 81

21/02/2013 08:24

82

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

upheaval to make a bid for power.71 To that extent, the volume served a corrective purpose, that could even be construed as working to the Agency’s benefit: the writings on US involvement in Indonesia that had appeared since the 1960s – in common with Indonesian rumour and conjecture – had tended to picture the CIA’s hidden hand as operating behind the scenes on many significant occasions in the country’s recent past.72 Therefore, the handling of the declassification process for the volume by the high-level panel from 1997 to 1998 raises some pertinent questions. Despite its reluctance to disclose the full details of operations, what explains the Agency’s initial decision to acknowledge its role in Indonesia during this period? Was there a greater readiness from the Agency to recognise its past history? Was there a sense that enough time had elapsed since the events in question to make the effects of documentary releases negligible? Could the release of documents help to absolve the Agency of blame for instigating the events from 1965 to 1966? Or was the decision prompted by an accumulation of outside pressures and arguments, rather than strictly Agency-centred considerations, so that some Agency sceptics may well have come to regard the whole episode as illustrating the perils of cooperating with the Historians’ Office and opening up the past at all? The subsequent record of the declassification process for other instances of CIA covert action in the FRUS series, including retrospective volumes on Iran and the Congo, was not auspicious, and this may have been a result of such chastening experiences as the Indonesia volume, covering the events of 1965 to 1966. CONCLUSION: INCHING TOWARDS GREATER TRANSPARENCY

The picture that emerges of the State Department’s on-going effort to accurately reflect the CIA’s centrality to contemporary American foreign policymaking within the Foreign Relations of the United States series, vividly illustrated in the FRUS volumes covering Indonesia, is one of qualified, uneven and often painfully slow progress. In 2009, just three FRUS volumes were published. In 2010 and 2011, respectively, six and seven volumes were released. Meanwhile, nineteen completed FRUS volumes remain embargoed by the State Department, pending completion of declassification reviews. When judged against the standards of accuracy and timeliness mandated by Congress and, equally significantly, when set against the CIA’s own rhetoric on openness, the FRUS series continues to disappoint. Nevertheless, since 1990, the series has undeniably come a long way in its efforts to document the impact of the CIA’s principal Cold War covert operations on US foreign policymaking. However, many historians, media commentators and State Department officials persist in the belief that, in this specific area, the FRUS series could, and should, go much further.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 82

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

83

It is, perhaps, sobering to conclude with one final observation. It is now over two decades since Warren Cohen’s resignation from the State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee focused public attention on CIA representation in the Foreign Relations of the United States series. Yet, a retrospective FRUS volume correcting the omissions that discredited the 1989 work on Iran has yet to be published. Such a volume exists. Between 2002 and 2003, it was researched, compiled and edited by James Van Hook – a specially appointed ‘joint historian’, whose parallel reporting lines into the State Department and CIA and possession of enhanced security clearances were expected to help expedite the publication of contentious FRUS volumes containing a significant covert action element.73 Today, however, with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear ambition, peaceful or otherwise, poisoning relations between Washington and Teheran, the FRUS retrospective volume on Iran remains gathering dust on a Foggy Bottom bookshelf, part of the growing backlog of FRUS volumes awaiting declassification clearance. The struggles over declassification that have been witnessed, over the record of US relations with Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia and elsewhere through the FRUS series, illustrate the formidable on-going challenges in compiling an ‘official’ documentary collection with a strong intelligence component. Since 1990, entrenched bureaucratic interests in Washington, and concerns surrounding the potential for historical skeletons in the CIA’s archives to undermine contemporary transnational intelligence partnerships and diplomatic relations, have all too frequently impeded, stalled or completely frustrated the publication of important volumes in the Foreign Relations of the United States series.

Notes 1 John Kenneth Galbraith, ‘CIA Needs a Tug on its Purse Strings’, The Washington Post, 12 March 1967, B1. 2 On the Ramparts furore, see, in particular, Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Peter Coleman, The Liberal Conspiracy: The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Struggle for the Mind of Postwar Europe (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989); Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989); Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta, 1999); Giles Scott-Smith, The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and post-war American Hegemony (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2002). 3 See, for example, Athan Theoharis (ed.), The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny (London: Greenwood, 2006); Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair, White Out: CIA, Drugs and the Press (London: Verso, 1997); Mark Mazetti, ‘C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations’, The New York Times, 7 December

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 83

21/02/2013 08:24

84

4

5

6 7 8

9

10 11 12

13

14

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US 2007, A1; Jose A. Rodriguez Jr, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2012). ‘Title IV – Foreign Relations of the United States Historical Series’, SEC. 198. Public Law 102–38, 28 October 1991, available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/ pl102138.html. See, also, George Bush, ‘Statement on Signing the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993’, 28 October 1991, available at: http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=20152#ixzz1jzz0b100. Covert actions deemed to be of low risk, a low potential for exposure, little political sensitivity and below a nominal cost threshold of $25,000 were not generally referred for Executive approval. Senator Frank Church, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, Book I, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 56–7. See, also, William M. Leary (ed.), The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents (Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press, 1984), p. 63. N. Richard Kinsman, ‘Openness and the Future of Clandestine Service’, Studies in Intelligence, Winter–Spring (10), 2001, p. 56. N. Richard Kinsman, ‘Openness and the Future of Clandestine Service’, p. 59. C. Thomas Thorne Jr and David S. Patterson (eds), Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), The Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, 1945–1950 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1996); Douglas Keane and Michael Warner (eds), FRUS, The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2007). See, for example, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Kate Doyle, ‘The End of Secrecy’, in Craig Eisendrath (ed.), National Insecurity: U.S. Intelligence after the Cold War (Philadelphia, PN: Temple University Press, 2000), pp. 101–4. Doyle, ‘The End of Secrecy’, pp. 101–4. N. Richard Kinsman, ‘Openness and the Future of Clandestine Service’, pp. 55–6. N. Stephen Kane and William F. Sanford Jr (eds), FRUS, 1952–1954, Volume IV, American Republics (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1983). See, also, Ian Black, ‘Tightened Rules Keep Nation’s Secrets Too Long, Historians Say’, The Washington Post, 10 September 1983, A3; Roger Dingman’s review of Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Vol. XII: East Asia and the Pacific, Part 2, Carl N. Raether and Harriet D. Schwar (eds), The Pacific Historical Review, 58(1), February 1989, pp. 134–6. Woodward and Bernstein garnered global attention in the early 1970s when, as investigative reporters on The Washington Post, they broke the Watergate story, which ultimately led to the downfall of Richard Nixon’s administration. See Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (London: Secker & Warburg, 1974). In 1969, Seymour Hersh rose to international prominence after revealing details of US military involvement in the massacre of civilians in the South Vietnamese village of My Lai. Amongst his other notable ‘scoops’, Hersh subsequently published details of ‘Project Azorian’ – a CIA operation to recover a sunken Soviet submarine from the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 17.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 84

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

85

15 Stephen Kinser and Stephen Schlesinger, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (London: Sinclair Brown, 1982); Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982). See, also, Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s classified account of its operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999); Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Jim Handy, Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala 1944–54 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). 16 Stephen Kane to David Trask, ‘“Fast Track” publication of Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, IV (“The American Republics”)’, 18 March 1981, Folder Stdepthistorical comm2r, Betty Miller Unterberger Papers, Cushing Library, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas (hereafter BMUP). 17 ‘The Undersigned Historians’ to Mr Trask, 20 March 1981, Folder Stdepthistorical comm2, BMUP. 18 Betty Miller Unterberger to David Trask, 10 April 1981, Folder Stdepthistorical comm2, BMUP. 19 See ‘The CIA’s Family Jewels’, The National Security Archive, available at: http:// www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm. 20 Richard Immerman, ‘A Brief History of the CIA’, in Athan Theoharis, Richard Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted and John Prados (eds), The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny (Understanding Our Government) (London: Greenwood Press, 2006), pp. 57–8. 21 In the United Kingdom, Reagan’s ideological ally and personal confidante, the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, shared the US President’s fascination with the work of intelligence services and retained a similar faith in their operational utility. Thatcher’s conviction that Britain’s intelligence agencies performed an invaluable national security function in countering communist subversion, inside and outside the UK, ensured that, on her watch, the British intelligence community was largely insulated from public scrutiny and benefitted from an increase in budgets and resources. Revealingly, in the 1980s, Thatcher presided over a lengthy, expensive and ultimately futile campaign to prevent the publication of the memoirs of a former British intelligence officer, Peter Wright, in what came to be known as the ‘Spycatcher’ affair. See Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), pp. 670, 682. 22 Warren I. Cohen, ‘At the State Dept., Historygate’, The New York Times, 8 May 1990, A29. 23 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953–1956: The White House Years, A Personal Account (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1963); David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New York, NY: Random House, 1964); Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for Iran (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1979). For additional insights into British and American complicity in the 1953 coup, see Mostafa Elm, Oil, Power and Principle: Iran’s Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994); Mark Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne (eds), Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004); Mary Ann Heiss, Empire and Nationhood: The

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 85

21/02/2013 08:24

86

24 25

26

27 28 29

30 31

32 33

34

35

36

37

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil, 1950–1954 (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1997). Warren I. Cohen, ‘At the State Dept., Historygate’, The New York Times, 8 May 1990, A29. Al Kamen, ‘30 Years and Out; Historians and Civil Libertarians Hail Victory Over Bureaucracy’, The Washington Post, 31 October 1991, A19; Warren F. Kimball, ‘To Shed More Light on Foreign Policy’, The New York Times, 9 October 1991, A24. Public law 102–138, Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993, 28 October 1991, available at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/L?d102:./list/ bd/d102pl.lst:138(Public_Laws). Warren F. Kimball ‘To Shed More Light on Foreign Policy’, The New York Times, 9 October 1991, A24. Tim Weiner, ‘Files and Whispers: The CIA Opens Its Safe’, New York Times, 29 August 1993, E2. George Lardner, ‘Gates Acts to Promote CIA Openness: Agency to Cooperate in Declassifying JFK Files, Within Limits, He Says’, The Washington Post, 22 February 1992, A4. Elaine Sciolin, ‘C.I.A. Director Announces Plan For More Access to Agency Files’, The New York Times, 22 February 1992, p. 9. George Lardner, ‘Gates Acts to Promote CIA Openness: Agency to Cooperate in Declassifying JFK Files, Within Limits, He Says’, The Washington Post, 22 February 1992, A4. Tim Weiner, ‘Files and Whispers: The CIA Opens Its Safe’, The New York Times, 29 August 1993, E2. Edward C. Keefer and Louis J. Smith (eds), FRUS, 1961–1963, Volume III, Vietnam January–August 1963 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991); Edward C. Keefer (ed.), FRUS, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam August–December 1963 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991). Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, State Department, ‘Press Release on Guatemala Retrospective FRUS Volume’, 15 May 2003, available at: http://www.state. gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ike/guat/20806.htm; Susan Holly (ed.), FRUS, 1952–1954, Volume IV, Guatemala (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2003). William Z. Slany, The Historian, Preface to FRUS, 1961–1963, Volume XXII, North East Asia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1996). See, also, Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation to the United States Department of State Annual Report to Warren Christopher, Secretary of State, 10 May 1996, available at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/state/hac95.html; Tim Weiner, ‘C.I.A Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in the 50s and 60s’, The New York Times, 9 October 1994, p. 1; World News Briefs, ‘C.I.A Blocks Release of Documents on Japan’, The New York Times, 15 February 1995, A11. Edward C. Keefer, Harriet Dashiell Schwar and W. Taylor Fain III (eds), FRUS, 1961– 1963, Volume XII, American Republics (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1996). James E. Miller, FRUS, 1964–1968, Volume XVI, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2000); The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, Minutes, 21–22 March 1996, available at: http://www. state.gov/r/pa/ho/adcom/mtgnts/11709.htm; see, also, Alexis Papakhelas, ‘The CIA’s

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 86

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

38

39

40 41

42 43

44 45

46 47 48

49

87

Secret Files on Greece’, To Vima (Athens), 12 August 2001, A6–7; George Lardner, ‘History of U.S.–Greek Ties Blocked: CIA Opposes Disclosure of Proposed Covert Actions in ’60s’, The Washington Post, 17 August 2001, A15. For some background on US–Indonesian relations, see Robert J. McMahon, The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia since World War Two (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999); Paul F. Gardner, Shared Hopes, Separate Fears: Fifty Years of U.S.–Indonesian Relations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); Andrew Roadnight, U.S. Policy towards Indonesia in the Truman and Eisenhower Years (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). For the 1958 Outer Island Rebellion, see Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York, NY: New Press, 1995); Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957–1958 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999); Matthew Jones, ‘“Maximum Disavowable Aid”: Britain, the United States, and the Indonesian Rebellion, 1957–58,’ English Historical Review, 114, November 1999, pp. 1179–216; Robert J. McMahon, ‘“The Point of No Return”: The Eisenhower Administration and Indonesia, 1953–1960’, in Kathryn C. Statler and Andrew L. Johns (eds), The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 75–99. Record of 333rd MTG of National Security Council, 1August 1957, NSC series, Box 9, Ann Whitman File, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas. See, for example, Robert J. McMahon, Harriet D. Schwar and Louis J. Smith (eds), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Volume XXII: Southeast Asia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989), Document 240, Memorandum of Discussion at 33rd Meeting of the NSC, 1 August 1957, 400-2; Document 247, Message from Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson) to Ambassador in Indonesia (Allison), 16 August 1957, pp. 411–2; Document 262, report prepared by the Ad Hoc Interdepartmental Committee on Indonesia for the NSC, 3 September 1957, pp. 436–40. See Jones, ‘“Maximum Disavowable Aid” ’; Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1989). On Schwar’s limited access to CIA documents, see Robert J. McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958: Documenting and Interpreting a Covert Operation’, unpublished paper for the Society for the Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Conference, University of Colorado, 22 June 1996, p. 10. See Article reproduced from Los Angeles Times, ‘Official History Details Covert CIA Role in Indonesia’, Washington Post, 30 October 1994, A11. Robert J. McMahon (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Volume XVII: Indonesia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994), preface, p. viii. McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958’, p. 4. McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958’, pp. 10–11. See, for example, McMahon, FRUS, 1958–1960, XVII, Document 64, Memorandum of telephone conversation between Secretary of State Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Dulles, 17 April 1958, p. 114. McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958’, pp. 12–14.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 87

21/02/2013 08:24

88

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

50 McMahon, FRUS, 1958–1960, XVII, preface, p. vii. 51 McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958’, pp. 18–21. 52 McMahon, ‘Indonesia, 1958’, pp. 21–2. See, for example, McMahon, FRUS, 1958–1960, XVII, Document 107, Memorandum of conversation, 22 May 1958, pp. 191–3. 53 Edward C. Keefer (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXIII: Southeast Asia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994), preface, pp. viii–x. 54 Keefer, FRUS, 1961–1963, XXIII, Document 155, Memorandum from the Deputy Director for Plans, CIA (Bissell) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy), 27 March 1961, pp. 328–33. 55 On this phase of US relations with Indonesia in general, see Bradley R. Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008). 56 For the accusation that the US played a leading role in events, see Peter Dale Scott, ‘The US and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965–1967’, Pacific Affairs, 58(2), 1985, pp. 239–64. For a more tempered approach, which still emphasises that the Johnson administration encouraged the Indonesian Army to act against the PKI, see Frederick P. Bunnell, ‘American “Low Posture” Toward Indonesia in the Months Leading up to the 1965 “Coup” ’, Indonesia, 50, October 1990, pp. 29–60. See, also, the analysis offered in Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 282–6. 57 Kathy Kadane, ‘U.S. Officials’ Lists Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in ’60s’, Washington Post, 21 May 1990, A5. 58 Kadane, ‘U.S. Officials’ Lists Aided Indonesian Bloodbath in ’60s’, A5. 59 Robert J. Martens, ‘Indonesia’s Fight Against Communism, 1965’, Washington Post, 2 June 1990, A18. 60 Michael Wines, ‘C.I.A. Tie Asserted in Indonesia Purge: Officials Deny That There Was a U.S. Plan to Provide Targets’, The New York Times, 12 July 1990, A13. 61 Under its Executive Director, Tom Blanton, the National Security Archive has led efforts in the United States to check state secrecy and declassify federal government documents. Over the last three decades, the Archive has submitted 40,000 Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to 200 US government agencies, filed 47 FOI lawsuits and sponsored collaborative research projects with journalists and scholars across the globe. The NSA’s work has resulted in the declassification of important records on CIA covert operations, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and, most recently, the interventions of Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of late, bodies such as the Federation of American Scientists and its Project on Government Secrecy have made increasingly effective use of FOI legislation and techniques of investigative journalism pioneered by the NSA to contest the frontier’s official secrecy. 62 The Agency’s previous sensitivity to accounts of their role in events was reflected, for example, in attempts to vet and ‘sanitise’ the recollections of former CIA officers; for this, see Ralph McGehee, Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA (New York, NY: Sheridan Square, 1983), pp. 57–8. 63 Edward C. Keefer, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVI: Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2001), preface, p. vii.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 88

21/02/2013 08:24

‘Real Substance, Not Just Symbolism’?

89

64 James Risen, ‘Official History Describes U.S. Policy in Indonesia in the 60’s’, The New York Times, 28 July 2001, A3. 65 Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, XXVI, Document 162, Editorial note, pp. 338–40. 66 Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, pp. 338–40. The article in question (which has now been declassified) was Richard Cabot Howland, ‘Lessons of the 30th September Coup’, Studies in Intelligence, 14, Fall 1970, pp. 13–28. 67 See the evidence and discussion in Simpson, Economists, pp. 192–3; see Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, XXVI, Document 210, Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson, with state department paper attached, 8 June 1966, pp. 434–40. 68 Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, XXVI, Document 185, editorial note, pp. 386–7. 69 Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, XXVI, Document 179, telegram from the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State, 2 December 1965, pp. 379–80. 70 Keefer, FRUS, 1964–1968, XXVI, Document 211, memorandum prepared for the 303 Committee, 17 June 1966, pp. 440–3; see Simpson, Economists, pp. 184–8. 71 Other scholars have stressed that US officials preferred, in fact, to keep some distance from events in Indonesia, not least to avoid accusations that the Army was too closely aligned with Washington. For such perspectives, see H. W. Brands, ‘The Limits of Manipulation: How the United States Didn’t Topple Sukarno’, Journal of American History, 76(3), December 1989, pp. 785–808; H. W. Brands, The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 155–82; Kai Bird, The Color of Truth: McGeorge and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1998), pp. 351–2. For a conventional account from the US Ambassador at that time, see Marshall Green, Indonesia: Crisis and Transformation, 1965–1968 (Washington, DC: Compass Press, 1990). 72 For a defence of US policy that seeks to distance the Agency from events, compiled by the ex-CIA station chief in Jakarta in 1965, see B. Hugh Tovar, ‘The Indonesian Crisis of 1965–1966: A Retrospective’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 7(3), 1994, pp. 313–38. 73 State Department Advisory Committee of Historical Diplomatic Documentation, ‘Retrospective Foreign Relations Volumes’, Minutes of the Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, 22–23 July 2002, available at: http://www. state.gov/r/pa/ho/adcom/mtgnts/12172.htm. See, also, State Department Advisory Committee of Historical Diplomatic Documentation, Minutes of the The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, 2–3 December 2002, available at: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/adcom/mtgnts/18004.htm; State Department Advisory Committee of Historical Diplomatic Documentation, Minutes of the The Advisory Committee on Historical Diplomatic Documentation, 24–25 February 2003, available at: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/adcom/mtgnts/17931.htm.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 89

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 4 BONUM EX MALO: THE VALUE OF LEGACY OF ASHES IN TEACHING CIA HISTORY Nicholas Dujmovic*

In June 2007, Doubleday – a popular imprint of the Random House publishing empire – published The New York Times journalist Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, portentously subtitled The History of the CIA.1 It is no exaggeration to describe the appearance of this book as a seminal event in US intelligence historiography, though perhaps not in the way that Mr Weiner intended (see Figure 6). Historians and other scholars of intelligence will recall that the initial laudatory reviews of Legacy of Ashes – many of which were written by journalists like Weiner – were followed several months later by decidedly critical reviews written either by academic specialists in intelligence or by career intelligence officers, including a few, like myself, who have a foot in both worlds. My review of Weiner’s book in the Fall 2007 issue of Studies in Intelligence2 – the CIA’s inhouse journal, whose unclassified issues have a dedicated following among the cognoscenti of intelligence – was an early critical treatment and, thereby, became somewhat notorious, but it was by no means alone in asserting that Weiner had written a biased work of flawed scholarship.3 Without addressing my substantial objections regarding the book’s many factual inaccuracies and its unremittingly negative perspective brought about by a tendentious use of sources, Weiner simply dismissed my review as ‘a malicious attack’ that began ‘a poison-pen campaign’ taken up by others against his book.4 Weiner has suggested, ad hominem, that all his critics are either motivated by partisanship toward CIA or are ‘competitors’ with ‘axes to grind’.5 I have addressed the matter of whether a CIA Staff Historian can be objective elsewhere,6 but let’s momentarily assume, for the sake of argument, that my review of Legacy of Ashes was biased simply as a function of my employment – that the axe that I’m grinding has no substantive or scholarly basis. * Nicholas Dujmovic is a CIA Staff Historian. This essay is a reflection of his personal views and does not represent the views of CIA or the US Government, nor should any part be construed as an official release of information or endorsement. It has been reviewed to prevent the disclosure of classified material.

90

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 90

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

91

Figure 6 Tim Weiner accepting the National Book Award for non-fiction for Legacy of Ashes, 14 November 2007 (Press Association, PA.53442341)

Let’s assume further that the negative assessments of the book by other career intelligence officers – former CIA Terrorism Specialist Paul Pillar, former British MI6 Director Sir Richard Dearlove and former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin among them7 – were also exclusively reflective of subjective

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 91

21/02/2013 08:24

92

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

professional interest. Even so, Weiner’s response would still do a grave injustice to those eminent and independent scholars who reviewed his work and also found it gravely flawed: Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University, Loch Johnson of the University of Georgia, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones of the University of Edinburgh, R. Gerald Hughes of Aberystwyth University, unaffiliated scholars Jeffrey Richelson and Stephen R. Weissman and many others.8 To consider Richelson and Jeffrey-Jones – two long-standing critics of CIA – as unprofessional scholars or, worse, shills for the Agency is to be seriously divorced from reality. THE IMPACT OF LEGACY OF ASHES

And yet, Legacy of Ashes cannot be ignored. As I predicted in my Studies review, the intelligence profession and intelligence studies alike will have to deal with this book for years to come. Because Legacy of Ashes ostensibly fills a void in the scholarship – the lack of a one-volume, putatively comprehensive and reasonably up-to-date history of the CIA – the book, I thought correctly at the time, would have persistent influence, like it or not.9 In particular, it could be expected to show up in reading lists for college courses in intelligence, given the burgeoning demand for intelligence education since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In the United States, there are currently more than 100 civilian academic institutions offering in excess of 840 courses dealing with the study of intelligence – roughly triple the number that existed before 9/11.10 Many of those courses, it could safely be presumed, would take an historical approach or at least would use historical episodes to illuminate the strange world of intelligence. Sometimes it is not so wonderful to be right. Legacy of Ashes has indeed made its mark in the teaching of intelligence. Internet searches conducted in late 2011 show the book listed as required reading in the syllabi for seventeen courses offered by US colleges and universities (and one in Canada). For the purposes of comparison, identical searches were conducted for what is the prime alternative to Legacy of Ashes, Christopher Andrew’s bestselling For the President’s Eyes Only11 – a highly praised book that, though dated (1995), has never gone out of print. Many still consider it the most readable, insightful, well-researched basic history text on US intelligence.12 Quantitatively, these searches found that Andrew’s book was used (i.e. required reading) in courses taught after the publication of Legacy of Ashes in 2007 just as often as Legacy of Ashes itself was assigned as required reading. Qualitatively, the courses using either book, numbering about three dozen, cover a variety of topics and are not always primarily concerned with intelligence, but often deal more generally with national security, US history and the like.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 92

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

93

These courses compose less than five per cent of the more than 800 intelligence courses reportedly being taught, so, presumably, there are many more courses using either book that I did not uncover. My findings, such as they are, are listed in the following table. They suggest that Weiner’s book is used in courses taught from a greater range of disciplines, including journalism, US foreign policy, US history, US national security policy and organisational theory, whereas Andrew’s book seems to be used more specifically in courses focused on intelligence.

Required Reading by Institution: Legacy of Ashes versus For the President’s Eyes Only.13 Colleges and universities that use either book in courses that deal primarily with intelligence are listed in boldface type. All of these are courses taught after 2007. Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes

Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only University of Amsterdam (US intelligence) Cal State Dominguez Hills Boston University (US intelligence) (US intelligence) Cambridge University (history) Central Oklahoma (intelligence) John Cabot (US intelligence history) Dalhousie (US intelligence history) Georgetown (US intelligence) Emory (US history) University of Maryland (intelligence) John Cabot (US foreign policy) University of Maryland (US intelligence George Mason (government) history) Georgetown (journalism) University of Nebraska – Lincoln (history) Georgia Tech (US intelligence) State University of New York (history) Harvard (terrorism) Ohio State (US intelligence) University of Maryland (US history) University of California Merced (US history) Ohio University (intelligence history) North Georgia State (organisational theory) University of Ottawa (intelligence) Pittsburgh (US intelligence history) Pitzer College (US foreign policy) University of San Diego (US intelligence) Sierra Nevada (intelligence) University of Utah (national security policy) University of Southern California (intelligence) Wake Forest (intelligence) Williams College (US intelligence history) University of Texas (US intelligence) University of Virginia (intelligence law)

Though one might be tempted to proclaim that the data indicates that Andrew’s text is considered by academia as the more serious book, none of this is the stuff from which conclusions are drawn. Yet, it seems inarguable that the impact of Legacy of Ashes has been significant, though probably less than Mr Weiner hoped and certainly more than his critics would like. But, like it or not, the book is a fact to be dealt with; my colleagues and I on the CIA History Staff often field questions about it from new CIA employees, mid-career CIA officers

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 93

21/02/2013 08:24

94

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

seeking more knowledge about their Agency’s history, older CIA officers or retirees teaching intelligence and outside academics, who consult with CIA Staff Historians on the subject of CIA history. Their questions often amount to: ‘Is CIA really as bad, inept and clueless as Weiner says?’ ‘CONTENDING PERSPECTIVES’ WITH LEGACY OF ASHES

After my review came out, a colleague challenged me to find a positive use for Legacy of Ashes, as did a former senior CIA official, now teaching intelligence at an elite private college (and who uses Weiner’s book as the primary text in his course). After resisting the idea (I would rather spend my time bringing to light true and previously unknown CIA history, and I had no interest in rereading Legacy of Ashes), I finally relented and was eventually inspired by these challenges. I now propose consideration of a radical idea – the greatest value of Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes would be as the centrepiece of a US intelligence course, paired with other works that present different views than Weiner’s. There is a virtue to teaching from a text with which one profoundly disagrees, as I can attest from personal experience – it forces a honing of one’s own arguments. Using Weiner in a course on CIA history would also illuminate what is always a central, though often unmentioned, element in intelligence studies – namely, the issue of intelligence historiography, with its attendant epistemological questions and issues of perspective. In other words, there is quite a broad range of views, not only on intelligence, but also on what intelligence history tells us about its efficacy. The teacher of a course using Legacy of Ashes as its backbone, supplemented by other, one might say, competing materials, would be able to give students a good sense of the debate on the CIA and its history and even allow them to participate in that debate. What would such a course look like? If we posit a CIA history seminar covering the period from Presidents Truman through Reagan, using Legacy of Ashes as the main text, the most obvious and simple pairing for it would be Christopher Andrew’s aforementioned For the President’s Eyes Only, using Andrew’s eight chapters (approximately 350 pages) covering these eight administrations against the forty-three chapters (435 pages) that compose Weiner’s treatment of the same material.14 It is a straightforward matter to produce a syllabus from just these two books; dual and duelling histories that differ markedly in tone, approach and interpretation and yet have a common organisational principle: intelligence by US presidential administration. It would be a lively course, to be sure, and it would probably be well-subscribed, especially with a title like ‘Contending Perspectives on CIA History, from Truman to Reagan’.15

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 94

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

95

(For those teachers who happen to agree with Weiner, simply make Andrew the foil, as the conventional, establishment historian, and Weiner the resolution, as the bold and iconoclastic investigative journalist.) In the proposed course segments that follow, major differences in historical presentation – mostly interpretive, but some of fact – are offered by presidential administration, with suggestions for class discussion or individual student papers. Space constraints prevent adequate explanations of the referenced operations, events and personalities, so some knowledge of these things on the part of the reader is necessarily assumed. Supplementary material will also be proposed to deal with specific shortcomings in Legacy of Ashes, as identified by Weiner’s critics; these can be used either for additional reading – although it is recognised that the reading load for this course is already quite heavy, at least for undergraduates – for targeted research for papers or for the instructor’s preparation. WEINER VERSUS ANDREW ON TRUMAN AND THE EARLY CIA

From the beginning of our proposed course, the contrasting perspectives on the circumstances of the creation of CIA and its early years under President Harry Truman would be jarring and might even be usefully head-spinning for students. Weiner sees the creation of the CIA as the work of former spies of the wartime Office of Strategic Services, who were overly fearful of the USSR and managed to put one over on an ignorant Harry Truman, who wanted nothing more from intelligence than a classified newspaper.16 The development of the CIA’s covert action capability and mission, which Legacy of Ashes portrays as illegal and unaccountable in both its process and execution, was effectively an end run around the president, who was not fully aware of the evils of the monster that he had created. Andrew, however, portrays a Truman who, although initially ignorant about intelligence, came to accept its value as a Cold War instrument of statecraft.17 This Truman accepted the need to spy on the USSR and to conduct covert action, which became a pillar of national policy. His approval of the expansion of peacetime covert operations was a significant and deliberate development. Andrew also emphasises the danger of Soviet espionage in the US during this period. Students might well be asked: which interpretation seems more persuasive and why? Supplemental materials tending to show Truman’s knowledge of, and involvement in, covert action policy would include a collection of declassified documents edited by CIA historian Michael Warner, as well as the exhaustive documentation contained in the relevant Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volume.18

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 95

21/02/2013 08:24

96

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US EISENHOWER’S CIA: UNCONTROLLED VERSUS RESPONSIVE INSTRUMENT

The themes of the two books continue to clash, regarding the CIA during the Eisenhower years, particularly on the issue of covert action oversight and control, the efficacy of intelligence collection on the USSR and the quality of its analysis. Weiner’s chapters on the Eisenhower administration treat the CIA during this period as a dysfunctional, out-of-control agency in every respect.19 According to Weiner, the Agency had no real achievements; indeed, scant attention is given to the Popov spy case, the Berlin Tunnel operation and the development of the U-2 spy-plane. Ignorance about the USSR continued to dominate the CIA’s analysis, which kept hyping the Soviet threat, while the Agency kept Eisenhower in the dark about its shortcomings. Covert action remained anti-democratic and uncontrolled. The tragic crushing of the Hungarian Revolution occurred through irresponsible overreaching on the CIA’s part. Eisenhower left office considering the CIA an abject failure – a ‘legacy of ashes’ for his successor. Andrew sees US intelligence under Eisenhower, including the CIA, in a very different light.20 Ike, whose military career and wartime leadership made him very knowledgeable about intelligence, maintained, as President, a controlling hand over the CIA. Covert action was central to his Cold War strategy, and he considered regime change operations in Iran and Guatemala to be great achievements. He was more enthusiastic for lethal operations than the CIA. Eisenhower was well aware of CIA shortcomings, particularly in collection on the Soviet Union, and he pushed CIA programmes, such as the U-2 spy-plane and the CORONA imagery satellite. The U-2 was one of the great successes of the Cold War, helping to dispel myths of Soviet strategic superiority. Other important CIA successes were the Popov case and the Berlin Tunnel, both of which yielded important intelligence in indicating that the USSR was not planning an imminent military invasion of Western Europe. At this point – still early on in the course – the students of ‘Contending Perspectives’ might well be wondering whether they were reading histories of two CIAs in alternative universes. Obviously, this is a golden opportunity for classroom discussion of historiography, in order to demonstrate how historical interpretations can differ so widely, even when many, if not most, of the facts are not in dispute. The contrast in styles is also worth pointing out: Weiner’s short chapters and quick treatment of issues – he typically stays on a subject for a page and a half – is more characteristic of his journalist profession, while the historian, Andrew, expounds at length and in greater depth on events, trends and individuals.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 96

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

97

Supplemental materials: an interesting exercise in using primary source documents can be had by having students compare what Weiner says is Eisenhower’s labelling the CIA as a ‘legacy of ashes’ with the actual National Security Council minutes in FRUS, which indicate to other scholars that Ike was actually dissatisfied with the state of military intelligence and was affirming the CIA’s central role.21 Philip Taubman’s Secret Empire and Jeff Richelson’s Wizards of Langley are well-regarded histories that demonstrate the CIA’s development and use of the U-2 and satellite imagery systems as stunning successes. The CIA has also released a declassified history of the U-2 programme and a collection of declassified documents on the pioneering CORONA imagery satellite. On the CIA and Hungary, see Ross Johnson’s recent book, which presents a narrative at odds with that in Legacy of Ashes.22 KENNEDY AND THE CIA: A CRUCIAL DIFFERENCE

The alternative universes actually converge somewhat in treating the CIA under President John F. Kennedy, but also illumine how the contrasting styles matter, in terms of substance. Both books, of course, recount the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban missile crisis, and the narratives thereof are not incompatible; in fact, Weiner’s treatment benefits from new information.23 Legacy of Ashes, predictably (and, many would say, justly), lays the entire fault for the Bay of Pigs failure at the CIA’s feet, portraying Kennedy as set-up and virtually ambushed by the CIA. Andrew, in his Kennedy chapter, gives the CIA the lion’s share of the blame for the Bay of Pigs – particularly for not consulting with its own analysts in planning the operation – but Kennedy is not let off the hook completely, because he failed to focus on the operation, agreed with the groupthink of his advisers, held unrealistic expectations and allowed it to go forward.24 On the Cuban missile crisis, both authors rightly credit CIA Director John McCone for predicting the Soviets would emplace offensive missiles in Cuba, and Weiner describes McCone’s central role in the resolution of the crisis. Weiner focuses on the CIA’s alleged gross inaccuracies regarding Soviet strategic strength, while Andrew describes how CIA programmes brought down national estimates to realistic figures. The most significant and telling gap, however, regards how each author handles the matter of Oleg Penkovsky – the Soviet military intelligence officer, who was spying for the CIA and Britain’s MI6. Andrew considers Penkovsky ‘probably the most important Western agent’25 of the Cold War, because his information helped Kennedy both to resolve the missile crisis and to maintain a tough posture on Berlin. In five full pages, Andrew describes Penkovsky’s contribution to US understandings of the construction of missile sites, their capabilities, the status and shortcomings of the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 97

21/02/2013 08:24

98

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Soviet military, the bluster and lack of resolve behind Khrushchev’s pronouncements.26 CIA’s handling of Penkovsky’s intelligence, as well as Kennedy’s personal interest in it, are detailed. Weiner calls Penkovsky a ‘secret hero’,27 but, instead of five pages, devotes just seven spare sentences to him, mentioning that he provided the US with (unspecified) technical manuals and emphasising twice that he was caught and executed by the KGB. Weiner has this tendency – it is an observable recurring pattern – of minimising CIA successes in terms of sparse text, by moving discussion to a footnote, by asserting that it didn’t matter or by claiming the success (e.g. the U-2) masked a greater failure (CIA’s inability to penetrate the Soviet Politburo). The Penkovsky case is just one example of Weiner’s tendentiously negative approach to CIA history. Historians, by all means, should document and judge CIA failures, but balance, where some credit is due, is only fair. Supplemental materials: on Penkovsky, the definitive work is Schecter and Deriabin’s award-winning The Spy Who Saved the World.28 Another potential student paper might compare Weiner’s indictment of intelligence analysis on Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) strength in the early 1960s with what the CIA and other agencies were actually estimating; there are big differences.29 LYNDON JOHNSON AND VIETNAM: THE CIA’S GLASS IS HALF . . . WHAT?

The CIA’s performance, with regard to the Vietnam conflict, dominates, naturally, both books’ treatments of intelligence during Lyndon B. Johnson’s (LBJ) administration. In this, and in other secondary themes, the contrasting assessments are astonishing. Weiner continues to hammer his theme of CIA incompetence and its practice of lying to presidents.30 He begins by laying on the CIA the responsibility for America’s sending combat troops to Vietnam, because the Agency failed to act ‘central’ enough in refuting the faulty intelligence surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident, in which a US Navy vessel allegedly came under attack by the North Vietnamese. He lambastes the CIA’s lack of understanding of Vietnam, which caused the Agency to lose the ‘intelligence war’ against the North Vietnamese and contributed, therefore, to America’s losing the overall war. The CIA, Weiner asserts, continually told LBJ and his administration what it wanted to hear – a ‘corruption of intelligence’ to suit political sensibilities. George Carver – the senior CIA official on Vietnam – is characterised as ‘an optimist’ on Vietnam and a ‘constant bearer of glad tidings’ for the White House. The Tet offensive of early 1968, of course, is mentioned only as another CIA failure and, as such,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 98

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

99

a major factor in Johnson’s decision to seek an end to the war and to announce that he would not run for re-election: ‘No strategy could survive the failure of intelligence in Vietnam’.31 Andrew’s view is very different, beginning with the CIA’s role, regarding the Tonkin Gulf incident.32 LBJ did not invite CIA Director McCone to consider the evidence that US destroyers were attacked by North Vietnamese forces, but, even so, McCone directly expressed his scepticism to LBJ. CIA scepticism, in fact, is the major theme here. The CIA was consistently sceptical about US military assessments of progress during the war and, although the CIA frequently compromised its views under pressure, ultimately was ‘proved right’ as the ‘bearer of bad tidings’.33 McCone resigned in frustration, because LBJ didn’t want to hear his warnings about US involvement in Vietnam; McCone was ‘more clearsighted’34 than LBJ, because McCone didn’t underestimate the enemy. The Agency ‘understood Vietnam better’ than either the White House or the Defense Department and argued that victory, though not impossible, would be a long, hard slog.35 America’s errors regarding Vietnam were due less to lack of intelligence, than a failure of policymakers to heed CIA warnings. Tet, although predicted by a CIA analyst, was nonetheless an institutional intelligence failure, but the CIA used the experience to bolster its arguments that the US military’s Order of Battle (OOB) estimates were wrong and refused, thereafter, to compromise. George Carver also appears in a different guise here; it was his pessimistic briefing to LBJ in March 1968 that led to the President’s throwing in the towel. Andrew also describes important events that, for some reason, do not appear in Weiner’s book. The OOB controversy within the CIA centred on a precocious analyst named Sam Adams, and Andrews devotes four pages to this complex and illuminating story of personal determination fighting bureaucratic realities.36 Moreover, Andrew cites as a ‘major success’ the CIA’s deployment of the A-12 OXCART aircraft as an intelligence collection platform of significance. Neither Sam Adams nor the A-12 is mentioned in Legacy of Ashes. Supplemental materials: on Vietnam, an overarching and positive view of the CIA’s contribution from a senior US military figure is General Bruce Palmer’s The 25-Year War; also recommended is the account by former CIA analyst George W. Allen, as well as the series of declassified internal histories by former CIA operations officer Thomas Ahern. The CIA’s dispute with US military figures for enemy strength is illuminated by many declassified estimates of the period. The A-12 and its significance are covered in a recent monograph by the CIA’s chief historian.37

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 99

21/02/2013 08:24

100

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US NIXON’S CIA: BELEAGUERED AGENCY OR ENABLER?

In their treatments of US intelligence under President Richard Nixon, both accounts start with the single most salient fact of that history – that Nixon deeply distrusted the CIA, believing it had leaked erroneous ‘missile gap’ intelligence to the Kennedy campaign in 1960, which the Democrats used to browbeat the Eisenhower administration (and Vice-President Nixon) on national security grounds, thereby costing Nixon that close election. The essential difference in interpretation that follows, however, concerns whether the CIA performed adequately, despite continual animosity from the Nixon administration, which is Andrew’s view, or whether CIA, in effect, allowed itself to become an enabler of Nixon’s conspiratorial, secretive and suspicious personality, which is the portrait that Weiner paints. Weiner recounts that Nixon, like Johnson, ordered the CIA to conduct domestic spying to identify the alleged foreign sources of domestic dissent about his policies and that CIA was too willing to comply: ‘The record records no hesitation’38 on the part of Director Helms.39 Weiner says Nixon ‘rightly criticized’ the CIA for underestimating Soviet strategic forces in the 1960s40 – though this is inconsistent with Weiner’s earlier chapters, where the CIA is exaggerating the same threat, during the same period – but then the Agency succumbed to Nixon’s wishes and started overestimating. The CIA, in Weiner’s account, is an agency continually ‘tailoring its work to fit’ White House policies.41 Meanwhile, its lack of knowledge of the world made the USSR, North Vietnam and North Korea, in each case, ‘terra incognita’ for the CIA. The CIA’s inexcusable failures included missing the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1974 coup in Cyprus. Weiner suggests that the murder of CIA officer Richard Welch in Athens was the result of CIA malfeasance. (It happened during the Ford administration, but Weiner shoehorns it into the Nixon era.) The CIA’s bungling failure to sway the Chilean presidential election in 1970 led to Nixon’s decision to spark a military coup against Salvador Allende. Weiner acknowledges that the CIA had no direct role in the Watergate break-in (although he emphasises the involvement of former CIA officers) and that the CIA refused to join in the cover-up, leading to Nixon’s replacement of Helms with James Schlesinger, who commenced mass firings and commissioned the list of past CIA misdeeds – the infamous ‘Family Jewels’. Andrew covers fewer intelligence issues of the Nixon presidency, but he treats the major ones in greater depth and with more sympathy for the CIA.42 Students will note the completely different portrait of Helms, in particular, who is treated less as a caricature and more as a person – a CIA Director, who was unflappable even when being slighted and who continued to give unwelcome intelligence to

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 100

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

101

a hostile president, who wanted intelligence to confirm his convictions. Nixon was unhappy that the CIA failed to find an international communist conspiracy behind domestic student protestors. He was livid over the CIA’s assessment that the Soviets’ SS-9 missile did not have multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), which undermined his administration’s policy statements. The CIA refused to change its assessments on the SS-9, despite pressure from the White House and Defense Department; it continued to disagree over Vietnam with the State Department and the military; and it refused Nixon’s order to place the President’s brother under surveillance (Nixon had the Secret Service do it). Helms was no lapdog, in Andrew’s account, and so his refusal to get the CIA involved in the Watergate cover-up – which ‘made it unsustainable’43 – was an example of consistency, rather than an anomaly. Andrew does not ignore CIA shortcomings during this period, but provides much-needed context: the failure to warn of events like the 1973 Mideast War was shared throughout the intelligence and policy communities and, in one case (Cambodia), warnings were hampered by the White House’s refusal to open CIA post. Nixon’s desperation in trying to get the CIA to encourage a coup against Allende in Chile was due to his administration’s dithering – despite the CIA’s warnings – over approving covert political action that might have obviated the perceived need simply to ‘do something’ too late. As Andrew points out, the CIA was very sceptical about the prospects for success of a coup, because it understood Chile better than the White House did. Andrew’s narrative indicates that this was a difficult period for the CIA. Supplemental materials: Kristian Gustafson’s Hostile Intent (2007) is the best new scholarship regarding CIA activities in Chile and emphasises CIA scepticism about the difficult tasks that it was assigned by the White House.44 Students looking for a fuller treatment of Helms should explore Thomas Powers’ dated but classic work, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, as well as the recently declassified internal history of Helms’ directorship and, of course, the man’s own memoir, A Look Over My Shoulder.45 THE FORD INTERREGNUM

The CIA and intelligence during the short presidency of Gerald Ford is the subject of brief treatments by both authors, which contrast especially on the subjects of the Glomar Explorer, the media revelations regarding the ‘Family Jewels’, the ensuing Rockefeller Commission on CIA activities and the subsequent congressional investigations, the end of US involvement in Vietnam and the ‘B Team’ exercise on the Soviet strategic posture. Many of the differences are easily reconcilable, but the respective emphases in

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 101

21/02/2013 08:24

102

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the narratives are interesting and may provoke classroom discussion. In Andrew’s account, Ford is knowledgeable about the CIA, from his eight years overseeing its appropriations in Congress;46 Weiner’s narrative says Ford never knew much about the CIA, even with this experience.47 Andrew has Ford blindsided by the failure of Director Colby to apprise the White House about the ‘Family Jewels’ – a procedural error – while, in Weiner’s book, Ford is ‘blindsided’ by the revelations themselves. Andrew emphasises Ford’s efforts to protect the CIA, particularly its ability to collect intelligence and conduct covert action; Weiner chooses to focus on Director Colby’s estrangement from Ford and Ford’s lack of trust in the CIA. Both authors acknowledge Colby’s successor, George H. W. Bush, as a political choice, but while Andrew relates Bush’s success to raising morale, improving the CIA’s image and seeing the President on a weekly basis, Weiner belittles Bush’s tenure – ‘CIA was Skull and Bones with a billion-dollar budget’ – and claims that he accomplished little. Moreover, Weiner mocks a laudatory note that Bush wrote to the CIA workforce when he left. Other differences are more telling. Regarding the Glomar Explorer operation – the daring CIA attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean floor – Andrew calls it an ‘unprecedented’ operation that ‘yielded valuable intelligence’ on Soviet submarines, even though most of the sub fell back to the seabed during the recovery. Weiner simply dismisses the affair as another CIA failure, because ‘the sub broke in two’.48 Andrew soberly recounts how conservative critics of the CIA’s alleged underestimating of Soviet military strength and intentions led to the ‘B Team’ exercise, after which the CIA did not fundamentally change its views. Weiner refers to ‘howling right wingers’,49 who rewrote the CIA’s estimates and concludes that the Agency allowed its analysis to be ‘corrupted’ for political reasons. These would be interesting paper topics. Andrew says that the CIA, in early 1975, was more pessimistic than ever about Vietnam, but, even so, the speed of the South’s collapse in April was a surprise, including to the North Vietnamese. Weiner’s text emphasises the CIA’s late warning, the evacuation of CIA personnel and the Agency’s inability to rescue South Vietnamese who had worked with it. Weiner does not treat the Mayaquez incident at all, which is a curious omission, since Andrew recounts it as a military intelligence failure, with Director Colby as head of the intelligence community. Weiner’s treatment of the various bodies investigating the CIA – the Rockefeller Commission and the Church and Pike Committees – is thin. Rockefeller was a whitewash, while the congressional investigations had the effect of limiting covert action and espionage. Andrew has, by far, the more thoughtful narrative, in which the Rockefeller Commission is revelatory, the congressional committees have their own political agendas (including Senator Frank Church’s presidential ambitions), the Ford White House successfully pushes back on

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 102

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

103

some congressional oversteps and Ford himself regains the initiative, while the committees’ backpedal. Andrew relates that the Church committee ultimately issued ‘no sweeping condemnation’ of the CIA, but, instead, acknowledged its ‘important contributions’ to US security and ‘generally’ performed ‘with dedication and distinction’.50 Frank Church’s comment that the CIA might have been a ‘rogue elephant on a rampage’51 was wrong – the Pike committee was accurate when it said that the CIA had been ‘utterly responsive’ to US presidents52 – but Church never recanted his statement publicly. Weiner, by contrast, suggests that the statement was not untrue, but rather that Church, by making it, absolved ‘the presidents who had driven the elephant’.53 Supplemental materials: the released ‘Family Jewels’ is widely available on the Internet. On the resulting investigations, Kathryn Olmsted’s Challenging the Secret Government is a sober treatment. The significance of the Glomar Explorer is established by Polmar and White’s recent and comprehensive Project AZORIAN.54 CARTER AND THE CIA: NATIONAL DISGRACE OR NECESSARY INSTRUMENT?

In both books, the treatment of the CIA and intelligence under President Jimmy Carter begins with Carter’s publicly expressed disdain for the CIA and its allegedly immoral ways. Andrew relates how in the presidential campaign, Carter described the CIA as one of the ‘three national disgraces’ foisted on America by Republican leadership55 – the other two were Watergate and Vietnam – while Weiner admits that Carter took a ‘hard swipe’ at the CIA while campaigning, but emphasises his mastery of details during his intelligence briefings (in contrast, as is made clear later, to his successor).56 Consistent with their respective treatments of previous administrations, Weiner tends to wholly ascribe to the CIA the intelligence failures of the Carter era and to suggest that any good work on the CIA’s part was accidental. Andrew does not shy away from detailing the CIA’s shortcomings, but, likewise, he documents significant achievements and, with regard to big failures, spreads the blame around the intelligence and policy communities. Weiner’s CIA under Carter continues to be something of a disgrace and so hidebound that Carter’s CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner, found it ‘a hard vessel to handle’.57 Carter disdained the quality of the daily CIA reporting, as well as the longer-term assessments, and events proved him right. The CIA was not only wrong on Iran – ignorant of both the Shah’s troubles and the strength of the Islamists – but it suppressed contrary reporting, got too comfortable in its relations with the Shah and fundamentally failed to understand religion.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 103

21/02/2013 08:24

104

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

The CIA, Weiner writes, failed to warn of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, even though the signs were there for nine months. This was a world-changing event, and the CIA missed it, because it didn’t know Soviet intentions. The lack of insight on Soviet decision-making, as Weiner repeatedly states throughout Legacy of Ashes, was a failure in what, Weiner says, was the CIA’s primary job; he points out that the CIA never managed to recruit a single Soviet Politburo member. This shortcoming allows him to downplay the significance of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski – a CIA source on Soviet and Warsaw Pact capabilities from 1972 through to 1981, whose case is considered by others as a major Agency espionage triumph. On the Iranian hostage ordeal, Weiner takes the one bright spot – the CIA’s exfiltration of six US diplomats from the Canadian Embassy – and inexplicably (for an alleged expert on intelligence) describes it as ‘a classic espionage operation’ and downplays it as a ‘rare exemplar’.58 Andrew criticises the CIA for much during this period, but he is more evenhanded, not only balancing the CIA failures with its successes, but in explaining Carter’s (and Turner’s) missteps. After Carter’s sacking of CIA Director Bush – which Andrew calls ‘an unhappy precedent’59 in politicising the position – Turner’s approach and style hurt morale at the Agency, but Carter was oblivious, thinking that Turner was actually improving the CIA’s morale. Carter actually valued and occasionally praised CIA intelligence on Soviet advances in the Third World and on foreign leaders. The CIA’s mistaken assessments on Iran showed Carter the limits of technical intelligence and the importance of espionage. The failure to foresee the rise of Islamic radicalism belonged to the intelligence community and the White House. The CIA followed administration policy not to develop independent assets in Iran, yet the CIA became the ‘scapegoat’ on Iran when, in fact, no one in the US Government took religion very seriously. Andrew also reveals that planning for the hostages’ rescue was hampered by Carter’s decisions on emphasising diplomacy. On Afghanistan, Andrew withholds judgement on whether it was an intelligence failure, but he notes that Carter received intelligence reports on the Soviet military build-up for weeks before the invasion. (This topic might lead to useful discussion over whether intelligence services can reasonably be expected to go beyond assessing capabilities to divining intentions.) In the end, Andrew asserts, the Iran crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ‘converted Carter’ on the need for covert action as a ‘major instrument’ of foreign policy. (On Kuklinski, Andrew assesses his significance in his chapter on the Reagan administration, portraying the Polish colonel as a successful CIA spy, who was exfiltrated.) Supplemental material: on Kuklinski, Weiner – had he chosen to highlight it as a CIA espionage success, rather than to dismiss it – had the advantage over Andrew, in terms of new scholarship. Andrew, nonetheless, understands the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 104

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

105

case’s significance far more thoroughly than Weiner. Students who choose (or are assigned) to read the excellent and reliable work on Kuklinski, which was published after Andrew’s history – namely, Benjamin Weiser’s A Secret Life – are in for a treat; it reads like a spy novel, and although, clearly, the CIA made some mistakes, any intelligence agency that can run such a valuable spy for nine years and exfiltrate him and his family safely has at least something on the ball.60 THE CIA UNDER REAGAN: THERE YOU GO AGAIN

The contrasts in perspective on the CIA – which are already fruitful – multiply further in the authors’ treatments of Ronald Reagan and intelligence – a phrase Weiner would consider an oxymoron;61 Reagan knew little more about the CIA and its work, Weiner says, ‘than what he had learned at the movies’.62 Presidentelect Reagan, Weiner recounts, only allowed an hour to be briefed on the world in a scene that he calls a ‘screwball comedy’.63 Andrew, by contrast, emphasising Reagan’s background knowledge of intelligence, highlights Reagan’s wartime service (in which he helped make intelligence briefing films); his later fight against communist clandestine labour activity in Hollywood; and his work on the Rockefeller Commission in 1975.64 Weiner says CIA Director William Casey ‘junked’ reporting that indicated the Soviets were in decline, as well as other analyses with which he disagreed, such as on international terrorism, which he was convinced was supported by Moscow. On Nicaragua, Reagan never tried to make a public case for supporting the Contras. Reagan and Casey continued many of Carter’s covert actions, including Afghanistan, which was ‘CIA’s biggest gunrunning mission’.65 Weiner implies that the CIA created al-Qaeda, because it did not think through ‘the endgame’ (a point also made by the recent film Charlie Wilson’s War). Andrew gives the CIA good marks for accuracy on its Soviet analysis dealing with the leadership succession issue and Soviet economic decline; intelligence on Soviet economic problems helped shape administration policies. The CIA did underestimate Mikhail Gorbachev’s willingness to change superpower relations. On the question of whether the KGB was behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II – a topic missing from Weiner’s book – Andrew recounts that most CIA analysts were sceptical. Afghanistan was ‘one of the most successful covert operations since World War II’, because the CIA had run it, rather than the ‘bungling amateurs’ of the National Security Council, who had concocted the Iran–Contra mess.66 Supplemental material: a number of authors – Robert Gates, Douglas MacEachin, Bruce Berkowitz and Jeffrey Richelson – have pointed out that the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 105

21/02/2013 08:24

106

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

CIA’s record of Soviet analysis, as the USSR declined, was actually good. A good start would be Berkowitz’s 2008 article. The CIA has also declassified a trove of relevant documents from that period, and my recent essay on Reagan as a consumer of intelligence should dispel the myths that Reagan knew little about intelligence or was not interested in it.67 CONCLUSION: LET THE READER BEWARE

By now, the perceptive reader may have concluded that I don’t much agree with the book that is at the centre of my radical proposal for a CIA history course. Indeed, Legacy of Ashes has too many shortcomings to be used on its own. It tries too hard to be a compendium solely of CIA mistakes, disasters, ignorance and other failures to be considered a balanced treatment. Where Weiner is fair about the fact of failures, he fails to provide motivations and historical context. Writing history is an act of choosing, and Weiner chooses to emphasise the negative, while minimising the objectively positive. It strikes one as ‘gotcha journalism’. I titled this essay ‘Bonum ex malo’, or ‘good from bad’, which is the closest, short Latin phrase that approximates the idea: ‘when you have lemons, make lemonade’. (It turns out the classical Romans knew neither lemons nor lemonade.) According to Dr David Butterfield of Christ’s College, Cambridge, the full idea is expressed by Pliny the Elder (23–79 ad) in his Historia Naturalis as malum nullum est sine aliquo bono (there is nothing bad that is without some good).68 Pliny refers to the belief among the ancient Greeks that the poisonous herb monkshood could be used for healing the eyes, but only in conjunction with certain real medicines. This is precisely the point of this essay: poison is less noxious when combined with good things and may even do some good. But, on its own, it’s still poison. Caveat lector.

Notes 1 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2007). 2 Nicholas Dujmovic, ‘Elegy of Slashes’, Studies in Intelligence, 51(3), September 2007, pp. 33–43. 3 Jeff Stein, ‘Celebrated History of the CIA Comes Under Belated Fire’, SpyTalk, 15 March 2008, available at: http://spytalkblog.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive. html. 4 No malice went into the writing of the review, which I had agreed to do before reading Weiner’s book. I had nothing against Weiner before reading Legacy of Ashes, had expected the book to be critical but fair and had wanted it to do well. Weiner and I actually exchanged email pleasantries early in 2007, and I helped provide an important historical photo for his book. Reading it, however, changed everything.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 106

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History

107

5 Weiner responded to his critics at: tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com on 23 March 2008. See, also, Stein, ‘Belated Fire’. 6 Nicholas Dujmovic, ‘Getting CIA History Right: The Informal Partnership Between CIA Historians and Outside Scholars’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), April–June 2011, pp. 228–45. 7 Paul Pillar, ‘Intelligent Design? The Unending Saga of Intelligence Reform, Foreign Affairs, 87(2), March–April 2008, pp. 138–44. Richard Dearlove’s review appeared in the Financial Times on 22 September 2007. John McLaughlin, quoted in Gary Thomas, ‘US Central Intelligence Agency 60 Years Old This Month’, Voice of America English News, 14 September 2007, available at: http://www.voanews.com/ content/a-13-2007-09-14-voa21-66590412/555712.html. 8 Christopher Andrew’s review in The Times (London), 1 September 2007. Loch Johnson and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, ‘Review Roundtable: Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA’, Intelligence and National Security, 23(6), December 2008, pp. 878–91. See, also, Loch Johnson’s letter to the editor in Foreign Policy, November–December 2007. R. Gerald Hughes, ‘Of Revelatory Histories and Hatchet Jobs: Propaganda and Method in Intelligence History’, Intelligence and National Security, 23(6), December 2008, pp. 842–77. Jeffrey Richelson, ‘Sins of Omission and Commission’, Washington Decoded, 11 September 2007, available at: www. washingtondecoded.com. Stephen Weissman, ‘Twist the Evidence, Win a Prize: Are Investigative Reporting Standards Slipping?’, Talking Points Memo, 20 March 2008, available at: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/20/twist_the_ evidence. Inexplicably, Weiner recently wrote, in trying to refute similar criticism of his latest book, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York, NY: Random House, 2012), that: ‘The only bad review of my last book, Legacy of Ashes, a history of the CIA, was written by an official CIA historian’. See http://hnn.us/articles/ what-susan-rosenfeld-gets-wrong-about-enemies. 9 Unlike in the United Kingdom, where intelligence services commission official histories that are generally well regarded, the CIA has not done so, for a variety of reasons. Even if it did, in my opinion, there would still be a need for a good independent CIA history, not least because it would be more widely received as credible. 10 Stephen H. Campbell, ‘A Survey of the US Market for Intelligence Education’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 24(2), Summer 2011, pp. 307–37. 11 Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995). 12 This judgement is based on many conversations since 2005 with intelligence specialists – professional academics and former intelligence officers alike – teaching the subject at college level and the data that follows, which tends to confirm it. 13 Based on Internet searches conducted on 8 August 2011 and 5 September 2011. The entries under Andrew’s book reflect courses offered after the publication of Weiner’s book in mid-2007. For both books, I include courses taught at foreign universities, as well as US universities abroad. 14 Andrew’s work, in addition to its coverage of CIA history, also emphasises signals intelligence (SIGINT – the province of the National Security Agency) and counterintelligence (the FBI’s domain). Andrew also – and, naturally, for a British historian

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 107

21/02/2013 08:24

108

15

16 17 18

19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

– emphasises liaison work and the British connection. An even better choice than Andrew, in my view, would be John Ranelagh’s The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1986), for its exclusive focus on CIA history and for its comprehensiveness and balance, but Ranelagh’s excellent work has long been out of print. Though dated, Ranelagh is still highly recommended for background and preparatory reading for any teacher of CIA history. Weiner’s book begins with a superficial treatment of US intelligence in the immediate post-Second World War period and ends shortly after the office of the Director of National Intelligence was established in 2005. Andrew’s text compasses ‘the Georges’, beginning with intelligence under George Washington and covering each presidential administration through to that of George H. W. Bush. Therefore, the period of overlap, for the two works, is 1945 to 1992. I am ending this notional history course with Reagan, in part because of the newly declassified materials available 30 years after he became President and, in part, because more recent CIA history becomes increasingly problematic for a CIA Staff Historian, in terms of still sensitive information. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 3–70. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 149–98. Michael Warner (ed.), The CIA Under Harry Truman (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1994). Michael Warner (ed.), Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950: The Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment (Washington, DC: GPO, 1996). Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 73–167. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 199–256. US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963: Volume XXV (2001), Documents 80 and 84. Philip Taubman, Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America’s Space Espionage (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2003). Jeffrey Richelson, The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001). Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach, The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954–1974 (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1998). Kevin Ruffner (ed.), CORONA: American’s First Satellite Program (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1995). The CIA works are available online through the website: cia.gov/library/ center-for-the-study-of-intelligence. A. Ross Johnson, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 171–226. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 257–306. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 267. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 267–71. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 197. Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin, The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1992). Donald Steury (ed.), Intentions and Capabilities: Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces, 1950–1983 (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1996), Documents 4 through 10, especially. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 222–88.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 108

21/02/2013 08:24

The Value of Legacy of Ashes in Teaching CIA History 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59

109

Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 288. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 307–49. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 315. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 322. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 315. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 328–31. George W. Allen, None So Blind (Chicago, IL: Ivan Dee, 2001). Ahern’s six previously classified histories can be found at: www.foia.cia.gov/vietnam.asp. Bruce Palmer, Jr, The 25-Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1985). Searching the phrase ‘Capabilities of the Vietnamese communists’ at the webpage: www.foia.cia.gov/search_options.asp will yield the declassified Vietnam estimates that bedevilled the CIA’s relationship with the military. David Robarge, Archangel: CIA’s Supersonic A-12 Reconnaissance Aircraft (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 2007), which is also available at: www.cia.gov. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 295. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 291–354. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 297. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 296. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 350–96. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 386. Kristian Gustafson, Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964–1974 (Dulles, VI: Potomac Books, 2007). Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York, NY: Knopf, 1979). Robert Hathaway and Russell Jack Smith, Richard Helms as Director of Central Intelligence (Washington, DC: CIA History Staff, 1993); redacted and released in 2006, this book can be found by searching the title at: www.foia. cia.gov/search_options.asp. Richard Helms with William Hood, A Look Over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York, NY: Random House, 2003). Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 397–424. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 335–49. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 336. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 351. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 421. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 421. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 421. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 351. Searching on the phrase ‘Family Jewels’ at: www.foia.cia.gov/search_options.asp will yield the entire document. Kathryn Olmsted, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Norman Polmar and Michael White, Project AZORIAN: The CIA and the Raising of K-129 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010). Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 425–56. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 350–74. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 357. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 372. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 427.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 109

21/02/2013 08:24

110

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

60 Benjamin Weiser, A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to Save His Country (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2004). 61 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, pp. 375–422. 62 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 375. 63 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 375. 64 Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 457–502. 65 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 384. 66 Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 493. 67 Bruce Berkowitz, ‘U.S. Intelligence Estimates of the Soviet Collapse: Reality and Perception’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21 February 2008, pp. 237–50. The Reagan era intelligence documents were released for a November 2011 symposium at the Reagan Presidential Library on ‘Ronald Reagan, Intelligence, and the End of the Cold War’ and are available at: www.foia.cia.gov/ Reagan.asp. See also my essay on Reagan as a serious intelligence customer: Nicholas Dujmovic, ‘Reagan, Intelligence, Casey, and the CIA: a reappraisal’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 26:1, 2013, pp. 1–30. 68 I am grateful to Dr Butterfield for his insights and his online Latin consulting service, available at: www.classicalturns.com.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 110

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 5 NARRATING COVERT ACTION: THE CIA, HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE COLD WAR Kaeten Mistry*

In the conduct of foreign relations, it represents the option laden with most risk and danger. For many policymakers, it is the least appealing choice. Its raison d’être is to be inconspicuous to the extent that its very occurrence is in doubt. Some even question whether it is a core intelligence activity.1 Covert action nonetheless remains the most intriguing, controversial, intensely debated and headline-grabbing aspect of intelligence. Among the numerous agencies that make up the American intelligence community, none has been as closely associated with clandestine activities – historically and, moreover, in the popular imagination – than the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). From its creation in 1947 to the present day, the CIA has, rightly or wrongly, been synonymous in the public consciousness with covert operations. The struggle to frame the popular debate has involved a range of narrators – from government officials, spies, journalists, scholars, political activists and ordinary citizens – promoting divergent, and often contrasting, histories of covert action. Rather than offer another story of secret activities conducted by, or linked to, the Agency, this essay considers the evolution of these competing narratives through a history of the history of covert action. It analyses how historiographical and popular narratives changed over the course of the Cold War, with particular attention to the CIA’s relationship with the media and scholars, before outlining potential lines of future historical inquiry. Understanding how arguments concerning covert action have been constructed and challenged better defines US power and interventionism abroad, alongside the diverse conceptions of America’s role in the world. Covert action was a consistent feature of US foreign policy in the Cold War, yet public definitions emerged at a remarkably late stage. One of the first official references did not come until 1974, and this was in negation. In amending a Foreign Assistance Act from the early 1960s, the Hughes–Ryan Act * I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for their financial support of this work.

111

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 111

21/02/2013 08:24

112

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

instructed executive officials to report on any funds the CIA wished to spend on ‘operations in foreign countries, other than activities intended solely for obtaining necessary intelligence’. The President would have to convince eight separate congressional subcommittees that such ‘covert action’ represented a national security priority, before any funds were approved.2 The legislation had a short shelf life, although a clearer definition soon emerged, with the advent of an administration that enthusiastically embraced covert action. Executive Order 12333, signed by President Ronald Reagan during his first year in office in 1981, defined it as ‘activities conducted in support of national foreign policy objectives abroad which are planned and executed so that the role of the United States Government is not apparent or acknowledged publicly’.3 Mindful of the furore stoked by revelations of CIA activities in previous decades, conscious efforts were made to differentiate covert action from traditional diplomacy, intelligence collection and law enforcement, while any involvement in domestic American political or cultural life was strictly precluded. Congress reiterated the point, as well as the definition of covert action as ‘an activity or activities . . . to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly’, as the Cold War came to an end.4 The overriding concern was for secrecy and, furthermore, to inoculate the American political system from any association with underhand activities. Simply put, it was imperative for the sponsoring power to remain in the shadows. There could not be a repeat of dirty operations laundry being washed in public, like during the 1970s. The case could be made that ‘covert action’ represents a distinctly American expression, given that the terms used by other nations – the Soviet Union referred to ‘active measures’ and the British phrased it as ‘special political action’ – had a slightly different emphasis (broader and narrower in scope, respectively) and were less concerned with explicating their covert nature. Despite differing origins, the measures that nations embraced in the clandestine Cold War were analogous. While governments slowly and sheepishly admitted to, and offered definitions of, covert action, it has been left to scholars and former intelligence practitioners to outline the specific tactics utilised. Looking to affect political, economic, military, social and ideological conditions, one leading voice notes that covert action entails ‘methods ranging from bribing opinion-formers to paramilitary operations’. Others have outlined a hierarchy of activities, starting with routine tools (i.e. propaganda and information sharing), to modest intrusion (i.e. secret funding of friendly groups) and to aggressive, high-risk and violent methods that are difficult to disassociate from if the hidden hand is revealed (i.e. coups, assassination plots, hostage-taking).5 Such pedagogically inspired accounts are, nonetheless, recent developments.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 112

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

113

News of covert action practises and methods initially entered the public arena in a protracted, partisan and partial fashion. Much relied on the efforts of the media, particularly journalists at leading national publications, some of whom enjoyed privileged relationships with senior CIA officials. When this consensual arrangement began to fray – as the broader Cold War consensus unravelled – it marked a new era defined by increased antagonism, which had a galvanising effect on the quantity and scope of covert action narratives. * * * Activities of a secret nature were not, of course, unique to the Cold War. The work of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II showcased the efficacy of American covert operatives, especially in Europe. The continued existence of an intelligence agency during peacetime, particularly one rooted in a culture of clandestine action, was an altogether more contentious issue. After receiving (leaked) word of William Donovan’s post-war plans for a permanent intelligence group, the Chicago Tribune – a leading conservative, isolationist publication – led a campaign against such a ‘Gestapo Agency’ modelled on the OSS. To fight hostility among the press corps and, more crucially, within Congress, certain OSS veterans set out to explain their work in a positive light. Donovan sought to win over a sceptical audience through a public relations campaign that involved numerous speeches and interviews about the need for a permanent intelligence group, as well as collaborating with Hollywood producers to shape positive representations of the OSS in popular culture. More tangibly, Stewart Alsop and Tom Braden offered a journalistic account of the group’s vital contribution to the war effort and defended the need for American espionage.6 Yet in so doing, such efforts consolidated the impression of intelligence as synonymous with covert action. Even though the OSS engaged in secret intelligence, research and analysis, and counter-intelligence, it was their covert activities that attracted the most attention. Ironically, this was aided by the publications by former officials.7 With the creation of the CIA as part of the new National Security State in 1947, references to covert action were deliberately avoided. Such tools were not, however, to be excluded. The Agency’s founding document contained the seemingly innocuous proviso to ‘perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the National Security Council may direct’. Subsequent confessions by Executive officials revealed that this was to allow a small-scale covert function, without attracting congressional and public attention.8 The intention may have been for a modest capability, although a series of secret National Security Council (NSC) directives led to its rapid expansion. In December 1947, NSC 4-A instructed the CIA

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 113

21/02/2013 08:24

114

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

to engage in ‘covert psychological operations’, which was superseded only six months later by the more expansive NSC 10/2, authorising: propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.9

The following years witnessed the launch of multiple covert operations to provoke unrest behind the Iron Curtain and ensure Western European political and economic stability. While the latter enjoyed a degree of success, efforts in Eastern Europe proved universally inept and ineffective. The propaganda and subversion schemes by Agency-sponsored émigré groups had little impact on communist regimes in the Soviet Bloc, while guerrilla and liberation campaigns met bloody ends.10 Crucially, details of these clandestine schemes remained out of the public realm. This was due to lackadaisical congressional oversight, as well as the fact that operations, while certainly violent and dangerous, remained somewhat small-scale. Joseph Stalin was aware of the plots in Eastern Europe through his own covert operation networks in the West, but the lack of open discussion inside the United States ensured that the sponsoring government’s hand remained concealed. In short, there was no domestic impediment to implementing bigger and bolder covert action. Indeed, US officials were more concerned with bolstering clandestine activities. Tasked with producing a top-secret review of the CIA’s efforts to date, a 1954 commission led by James Doolittle concluded that: We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.11

It would take another twenty years before the American public were confronted by this ‘fundamentally repugnant philosophy’, with their reaction proving far from understanding and supportive. In the meantime, the Cold War consensus held true and ensured that covert activities remained out of sight. It is frequently suggested that the 1950s represented a ‘Golden Age’ as the CIA enjoyed unprecedented scope to pursue covert action in the so-called Third World. This is an exaggeration of its influence over events abroad and national security decision-making. However, the era was unique with respect to public opinion as Congress and, especially, the mainstream press rallied behind Agency activities. While members of Congress were not entirely absent in oversee-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 114

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

115

ing Agency schemes, they certainly cast a friendly eye and knew when to look away.12 CIA Chief Allen Dulles made concerted efforts to ensure that Congress was sympathetic to his Agency. He was also conscious of the need for broader domestic support. ‘Of course, there is a great deal that one must keep secret’, Dulles noted privately: but without a reasonable [sic] friendly public opinion to back Congressional support, this Agency would be in trouble indeed. By and large, the press comment throughout the country is on the whole friendly and so far my relations with Congress are on a satisfactory basis.13

In fact, Dulles provided good copy – especially in comparison with his dour brother, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State – and frequently penned op-eds and granted interviews. While eager to maintain operational secrecy, Dulles was keen to engage the press. As the comments of The New York Times (NYT) reporter Hanson Baldwin to Dulles attested, many in the press were happy to do likewise: ‘I have no desire to be other than accurate and no desire, as you know, to hurt or hamper the Central Intelligence Agency in any way. My interest has been the same as yours – improvement of our Intelligence services’.14 The CIA enjoyed particularly good relations with news magazines across the political spectrum, with some agents offered journalistic cover when operating abroad. Once again, Dulles actively courted the media, hosting private dinners for Time and NYT reporters. When Time–Life proprietor Henry Luce sought a clearer picture of the Eisenhower administration’s policy toward the Middle East, he asked Dulles confidentially: ‘would it be useful (and convenient) for one of our correspondents to talk to you first – or had he better proceed through regular channels?’15 Luce enjoyed several intimate ties with the US Government – his wife, Clare Booth Luce, was Ambassador to Italy and his company’s Managing Director, C. D. Jackson, was the President’s Special Assistant for Psychological Warfare – and his publications played a key role in sounding the drumbeat for action in Iran in 1953. Depicting Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh as an unstable, childlike figure who posed a threat to American security interests, Time provided a clear public rationale for overthrowing Mosaddegh. More crucially, following the CIA-sponsored coup, it made no mention of the American role, instead reporting it as an indigenous Iranian affair.16 Public understanding – or, rather, lack thereof – of the Agency’s covert campaign to topple the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala the following year also benefitted from close ties with prominent media opinion-makers. As in the Iranian operation, the NYT made no mention of the American connection and, in this instance, took vital steps to ensure the CIA link remained concealed. When correspondent Sydney Gruson’s reports

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 115

21/02/2013 08:24

116

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of increasing rumours inside Guatemala about a coup were picked up by the Eisenhower administration, Dulles met privately with former Princeton classmate and NYT general manager, Julius Ochs Adler. As the brother-in-law of NYT publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Adler was informed that the Dulles brothers would feel more comfortable if Gruson was kept away from the delicate story in Guatemala. Such was the climate of trust between the CIA and NYT – Sulzberger was a close friend of Dulles and rumoured to have taken an oath to secrecy with the Agency – that Gruson was soon reassigned to Mexico as the Agency-sponsored forces felled Arbenz. This would not be the only occasion when the NYT pulled unfavourable stories relating to the CIA – most notably, before the botched invasion by Cuban exiles armed by the Agency to topple Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.17 Yet, for all the operational ‘successes’ of the campaigns in Iran and Guatemala, there remained an inherent tension regarding understanding and discussions of the CIA at home. Dulles’ comment about keeping public and congressional opinion on-board was telling. Efficient operations would leave no trace of the Agency role, but how would the public then learn of its accomplishments? After all, intelligence remained a misunderstood subject. The CIA and its Director both found the allure of acknowledging foreign endeavours hard to resist. Shortly after the Guatemalan campaign, the Saturday Evening Post published a feature on the Agency, praising ‘the supersecret Central Intelligence Agency, our first line of defense in today’s underground war with Russia’.18 In preparation for the article, Dulles reportedly briefed the authors.19 Having worked to define ‘acceptable’ governments abroad, it appeared logical for the CIA to also shape domestic public opinion in the United States. Why did stalwarts of the fourth estate rally behind the Agency’s covert schemes, rather than inform the general public? First, there were close personal and professional ties between the press and government, with several journalists having served in some official capacity during one, if not both, of the World Wars. Many continued to have friends, spouses, lovers and associates in positions of power. It was the epitome of a northeast establishment: individuals attended the same colleges and universities and were part of the same elite social scene in cities such as New York and Washington. Second, the spectre of an expanding communist enemy loomed large, both abroad, especially following Mao Zedong’s victory in the Chinese Civil War, and at home, with prominent spy cases, such as the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss.20 It was patriotic to toe the line. Finally, there was an element of convenience, as journalists received a steady stream of exclusive material, while the Agency gained favourable coverage – or, of equal importance, no reporting – of policies and plans. In short, there was little desire or motivation in speaking truth to power.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 116

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

117

The early Cold War consensus ensured that the tension between secrecy and positive public opinion did not rise to the surface, as press and congressional attention remained generally non-intrusive and favourable towards the CIA. By the early 1960s, there were, however, signs of unrest. Both the NYT and Time were notably more critical of the Bay of Pigs plot, albeit by questioning if the CIA should have an operations capability, rather than whether covert action was a permissible enterprise.21 There was, of course, no mention of their own compliance in reporting previous campaigns. In the meantime, a new generation of journalists took up the mantle by exploring the CIA’s role amid US foreign relations. The first major breakthrough came in 1964, with a publication to ‘inform the American public’ by two journalists, who claimed the Agency was at the core of a parallel ‘Invisible Government’ wielding great power and influence. David Wise and Thomas Ross noted: ‘This second, invisible government gathers intelligence, conducts espionage, and plans and executes secret operations all over the globe’.22 Picking up on a little-known congressional investigation concerning the tax-exempt status of private organisations, the Left-leaning news magazine The Nation questioned why the Agency’s name had cropped up in the findings. Moreover, it asked what the CIA was doing funding intellectual magazines like Encounter in Europe and America. Rumours that had previously only been whispered on the elite social scene were now finding a voice in mainstream outlets.23 The key jolt to public consciousness came in early 1967 with the revelation that the CIA had been secretly financing the National Student Association (NSA). Although the NYT headline of 14 February made the splash, the scoop was made by a small Californian muckraking magazine named Ramparts. Part of a Left-wing underground press movement dissatisfied with the mainstream media, in 1966, Ramparts began publishing articles linking the CIA to nominally private projects led by American universities in South Vietnam, through information provided by a whistle-blower with first-hand knowledge of the scheme. It was another whistle-blower, this time, former-NSA fundraiser Michael Woods, who provided evidence for the story that would definitively expose the CIA’s hidden hand and generate newfound public awareness of covert activities. Dedicating its March 1967 issue to the CIA’s sponsorship of the NSA, Ramparts protected its scoop by taking out full-page adverts for the edition in the NYT and Washington Post. The NYT, scarred by its earlier complicity in failing to report the Bay of Pigs, as well as boasting a new cadre of reporters and editors, also decided to go on the offensive by covering the story and, in the following days, unravelled Agency secret funding of numerous other private organisations in America. The story proved a media sensation, with newspapers, magazines and TV programmes covering the issue, while Congress pressed President Lyndon

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 117

21/02/2013 08:24

118

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Johnson to launch an official investigation. The scandal was reported around the world, with further exposure of CIA involvement in cultural organisations in Allied countries from Europe to India.24 Aware of the pending Ramparts story, the CIA attempted to discredit the magazine and trump the exposé. Once this failed, it fell to former agent Tom Braden to offer the most remarkable defence of the Agency’s work after the scandal broke in a Saturday Evening Post column entitled ‘I’m Glad the CIA is “Immoral” ’. It remains unclear whether Braden was working in a personal capacity or if he had the tacit support of the Agency, although the move permanently ruptured his friendship with Dulles. Yet, the Ramparts disclosure did little to stem the CIA’s covert activities within America, as, alongside the FBI, they ramped up investigations into alleged communist connections to an increasing number of magazines that now opposed the Vietnam War.25 Operation MHCHAOS came to light, along with the existence of a 702-page ‘Family Jewels’ report, detailing over twenty-five years of covert Agency misdemeanours, through the reporting of Seymour Hersh. The re-emergence of investigative journalism was seen most famously in the work of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who revealed the cover-up of the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex ordered by Richard Nixon – and involving former CIA employees – that contributed to the fall of the President. Yet, it was Hersh’s NYT article of 22 December 1974 that triggered a new phase in congressional debate on the Agency’s past and current practises. It also signalled the first official public inquiry into covert operations.26 The following year represented a landmark, as both the House and Senate launched investigations that revealed Agency involvement in the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, as well as previous bungled attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, such as Fidel Castro in Cuba, Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers in South Vietnam and René Schneider in Chile. The House Report, chaired by Otis Pike, was deemed so antagonistic that its general release was prohibited. Once again, the underground press played a vital role in bringing news of CIA activities into the public sphere, as the Left-wing New York magazine Village Voice published leaked extracts (the source of the leak was unclear, with congressional and executive officials blaming one another). The interest proved international, as the Pike Report was initially published not in the US, but by Spokesman Books – a small English publishing house. Yet, it was the Senate’s investigation led by Frank Church that generated most headlines, introducing the notion of the CIA as a ‘rogue elephant on the rampage’ into the public lexicon. Even though the Church Committee concluded that Agency covert action did not resemble the work of a ‘rogue elephant’, the term resonated and proved hard to dislodge.27

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 118

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

119

Harbouring presidential aspirations, Church was keen for the previous sins of the Agency – and, by extension, the executive and congressional branches – to be confessed and the process of redemption to begin. It was a struggle to reestablish public trust in the political system, especially following the exposure of lies and abuses of power around Watergate and Vietnam. The Cold War consensus was rapidly collapsing. While the CIA was under investigation, the entire government had let the American people down and getting all the skeletons out of the closet was considered the best path to salvation. This was the rationale behind CIA Director William Colby’s candid public testimony and admission of its previous activities. To the chagrin of many in the Agency, Colby set out to admit guilt and express regret. While he agreed to mild reform and oversight, he also asserted that an on-going Cold War still required the use of covert action. ‘As we lift this veil to open intelligence to the kind of public review and control we Americans want today, we have two problems’, Colby suggested: One is how far to go, on which we must jointly develop some guidelines and understandings, or we risk seriously and unnecessarily injuring our intelligence. The other is to ensure that our people have an accurate perception or what modern intelligence really is.

The second point was vitally important, because: ‘Without this, an individual act is seen as the norm, in applications of Aesop’s fable of blind men describing a whole elephant as only an extension of the part he perceives’. Yet Church and Colby, like Braden beforehand, found the debate hard to control once the genie was out of the bottle. Even though the aforementioned Hughes–Ryan Act ensured covert action was harder than ever to organise, the CIA found itself under unprecedented attention from the public and Congress.28 The public were certainly gaining an insight into ‘what modern intelligence really is’, although not in the fashion that Colby and other government officials had in mind. The disintegration of trust in the Agency also affected morale within its ranks, leading to the resignation of several covert operatives. When some of these figures subsequently published groundbreaking books based on their experiences, it ensured that covert action controversies remained in the headlines and were now on the bookshelves. Exposés and memoirs by the likes of John Marks, Victor Marchetti, Philip Agee, Frank Snepp and John Stockwell provided unique insights into CIA practises, drawing condemnation – and attempts to silence them – from the US Government (see Figure 7). Simultaneously, they attracted praise from the New Left. Figures like Agee lent their services to a host of new magazines that emerged, such as Covert Action Information Bulletin and CounterSpy, the latter which advocated ‘naming names’ to expose covert agents abroad.29

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 119

21/02/2013 08:24

120

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 7 Philip Agee, the most famous whistle-blower in CIA history, holding his controversial publication On the Run (US National Archives and Records Administration)

On the other side of the fence were spies eager to defend the Agency. Colby led the way with several public speeches and newspaper interviews that painted a less bellicose image, explaining that the CIA engaged in clandestine activities ‘only when specifically authorized by the National Security Council. Thus, CIA

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 120

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

121

covert actions reflect national policy’.30 Meanwhile, a group of retired covert operatives, including David Atlee Phillips (who founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers), Ray Cline, Lyman Kirkpatrick and Joseph Smith, made their case as private citizens by re-emphasising the threat posed by communism and the need for continued vigilance. Noting the important work being done by CIA staff, which, contrary to common belief, was not just focused on covert action, Phillips promoted Agency successes in a bid to boost morale, attract new recruits and maintain good relations with foreign allies. It was an essential, effective and honourable arm of government service. The intelligence defenders of the faith engaged the whistle-blowers in TV and radio debates, while writing their own memoirs of life in the Agency. As the title of one account stated, this was the ‘real’ CIA.31 Yet, far from diminishing discussions about earlier covert actions, the late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed unparalleled public attention to the CIA’s role in, and contribution to, the Cold War. By the 1980s, intelligence emerged as an area of academic inquiry. Straddling the fields of politics and history, if slightly weighted towards the former, ‘intelligence studies’ took off in the US and UK. In late 1979, a group of North American scholars, largely concentrated around the northeast and with close ties to government, set out to systematically analyse intelligence by creating the ‘Consortium for the Study of Intelligence’ (CSI). Highlighting the flood of material released during the previous decade, it suggested that it was now ‘increasingly possible to undertake objective, scholarly and unclassified research into the intelligence process and product, and to examine their relationship to U.S. decision-making’. The CSI developed teaching programmes and theories of intelligence, built research networks and considered problematic issues, like the relationship between intelligence and democracy. ‘For various cultural and political reasons, the study of intelligence has too often been regarded by academicians as ultra vires’, it noted, ‘Their self-exclusion from the subject has inhibited an understanding of this significant instrument of the modern nation-state’.32 The CSI reached out to former practitioners, such as William Casey – soon to be CIA chief in an administration especially fond of covert action – and organised a series of colloquia analysing current and future practises.33 Bringing together International Relations (IR) scholars and former agents, the CSI adopted a pedagogical approach to ‘improve’ intelligence, making aspects like covert action more effective foreign policy tools and publishing a series of books with the express purpose of reaching out to policymakers.34 Intelligence scholars also sought the opinion of former officials in proofing manuscripts on clandestine activities. This was, on the one hand, understandable, given that figures like William Colby had first-hand knowledge of such methods. On the other, it signalled a curiously close connection between scholars and the subjects of their inquiry.35

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 121

21/02/2013 08:24

122

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Another legacy of the 1960s, the fruits of which started to flower in the 1980s, had particular resonance for another group of scholars.36 Drawing on newly declassified government documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) of 1966, historians began to produce a host of survey texts and focused studies on CIA covert action. The possibilities for empirical research were heightened further in the 1990s, as the end of the Cold War saw the Agency proclaim a new era of ‘openness’, which would see the records on eleven major clandestine operations reviewed for general release. The CIA History Staff published a number of documentary collections and released previously classified internal studies. The clearest sign of this new attention to ‘openness’ came when the historian Nick Cullather was hired to write an official study of the Agency’s 1954 covert operation in Guatemala, which was subsequently published by Stanford University Press. Early optimism would, however, prove misplaced. Cullather’s study marked the apogee, as historians and centres like the National Security Archive fought the CIA to fulfil its declassification pledges. In reality, the writing was on the wall as early as 1984, when Reagan ensured that Agency operational files were no longer subject to FOIA requests. Moreover, increasingly loud noises from influential congressional figures required a response, as questions were put forward about the CIA’s role in the post-Cold War era. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously asked in a NYT op-ed that, in a world without the Soviet enemy, ‘Do We Still Need the C.I.A.?’ In reality, Moynihan was not calling for the end of intelligence per se, but was challenging the cult of secrecy surrounding the Agency and foreign policy establishment. Secret organisations funded by American tax dollars were incongruent with democracy.37 The Agency’s pledge to ‘openness’ was, therefore, as much to placate key congressional forces as it was a commitment to greater public knowledge of its secret past. The lack of primary records helped ensure that CIA covert action remained in the press and the focus of journalistic inquiry. It was also increasingly seen on the TV, bookshelves and in film by the turn of the century. Disparate interpretations continued to divide spies, journalists, scholars, political activists and artists, as the battle to construct covert action narratives waged unabated, following the end of the Cold War. One of the new ‘positive’ approaches depicted intelligence as American as apple pie. Linking covert activities to the founding fathers of the nation, some historians and former practitioners set out to ‘end the myth of America’s pre-Cold War innocence of clandestinity and place the “abuses” of America’s Cold War presidents in proper historical perspective’. Noting that all CIA activities are through presidential decree, they traced a lineage of covert action to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson: clandestine action was ‘neither . . . unethical, immoral, or un-American’. The problem was that most

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 122

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

123

Americans failed to recognise it as ‘a legitimate tool of statecraft’.38 Nevertheless, the most common interpretation – particularly in terms of book sales and viewing figures – has been overwhelmingly critical, with journalists continuing to serve as prominent narrators of Agency action. Whether through the concept of ‘blowback’, shadowy imperialism or a perennially bumbling covert operator, the most popular narratives have been crafted by journalists, scholars and activists.39 The nature of press relations with the CIA may have moved on from the start of the Cold War, but journalists remain essential interlocutors for public understanding of covert action. * * * What, therefore, can the historian contribute to current and future debates? How to move beyond a historiography that is more often defined by partisanship than scholarship? The current literature may be large (and growing), but, aside from a handful of texts, is generally poor. There are several interesting avenues open for historians in discussing covert action. Firstly, it is useful to recall the importance of lateral thinking, with regard to documents. Indeed, much of the foundational intelligence scholarship employed sources from non-intelligence collections. The growth in the American federal government has created a long paper trail, with documents, which are frequently addressed to more than one recipient, located in multiple locations. Resources like the CIA’s Records Search Tool (CREST) – a useful, if incredibly problematic, tool – need not be the first point of call. More candid opinions can often be located in personal diaries and oral history projects. Of even greater potential is to move research beyond the state to the private groups, individuals and transnational forces with whom the CIA collaborated. From trade unions to student groups to regular citizens, private collections are not subject to government classification and provide greater context, vis-à-vis covert action in practise. Better defining the sponsor’s hand, this approach also offers more opportunities to understand how activities panned out on the ground.40 Potentially the most interesting path is to be found beyond the US and UK. While not without challenge, this approach holds the most possibilities to enrich the historiography of covert action. It will not reveal CIA operational information or find the ‘smoking gun’, but it will, however, draw attention to the local partners working with, and occasionally against, the Agency. Effective covert action demands credible indigenous actors, which, as one historian suggests, creates the ‘architecture’ for intervention.41 It can also alter our understanding of seemingly well-known cases, like the Guatemalan operation. Max Paul Friedman has shown that, contrary to the opinion of US officials and journalists of the day, other Latin American countries did not offer a diplomatic bulwark

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 123

21/02/2013 08:24

124

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

against communism in the region. In fact, they opposed and resisted American noises about intervention, with the subsequent CIA campaign flouting a firm diplomatic consensus. In so doing, Friedman’s work identifies a ‘North–South perpetual divide’, both in the minds of contemporary American protagonists and the subsequent work by scholars. Mark Kramer has also emphasised the need to compare and contrast the CIA record with materials in foreign archives. Highlighting deficiencies in American interpretations of key moments in the final decade of the Cold War, policy choices and operations appear in a different light when seen through the eyes of other protagonists.42 Such work does require scholars to master new linguistic skills, accompanied by awareness for other cultures and mind frames. Recent developments identifying European intelligence ‘schools’ beyond the Anglo-American sphere is a start.43 The crucial point is to restore agency to the ‘other’ and offer greater attention to those protagonists that are affected by, and help shape, covert campaigns. Historiographical developments in the fields of American foreign relations and Cold War history reveal the vitality of increasingly international frameworks. Locating CIA covert action in the broader context of foreign policymaking and international history helps clarify its contribution to the wider competition between nations promoting different models of progress and pursuing distinct national interests. Considering US intervention in light of interventions by other actors – from Moscow to Havana to London to Rome – fosters historiographical debates that steer clear of moralising.44 Uncovering the full details of covert action is unfeasible and looking to do so sets the wrong objective. Empirical approaches remain essential, although there is a need for greater attention to ideas and concepts. The task at hand is to consider what covert action reveals about US conceptualisation of its place in the world, how others negotiate this vision and, concurrently, how they promote their own. It is to provide greater context to the CIA’s role in foreign interventionism and to establish how – or if – it shaped the contours of the Cold War. Rigorous historical work can go some way to debunking the ‘useful myths’ that have come to surround the Agency.45 This establishes a platform for more fruitful conversations about the effectiveness and costs of covert action for all concerned.

Notes 1 Raymond Garthoff, ‘Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 6(2), 2004, p. 54. 2 Cited in Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt, Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence, 3rd edn (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002), p. 207.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 124

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

125

3 Executive Order 12333, ‘United States Intelligence Activities’, UCSB American Presidency Project, 4 December 1981, available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ ws/index.php?pid=43324#axzz1qPBTpNWo. 4 Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991, 105 STAT. 443-444: US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence website [henceforth US-SSCIw], available at: http:// www.intelligence.senate.gov/statutes.htm. For the Agency’s own definition: CIA, Consumer’s Guide to Intelligence (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1995), p. 38. 5 Christopher Andrew, ‘Intelligence in the Cold War’, in Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War. II: Crises and Détente (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 422; Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 4th edn (Washington, DC: CQ, 2009), pp. 169–71; Loch Johnson, Secret Agencies: US Intelligence in a Hostile World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 61–9. 6 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 30–2; James Deutsch, ‘“I Was a Hollywood Agent”: Cinematic Representations of the Office of Strategic Services in 1946’, Intelligence and National Security, 13(2), 1998, pp. 85–99; Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden, Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage (New York, NY: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946). 7 Wesley Wark, ‘“Great Investigations”: The Public Debate on Intelligence in the US after 1945’, Defense Analysis, 3(2), 1987, pp. 120–1. 8 National Security Act of 1947, US-SSCIw; Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President (New York, NY: Random House, 1991), p. 170. 9 NSC 4-A; NSC 10/2, 18 June 1948. Foreign Relations of the United States, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, 1945–1950 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996), Documents 253, 292, available at: http://www.state.gov/www/ about_state/history/intel/index.html. 10 Richard Aldrich, ‘OSS, CIA and European Unity: The American Committee on United Europe, 1948–60’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 8(1), 1997, pp. 184–227; Trevor Barnes, ‘The Secret Cold War, I: The CIA and American Foreign Policy in Europe, 1945–56’, The Historical Journal, 24(2), 1981, pp. 399–415; Trevor Barnes, ‘The Secret Cold War, II: The CIA and American Foreign Policy in Europe, 1945–56’, The Historical Journal, 25(3), 1982, pp. 649–70; Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000); Sallie Pisani, The CIA and the Marshall Plan (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991). 11 Doolittle Commission, ‘Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency’, CIA FOIA Reading Room, 30 September 1954, p. 3, available at: http://www. foia.cia.gov/search.asp. 12 David Barrett, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005). 13 Allen Dulles to James Mooney, 14 November 1955, Box 57, Folder 14. 14 Hanson Baldwin to Dulles, 6 July 1954, Box 7, Folder 4, Allen W. Dulles Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton [henceforth AWDP]; ‘We Tell Russia Too Much’, U.S. News & World Report, 19 March 1954; ‘C.I.A. and its Role in Maintaining the National Security’, Ladies Auxiliary V. F. W. National Bulletin, March 1954; Caball Phillips, ‘Allen Dulles of the Silent Service’, NYT Magazine, 29 March 1953.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 125

21/02/2013 08:24

126

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

15 Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 229–31; James Reston to Arthur H. Sulzberger, 19 November 1958, Box 20, Folder 15, New York Times Company Records: Arthur Hays Sulzberger Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations [henceforth AHSP]; Henry Luce to Dulles, 5 March 1952, Box 38, Folder 33, AWDP. 16 John Foran, ‘Discursive Subversions: Time Magazine, the CIA Overthrow of Musaddiq, and the Installation of the Shah’, in Christopher Appy (ed.), Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966 (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), pp. 165–8, 173–80. 17 Foran, ‘Discursive Subversions’, p. 181; Sydney Gruson, ‘Guatemala Says U.S. Tried To Make Her Defenseless’, The New York Times, 22 May 1954; Sulzberger memo for file, 20 July 1954, Box 30, Folder 1, AHSP; Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (London: André Deutsch, 1995), p. 380; Harrison Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor: An Uncompromising Look at The New York Times (New York, NY: NYT Books, 1980); Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 227, 310, note 7. 18 Richard Harkness and Gladys Harkness, ‘The Mysterious Doings of CIA’, Saturday Evening Post, 6 November 1954. 19 Foran, ‘Discursive Subversions’, p. 181; Douglas Little, ‘Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East’, Diplomatic History, 28(5), 2004, p. 66. 20 See John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Early Cold War Spies: The Espionage Trials That Shaped American Politics (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Phillip Deery and Mario Del Pero, Spiare e Tradire: Dietro le Quinte della Guerra Fredda (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2011). 21 Bevan Sewell, ‘The Pragmatic Face of the Covert Idealist: The Role of Allen Dulles in US Policy Discussions on Latin America, 1953–61’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), 2011, p. 289. 22 David Wise and Thomas Ross, The Invisible Government (New York, NY: Random House, 1964), pp. 3–7. 23 Tity de Vries, ‘The 1967 Central Intelligence Agency Scandal: Catalyst in a Transforming Relationship between State and People’, Journal of American History, 98(4), 2012, p. 1078. 24 Peter Richardson, A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America (New York, NY: New Press, 2009), pp. 74–7; de Vries, ‘The 1967 CIA Scandal’, pp. 1080–6; Wilford, Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 237–42; Eric Pullin, ‘“Money Does Not Make Any Difference to the Opinions That We Hold”: India, the CIA, and the Congress for Cultural Freedom’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), 2011, p. 396. 25 Thomas Braden, ‘I’m Glad the CIA is “Immoral” ’, Saturday Evening Post, 20 May 1967; Wilford, Mighty Wurlitzer, pp. 237, 243–6; de Vries, ‘The 1967 CIA Scandal’, pp. 1082, 1086–7; Angus Mackenzie, Secrets: The CIA’s War at Home (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997). 26 Seymour Hersh, ‘Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years’, The New York Times, 22 December 1974. 27 ‘Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders’, Interim Report of Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 126

21/02/2013 08:24

Narrating Covert Action

28

29

30

31

32 33

34

35

36

127

Activities, 20 November 1975, available at: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm; CIA, The Pike Report (Nottingham Spokesman, 1977). See, also, Loch Johnson, A Season of Inquiry: The Senate Intelligence Investigation (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1985). Kathryn Olmstead, ‘The Truth is Out There: Citizen Sleuths from the Kennedy Assassination to the 9/11 Truth Movement’, Diplomatic History, 35(4), 2011, pp. 685–6; John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 306–7; ‘Colby Statement before US Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities’, 16 September 1975, Box 8, Folder 2, William E. Colby Papers, Mudd Library, Princeton [henceforth WECP]; L. Britt Snider, The Agency and the Hill: CIA’s Relationship with Congress, 1946–2004 (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2008), pp. 259–82. Victor Marchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (New York, NY: Knopf, 1974); Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (London: Penguin, 1975); Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End Told by the CIA’s Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam (New York, NY: Random House, 1977); John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 1978). William Colby, ‘The View from Langley’, Address to the Fund for Peace Conference on CIA and Covert Actions, 13 September; Colby, ‘Meet the Press’, 29 June 1975, Box 8, Folder 4, WECP. David Atlee Phillips, The Night Watch (New York, NY: Atheneum, 1977); Ray Cline, Secrets, Spies and Scholars: Blueprint of the Essential CIA (Washington, DC: Acropolis, 1976); Lyman Kirkpatrick Jr, The Real CIA: An Insider’s View of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Our Government’s Most Important Agency (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1968); Joseph B. Smith, Portrait of a Cold Warrior (New York, NY: Putnam, 1976); ‘The CIA – An Attack and A Reply’, US News & World Report, 11 October 1971; Ray Cline, ‘All Great Countries Take Covert Actions’, Edwardsville Intelligencer, 19 November 1974; Ray Cline, ‘Erasing the “C” in “Covert”: In Complete Security’, The New York Times, 19 February 1975. CSI, ‘CSI Statement of Purpose, 1979’, Box 15, Ray S. Cline Papers, Library of Congress, Washington. Roy Godson to William Casey [c.1979], Box 249, Folder 1, William J. Casey Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford. The emergence of intelligence studies in Britain can be traced to Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984) and the 1986 launch of Intelligence and National Security. Roy Godson (ed.), Intelligence Requirements for the 1980s: Vol.4, Covert Action (Washington, DC: National Security Information Center, 1981); Abram Shulsky and Gary Schmitt, Silent Warfare, pp. 75–97. Gregory Treverton to Colby, 28 October 1986; Colby to Treverton, 14 November 1986, Box 7, Folder 10, WECP; Gregory Treverton, Covert Action: The Limits of Intervention in the Postwar World (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1987). The following passage draws on Kaeten Mistry, ‘Approaches to Understanding the Inaugural CIA Covert Operation in Italy: Exploding Useful Myths’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), 2011, pp. 247–9, 269.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 127

21/02/2013 08:24

128

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

37 The CIA Information Act of 1984, available at: http://www.foia.cia.gov/ CIAinfoact1984.asp; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ‘Do We Still Need the C.I.A.?’, The New York Times, 19 May 1991; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998). 38 Stephen Knott, Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 4–6; William Daugherty, Executive Secrets: Covert Action and the Presidency (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), pp. xv–ii. 39 Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York, NY: Metropolitan, 2000); William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Montreal: Black Rose, 1997); Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2004); James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006); Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2007). 40 See Anthony Carew, ‘The American Labor Movement in Fizzland: The Free Trade Union Committee and the CIA’, Labor History, 39(1), 1998, pp. 25–42; Quenby Olmstead Hughes, In the Interest of Democracy: The Rise and Fall of the Early Cold War Alliance Between the American Federation of Labor and the Central Intelligence Agency (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011); Wilford, Mighty Wurlitzer; Max Holland, ‘Private Sources of U.S. Foreign Policy: William Pawley and the 1954 Coup d’état in Guatemala’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 7(4), 2005, pp. 36–73. 41 Zachary Karabell, Architects of Intervention: The United States, the Third World, and the Cold War, 1946–1962 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1999). 42 Max Paul Friedman, ‘Fracas in Caracas: Latin American Diplomatic Resistance to United States Intervention in Guatemala in 1954’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 21(4), 2010, pp. 669–89; Mark Kramer, ‘US Intelligence Performance and US Policy during the Polish Crisis of 1980–81: Revelations from the Kuklin´ski Files’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(2–3), 2011, pp. 313–29. 43 Peter Jackson, ‘Intelligence and the State: An Emerging “French School” of Intelligence Studies’, Intelligence and National Security, 21(6), 2006, pp. 1061–5; David Kahn, ‘Intelligence Studies on the Continent’, Intelligence and National Security, 23(2), 2008, pp. 249–75; Antonio Díaz Fernández, ‘The Spanish Intelligence Community: A Diffuse Reality’, Intelligence and National Security, 25(2), 2010, pp. 223–44. 44 Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008); Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the InterAmerican Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of Carolina Press, 2011). 45 Mistry, ‘Approaches to Understanding the Inaugural CIA Covert Operation’; Little, ‘Mission Impossible’.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 128

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 6 FBI HISTORIOGRAPHY: FROM LEADER TO ORGANISATION Melissa Graves

In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Bureau of Investigation, later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. When J. Edgar Hoover assumed directorship of the organisation, he used his public relations perspicacity to oversee the careful construction of accounts from hired writers (see Figure 8). During his forty-eight years as Director, Hoover required writers to obtain his approval for access to the FBI’s internal files. Subsequently, the few writers that dared to craft negative depictions of the Bureau relied solely on outside information gleaned primarily from embittered former agents and Congress; they could not access any of the Bureau’s official information. Only after Hoover’s death and upon the passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) did FBI scholarship gradually gain objectivity. In the 1970s, the Bureau began declassifying its internal files after the American public demanded transparency from federal law enforcement and intelligence communities following the discovery of such scandals as COINTELPRO, Operation CHAOS and Watergate. In 1974, historians gained access to FBI files through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Only then did historians have the sources needed to construct critical, revisionist histories of the FBI. Newly available sources deepened historical understandings of the Bureau and shifted the narrative away from the image of one-dimensional, heroic ‘G-men’ braving danger on behalf of their impeccable Director, Hoover, towards nuanced depictions of an organisation struggling to maintain order and security amid challenges such as the Cold War, racism and postmodernism. In recent years, historians have moved away from political histories, crafting labour and cultural histories. These historical forays have deepened understanding of an organisation that shrouds itself in secrecy, while presenting a carefully constructed public image. The first account published about the FBI is Courtney Ryley Cooper’s Ten Thousand Public Enemies.1 Arguably one of the most important books written about the Bureau; it provides a carefully constructed depiction of a fearless and effective agency. Approved personally by Hoover, the account shaped the 129

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 129

21/02/2013 08:24

130

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 8 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover enjoying the company of Holly Spring of Ballerina, a boxer-dog champion (Press Association, PA.9762788)

public’s earliest impression of the FBI.2 In the preface, Hoover heartily endorsed the author, claiming he could not imagine a man more fit to tell the history of the FBI. Despite Hoover’s praise, his Bureau insisted upon reviewing and editing Cooper’s book prior to publication. His book is as much a historical product as it is a mass-marketed piece of propaganda; he praised Hoover as ‘the most feared man the underworld ever has known’.3 Richard Gid Powers maintains that Cooper’s book introduced the ‘FBI formula’ – an easily readable crime story involving villains and action by the federal government, with Hoover as the central hero.4 Using melodrama to effect, Cooper warned readers of ubiquitous networks of crime supported by seemingly ordinary people; he wanted readers to understand the many threats facing each individual, so they would see the need for a federal law enforcement agency, such as the FBI. Cooper posited that, but for the FBI, any person might fall victim to crime at any moment. Cooper inserted himself into a debate relevant at the time, regarding state versus federal rights. A fair number of Americans – particularly those in the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 130

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

131

South – believed that only states should regulate law enforcement. Cooper, Hoover and the Bureau’s public relations department, however, sought to convince Americans of an indispensable need for the FBI to fight increasingly sophisticated crimes. An understanding of Cooper’s book and its slick portrayal of the FBI is important for understanding later historiographical works published during Hoover’s reign as Director from 1924 to 1972; until the time of Hoover’s death, books about the FBI either closely followed Cooper’s format, thereby winning the endorsement of Hoover and, subsequently, the rest of the FBI, or the books diverted from the formula and presented a critical analysis that resulted in Hoover’s disparagement. HISTORIOGRAPHY AND HOOVER

In 1950, Max Lowenthal published The Federal Bureau of Investigation5 – the first critical, well-researched history of the Bureau. Because Lowenthal did not have access to FBI records, he relied extensively on congressional documents, public hearings and newspaper articles. Lowenthal presents a largely negative view of the Bureau, as well as Hoover, of whom he disapproves. Despite the book’s salacious allegations, its laborious and dull writing style attracted few readers. Lowenthal refuted the myth that the Bureau emerged because of Congress’s overwhelming belief in a need for such a service. Rather, he contended that congressmen worried whether such an organisation would become a secret service bureau, like the ones found in Russia and in Napoleon’s French Empire. He argued that President Roosevelt coerced Congress into creating a federal law enforcement bureau after it introduced legislation refusing to fund private detectives for the Secret Service.6 To continue any investigations, the government had to create its own agency. Despite Congress’ well-intentioned efforts, Lowenthal argues that the FBI ultimately became the American version of a federal secret police, particularly during the Palmer Raids and the first Red Scare. Unlike Lowenthal’s scathing book, Don Whitehead’s The FBI Story presents the FBI as an institution with a precarious start that later evolved, under the leadership of Hoover, into a great and honourable crime-fighting institution. Whitehead – a journalist – wrote to Hoover, requesting permission to write an article about the Bureau’s battle against communists. Rather than grant his request for a mere article, the Bureau unexpectedly extended an unprecedented offer to Whitehead to draft a full history of the FBI and offered to give him unparalleled access to FBI files. In response to Lowenthal’s scathing portrayal of the Bureau, Hoover insisted that citizens read his version of the organisation’s history.7 In exchange for Whitehead’s access to files, Hoover insisted

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 131

21/02/2013 08:24

132

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

upon personally reviewing the drafts, reserving the right to make changes when necessary.8 Upon the release of Whitehead’s book, the FBI purchased thousands of copies to boost sales and endorsed favourable reviews to ensure that the work became a bestseller.9 Whitehead portrayed the FBI as a somewhat inept organisation until the triumphant promotion of Hoover, who, as Director, instilled his sense of discipline and rigorous standards to create the greatest crime-fighting fleet of specially trained agents the world had ever known. He relayed story after story, detailing the success of the anonymous and congregate ‘G-Men’ and portrayed Hoover as a central figure, lording over the FBI and ensuring the success of its crime fighters. In keeping with many histories written during this time, Whitehead embraced a myth of historical progress and republicanism; he wrote, ‘the history of the FBI, in reality, is the story of America itself and the struggle for an ideal. It isn’t perfect, but it has made progress in great strides’.10 Whitehead’s analysis supported the notion that the history of the United States is the ‘history of the progress of the nation, its people, and its institutions’.11 Whitehead’s patriotic endorsement of republicanism elevated Hoover to the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. As those historical figures shuffled America ever closer to its ultimate ideal, so did Hoover direct his country toward a world free from communism and crime. Hoover followed the success of Whitehead’s book with his own widely read narrative about the threat of communism, entitled Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It.12 Throughout his career, he wrote many polemics against communism containing similar rhetoric and only slight differences; among government reports and magazine articles, Hoover published A Study of Communism13 and a series in Christianity Today that encouraged churchgoers and clergy to beware the atheistic threat of communism.14 William Sullivan – former head of the FBI’s intelligence operations – later alleged that he and a team of six agents ghostwrote Masters of Deceit.15 The book, while not a history of the FBI, explained the historical origins of communism and alerted readers to the threat that communism posed against the United States. He argued that such an ideology could become dominant if citizens failed to take seriously its threat against democracy. The book galvanised public support for the Bureau’s fight against communism. Fred J. Cook’s 1964 critical piece, The FBI Nobody Knows, provided a scathing analysis of the FBI. Cook begins with the story of Jack Levine – a man hired by the Bureau to work as an agent. After less than a year on the job, Levine resigned and turned against the Agency, urging Congress to consider a broad Agency reform. Levine detested ‘the Bureau’s ideological brainwashing [and] its virtually old-maidish prejudices’.16 Levine revealed that training instructors pres-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 132

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

133

sured new agents to purchase Hoover’s Masters of Deceit, as well as Lowenthal’s work.17 Cook contended that the FBI historically abused its powers, thereby violating citizens’ constitutional rights. He argued that the Bureau pressured agents to secure convictions at the behest of civil liberties. Cook shredded Whitehead’s earlier analysis by portraying Hoover as obsessive, conceited and erratic. He discussed Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone’s promotion of Hoover to the role of Director of the FBI in 1924. Cook argued that Stone explicitly tasked Hoover with reducing the amount of activities that the Bureau would engage in, making them responsible only for ‘investigations of violations of the law’.18 Instead of following orders, Hoover greatly expanded the Bureau, in order to fight the inflated threat of communism. Cook took issue with Hoover’s masterful use of ‘propaganda’ to persuade public opinion. He argued that the American public failed to see Hoover’s messages as propaganda and instead viewed them as fact, ‘one of the verities of the ages, because it is disseminated under the FBI’s impressive imprimatur’.19 Hoover’s propaganda, though intended to reassure the American people that the FBI would not become a secret state police, had the exact opposite consequence. Cook depicts an institution exempt from criticism, thanks to Hoover’s massive public relations campaigns that elevated the FBI to the status of ‘sacrosanct’.20 The historiography of the early books about the history of the FBI – written during Hoover’s tenure as Director – is inseparable from the context in which the books were written; simply stated, the books are more than the mere historical arguments that the authors make. Some, like Cooper and Whitehead’s works, are the amalgamation of Hoover’s insecurities and the FBI’s desire to control its public relations; they reinforce, to their readers, idyllic images of morally impenetrable and heroic agents, heralded by their brilliant leader. Other works, like that of Lowenthal and Cook, provide unpopular counter-arguments, presenting a Bureau whose power has superseded any intended limits, thanks to Hoover’s idiosyncratic lust for surveillance and power. All of the early books reflect a dearth of sources and bias. Either the authors praised the FBI and supported their work through use of the Agency’s files or they denigrated the organisation by relying upon second-hand accounts by those whom the FBI had wronged. The books discussed demonstrate the issues inherent in trying to write an accurate history of the FBI prior to the 1974 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which made it possible for historians to obtain FBI files for research purposes. Prior to the FOIA, writers needed to convince Hoover that they would portray the Bureau favourably, in order to receive access to censored and carefully selected FBI files. Writers who would not promise to portray the FBI favourably were forced to look outside the Bureau for primary sources.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 133

21/02/2013 08:24

134

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Furthermore, neither Cooper nor Whitehead had formal historical training. Their pieces discuss the FBI from particularly favourable angles and read like journalistic or fictional exploits; though the books engage the reader, they lack historical legitimacy. Critical pieces, like those of Lowenthal and Cook, rely upon congressional records or interviews with former agents who were generally unhappy with the FBI. Right or wrong, people like Jack Levine had an axe to grind and a message to convey. Simply put, Lowenthal and Cook’s works are biased, though it is likely that Hoover would never have allowed them access to FBI files, and it is probable that they would not have wanted access in exchange for allowing Hoover to have the final say on their work. Thus, the historiography of the FBI is a rare instance where history responded to one of its central figures: Hoover. As historians and popular writers attempted to craft the Bureau’s history, Hoover inserted his own voice into the mix, skewing history. Therefore, the historiography of the FBI, in the days of Hoover, cannot be divorced from the events necessitating the need for certain histories to be written. AGENT MEMOIRS

Following Hoover’s death, former Bureau leaders provided their own accounts of their experiences. The books, released after the uproar of COINTELPRO, often sought to justify the authors’ involvement in unlawful surveillance. William C. Sullivan’s The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI provides a scathing depiction of Hoover. Sullivan served as Assistant to the Director under Hoover. In 1971, when Sullivan questioned Hoover’s contention that the Communist Party USA had fuelled the Civil Rights movement, an apoplectic Hoover changed the locks on Sullivan’s office doors while he was away for vacation, firing him.21 Prior to his dismissal, Sullivan allegedly offended Hoover when he offered, on his own accord, to organise a separate presidential surveillance service for the Nixon administration, which would be bolstered by Bureau assets. In 1979, Sullivan’s posthumous autobiography was released. His book, dedicated ‘to the special agents in the field who are the backbone of the Bureau’, attacked the leadership of the FBI, of which he had been a central figure. His book sought to expose the Bureau, particularly in his unfavourable portrayal of Hoover. Sullivan’s book is compelling, but hardly convincing; it reads exactly like one might expect a book to read that was written by a devoted employee who got fired. Sullivan seethed with bitterness towards his former boss and pointed a finger at him for all Bureau abuses. Sullivan used his book as an outlet to attack those whom he hated and to justify his actions and the work of other agents.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 134

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

135

Mark Felt’s The FBI Pyramid22 and Cartha DeLoach’s Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant23 both provide accounts about the FBI that juxtapose that of Sullivan. Unlike Sullivan, Felt, aka ‘Deep Throat’, and DeLoach praise Hoover’s leadership. DeLoach, however, acknowledged Hoover’s later tendencies to exceed the boundaries of his allotted authority. Felt discussed Sullivan at length, as the two men had a working relationship, which was largely characterised by rivalry. Felt called Sullivan a ‘Judas’ for conspiring with the White House to wiretap the Nixon administration’s foes. Felt disregarded the public anger against COINTELPRO activities and whined about the ‘gaping wounds’ that the FBI suffered from the leak in Media, Pennsylvania. Both authors acknowledged Martin Luther King Jr’s participation in sexual orgies and associations with known communists, such as Stanley Levison. Felt discussed opposition among the leadership administration within the Bureau against women serving as agents, writing superciliously that: ‘[women] are capable and competent and do a good job, but in tough or dangerous situations they are not above using womanly guiles to leave it to the men’.24 In his discussion about the changes brought about by Hoover’s death related to women, he elucidated a conservative environment of the Bureau that was out of touch with the outside world. All the advances of feminism had little to no impact on the Bureau, prior to Hoover’s death. These three books present starkly different portrayals of the FBI and Hoover. Sullivan, Felt and DeLoach worked side by side, and each attained comparably high authority within the Bureau. That three leaders could come away with vastly different interpretations of Hoover and the history surrounding the Bureau speaks to the controversy and the politicisation of the agency, even under Hoover. Because all three men were involved in controversial actions on the part of the FBI, such as COINTELPRO, their memoirs largely provide justification either for them, for the Bureau at large or for Hoover. Finally, Joseph L. Schott’s No Left Turns discusses the idiosyncrasies of Hoover’s Bureau. Schott spent twenty-three years working for the Bureau and used his book as ‘a form of oral history’.25 His account recalls the seriousness of any agent’s rebellion dissent against Hoover and the god-like reign of the Director. Schott’s book is significant for the criticism he heaps on Hoover, but also for the perspective that he adds. Unlike Sullivan, Felt or DeLoach, Schott never entered the FBI’s administration, and he remained removed from the political realm of the Bureau’s leadership. His work conveys Hoover’s influence within the everyday culture of the FBI for agents.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 135

21/02/2013 08:24

136

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US THE FBI AND COINTELPRO

With the enactment of key amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1974, historians could finally request files from the FBI to aid their research.26 Following the uncovering of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, historians flocked to newly released FBI files and crafted a slew of new and revelatory historical works. During the 1970s, as public distrust of the government increased, most historical literature about the FBI mirrored public sentiment and sought to expose the Agency’s abuses, beginning with the FBI’s alleged fear-mongering against the illusory menace of communism.27 During the height of the Cold War, Hoover accumulated files about anyone deemed ‘subversive’; his accumulation of named threats eventually included persons from disparate groups with loose or even non-existent ties to communism, including Civil Rights activists, student protest groups and second wave feminists. During this time, the FBI sought to disenfranchise subversive groups through covert operations intended to reap dissention and disunion. The revelation of his actions in the early 1970s became known as ‘COINTELPRO’. Cathy Perkus’ COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom28 argues that the FBI effectively harassed Left-wing political groups and carried out unlawful covert actions, similar to the Watergate years and before Nixon’s impeachment. In the introduction, Noam Chomsky traces the origin of COINTELPRO back to the FBI’s earlier Palmer Raids, as well as the Alien and Seditions Act and the explosion of a bomb in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in 1886. In support of Perkus’ thesis, Kenneth O’Reilly’s Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace29 claims that the FBI’s impact on Cold War political attitudes, through such means as propaganda, was ‘more [important] than the efforts of any other anticommunist group’.30 Hoover’s treatises on communism, included in such works as Masters of Deceit, inflated the threat of communism among average citizens and galvanised public support for the FBI’s actions. Moreover, O’Reilly argues that McCarthyism would not have become as powerful as it did without the help of the FBI. The FBI assisted Joseph McCarthy in identifying subversives, harassing those who were identified as dissident threats and influencing the opinions of liberals, which O’Reilly differentiates into two groups: ‘Cold War liberals’, such as Morris Ernst,31 who believed that communists were not entitled to First Amendment protection, and ‘First Amendment extremists’, who believed in protection for communists and communist sympathisers. In turn, O’Reilly alleges that Hoover greatly expanded the FBI’s political authority, allowing the Bureau to investigate cases within the prerequisite criminal actions.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 136

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

137

O’Reilly’s tendency to chastise ‘pseudo’ liberals who did not effectively argue for the protection of alleged communists’ rights emerges as a central theme in William W. Keller’s The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover.32 Keller argues that the liberals turned over power to Hoover during the Second Red Scare, thinking that he was a better alternative to McCarthy. Rather than create a well-regulated investigative agency, the Bureau soon exceeded the limits of the liberals’ comfort. Though liberals initially supported the FBI’s investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, they became increasingly uneasy with the Bureau when it began spying on King. Keller posits that liberals, in creating the FBI, originally envisioned a bureau of domestic intelligence. Despite the Bureau’s distaste for all forms of radicalism, either Left or Right, O’Reilly argues that the Agency digressed into a political police unit and later into an independent security state within a state.33 Thus, the FBI became the liberals’ worst nightmare, largely thanks to their earlier support of Hoover. Additionally, Keller notes the Bureau’s aversion to all forms of radicalism; whether the radicalism stemmed from white hate groups or Left-wing subversives. Indeed, historians have long pondered the breadth of FBI surveillance towards radical groups. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the FBI used covert operations against widely divergent voices, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Students for a Democratic Society and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sociologist David Cunningham’s There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence34 asks why the Bureau’s COINTELPRO-related activities extended to such a wide array of disparate political groups and finds that the FBI’s repression of such groups can only be understood within the organisational context of the Bureau. Cunningham maintains that local FBI field offices routinely reported to FBI headquarters any issues related to subversive groups within their jurisdiction; each jurisdiction faced different subversive groups. In turn, headquarters amalgamated the local reports and issued master priority lists to all fifty-six FBI field offices. Thus, the strange consolidation of activities against disparate groups can be understood as a collective representation of what individual field offices experienced; not all offices experienced the same threats. Earlier works on the FBI and COINTELPRO seemed intent on ‘exposing’ the FBI’s indiscretions. Historians and journalists leapfrogged over each other to demonstrate, first, the close, ill-meaning relationship between Hoover and McCarthy. Indeed, the historians had not suffered a long enough divorce, time-wise, from their topic of study; COINTELPRO was exposed in 1971 and by 1976, Perkus published his treatise to prove that the FBI’s detestable actions had occurred for much longer than anyone realised. O’Reilly took Perkus’ thesis further, by arguing that McCarthyism would never have gained such power were it not for Hoover. Following the exposé works of Perkus and O’Reilly, historians

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 137

21/02/2013 08:24

138

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

began to point fingers; Keller assigned fault by blaming liberals, who created a monster that they could not keep under their control. Only later, once a fair amount of time had passed, does the historical literature gain nuance and credibility. Cunningham’s 2004 work asks the level-headed question of why COINTELPRO was carried out against so many groups and finds a very technical and non-political answer. Earlier works about COINTELPRO were published so soon after the programme’s public unveiling that the books read more like angry journalistic accounts. Although they trace the history leading to COINTELPRO, the authors still reside in close proximity to their subject; thus, sophisticated questions are replaced with basic questions, such as ‘what happened?’ Alternatively, however, the earlier books reflect the public’s process of coming to terms with the FBI’s actions for the very first time. Since the Bureau’s founding in 1908, the public had never learned, from the FBI’s files, of any wrongdoing. The earlier books reflect the shock of researchers, who learned, for the first time, what the FBI had been surreptitiously doing for all those years. BIOGRAPHIES OF HOOVER

Following Hoover’s death in 1972, historians, journalists and popular writers all clamoured to write the definitive piece on the enigmatic man. Rhodry Jeffreys-Jones contends that early Bureau historians, such as crime fiction writer Courtney Ryley Cooper and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Don Whitehead, portrayed the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as ‘virtually synonymous with the efforts of Hoover himself’.35 Despite the vast amount of public relations literature available about Hoover, historians hoped FOIA amendments would allow them the chance to finally write the definitive biographic piece about Hoover. No longer would works about Hoover undulate with praise or reflect Hoover’s vision for how he wished to be seen. Rather, historians would finally portray Hoover with as much historical accuracy as possible, because, for the first time, historians had access to reams of new information that would vastly redefine him. Historians such as Theoharis, Gentry and Powers skilfully honed their abilities to peruse FBI files and constructed intricate profiles of Hoover, taking him beyond the stereotypes and, at times, defending him against those writers that constructed baseless, salacious portrayals. Athan G. Theoharis and freelance writer John Stuart Cox’s The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition36 examines Hoover’s abuse of power and usurpation of civil liberties. They conclude that Hoover, more than any political before or since, had done more to ‘[undermine] American constitutional guarantees’.37 The authors rely upon interviews with Hoover’s

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 138

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

139

family members, former acquaintances and employees, as well as FBI files, including three ‘sensitive FBI files’ never used before in any historical research: the record destruction file, the Symbol Number Sensitive Source Index and the Surreptitious Entries file.38 Their use of such files is particularly noteworthy, as the authors also surmise that Hoover’s files allowed him to ‘shape the government [and] alter the laws and attitudes of the country’.39 Because Hoover held such sensitive and, at times, compromising information about politicians, he was able to wield a great amount of power and control; presidents, attorneys general and other politicians did not have the courage to act against him, and politicians refused to insist upon any congressional investigations. This ‘inquisition’ on the part of Hoover to uncover as much negative information about his political counterparts as he possibly could, ensured his continued authority as ‘Boss’; he could wield serious leverage on presidential decisions, and he ran the FBI with unlimited authority. In addition to Hoover’s access to such information, the authors contend that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s directives allowing for limited federal wiretapping by the FBI were exploited by Hoover and expanded the power of the FBI. Towards the end of his life, however, the authors find that Hoover’s authority as boss had been greatly diminished in light of the COINTELPRO controversy. In The Boss, Theoharis and Cox discuss Hoover’s sexuality and surmise, ‘Hoover never knew sexual desire at all’.40 Popular author Anthony Summers’ Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover41 relied upon hearsay and rumour to argue that Hoover was a homosexual who donned drag clothing to attend homosexual orgies and that organised crime bosses used compromising information on Hoover’s sexuality to neuter any efforts on the Director’s part to investigate or prosecute their wrongdoing. In response to Summers’ book, Theoharis wrote J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime: An Historical Antidote. He deconstructs Summers’ argument and finds no evidence to prove Hoover’s homosexuality. Theoharis surmises that even if Hoover had been a homosexual, he would never have entered into the sort of compromising situations Summers details. Furthermore, Theoharis argues that Hoover’s failure to adopt a hard stance toward organised crime resulted from a dearth of legislation that would have allowed the FBI to successfully prosecute the Mafia at that time. Curt Gentry’s J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets42 exposes Hoover’s enormous power wielding and further advances Theoharis and Cox’s thesis that Hoover had a huge amount of control over presidents, due the compromising information he kept on them. Gentry also details corruption in the upper echelons of the FBI, including slush fund accounts set aside by Hoover to evade paying taxes on his published books. He details the destruction of Hoover’s personal files by his personal secretary, Helen Gandy, and intimates that many

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 139

21/02/2013 08:24

140

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of the files were distributed among other agencies, such as the CIA. He also discusses Hoover’s hypocrisy; although he publicly repudiated pornography, Gentry reports that he was delighted to receive photographs from comedian W. C. Fields, which depicted Eleanor Roosevelt – a woman that Hoover held little regard for – and when turned upside down, depicted an anatomically correct photo of a female sexual organ. Richard Gid Powers’ Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover43 argues that Hoover’s childhood values greatly shaped the priorities of the Bureau under Hoover’s leadership. Hoover came from a traditional, middle-class, religious background. As such, he used the FBI to protect the values that he espoused. Powers argues that Hoover held onto his position as Director for too long. As the world around him changed, his old vision increasingly contrasted with new societal values espoused by the Civil Rights movement and similar progressive agendas. Towards the end of his life, Hoover no longer represented the values of America, but rather his own, outdated values and the values of his Bureau. It is difficult to argue with Powers about his contention that Hoover stayed around too long. Indeed, the legislature voted into law a measure before Hoover’s death that subsequent FBI Directors could only serve ten-year terms. Furthermore, Power’s argument that Hoover’s values influenced his Bureau priorities is convincing, given the extent to which Hoover appeared out of touch with contemporary society. Perhaps he appeared increasingly out of touch with the world around him because, each year, his childhood values became slightly more irrelevant. In recent years, biographies of Hoover have succumbed to critical works about Hoover’s involvement within the larger Cold War era. Steve Rosswurm’s The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935–1962 deconstruct the relationship between two important Cold War institutions.44 He examines Hoover’s interest in the Catholic Church, despite his lifelong Presbyterian affiliation. Hoover believed that the Bureau and the Church had similar missions revolving around men as priests and agents. Hoover only admired the Catholic Church’s mission against communism, however, until the Church protested the Vietnam War; once the Church politically opposed the war, Hoover’s admiration tempered. Douglas M. Charles’ The FBI’s Obscene File: J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s Crusade against Smut satisfies an omission in prior FBI historiography by discussing the contents and evolution of Hoover’s obscenity files. Charles argues that the Bureau’s mission against illicit material ran parallel to American social values; the Bureau operated against that, which the country, as a whole, found unacceptable. Charles also argues that the leadership of the Bureau (Hoover and his successors) influenced the FBI’s definition of ‘obscene’.45 His focus on

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 140

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

141

Hoover’s obsession with obscenity, supplemented with the evidence obtained from Hoover’s files, greatly enhances historical understanding of the Director. THE FBI AND RACE

Hoover expressed great suspicion towards the Civil Rights movement, which he believed held ties to communism. David J. Garrow’s Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference46 details the FBI and Hoover’s obsessive surveillance of King. He disdained King and described him as ‘a “tom cat” with obsessive degenerate sexual urges’,47 ‘the “most notorious liar” in America’48 and ‘one of the lowest characters in the country’.49 Furthermore, Sullivan authorised the FBI to bug King’s hotel room. Garrow relays the history of the FBI through the lens of King’s experience, particularly conveying the fear that King felt when his wife, Coretta Scott King, received a package from the FBI containing a threatening note and illicit recordings of King’s conversations, as well as sexual indiscretions. Garrow fails, however, to do more than merely relay the events involving King and the FBI. He fails to put the FBI’s treatment of King into a broader perspective and never explains the motive behind Hoover’s animus towards the Civil Rights leader. While Darrow looks at the FBI’s involvement with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’ The FBI: A History50 looks at race on a larger scale and argues that the history of the FBI is largely related to race. He begins his analysis by providing a pre-FBI history, dating back to the days when the Secret Service employed agents and private detectives to support Reconstruction efforts and squelch white Southern violence. Jeffreys-Jones argues that the FBI initially began as a progressive law enforcement agency intent on protecting people from discrimination. He contrasts his analysis of the FBI’s place in history to the historical narrative of the Dunning School – a group of historians who wrote about Reconstruction from the perspective of jilted white Southerners; the message of the Dunning School was a widely held sentiment across the South, for which the Secret Service fought against. Jeffrey-Jones notes that later in its existence, the FBI lost its progressive stance on race, which, he argues, is particularly evident in Hoover’s diatribe against King. Jeffreys-Jones’ analysis is compelling, and his coverage of the FBI substantial, but, at times, his argument about race serving as the backstory for the FBI is over-stated. Certainly, race played an enormous role in the early formation of the Bureau, and the issue resurfaced with COINTELPRO’s illicit activities against King and other Civil Rights leaders. Other points in history, such as World War I and World War II, pushed the issue of race to the periphery.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 141

21/02/2013 08:24

142

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Jeffreys-Jones’ extensive treatment of World War II leaves no room for a discussion about race. Also, his treatment of the FBI, post-Hoover, merely mentions FBI hiring practices and the failure of the Bureau to adequately represent in their employee population the racial statistics in America at large. FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY TO INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Following the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, the FBI has continued to transform from a primarily law enforcement agency into a fully fledged intelligence agency. Two notable works examine the FBI’s transformation into intelligence prior to 9/11. Raymond J. Batvinis’ The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence51 seeks to dismantle misconceptions about the FBI’s lack of foreign intelligence work by showing that the FBI’s work in foreign counter-intelligence predated the Office of Strategic Services – an intelligence agency headed by William Donovan during World War II, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Garrett M. Graff’s The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Terror52 examines the history of the FBI’s involvement in counterterrorism operations, beginning with the 1972 Munich Olympics and continuing until the Times Square bombing in 2010. Graff argues that the FBI gradually mastered the art of counterterrorism, and he relays the competitiveness between the FBI and CIA, which often got in the way. Both works are compelling, as they revise earlier understandings of the Bureau as a largely crime-fighting organisation. The books demonstrate that the Bureau crossed the murky boundary into intelligence territory long before Congress demanded, in light of 9/11, that the FBI make intelligence a priority. Tim Weiner’s Enemies: A History of the FBI changes the historical debate regarding the FBI’s evolution from law enforcement to intelligence agency. Weiner, long revered for his work on the Central Intelligence Agency,53 uncovered new archival material about the Bureau and concluded: we think of the FBI as a police force, arresting criminals and upholding the rule of law. But secret intelligence against terrorists and spies is the Bureau’s first and foremost mission today, and that has been true for most of the past hundred years.54

Weiner and Garrett’s works suggest a new direction in historical understanding of the FBI, as they both argue against the notion of the FBI as primarily a law enforcement agency prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Their works have a revised understanding of the Bureau in the early days, stressing the FBI’s advanced intelligence capability during World War II and its battle against terrorism, beginning in the 1970s. Both works suggest that criticism lobbied against the FBI following the 9/11 attacks may merit new attention, as the authors

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 142

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

143

disprove the argument that the Bureau only recently entered into the arena of intelligence. CONCLUSION

The historiography of the FBI continues to shift, but the historiography makes apparent several ideas. First, there is a need for more than mere political histories of the FBI. For too long, stories about the leadership of the FBI have dominated the literature. Cunningham scratched the surface of a new research direction by exploring the long-distance relationship between FBI headquarters and the field offices. Some journalists, such as Kessler and Graff, interviewed a significant number of agents for their research. Many of the stories surrounding the history of the FBI, however, centre on the perspective of the leadership; there is a need for histories told from more diverse perspectives. There will always be issues related to telling the history of the FBI, while having limited access to primary resources. As time progresses and more FBI files are declassified, the story of the FBI will become increasingly more complex. In the meantime, historians will continue to draw upon the resources that are currently available, so as to understand, as best as possible, a truly fascinating government agency.

Notes 1 Courtney Ryley Cooper, Ten Thousand Public Enemies (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1935). 2 Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1987). 3 Cooper, Ten Thousand Public Enemies, p. 30. Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 185. Powers contends, in Secrecy and Power, that Cooper’s portrayal of Hoover in American Magazine may have helped then-Associate Director Hoover hang onto his position with the Bureau, following the forced resignation of Director William J. Burns, as a result of the Teapot Dome Scandal. Cooper’s article, which praised Hoover’s work, appeared in conjunction with the scandal. 4 Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 198. 5 Max Lowenthal, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (New York, NY: William Sloane, 1950). 6 Lowenthal, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, p. 4. 7 Athan Theoharis, The FBI and American Democracy: A Brief Critical History (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas), p. 118. 8 Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988), p. 310. 9 Athan Theoharis, From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), p. 309.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 143

21/02/2013 08:24

144

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

10 Don Whitehead, The FBI Story: A Report to the People (New York, NY: Random House, 1956), p. 323. 11 Joyce Appleby, Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 4. 12 John Edgar Hoover, Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It (New York, NY: Holt, 1958). 13 John Edgar Hoover, A Study of Communism (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1962). 14 For Hoover’s articles in Christianity Today, see J. Edgar Hoover, ‘The Communist Menace: Red Goals and Christian Ideals’, Christianity Today, 5(1), 10 October 1960, pp. 3–5; J. Edgar Hoover, ‘Communist Propaganda and the Christian Pulpit’, Christianity Today, 5(2), 24 October 1960, pp. 53–5. 15 William C. Sullivan, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979). 16 Fred J. Cook, The FBI Nobody Knows (New York, NY: Pyramid Books, 1965), p. 11. 17 Cook, The FBI Nobody Knows, p. 246. 18 Cook, The FBI Nobody Knows, p. 138. 19 Cook, The FBI Nobody Knows, p. 205. 20 Cook, The FBI Nobody Knows, p. 414. 21 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The FBI: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 178. 22 Mark Felt, The FBI Pyramid (New York, NY: Putnam, 1979). 23 Cartha D. Deloach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1997). 24 Felt, Pyramid, p. 241. 25 Joseph L. Schott, No Left Turns (New York, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1975), p. 5. 26 Tony G. Poveda, Susan Rosenfeld and Richard Gid Powers (eds), The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide (Phoenix, AZ: The Oryx Press, 1999), p. ix; Athan Theoharis, From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 1991), p. 10. This text contains excerpts of FOIA-obtained documents from the files of FBI leaders, such as Director J. Edgar Hoover, Associate Director Clyde Tolson and FBI Assistant Director Louis Nichols. 27 For additional histories about the FBI and COINTELPRO, see David Wise, The American Police State: The Government Against the People (How the CIA, FBI, IRS, NSA and Other Agencies Have Spied on Americans During Seven Administrations) (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1976). Wise posits that the abuses of intelligence agencies around the time of Watergate can be traced back for many years, extending far before Nixon’s administration. See, also, Nelson Blackstock, COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom (New York, NY: Vintage, 1975); see, also, Athan Theoharis, Spying on Americans: Political Surveillance from Hoover to the Huston Plan (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1978). 28 Cathy Perkus (ed.), COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom (New York, NY: Monad Press, 1975). 29 Kenneth O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace (Philadelphia, PI: Temple University Press, 1983). O’Reilly served as a contributing writer for Theoharis’ Beyond the Hiss Case. 30 O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, p. 8.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 144

21/02/2013 08:24

FBI Historiography: From Leader to Organisation

145

31 Morris Ernst, legal counsel for the ACLU, published an article in Reader’s Digest entitled ‘Why I No Longer Fear the FBI’. To counter Max Lowenthal’s work, Ernst reassured Americans of the FBI’s good deeds. 32 William W. Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover: Rise and Fall of a Domestic Intelligence State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). 33 Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, p. 13. 34 David Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). 35 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The FBI: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 10, 162. 36 Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1988). 37 Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, p. 17. 38 Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, p. 9. 39 Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, p. 3. 40 Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, p. 108. 41 Anthony Summers, Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, NY: Pocket, 1994). 42 Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., 1991). 43 Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989). 44 Steve Rosswurm, The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935–1962 (Amherst, MS: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009). 45 Douglas M. Charles, The FBI’s Obscene File: J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s Crusade Against Smut (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012). 46 David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York, NY: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1986). 47 Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 313. 48 Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 313. 49 Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 313. 50 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The FBI: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007). 51 Raymond J. Batvinis, The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007). 52 Garrett M. Graff, The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Terror (New York, NY: Little, Brown & Co., 2011). 53 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2008). 54 Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York, NY: Random House, 2012), p. xiii.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 145

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 7 RECONCEIVING REALISM: INTELLIGENCE HISTORIANS AND THE FACT/FICTION DICHOTOMY Simon Willmetts If official secrecy had a devastating impact on American history, its impact on Americans’ understanding of that history was a collateral disaster.1

The academic study of intelligence has long established itself in opposition to spy fiction. In Christopher Andrew and David Dilks’ seminal introduction to The Missing Dimension, they argued that the lurid embellishments and gross inaccuracies of novelists, journalists and filmmakers had dissuaded professional historians from undertaking a serious study of intelligence history: The treatment of intelligence by both mass media and publishers often seems ideally calculated to persuade the academic world that it is no subject for scholars . . . Alexander Dumas once said of a woefully inaccurate history of the French Revolution that it had ‘raised history to the level of a novel’. Many writers on intelligence have achieved the same feat. But historians have been far more put off the subject of intelligence than they need have been. One of the purposes of this volume is to show what can be reliably based on existing archives and published source material.2

The historical study of intelligence is conceived of here as a response to fiction. Its epistemological foundations rest in its self-defined status as a verifiable authority on the past, with the expressed aim of correcting the factual inaccuracies of popular misconceptions. In this manner, the fact/fiction dichotomy has formed both a methodology and an epistemology for historians of intelligence. Not only has it shaped their attitude and approach towards spy fiction, but it has also come to define the way in which scholars of intelligence envisage the craft of intelligence history itself. Fiction, in other words, has become the ‘other’ against which historical approaches to the study of intelligence have been defined. Although The Missing Dimension remains a manifesto for many British historians of intelligence, it would be misleading to present it as representative of the entire field of intelligence studies. Len Scott and Peter Jackson, for example, describe intelligence studies as an essentially interdisciplinary field, which is open to various methodological and theoretical approaches.3 Furthermore, dis146

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 146

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

147

tinct academic traditions have emerged in different countries. In the US, studies have tended to be more policy-oriented, adopting the legacy of early intelligence practitioners/scholars, such as Sherman Kent and Harry Howe Ransom. In the UK, by contrast, institutional histories, written by diplomatic historians, such as Christopher Andrew, Richard Aldrich and Keith Jeffery, have achieved pre-eminence.4 Whilst this article focuses primarily upon historical approaches to the study of intelligence, the fact/fiction dichotomy is by no means limited to the historian. In a recent article, prominent US professor of public policy, Amy Zegart, re-rehearsed many of the same arguments as The Missing Dimension in a post9/11 context. In the past decade, high profile intelligence failures, accusations of politicisation in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, scandals over secret prisons, rendition, torture and assassinations have all raised the profile of intelligence and led to considerable debate within the public sphere. In spite of this, Zegart observes, academics ‘have been strikingly absent from the debate’.5 Like The Missing Dimension, Zegart contends that this dearth of professional scholarship has allowed popular culture misrepresentations to gain a dangerous degree of influence. Zegart epitomises this point in a section entitled ‘Why Academics Matter’, in which she introduces the issue with the following subheading: ‘Public Perceptions: Fact Versus Fiction’. For Zegart, academia’s principal contribution to the debate on intelligence resides in its status as a bulwark of authenticity, standing in direct opposition to ‘hit television shows like Alias and 24, James Bond movies and spy novels’.6 For Zegart, this remedial function of the academy is not only a moral and epistemological imperative, whereby the professional scholar is duty-bound to maintain a standard of objective reality, but also serves a practical purpose in forming the basis for sound policy. ‘Academic research and teaching’, she concludes, ‘are vital for bridging this gap (between public perceptions and policymaking imperatives) – providing a realistic and dispassionate view of the capabilities that U.S. agencies have, the constraints under which they operate, and the challenges they face’.7 In spite of the heterogeneous composition of intelligence studies, Zegart’s essay suggests a remarkable degree of consensus in method and attitude towards spy fiction across national and disciplinary boundaries. This chapter seeks to examine both the methodological and epistemological implications of the fact/fiction dichotomy in historical approaches to intelligence. It argues that the divide is an artificial one, which has committed intelligence scholars to a narrow understanding of spy fiction as ‘pure fantasy’. As such, other modes of interpretation, particularly the approaches of cultural and historical theorists, such as Fredric Jameson, Hayden White and Dominick

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 147

21/02/2013 08:24

148

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

LaCapra, who provide valuable insights into the relationship between history and fiction, have been overlooked at the expense of a value-laden criterion of analysis that sees little historical worth in spy fiction, beyond the extent to which it has distorted popular perceptions.8 To evaluate fiction on the basis of its adherence to the standards of professional historiography is to miss the point of fiction itself. For although spy novels and films often convey ideas about history, unlike works of academic history, their overriding function and purpose is rarely to provide a mimetic representation of historical reality.9 To evaluate a James Bond film on the basis of its historical accuracy, for example, seems as preposterous as it does futile, given the series’ self-indulgence in fantasy. Yet, equally, to regard Bond ahistorically, as neither a product of, nor influence upon, its social context, appears naively formalistic and strips culture of its historical agency.10 What is required, then, is an approach to spy fiction which recognises its historical content, without regarding the said content as an attempt to write or rewrite historical reality itself. In line with intelligence historian Wesley Wark’s largely unheeded introduction to the topic of spy fiction, written over two decades ago, this essay argues that a more nuanced interdisciplinary approach to fiction is needed – one which incorporates new insights and developments, particularly within the fields of cultural and narrative theory, that could, to invert Dumas’ phrase, raise the novel to the level of history, without dismissing or diminishing either one or the other.11 Perhaps the more dangerous critique of the fact/fiction dichotomy, however, relates to the epistemological, rather than the methodological, assumptions of this approach. By challenging the idea that the academic history of intelligence provides an appropriate countermeasure to fiction, one is, by implication, undermining the very meaning and purpose of the discipline itself. Here, then, we address the second part of Andrew and Dilks’ statement – the response to the threat of fiction through rigorous scholarship and, in particular, archival research. By conceiving of academic history as a response to mass media distortions, intelligence historians are, by implication, assuming the role of the guardians of historical authenticity. It is the contestation of this essay that this ‘mythbusting’ approach is not only deeply epistemologically problematic, but that it is also often decidedly political, both in its aims and its implications. There are three facets to this critique. The first attempts to complicate the assumed distinction between non-fictional and fictional forms of historical representation. Drawing upon wider debates within historical theory – particularly the work of Hayden White – it is argued that historical narratives themselves often include elements of fictionalisation. There is a need, then, for the intelligence ‘mythbusters’ to consider the nature of their own craft, before positioning it as the authority of truth on the topic of espionage. For, as Peter Novick sug-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 148

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

149

gested in his canonical survey of American historiography, the idea of objectivity can itself be regarded as a foundational ‘myth’ of the historical profession.12 The second part of this critique addresses the more specific problem of studying secret state institutions. Here, the relevance of Hayden White’s scepticism toward historical objectivity becomes acutely clear. Not only are intelligence historians confronted with the same epistemological problems that afflict all archival historians, but the authority of their accounts are further attenuated by the knowledge that much of the documentary record they engage with – particularly the use of national archives – has been deliberately concealed or even distorted. Of course, the documentary record of any institution, whether secret or not, is unavoidably elliptical in nature. What makes secret institutions unique is their practice of what Hugh Urban described as ‘active dissimulation’.13 Much of the archival record of secret institutions is not lost through accident, lack of storage space or bureaucratic oversight, but by design. Knowing this, the historian, as well as the general public, is reluctantly forced into a dual hermeneutics of suspicion. Not only are the documents themselves treated with caution, but the earnestness of the institution which has made them available is equally called into question. In this respect, secrecy poses a fundamental problem for historical representation. For the academic historian to invoke state archives of secret institutions as a standard of historical veracity in opposition to spy fiction requires a degree of wilful naivety towards the precarious status of his/her empirics. Although intelligence historians have made some attempts to address the problem of classification, almost invariably, the wider epistemological implications of secrecy have been overlooked.14 Indeed, paradoxically, the solution to secrecy and classification for intelligence historians is often found within a renewed commitment to the archive.15 If the government were simply to make more material available, they argue, or if the shrewd historian were able to circumvent state censorship through the use of private papers, memoirs, interviews and so forth, then a thoroughly independent account, which was both apolitical and untainted by the influence of the state, would be made possible.16 Thus, in order for the archival approach to intelligence history to remain concrete, it becomes necessary to enact a degree of ‘epistemological blindness’ towards the archive, if the belief in the possibility of an authoritative and relatively comprehensive history of secret institutions is to be maintained. The final pillar of this critique examines the political implications of exalting the archive – particularly state archives – as the authoritative repository of historical authenticity. By critiquing spy fiction as ‘pure fantasy’, whilst simultaneously invoking the state as the uncontested standard of historical veracity, not only have intelligence historians attempted to assert the authority of academic

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 149

21/02/2013 08:24

150

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

history, but they have also unselfconsciously associated historical ‘truth’ with the documentary utterances of the state. Often this is merely a natural consequence of the epistemological position of the historian’s craft. Occasionally, however, the politics of ‘mythbusting’ is quite explicit, with both current and former CIA officers, for example, producing numerous publications on the historical inaccuracies of critical fictional representations of their Agency.17 Thus, the operative notion of historical ‘authenticity’ within intelligence studies and the interests of the intelligence services themselves are directly aligned. For if the state acts as the guardian of historical authenticity, it has the power to reject critical fictions of their institutions on the basis of their inaccuracies, even if, as discussed, fictional texts do not seek to establish themselves as works of history in the first place. The fact/fiction dichotomy is thus not only a question of epistemology, but of politics and power – of who defines what is a historically accurate vision of the past and what that past means. This struggle for the guardianship of historical authenticity is not a one-way street. Fictional texts and Hollywood cinema, in particular, have vociferously critiqued the idea of state-sourced histories of intelligence just as much as intelligence historians and practitioners have critiqued the way in which fiction and film represent the past. Films, such as Oliver Stone’s JFK or the Bourne series, television shows, such as The Prisoner or Edge of Darkness, novels, such as Don DeLillo’s Libra or John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, are all predicated on the idea that state secrecy has concealed the ‘truth’ of history. Indeed, the entire narrative thrust of all of these examples focuses upon the recovery of the past from the mendacious influence of the state. Few of these fictions assert themselves as works of history, although some, most notably JFK, have caused furore on this basis.18 Yet, in spite of their status as fiction, these works are engaged in a critique of the state-sourced notion of historical authenticity. In this respect, we might regard these critical fictions not as works of history, but as historiographic – operating in a similar fashion to what Linda Hutcheon termed ‘historiographic metafictions’ – texts which call ‘into question the claims to authority in historiography by uncovering history’s status as narrative and unmasking its claims to an unmediated access to the real’.19 These ‘historiographic metafictions’ have performed a vital historical function in problematising the idea that the history of secret institutions can be written through the secret archives of the state.20 The significance of these fictional representations of espionage within our culture resides not in the extent to which they have provided historically accurate or inaccurate visions of the past, but in their combative historiographical reassessment of the state’s centrality to historical representation in the context of increasing government secrecy. History is

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 150

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

151

only ever as credible as our faith in the veracity of the documentary record itself.21 INTELLIGENCE HISTORIANS/INTELLIGENCE PRACTITIONERS: THE GUARDIANS OF HISTORICAL AUTHENTICITY

The ‘problem’ of spy fiction’s distortion of historical reality has become a key topic of concern for intelligence scholars. Practitioner–historians have authored a number of book-length studies comparing the ‘real’ world of espionage with fictional spies. Moreover, the intelligence services themselves – particularly the CIA – have penned numerous responses to the fictional misrepresentations of their Agency. To date, Intelligence and National Security (INS) – one of the leading academic journals within the field of intelligence studies – has published two separate special editions, in 1990 and 2008, specifically devoted to the topic of spy fiction. A brief survey of the contents of these special editions reveals the general perception among intelligence scholars and practitioners of the clear and unbridgeable divide between the domain of factual history and the misconceptions of popular culture. As Stan A. Taylor wrote in his pun-ridden introduction to the 2008 special edition: . . . given the prevailing theme of most of the papers presented in this issue, one might say . . . that from the beginning, spy fiction and, especially, spy cinema, has . . . enjoyed a special license to lie another day. Or, given the inflation adjusted net profit of the already released Bond movies of about 11 billion US dollars, one could even say that the misrepresentations of how intelligence is actually conducted have constituted a golden-lie.22

In general, two methodologies to approaching spy fiction prevail among intelligence scholars. The first involves a direct juxtaposition and comparison between the fictional and the ‘real’ world of intelligence. This offers the clearest and most direct expression of the fact–fiction binary opposition that underlines the discipline’s general aversion to the misleading myths of spy fiction. In this approach, the scholar acts as an ombudsman of historical accuracy, most commonly adopting the mantle of ‘mythbuster’, thereby revealing the untruths, distortions and manipulations of the past contained within a spy film or a spy novel’s depiction of intelligence. This approach was exemplified by CIA Staff Historian Nicholas Dujmovic in his indicatively titled article on the 2006 feature film The Good Shepherd, ‘Hollywood, Don’t You Go Disrespectin’ My Culture: The Good Shepherd versus Real CIA History’.23 Dujmovic goes to great lengths to demonstrate the pervasive historical inaccuracies in the film’s representation of the CIA’s early history, even providing a balance sheet of the film’s distortions, comparing each fictional character with their

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 151

21/02/2013 08:24

152

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

apparent real-life counterpart and pointing out the discrepancies between the two. A slightly less combative example of this demythologising approach can be found in former CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz’s book-length comparison of spy fiction and spy ‘fact’, The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage.24 Hitz – who also contributed to the 2008 special edition on spy fiction – concludes that the ‘truth’ of espionage is far stranger than fiction.25 He makes the same claim in a chapter in this collection. A related method of interpreting spy fiction has been to compare the reallife intelligence careers of numerous spy novelists, such as John le Carré, Ian Fleming and Somerset Maugham – each of whom have worked in intelligence – with their fictional creations.26 Whilst this approach does not provide a corrective to the factual inaccuracies in spy fiction, it nevertheless maintains the same distinction between ‘real intelligence’, as defined by the academy, and ‘fictional intelligence’. Two of the ‘mythbusting’ authors cited are either current or former employees of the CIA; this is no coincidence. As discussed in the introduction, by denouncing and correcting the historical inaccuracies of spy fiction, these intelligence historians and former intelligence officers are, by implication, reasserting the authority of the state as both the subject and the source of the historical record. The ‘mythbusting’ approach, therefore, has quite clear political ramifications in its attempts to provide a corrective to the often critical fictional visions of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. In this sense, appeals to the historical record, in order to correct the misconceptions of spy fiction, are frequently, by implication, a corrective of the state. This latter point will be returned to later in the essay. The second methodology could be described as ‘contextualist’. This approach treats spy novels and films as historical documents of their times, revealing social and cultural attitudes towards intelligence and issues of national security. In this sense, the historical validity of spy fiction is established in terms of the ‘realworld impact’ of public perceptions upon the development of intelligence agencies.27 An oft-cited example of this is the influence of early twentieth-century British spy fiction upon the founding of Britain’s Secret Service Bureau and its development into a modern intelligence bureaucracy. Early spy novelists, such as William Le Queux and Erskine Childers, conjured illusions of German espionage on Britain’s shores, which, in turn, fuelled a growing public appetite for increased security and vigilance, paving the way for the expansion of Britain’s intelligence services. At the same time, these novels, along with such classic fictional celebrations of British nationalism and empire, such as Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, generated the myth of intelligence as ‘The Great Game’ – a gentlemanly

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 152

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

153

pursuit with highly effective results that helped to preserve Britain’s national interest and, as Christopher Andrew writes, avoided ‘public revelation of British intelligence weakness’.28 Whilst such an approach is less openly dismissive of spy fiction than the first, it still regards the texts themselves as near total fictions, which distort and misinform the public about the real nature of intelligence. In this sense, the historian’s task remains one of correction – pointing out the distance between the misconceptions of popular culture and a fixed notion of historical reality. Critiquing this ‘contextualist’ approach to the historical study of fiction, Dominick LaCapra argued that it offers an overly reductive vision of texts as purely ‘documentary’ in nature and converts the ‘context into a fully unified or dominant structure’.29 As John Zammito put it: documents need not and should not always be ‘gutted’ for information; read for their ‘worklike’ elements, they can offer a richer harvest for historical interpretation. And literary works may well serve as the richest evidence for the complexity of the historical epoch in which they are embedded.30

Both the ‘mythbusting’ and the ‘contextualist’ approaches to spy fiction by intelligence scholars have maintained a clear distinction between the fictional and the historical. Whilst they acknowledge that elements of history can be located in fiction, and vice versa, their chief analytical objective is to demonstrate the point of separation between the two domains. For the ‘mythbusters’, the key task is to demonstrate the way in which history is distorted in fiction, returning the former to a state of purity, in which the historical record remains unmediated by the gnarling processes of fictional representation. For the ‘contextualists’, however, the objective is reversed. Here, the historian attempts to demonstrate the manner in which history itself – or, at least, ‘public’ history – has become fictionalised and how social attitudes and beliefs are both influenced by, and contained within, fictional texts. While there is a greater degree of reciprocity between fact and fiction here than in the ‘mythbusting’ approach, as modes of representation, they continue to be regarded as entirely separate. According to the ‘contextualist’ historian, fiction as a form only ever distorts the past and is incapable of conveying any intrinsic historical meaning beyond the individual historical events and characters which it portrays. RECONCEIVING REALISM: HISTORY AND THE NOVEL

Understanding the relationship between spy fiction and historical reality requires a confrontation with what Wesley Wark described as the ‘fundamental role of the illusion of realism’.31 This is not as straightforward as it seems. As the previous section outlined, intelligence historians have consistently misconstrued

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 153

21/02/2013 08:24

154

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

realism in terms of their own craft’s professional ideal of providing an unmediated and objective denotation of historical reality itself. In Christopher Moran and Robert Johnson’s article on early twentieth-century British spy fiction, for example, they define ‘realism’ as ‘the symbiosis between real spies and fictional spies’.32 Such an understanding of realism maintains the fact/fiction divide – at an epistemological level, at least – by upholding a concrete notion of historical reality or ‘real spies’, as the criterion upon which the degree of realism in a given text is gauged. As Wark rightly noted, ‘realism is not about the relative success in depicting historical context and political process accurately, but is rather a mechanism – a literary device for achieving other kinds of literary, political and psychological effects’.33 Such an understanding of realism as an effect in literary works is relatively uncontroversial. ‘It is a contemporary critical truism’, wrote Linda Hutcheon, ‘that realism is a set of conventions, that representation of the real is not the same as the real itself’.34 To claim, however, that works of history are equally guilty of the same stylistic ‘confidence trick’ challenges the very basis of verisimilitude in historical writing upon which historical objectivity is based. Yet, as the following section will explore, realism as a literary form is the common denominator between history and the novel. To come to terms with the ‘fundamental role of the illusion of realism’ requires an uncomfortable acknowledgment on the part of intelligence scholars, not only of what makes spy fiction and spy histories distinct, but to ask what they share. The spy novel emerged as an identifiable form in early twentieth-century Britain out of this shared status of history and the novel as a mode of representation rooted in the mimetic literary effect of realism. Yet, defining precisely what realism as an effect is and how it works in the spy novel is a daunting task. Michael Denning, for example, one of the few writers to have addressed the problem of realism in the spy novel, suggests that there is not one notion of realism, but various realisms within separate aesthetic contexts. In the case of the spy novel, realism is used ‘as a synchronic mapping of the genre and as a diachronic construct that serves to explain the history of the genre’.35 In the first instance, spy fiction is often divided into ‘realism’ and ‘romance’. Spy ‘realism’ finds its progenitor in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent (1907) and was developed in the treacherous and morally ambiguous worlds of Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene and John le Carré. The romantic form is, of course, epitomised by the heroic figure of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, but dates back to the Great Game of imperial adventure in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim (1900). In the second instance, the term realism refers to the development of the genre, whereby each succeeding generation of novelists achieves ‘a higher level of reality’ in their fictions.36

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 154

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

155

Foregrounding Wark’s essay, Denning argues that ‘we must recast the debate about realism in terms other than simple accuracy or inaccuracy . . . Realism is not simple authenticity of detail and fidelity to the “facts” of history . . .’37 Settling on Marxist theorist Georg Lukács’ theorisation of realism, Denning argues that realism ‘is based not on the distinction between reality and fiction, not on a notion of the world and its verbal mirror, but on the distinction between narration and description’.38 In a seminal essay entitled The Reality Effect, French structuralist Roland Barthes explored precisely this distinction by examining the function of what he terms ‘structurally superfluous notations’ – descriptive details within a text, which serve no obvious narrative purpose.39 Barthes furnishes us with examples of these notations from both a historian – Jules Michelet’s account of Charlotte Corday receiving ‘a gentle knock at a little door behind her’ prior to her execution – and a novelist – Gustave Flaubert’s description of a barometer in A Simple Heart.40 Whilst such descriptive details add almost nothing to the development of the story, it serves the purpose, Barthes argues, of denoting a self-sufficient concrete reality. According to Barthes, this is achieved through ‘the direct collusion of a referent and a signifier’ at the expense of the signified, which is expelled from the sign.41 This absence of the signified generates what Barthes terms ‘the referential illusion’.42 ‘The truth of the illusion is this’, Barthes concludes: eliminated from the realist speech–act as a signified of denotation, the ‘real’ returns to it as a signified of connotation; for just when these details are reputed to denote the real directly, all that they do – without saying so – is signify it; Flaubert’s barometer, Michelet’s little door finally say nothing but this: we are the real; it is the category of ‘the real’ (and not its contingent contents) which is then signified . . .43

The history of the spy novel is replete with examples of such ‘structurally superfluous notations’. Early pioneers of the genre, such as Erskine Childers and William Le Queux, were often commended on the basis of their authenticity, due to their granular description of tradecraft and technique. Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands, for example, is filled with mundane nautical details taken almost verbatim from his logbooks, whilst sailing in and around the English coast and the Baltic.44 From the reportage of Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham through to the semi-documentary spy films of the 1950s, the bleak ‘realism’ of authors such as John le Carré and Len Deighton in the 1960s right up until more contemporary authors such as Tom Clancy, whose novels have been branded ‘techno-thrillers’ due to their inordinate use of technical detail, it is possible to trace the development of the genre in terms of its progressive deployment of referential devices that provide an illusion of the real.45 For Barthes, however, it was not the novelist who originated the referential illusion of realism, but the historian. Historical narratives are justified precisely

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 155

21/02/2013 08:24

156

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

because of their description of ‘concrete reality’, and the origins of realism can be found in the nineteenth-century emergence of objective historical discourse – historia rerum gestarum – which provided the model for the reality effect in the modern novel.46 Thus, the reality effect is equally present in non-fictional historical narratives of intelligence, as in the spy novel. Take, for example, Tom Mangold’s description of James Jesus Angleton’s office at the CIA’s Langley headquarters: In the staff’s offices (painted institutional gray) there were no personal items or mementos, save one. Inside one of the stalls in the men’s washroom was a single piece of graffiti which read: ‘E=MC2’ . . . Angleton’s inner office was large (20 by 25 feet). The windows on the far wall were covered with venetian blinds that were permanently closed when he was in residence . . . He sat in a high-backed leather chair behind a large, executive-style wooden desk that dominated the room . . . Since the blinds were firmly closed, the room was always dark, like a poolroom at midday. The only lights came from the tip of Angleton’s inevitable cigarette, glowing like a tiny star in the dark firmament of his private planet, and the dirty brown sun of his desk lamp, permanently wreathed by nicotine clouds.47

This passage is almost entirely comprised of structurally superfluous details. Although serving a symbolic purpose, the graffiti on the toilet wall, the highbacked chair and the venetian blinds are all structurally superfluous to a historical account of Angleton’s life. Admittedly, Mangold’s prose provides an extreme example, given that it was taken from a popular biography – a historical form that indulges in such superfluous descriptions far more than, for example, an institutional history. But institutional histories also make use, perhaps with slightly less élan, of descriptive notation. Nevertheless, the point, if we follow the logic of Barthes, is that both fiction and non-fiction – in other words, both history and the novel – deploy the same technique or literary illusion in order to connote the category of ‘the real’. Of course, neither spy fiction nor intelligence histories consist purely of descriptive notations. Even Denning is forced to concede that, with perhaps the exception of Len Deighton’s early novels, ‘description is in the service of the narration’.48 Here, then, we turn to other side of Lukács’ equation – the function of narrative in both history and the novel in conjuring the real. The emergence of spy fiction as an identifiable genre, from the turn of the century to the 1930s, coincided almost precisely with literary modernism – a movement which rejected narrative linearity in order to break with ‘representationalism’. Wary of the threat that modernism posed, spy novelists, particularly Greene and Maugham, proffered robust defences of narrative realism in opposition to what Damon Marcel DeCoste described as Greene’s suspicion of ‘the aesthetic elitism and dubious politics of the generation of high modernist writers that preceded his own’.49

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 156

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

157

For Maugham, realism as a form and, in particular, the ordering of historical experience in the form of a story was significant precisely because of its departure from historical reality. Indeed, modernism, Maugham argued, with its seemingly arbitrary structure or lack of structure, proved a far more realistic form of representation than realism itself. In his preface to Ashenden – a series of short stories based on his experiences working for British intelligence during the First World War – Maugham, who was both an early pioneer of the spy novel, memoirist and historian of intelligence, addressed the complex relationship between realism, modernism and historical reality, which is worth quoting at some length here: This book is founded on my experiences in the Intelligence Department during the war, but rearranged for the purposes of fiction. Fact is a poor story-teller. It starts a story at haphazard, generally long before the beginning, rambles on inconsequentially and tails off, leaving loose ends hanging about, without a conclusion . . . There is a school of novelists that look upon this as the proper model for fiction. If life, they say, is arbitrary and disconnected, why, fiction should be so too; for fiction should imitate life . . . They do not give you a story, they give you the material on which you can invent your own . . . The skeleton of a story is of course its plot. Now a plot has certain characteristics that you cannot get away from. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It is complete in itself. It starts with a set of circumstances which have consequences, but of which the causes may be ignored; and these consequences, in their turn the cause of other circumstances, are pursued till a point is reached when the reader is satisfied that they are the cause of no further consequences that need to be considered . . . I have written all this in order to impress upon the reader that this book is a work of fiction, though I should say not much more so than several of the books on the same subject that have appeared during the last few years and that purport to be truthful memoirs.50

By imposing the structure of a story upon the disparate and often inconsequential experiences that comprised his career with British intelligence, Maugham argues that his account, by its very nature, follows the format of fiction. The problem of narrative for historical representation, which Maugham identifies here in the context of his ostensibly fictional work, is no less a problem for the professional historian. Indeed, it has become one of the overriding questions for contemporary historical theorists. Hayden White, for example, whose work dovetails almost precisely with Maugham’s sentiments, argues that life does not appear before us ‘already narrativized’.51 The story of the past is not an a priori given, but is imposed by the historian. For White, it is only through the imposition of narrative by the historian – which, given its autonomy from objective reality, is by its very nature a fictional imposition – that the past takes on a meaningful form to the modern reader. Here, White’s sentiments appear almost identically aligned with those of Maugham:

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 157

21/02/2013 08:24

158

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Does the world really present itself to perception in the form of well-made stories, with central subjects, proper beginnings, middles, and ends, and a coherence that permits us to see ‘the end’ in every beginning? Or does it present itself more in the forms that the annals and chronicle suggest, either as mere sequence without beginning or end or as sequences of beginnings that only terminate and never conclude?52

The implications of White and Maugham’s observation that ‘all stories are fictions’ is far-reaching for the study of intelligence history.53 Just as they emphasised the importance of a beginning, middle and end, whilst at the same time acknowledging its arbitrary nature, so, too, must intelligence historians begin their accounts with consequences without cause and end at an appropriate point, when the reader’s demand for a climax and closure has been satisfied. When, for example, should the history of American intelligence begin and end? In 1947, with the creation of the CIA – the first permanent peacetime foreign intelligence service? During the Second World War, with the establishment of the Office of Strategic Services and its antecedents? Or, even, as in Christopher Andrew’s seminal account, as far back as the founding of the American Republic itself, with George Washington’s deployment of spies during the American revolutionary war?54 One could go back further in time – as many intelligence historians have – with tales of espionage from the ancient and the mythical texts of Sun Tzu or biblical references to Moses spying out the land of Canaan. When should such accounts end? Did the end of the Cold War bring about a narrative resolution of sorts to the development of the American intelligence apparatus? Did it mark an end of history, as some commentators observed?55 Did the fateful events of 9/11 mark a new beginning for intelligence in a brave new world of uncertainty in the context of globalisation? Or, were the Cold War and post-Cold War periods marked by continuity, as opposed to change? Was it the failure to realise the narrative resolution of the Cold War and a failure to adapt to the new story of global terrorism, as one prominent intelligence scholar has argued, which accounts for the failure of the American intelligence services to foresee the World Trade Center attacks?56 Understanding where the two points of the narrative curve lie is as central to the intelligence historian’s argument and explanation of intelligence institutions as the factual referents that comprise their analysis. Choosing these points of departure also carries a political significance. The relationship between narrative and historical representation, argued White: becomes a problem for historical theory with the realization that narrative is not merely a neutral discursive form that may or may not be used to represent real events in their aspect as developmental processes but rather entails ontological

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 158

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

159

and epistemic choices with distinct ideological and even specifically political implications.57

For example, by constructing a long and continuous legacy of American intelligence dating back to the American Revolution and even before, is there a danger of legitimising through historicising? It is surely not without political significance that such robust defenders of American intelligence as the former Director of Central Intelligence, Allen Dulles, the former CIA Historical Curator, Edward Sayle, and the historian Stephen F. Knott have all narrated the history of American intelligence on this basis.58 As Bernard Porter has argued, this long and continuous narrative of intelligence, which claims that ‘every state and every government has resorted to it, since the dawn of time’, implicitly supposes that ‘espionage is both necessary and “natural” ’. This deliberate propagation of the naturalistic fallacy seeks ‘both to excuse and to explain’ the secret state.59 The academic writing on intelligence not only shares the fictional structure of narrative in an abstract sense, but occasionally borrows specific narrative frameworks from fiction, within which debates on contemporary issues take place. The debate on torture, for example, is almost invariably narrativised in terms of the ticking time bomb – an almost entirely fictitious scenario. Indeed, fiction has informed the debate beyond merely providing the narrative apparatus. The popular television show 24 is frequently drawn upon by both scholars and policymakers as evidence that torture, in certain situations, is morally justifiable.60 Similarly, the long-standing academic and public debate on the conflict between surveillance and civil liberties is so indebted to Orwellian images of a Big Brother society that Wesley Wark has suggested that if society is to learn to live with intelligence in the twenty-first century, it must first learn to escape Orwell’s omnipresent shadow.61 Like Andrew and Dilks, Wark suggests that Orwell’s fiction has prevented a reasoned and considered engagement with the issue of surveillance and has distorted public perceptions of the subject. To ignore Orwell, however, would be to ignore one of the guiding images and narrative frameworks through which the academic and popular debate on intelligence, surveillance and civil liberties has taken place. Fictional narratives have not only framed the academic debate on intelligence, but have also played a significant part in establishing and maintaining the identity of the intelligence services. As previously discussed, a common topic of debate among intelligence historians is the extent to which the invasion narratives of early twentieth-century spy–thriller authors, such as Erskine Childers and William Le Queux, led to the establishment of the British Secret Intelligence Service.62 The fear of German spies performing subterfuge on British soil – although largely the product of fiction – was nevertheless influential in

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 159

21/02/2013 08:24

160

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

bolstering the growing calls for a permanent professional British intelligence service. Moreover, in the nineteenth century, British intelligence activities were frequently framed within the highly mythologised narrative of the Great Game. As scholars such as Gerard Morgan and Winston Yapp have argued, the Great Game owed its existence and identity as much to fictional accounts, such as Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, along with the overactive imaginations of British intelligence officers themselves, as it did to geopolitical reality.63 The origins of US intelligence are no less indebted to fiction. The establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, for example, was at least partially a product of General William Donovan’s publicity campaign, which celebrated and sensationalised the wartime achievements of the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In addition to encouraging the publication of insider accounts in magazines such as Time and Reader’s Digest, Donovan also worked extensively with Hollywood film studios, leading to the release of three major motion pictures regarding the OSS in 1946.64 If any American intelligence agency owed its existence and development as much to its fictional image as it does to any concrete historical reality, however, it was J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. In the 1930s, Hoover worked tirelessly to abrogate the popular gangster genre in the cinema, with a celebration of law and order via the figure of the FBI ‘G-Man’. His carefully crafted public persona ensured that the FBI maintained a reverential position in American political life, until the scandals of the late 1960s and 1970s swept away the image, which had for so long provided Hoover with a near-omniscient place within American politics, culture and society. As Richard Gid Powers put it: J. Edgar Hoover and his G-Men operated on two levels of American culture generally considered quite distinct, and their success depended on hidden connections between politics and popular entertainment; the bureau’s reputation was kept aloft by the pressure of fantasy on politics and of politics on the public’s fantasy life.65

William Truettner once wrote that ‘myth functions to control history, to shape it in text or image as an ordained sequence of events’.66 Whether conceived of as a countermeasure to the popular legends of espionage or by utilising and adopting the language and narrative framework of spy fiction, the writing of intelligence history, as well as the intelligence services themselves, have, to a large extent, been controlled by the mythology of espionage. By reconceiving realism, in order to understand it as a literary effect that is present in both history and the novel, the dichotomy between fact and fiction begins to dissolve. Escaping this dichotomy may provide grounds for new approaches to intelligence historiography.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 160

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

161

HISTORIOGRAPHIC FICTIONS: CONSPIRACY AS A COUNTER-HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE

Inspired by Dominick LaCapra’s notion of literature as a ‘contestatory voice’, Wesley Wark argued that spy fiction could be regarded as a ‘counter-history’ of intelligence. For Wark, echoing the sentiments of Andrew and Dilks, this ‘counter-discourse’ of spy fiction ‘can only be understood in opposition to professional history and does not quite deliver this sort of enlightenment’.67 Here, once again, in spite of the engagement with literary and historical theorists such as LaCapra, whose entire intellectual project depends upon pointing out the affinities between history and the novel, the separation between fact and fiction remains vividly clear. A rereading of LaCapra’s original discussion of ‘contestatory voices’ in the context of his overarching intellectual project, however, allows for a redeployment of Wark’s conceptualisation of spy fiction as ‘counterhistory’, in terms of a truly critical engagement with intelligence historiography. As LaCapra put it: In fact the most telling question posed by the novel to historiography may be whether contemporary historical writing can learn something of a self-critical nature from a mode of discourse it has often tried to use or to explain in overly reductive fashion. A different way of reading novels may alert us not only to the contestatory voices and counter-discourses of the past but to the ways in which historiography itself may become a more critical voice in the ‘human sciences’.68

Thus, LaCapra’s ‘contestatory voices’ is conceived not merely in an oppositional sense, but as a dialectic, through which the counter-discourses of the past can inspire new ways of thinking about historiography. What, then, can intelligence historiography learn from spy fiction? The answer can be found, at least partially, within the genre’s prevailing contestation of secrecy and its obfuscation of the ‘real’. Perhaps more than any other popular twentieth-century genre, spy fiction concerns itself with the recovery of historical reality or ‘truth’. From the theme of the innocent man in search of vindication, pioneered in John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, to the later ‘realist’ thrillers of John le Carré, which are characterised by a tragic loss of human agency in a world of bureaucratic opacity and ambiguity, the spy novel has articulated popular anxieties concerning what Fredric Jameson has described as the individual’s dislocation from history.69 These themes of alienation crystallised in the 1970s with the ascendancy of the conspiracy thriller in both literature and film. Heavily inspired by the spy thriller, novelists such as Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon, along with films such as Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Conversation (1974) and The Parallax View (1974), all critiqued, both directly and allegorically, the disorienting effect

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 161

21/02/2013 08:24

162

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of secrecy, particularly state secrecy, upon historical representation.70 The context of the conspiracy thriller’s emergence in American culture is almost too obvious to mention – namely, Watergate, Vietnam and the series of revelations surrounding the nefarious activities of the intelligence agencies culminating in the 1975 Church Commission investigations into the activities of the CIA and the FBI. What must be noted, however, is that all these culturally defining events were manifestations of the same logic: state secrecy. In his introduction to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s critique of secrecy in US Government, Richard Gid Powers wrote that: ‘if official secrecy had a devastating impact on American history, its impact on Americans’ understanding of that history was a collateral disaster’.71 Since the events of the 1970s raised government secrecy to the height of the public consciousness, conspiracy thrillers, adopting the legacy of spy fiction, have performed a historiographic critique by questioning the ‘official stories’ of the past and challenging ‘the transparency of historical referentiality’ in emphasising the distorting effects of secrecy upon the historical record.72 The epistemological challenge which secrecy poses for historiography is thus not only a concern for the academic historian, but a deeply-embedded cultural anxiety that has found its clearest form of expression in the conspiracy thriller. As a consequence, it is not professional historians who have driven the debate on secrecy and openness, but filmmakers, novelists and television producers. Consider the legacy of Oliver Stone’s JFK – a film widely reviled by academic historians for its simplistic conspiratorial narrative of President Kennedy’s assassination and its carefully disguised manipulation of documentary footage and reconstructed material (see Figure 9).73 Yet, in spite of its obvious shortcomings when considered as a work of ‘history’, JFK ignited a public debate, which led to the passage of The President John F. Kennedy Assassinations Records Collection Act (1992) that saw the release of thousands of previously unavailable historical documents.74 The historical significance of Stone’s film can be found not in its far-fetched conclusions, but in its powerful articulation of the public’s historiographic anxieties over secrecy and its implications for America’s national past. In doing so, Stone’s counter-history may have enraged the professional historical community, but it has arguably enriched the historical record of Kennedy’s assassination far more than any work of scholarly research could have achieved. Today, with contemporary commentators heralding the return of the 1970s paranoid style, the interwoven forms of spy fiction and the conspiracy thriller continue to provide a popular historiographic critique of secrecy.75 Like the 1970s, the abundance of conspiracy culture in post-9/11 America has coincided with a period of public outcry against the excesses of government secrecy and

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 162

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

163

Figure 9 Actress Sissy Spacek waves to the crowd as actor Kevin Costner and director Oliver Stone arrive for the world screening of JFK on 17 December 1991 (Press Association, PA.4951891)

the controversial activities of intelligence agencies. With the 9/11 Commission Report replacing the Warren Commission as the tainted ‘official story’ of contemporary conspiracy culture, it has once again been left to Hollywood to articulate a shared utopian longing for the recovery of the past. In 2010, the comic-thriller REDS featured former CIA operative Frank Moses, played by Bruce Willis, being forced to break into the CIA’s Langley headquarters in order to retrieve a file from a secret basement archive, which reveals the true history of an Agency operation in Guatemala. In the 2008 Coen Brothers comedy Burn After Reading, former CIA officer Osbourne Cox, played by John Malkovich, literally loses his past, in the form of his memoir, which sets in motion a cacophonous hunt for its safe return. The figure of Jason Bourne is perhaps the perfect allegory of the impact of secrecy upon the past and the utopian longing to recover the truth of history in the aftermath of 9/11. We are first introduced to Bourne when he is fished out of the Mediterranean with bullet wounds in his back in The Bourne Identity (2002). When he awakes, the audience learns that Bourne has no memory of his past life as a CIA operative and no understanding of why he has been left for dead off

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 163

21/02/2013 08:24

164

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the coast of France. Bourne’s amnesia and his attempt to recover his past drive the narrative of the entire series. Bourne, in a sense, is Hollywood’s archetypal citizen–historian. Like Jim Garrison in Stone’s JFK or the figure of the investigative journalist in the conspiracy films of the 1970s, the appearance of the heroic agent of romantic spy fiction within the conspiracy narrative allegorises the public’s dislocation from the past, whilst holding out the promise of history’s return from the opaque realm of state secrecy. None of these aforementioned films can be considered works of history or even historical films in the conventional sense. Yet, each says something about history or about our (the public’s) idea of history in an era of increasing government secrecy. Perhaps what the intelligence historian can learn or borrow from spy fiction is its value as a site of historiographic reflection upon the relationship between secrecy and the construction of a shared national past. What spy fiction has consistently articulated is that government secrecy, and our recognition of its existence and pervasive function in the modern nation state, raises fundamental questions about the state’s centrality to the construction of the past and its role as the arbiter of historical authenticity. Secrecy destabilises the past and our relationship to it. CONCLUSION

For both spy fiction writers and historians of intelligence, state secrecy has functioned as the governing problematic, which has defined their individual crafts. Historians have confronted the problem of secrecy through calls for greater declassification, the publication of official histories and an increasingly close relationship with intelligence practitioners. Spy novelists, on the other hand, have tended to adopt a far more sceptical position. Through conspiratorial narratives, they have laid bare the problem of secrecy for historical representation and called into question the ‘official story’ of the intelligence services. The result has been to place academic historians and popular spy novelists and filmmakers at odds with one another. For the historian, spy fiction offers a myopic vision of the past, which has misled the public about the real nature of intelligence services. For the spy novelist, state-sourced histories have carried equally nefarious implications and obfuscated historical reality. Whilst historians of intelligence have continued to exalt the state archive as the basis for historical authenticity, popular novelists and filmmakers have challenged the idea that the partially disclosed records can provide a representative vision of intelligence history. This essay has suggested that this fact/fiction dichotomy in intelligence studies is neither necessary nor natural. The novelist or filmmaker can learn from the historian; the historian can learn from novelists and filmmakers. By

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 164

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

165

dispensing with this binary, it has been argued, a new space for historiographical self-reflection is made possible. For, as Hayden White concluded in his preface to The Fiction of Narrative, ‘history without poetry is inert, just as poetry without history is vapid’.76

Notes 1 Richard Gid Powers, ‘Introduction’, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 17. 2 Christopher Andrew and David Dilks, ‘Introduction’, Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension: Government and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 3. 3 Len Scott and Peter Jackson, ‘The Study of Intelligence in Theory and Practice’, Intelligence and National Security, 19(2), 2004, pp. 139–69. 4 Loch K. Johnson, ‘An Introduction to the Intelligence Studies Literature’, Loch K. Johnson (ed.), Strategic Intelligence: Understanding the Hidden Side of Government, Volume 1 (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006), p. 3. 5 Amy Zegart, ‘Cloaks, Daggers, and Ivory Towers: Why Academics Don’t Study U.S. Intelligence’, Loch Johnson (ed.), Strategic Intelligence: Understanding the Hidden Side of Government, Volume 1 (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006), p. 22. 6 Zegart, ‘Cloaks, Daggers, and Ivory Towers’, p. 28. 7 Zegart, ‘Cloaks, Daggers, and Ivory Towers’, pp. 28–9. 8 The theoretical insights that undergird this essay cannot be easily conveyed via a single argument or footnote. Broadly speaking, many of the theorists discussed here are key thinkers in the field of narratology, engaging specifically with the relationship between narrative and historical representation. Some of the more significant works of this ilk include: Dominick LaCapra, History and Criticism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); Hayden White, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, (London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1990); Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981); Frank Ankersmit, History and Tropology: The Rise and Fall of Metaphor (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994); Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, (London: Routledge, 1988); Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984); Robert Rosenstone, Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 9 The special status of ‘fiction’ as a relatively autonomous discursive field from more empirically grounded disciplines, such as history, is a position often advocated by formalist literary critics. As the narrative theorist Tzvetan Todorov puts it: ‘literature is not a discourse that can or must be false . . . it is a discourse that, precisely, cannot be subjected to the test of truth; it is neither true nor false, to raise this question has no meaning: this is what defines its very status as “fiction” ’. Such a position – although

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 165

21/02/2013 08:24

166

10

11 12 13 14

15

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

in opposition to the critical approach of diplomatic historians, who dismiss literature on the grounds of its historical inaccuracy – still maintains an essential divide between the domains of fact and fiction. However, the purpose of this essay, being influenced by, in particular, the work of Hayden White, is to demonstrate the commonalities between fiction and history, particularly with respect to the field of espionage. The point, therefore, is not to deny that fiction contains something of value for the historian or vice versa, but merely to point out that separate discursive modes require separate hermeneutic apparatuses. Linda Hutcheon, for example, has argued that although Todorov is correct in his assertion that the truth/falsity dichotomy is not the appropriate mode of analysis through which to engage with literature, fiction nevertheless conveys ideas about history – or, more specifically, historiography – that does indeed require an engagement with literature at the level of the historical. Similarly, Fredric Jameson has argued, paraphrasing Althusser, that both factual and fictional representations of the past are interesting to the historian, not because they ‘produce some vivid representation of History “as it really happened”, but rather (because they) produce the concept of history’. Echoing these arguments, this essay attempts to shift from a historicist to a historiographical approach to spy fiction, arguing that whilst their individual elements and contents may deviate substantially from ‘historical reality’, they nevertheless convey ideas about history that are themselves historically conditioned and therefore worthy of attention by the historian. See Tzvetan Todorov, Introduction to Poetics, trans. Richard Howard (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1981), p. 18. Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, p. 109; Fredric Jameson, ‘Periodizing the 60s’, Social Text, 9(10), 1984, p. 180. As Fredric Jameson writes, ‘to overemphasize the active way in which the text reorganizes its subtext (in order, presumably, to reach the triumphant conclusion that the “referent” does not exist); or on the other hand to stress the imaginary status of the symbolic act so completely as to reify its social ground, now no longer understood as a subtext but merely as some inert given that the text passively or fantasmatically “reflects” – to overstress either of these functions of the symbolic act at the expense of the other is surely to produce sheer ideology, whether it be, as in the first alternative, the ideology of structuralism, or, in the second, that of vulgar materialism’. See Jameson, The Political Unconscious, p. 82. Wesley Wark, ‘Introduction: Fictions of History’, Intelligence and National Security, 5(4), 1990, pp. 7–16. Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 3–6. Hugh Urban, ‘The Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions’, History of Religions, 37(3), 1998, p. 209. See Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119(483), 2004, pp. 922–53; Wesley K. Wark, ‘In Never-Never Land? The British Archives of Intelligence’, The Historical Journal, 35(1), 1992, pp. 195–203; Christopher Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy 1900–1939’, Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes (eds), Intelligence and International Relations 1900–1945 (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1987), p. 9. Peter Hennessy, for example – one of the leading historians of British secrecy – is so enamoured with archival research that he devotes an entire chapter to it in The Secret

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 166

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

16

17

18 19

20

167

State. Significantly, he describes the experience in the quasi-religious terms of ‘pure elation and illumination’ and praises the ‘god of the archives’ who was with him that day. See Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Penguin Books, 2002), pp. xv–xi. In a recent article, Richard J. Aldrich does indeed critique intelligence history’s over-reliance upon National Archives or what he terms the ‘history supermarkets’. Nevertheless, his prescription, in calling for a greater use of interviews with former practitioners, arguably involves an even greater reliance upon state sources or the recollections of individual state employees as the arbiters of historical authenticity. As noted above, this type of critique is indicative of the discipline of intelligence history more broadly, which regards secrecy and classification as problematic, but ultimately tractable and fails to account for the more fundamental question that secrecy poses for the traditional ‘state-sourced’ empirical approach to historical representation. See Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Grow Your Own: Cold War Intelligence and History Supermarkets’, Intelligence and National Security, 17(1), 2010, pp. 135–52. It would be misleading to conflate professional historians who write about intelligence with current and former practitioners who ‘dabble’ in history. Nevertheless, particularly within the field of intelligence studies, the line between practitioners and academic historians is far from clear. Some of the leading historians of intelligence within the field are either former intelligence officers or have worked for the intelligence services, either as contractors or as official historians. Moreover, historians employed by the intelligence services, such as the CIA staff history team, draw the same dichotomy between fact and fiction by contrasting ‘serious’ scholarly archival research with the misconceptions of the mass media. For more on the relationship between academia and, in particular, the CIA, see David N. Gibbs, ‘Academics and Spies: The Silence that Roars’, Los Angeles Times, 28 January 2001; Arthur S. Hulnick, ‘CIA’s Relations with Academia: Symbiosis not Psychosis’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 1(4), 1986, pp. 41–50. For examples of both current and former CIA officers adopting this ‘mythbusting’ approach, see Nicholas Dujmovic, ‘“Hollywood, Don’t You Go Disrepectin’ My Culture”: The Good Shepherd versus Real CIA History’, Intelligence and National Security: Special Issue on Spying in Film and Fiction, 23(1), February 2008, pp. 25–41; Frederick P. Hitz, The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage (New York, NY: Vintage Press, 2005). See endnote 71. Not all of the spy novels and films examined in this article can be regarded as metafictional in traditional sense. Simply defined, metafictions are texts which selfconsciously draw attention to themselves as literary artifacts and thereby question the relationship between fiction and reality. Nevertheless, as will be argued, the examination of secrecy in the spy novel – whether metafictional or not – is historiographic in nature by calling into question the veracity of the state as the arbiter of historical authenticity. See Thomas Carmichael, ‘Lee Harvey Oswald and the Postmodern Subject: History and Intertextuality in Don DeLillo’s Libra, The Names, and Mao II’, Contemporary Literature, 34(2), 1993, p. 204. As Hutcheon argued in the Poetics of Postmodernism, ‘In both fiction and history writing today, our confidence in empiricist and positivist epistemologies has been shaken . . .’ See Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, p. 106.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 167

21/02/2013 08:24

168

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

21 The term ‘documentary record’ can be taken to include any empirical data upon which historians craft their narratives. Private collections, photographs, films, oral testimony and even fiction all requires a degree of faith in their historical veracity or representativeness. What makes the state archives of secret institutions unique – in a political sense, at least – is that the public’s faith in their authority is directly related to wider issues of trust in government. It is no coincidence, for example, that some of the most sceptical ‘historiographic metafictions’ emerged in the US during the 1970s in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam. 22 Stan A. Taylor, ‘Introduction: Spying in Film and Fiction’, Intelligence and National Security: Special Issue on Spying in Film and Fiction, 23(1), 2008, p. 1. 23 Dujmovic, ‘“Hollywood, Don’t You Go Disrepectin’ My Culture” ’, pp. 25–41. 24 Frederick P. Hitz, The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage (New York, NY: Vintage Press, 2005). 25 Frederick P. Hitz, ‘The Truth of Espionage is Stranger than Fiction’, Intelligence and National Security: Special Issue on Spying in Film and Fiction, 23(1), 2008, pp. 55–60. 26 See, for example, David Stafford, The Silent Game: The Real World of Imaginary Spies (London: Viking Press, 1989). 27 The murky realm of public perceptions is a growing area of concern for intelligence agencies and the scholars who study them. My research on the CIA is the product of a large UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project entitled The Landscapes of Secrecy, which examines the role of public perceptions in shaping the history of the CIA. Similarly, one of the leading historians of the CIA, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, argues that the success or failure of the Agency is largely dependent upon its public reputation, which is greatly influenced by spy fiction popular culture. For more on The Landscapes of Secrecy project, visit the website, available at: http:// www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/landscapes/. See, also, Rhodri JeffreysJones, The CIA and American Democracy, 3rd edn (Binghampton, NY: Vail-Ballou Press, 2003). 28 Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), p. 4. See, also, Christopher Moran and Robert Johnson, ‘In the Service of Empire: Imperialism and the British Spy Thriller, 1901–1914’, Studies in Intelligence, 54(2), June 2010, p. 1. 29 LaCapra, History and Criticism, p. 117. 30 John H. Zammito, ‘Are We Being Theoretical Yet? The New Historicism, the New Philosophy of History, and “Practicing Historians” ’, The Journal of Modern History, 65(4), 1993, p. 793. 31 Wark, ‘Fictions of History’, p. 2. 32 Moran and Johnson, ‘In the Service of Empire’, p. 1. 33 Wark, ‘Fictions of History’, p. 2. 34 Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, p. 125. 35 Michael Denning, Cover Stories: Narrative and Ideology in the British Spy Thriller (New York, NY: Routledge, 1987), p. 26. 36 Denning, Cover Stories, p. 26. 37 Denning, Cover Stories, p. 27. 38 Denning, Cover Stories, p. 28. 39 Roland Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 141–8.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 168

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

169

39 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 40 Gustave Flaubert cited in Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, p. 141. 41 Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, p. 147. 42 Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, p. 148. 43 Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, pp. 147–8. 44 Erskine Childers’ original logbooks are available to view at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. A description of the logbooks and their relationship to The Riddle of the Sands can be found on the Royal Museums Greenwich webpage, available at: http://www.rmg.co.uk/explore/sea-and-ships/in-depth/ erskine-childers/. 45 Walter L. Hixson, ‘“Red Storm Rising”: Tom Clancy Novels and the Cult of National Security’, Diplomatic History, 17(4), 1993, pp. 599–614. 46 Barthes, ‘The Reality Effect’, p. 146. 47 Tom Mangold, James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1991). 48 Denning, Cover Stories, p. 29. 49 Damon Marcel DeCoste, ‘Modernism’s Shell-Shocked History: Amnesia, Repetition, and the War in Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear’, Twentieth Century Literature, 45(4), 1999, p. 428. 50 William Somerset Maugham, ‘Preface’, Ashenden, or, The British Agent (London: Vintage Classics, 2000), pp. iv–viii. 51 Hayden White, ‘Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’, Hayden White, The Content of the Form, p. 25. 52 White, ‘Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’, p. 24. 53 Hayden White, Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), p. 9. 54 Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (London: Harper Perennial, 1986). 55 The immediate aftermath of the Cold War inspired an expansive debate over the need for intelligence or, at least, such expansive intelligence budgets in a unipolar world. Perhaps the most famous critique of US secrecy and intelligence was made by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who chaired a special commission on government secrecy. See Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience. See, also, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones’ introduction to the third edition of The CIA and American Democracy for a summary of post-Cold War debates on American intelligence: Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and Democracy, pp. 1–10. 56 Amy Zegart, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 57 Hayden White, ‘Preface’, Hayden White, The Content of the Form, p. ix. 58 Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence: America’s Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World (Guildford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2006); Stephen F. Knott, Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Edward Sayle, ‘The Historical Underpinnings of the U.S. Intelligence Community’, Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 1(1), Spring 1986, pp. 1–27; Ray S. Cline, ‘Covert Action as

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 169

21/02/2013 08:24

170

59 60 61 62 63

64

65 66 67 68 69 70

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Presidential Prerogative’, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 12(2), 1989, pp. 357–70. Bernard Porter, Plots and Paranoia: A History of Espionage in Britain, 1790–1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 1. Amy Zegart, ‘“Spytertainment”: The Real Influence of Fake Spies’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 23(4), 2010, pp. 599–622. Wesley K. Wark, ‘Learning to Live with Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 18(4), 2003, pp. 1–14. Moran and Johnson, ‘In the Service of Empire’. Gerald Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality in the Great Game’, Asian Affairs, 4(1), 1973, pp. 55–65; Malcolm Yapp, ‘The Legend of the Great Game’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 111, 2001, pp. 179–98. James I. Deutsch, ‘“I Was a Hollywood Agent”: Cinematic Representations of the Office of Strategic Services in 1946’, Intelligence and National Security, 13(2), 1998, pp. 85–99; Larry Valero, ‘“We Need Our New OSS, Our New General Donovan, Now . . .”: The Public Discourse Over American Intelligence, 1944–53’, Intelligence and National Security, 18(1), 2003, pp. 91–118; Wesley K. Wark, ‘“Great Investigations”: The Public Debate on Intelligence in the US after 1945’, Defence Analysis, 3(2), 1987, pp. 119–32; Bradley Smith, The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. and the Origins of the C.I.A. (London: André Deutsch, 1983), pp. 390–420; Thomas Troy, Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (Frederick, MD: Aletheia Books, 1981), pp. 255–60. Richard Gid Powers, G-Men: The FBI in American Political Culture (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), p. xii. William Truettner, The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820–1920 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), p. 40. Wark, ‘Fictions of History’, p. 4. LaCapra, History and Criticism, p. 132. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). The conspiracy thriller, as a form of narrative, includes a range of fictional texts which lay outside of what would commonly be regarded as spy fiction in either the ‘realist’ or the ‘romantic’ guise. Nevertheless, the influence of the spy thriller upon the development of conspiracy cinema and literature of the 1970s is clear. Numerous examples of conspiracy cinema, for example, are often cited as direct homages to the spy films of Alfred Hitchcock, and the themes of secrecy and the innocent individual caught in the machinations of state or corporate power have a clear lineage in the spy genre. Moreover, conspiracy thrillers are frequently about intelligence agencies or shadowy secret institutions with clear allusions to the revelations surrounding the US intelligence agencies in the 1970s. Unfortunately, there is not enough space here to engage in a full discussion on the relationship between spy fiction and the conspiracy thriller, suffice to say that the two are so closely interwoven that the latter could almost be regarded as a development of the former. In contemporary culture, this point is quite evident, with films such as the Bourne series or The Good Shepherd and television series such as The X-Files, all of which incorporate elements from both spy fiction and the conspiracy thriller. For more on Hitchcock’s influence upon the development of the conspiracy thriller, see Robert Barton Palmer, ‘The Hitchcock Romance and the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 170

21/02/2013 08:24

Reconceiving Realism

71 72 73

74

75

76

171

’70s Paranoid Thriller’, David Boyd and Robert Barton Palmer (eds), After Hitchcock: Influence, Imitation and Intertextuality (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006) and Charles Derry, The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock (New York, NY: McFarland & Co., 2001). For an excellent examination of the relationship between secrecy and conspiracy narratives, see Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Richard Gid Powers, ‘Introduction’, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy: The American Experience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 17. Linda Hutcheon, The Poetics of Postmodernism, p. 110. The academic debate over Oliver Stone’s role as a historical filmmaker and JFK specifically is too vast to comprehensively list here. Some notable examples include Robert Brent Toplin (ed.), Oliver Stone’s U.S.A.: Film, History and Controversy (Lexington, KY: University Press Kentucky, 2003); Michael Rogin, ‘JFK: The Movie’, The American Historical Review, 97(2), 1992, pp. 500–5; Robert Rosenstone, ‘JFK: Historical Fact/Historical Film’, The American Historical Review, 97(2), 1992, pp. 506–11; Marita Sturken, ‘Reenactment, Fantasy, and the Paranoia of History: Oliver Stone’s Docudramas’, History and Theory, 36(4), 1997, pp. 64–79; Trevor McCrisken and Andrew Pepper, American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film: From 1492 to Three Kings (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 131–9. For an excellent compendium of the exhaustive debate surrounding the release of the film, see Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar (eds), JFK: The Book of the Film (New York, NY: Applause Books, 1992). Ross Douthat, ‘The Return of the Paranoid Style’, The Atlantic, April 2008, available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/04/the-return-ofthe-paranoid-style/306733/1/. Hayden White, The Fiction of Narrative (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), p. xi.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 171

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 8 THE REALITY IS STRANGER THAN FICTION: ANGLO–AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION FROM WORLD WAR II THROUGH THE COLD WAR Frederick P. Hitz This chapter will first consider the odd relationship that existed between the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and its successor, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during the waning days of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. In addition to surveying a number of pertinent memoirs and biographies, it will examine fictional accounts of espionage. The lion’s share of the analysis will be devoted to John le Carré’s classic espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, published in 1974. The novel, which has recently been made into a feature film starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, underscores the underlying distaste, widely felt in the SIS, for the American role in intelligence-gathering during this period.1 To be sure, this was not a majority view. Despite some embarrassing moments, both the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) were able to work together productively, for the most part, to track down the Nazis and Soviets who were working against the Allies. But the dissimilarity in the two nations’ approaches to espionage and special operations was sufficiently pronounced to become part of recently written histories of the period and healthy fodder for spy fiction. Second, I shall consider the Cold War cooperation between the US and UK intelligence services, as the CIA, having gained its stripes, took the lead in combating Soviet subversion and espionage in Europe and around the world. In this part of the discussion, the key argument will become more clearly defined: namely, that the reality of espionage is far more complicated than its subsequent characterisation in fiction. Finally, I will introduce the two most damaging American spies of the Cold War era – Aldrich Ames of the CIA and Robert Hanssen of the FBI. There is no way to give a simple ideological explanation for the betrayals of Ames and Hanssen. They both needed the money that the Soviets paid them, but their primary motivation was inspired by spy fiction. Inspired by Kipling, they were 172

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 172

21/02/2013 08:24

The Reality is Stranger than Fiction

173

motivated by ‘the game for the game’s sake’ – a chance to show their more dim-witted colleagues that they were far cleverer at the profession of spying. * * * To begin with, at the outset of World War II, the Americans were brand new at the game of espionage. Although there was certainly intelligence staff in the US Army and Navy prior to 1939, there was no permanent US civilian intelligence service until the OSS was established in 1940 under General William J. Donovan.2 By contrast, the UK had established both domestic and foreign intelligence services in 1909, prior to World War I. Despite a stagnant period between the wars, Britain’s far-flung empire and proximity to Europe ensured that her basic substantive knowledge of intelligence matters far exceeded that of her isolationist, foreign-language challenged cousins across the Atlantic. In addition, by 1940, the SIS was reading encrypted German military messages by virtue of its capture of an Enigma encoding device and the work on intercepted Axis messages (ULTRA) taking place at Bletchley Park. Winston Churchill’s government successfully wooed the United States and President Franklin Roosevelt through General Donovan and William Stephenson, using intercepted ULTRA traffic as evidence of the extent of Hitler’s war planning. Despite these early disadvantages, when the United States came on the scene after Pearl Harbor, OSS sought to become a full and equal partner in the Allied intelligence collection and analysis effort. It achieved this by providing substantial amounts of money and by deploying an energetic and well-trained batch of spies. This led to some conflict and professional resentment. Feathers were ruffled in SIS, due to the fact that General Donovan never failed to personally participate in a significant Allied military landing during the war (including Normandy on D-Day) and prominently pushed OSS’s presence and involvement in them as well. SIS antagonism towards Donovan was exacerbated by the fact that Donovan – an absentee from the fighting – relentlessly pushed for OSS involvement in these operations.3 As noted in the recent history of the MI6 penned by Keith Jeffery, before the war, the SIS had a reputation as a second-rate outfit. However, the experience of war placed it well and truly ahead of the OSS; it benefitted from new blood, and it excelled in the management of the superior ULTRA intelligence decryption system.4 Consequently, the SIS believed that General Donovan should have taken more of a backseat to the SIS, at least in the beginning. As the war progressed, different factors came into play. The Soviet Union had penetrated the SIS during the 1930s. Moscow’s most prominent success was a Soviet illegal, Arnold Deutsch, who would recruit the so-called Cambridge Five – a group of upper-class university mates from Cambridge. Deutsch was a clever,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 173

21/02/2013 08:24

174

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

highly attractive, Viennese graduate student at Cambridge University in the mid-1930s, who worked for the Soviet intelligence. He befriended Kim Philby, Donald MacLean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross as part of Stalin’s campaign to strengthen the Soviet intelligence’s access to Britain’s privileged elite. Each of the five brought important insights into Britain’s position before, and during, World War II. However, they were particularly valuable sources in 1946, when a gap opened up between the Soviet Union and its closest wartime Allies, Britain and the United States. Although any of the five would have presented excellent subjects for spy fiction, Kim Philby’s position in the top ranks of SIS was the most fascinating and devastating for both the US and the UK. In fact, the basic elements of Philby’s successful career of espionage against the UK and US are so fantastic, that it proved impossible for a spy novelist to fully capture its extent and brazenness. John le Carré – a former MI5 and SIS officer – tried to capture this in Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy (see Figure 10). Bill Haydon – the traitor in the novel – was clearly inspired by Philby. The theme of betrayal is succinctly captured in the following extract from the book: As a lover, a colleague, a friend; as a patriot; as a member of that inestimable body that Ann loosely called the Set: in every capacity, Haydon had overtly pursued one aim and secretly achieved its opposite. Smiley knew very well that even now he did not grasp the scope of that appalling duplicity; yet there was a part of him that rose already in Haydon’s defence. Was not Bill also betrayed? Connie’s lament rang in his ears: ‘Poor loves. Trained to Empire, trained to rule the waves . . . You’re the last, George, you and Bill.’ He saw with painful clarity an ambitious man born to the big canvas, brought up to rule, divide and conquer, whose visions and vanities all were fixed, like Percy’s upon the world’s game; for whom the reality was a poor island with scarcely a voice that would carry across the water.5

Le Carré painted Haydon from the perspective of his long-time colleague, rival and now pursuer, George Smiley, who was brought back from retirement to clean up the SIS and rid it of moles. Le Carré devised a plot involving a non-official cover SIS officer named Ricki Tarr. Tarr befriends and seduces a Soviet illegal named Irina in south-east Asia. It is Irina who knows of a colleague in the Soviet intelligence service in Moscow who is helping to run a mole – Haydon – in the SIS. This is a direct replay of Philby’s effort to quash the Soviet defector Volkov in 1943, who was about to betray Philby to the British, before Philby ratted him out to the KGB, and he was drugged and forcibly removed to the USSR. Although le Carré does a masterful job of recreating in Haydon and his colleagues the types of people that Philby would have worked with and betrayed, he could not have even begun to match the real extent of Philby’s treachery. Philby had been a traitor for many years. He had earned an extraordinary level of trust

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 174

21/02/2013 08:24

The Reality is Stranger than Fiction

175

Figure 10 Spy novelist John le Carré boards a Pan Am flight to Rome at Kennedy International Airport (Press Association, PA.2419669)

from his colleagues in the SIS. He had also been given great responsibility within the SIS, especially with respect to the Services’ relationship with the CIA. This is my primary reason for arguing that the truth of espionage and betrayal is far stranger than is captured in spy fiction.6

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 175

21/02/2013 08:24

176

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

While the British operated the crown jewels of signal interception in World War II with the ULTRA operation, the US developed a similar dominant insight in counter-intelligence through the VENONA intercept programme during the Cold War. From VENONA’s inception in 1943, the US Army Security Agency (ASA)7 sought to decrypt messages sent via Western Union commercial telegraph from the Soviet Embassy in Washington and the Soviet Consulate in New York to Moscow. Until well into the 1960s, Meredith Gardner and his fellow cryptographers were identifying Soviet spies in the US atomic bomb programme – the Manhattan Project – such as Klaus Fuchs and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Over the course of his post in Washington in 1949 as SIS representative to the United States, Philby was brought into the VENONA project and advised his Soviet masters of what the United States knew about the Rosenberg atomic secret spy ring. In a final instance of unbelievable irony, Philby’s needto-know was deemed sufficiently strong that he was granted access to VENONA traffic, whereas the then US President, Harry S. Truman, was not. Ironically, General Omar N. Bradley – Army Chief of Staff and controller of both the ASA and the VENONA projects – had decided that President Truman did not need to know the specifics about how VENONA was obtained in order to discharge his responsibilities. The rationale was that, since President Truman was in such a public position, he might inadvertently blurt out some of the details as to how the VENONA intelligence was obtained; ergo, he was not briefed on them. Even le Carré’s fertile imagination never pushed Haydon’s role that far. The unintended consequences of Philby’s betrayal were never examined by le Carré. In another of his novels, Smiley’s People, Smiley toys with a similar possibility when he seeks to prod Karla into defecting to India, as he journeyed home to Moscow in the wake of the failure of his spy network in the western United States. It did not work. Yet, this is not as remarkable as the psychological effect of Philby’s betrayal on his CIA colleague, James J. Angleton – America’s Counter-Intelligence Chief. Philby first met Angleton in the UK during World War II, when the latter was first earning his counter-intelligence spurs. The two men resumed contact in Washington in 1949, by which point the KGB defector, Anatoli Golitsyn, had provided ‘leads’ on suspected Soviet intelligence penetrations of the SIS and the CIA. Golitsyn’s evidence caused Angleton to lose all confidence in the West’s ability to successfully recruit and run a penetration of the Soviet intelligence service. This poisoning of the mind of the United States’ top counter-intelligence maven never graced the pages of spy literature during this period, but was a troublesome obstacle for a generation of US intelligence operations directed at the Soviet Services. Angleton thwarted CIA plans to approach and recruit potential Soviet spies on the grounds that the Soviet Union would never allow such

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 176

21/02/2013 08:24

The Reality is Stranger than Fiction

177

a target to be dangled in front of the SIS or the CIA. Alas, this attitude blighted offensive US counter-intelligence operations against the Soviets at a critical moment in the West’s position towards the Soviet Union. What does the Philby phenomenon (and the successes of the four other Cambridge spies against the United States) say about the intelligence-gathering and sharing relationship generally between the US and the UK during the Cold War? Surprisingly, the answer is not much, since both the US and the UK were mutually dependent on one another in the struggle against Soviet intelligence penetration. Miranda Carter’s excellent biography of Anthony Blunt explores a theory concerning a different motivation for spying.8 Rather than acting out of an absolute commitment to communism like Philby, Blunt viewed his actions as a parlour game, much like ‘cowboys and Indians’, for example. Blunt did not think his actions were going to materially affect or alter the course of the Cold War, thus he continued to meet his Soviet handler long after he had lost his faith in Stalin’s communism.9 For Blunt, it was easier to continue as a traitor, than to make a scene and perhaps endanger his Cambridge colleagues – Burgess, Maclean and Philby. This is a variation of Aldrich Ames’ and Robert Hanssen’s obsession with the notion of the ‘game for the game’s sake’. Blunt was good at it, and he enjoyed some aspects of spying. However, at the end of the day, in his view, it was simply not that consequential. By and large, spy novelists have yet to pick up and elaborate on this trivialisation of the ‘great game’. In an endeavour so dependent upon humans and personal motivation, allowances are made for betrayal. Spies’ motivations change. They get bored. They begin to believe that they are invincible. As in most matters involving ordinary mortals, circumstances change. Spies become tired or disenchanted or come to enjoy the act of betrayal for its own sake. One cannot read Kim Philby’s account in My Silent War of his manoeuvering to replace his SIS superior Felix Cowgill on orders from Soviet intelligence, without noting that he clearly enjoyed the challenge of the task of betrayal. The same is true of Robert Hanssen’s appointment to head the team searching for the mole in the FBI in the 1990s, where he amusedly notes that he is, in fact, the mole. Hanssen is a particularly curious figure for a spy. He was a conservative, Opus Dei Catholic, who attended the same church as his superior, FBI Director Louis Freeh, yet he gave the godless Soviets every important secret that he could lay his hands on during the thirty-year period in which he served the USSR as a spy. He betrayed the names of US agents in the Soviet Union; he uncovered the sophisticated listening post that the US was constructing beside the new Soviet Embassy on Mount Alto in Washington; and he even tried to warn Soviet agents when the US were close to uncovering them, so that they could escape. He was

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 177

21/02/2013 08:24

178

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

not an ideological communist, but, rather, an FBI spy hunter, who yearned to be accepted as ‘one of the boys’ in the FBI culture of street-smart field agents. But his reputation for aloofness and his uncommon skill as an internet ‘techie’ set him apart from the FBI’s locker-room culture, so he betrayed them. He sought to show that he could be the best undercover spy that there was by betraying to his Soviet contacts every bit of information that came to him as an FBI computer whizz. In the end, he relished his position as the only spy who knew all the important US secrets and could dominate relations between the two spy services, as the US belatedly tried to figure out how the Soviets rolled up some American spies that Aldrich Ames had not been in any position to turn over. I am not mindful of any spy novelist who has elaborated on a plot as convoluted as the web that Hanssen wove for so many years. What is bemusing was that Hanssen betrayed his country, given that he achieved so little material benefit from doing so. It had to be for the love of the game of betrayal itself. Finally, there is Aldrich Ames – my spy-school classmate – who, from 1985 to1994, gave away the names of every spy working for the US against the USSR, leading to the deaths or arrests of at least twenty agents. Ames was intelligent, spoke good Russian, wrote and briefed well and was a better-than-average agent handler. But he was not outgoing, he could not recruit and he had a propensity for excessive drinking. As a consequence, after nearly thirty years in CIA, he had only risen to a middling pay grade – GS-14 – and was unlikely to receive another promotion. His specialty was Soviet Affairs, and he served as a case officer in Mexico City in the early 1980s, where he was trying to recruit and manage Soviet sources. There he met and became infatuated with a Colombian female diplomat, who had expensive tastes and was high maintenance. At the same time, Ames was becoming more disenchanted with intelligence work and, especially, the single-minded pursuit of the Soviet target. He began to believe that he was engaging in ‘spy wars’ – essentially, meaningless contests between the CIA and KGB in trying to recruit one another, with each service trying to outdo the other, but not leading to the production of much meaningful intelligence.10 In the spring of 1985, Ames contrived to pass to a contact in the Soviet Embassy in Washington the names of several spies working for the US against the Soviets for the sum of $100,000. In June 1985, he made ‘the big dump’: the names of all of the US spies who were working against the USSR. He gave this information to Soviet spy master Viktor Cherkashin at Chadwick’s Restaurant on M and Wisconsin in Georgetown for several million dollars.11 What makes these two real life cases – Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames – so interesting is that no spy novelist would have attempted to fashion plots as far-fetched and unbelievable as to encompass what they attempted in real life. As noted previously, who would have thought that the FBI’s top spy ‘techie’

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 178

21/02/2013 08:24

The Reality is Stranger than Fiction

179

could have inserted himself so successfully into his own service that he would have been chosen to lead the mole hunt to determine who might have supplied spy information to the Soviets that Aldrich Ames had been in no position to provide? As for Ames, it is inconceivable to think that CIA’s security procedures were so flimsy that it would place, on the first team dealing solo with Soviet intelligence officers, a terminal GS-14 US case officer who had a chronic alcoholabuse problem and a record as a cynical under-achiever. * * * In spy literature, therefore, even when you are not trying to pursue the bad guys in your Aston Martin à la James Bond, novelists occasionally fall down in their efforts to successfully portray the realities of espionage. Curious coincidences occur. Spies have good periods of accomplishment, but falter later on. Your closest allies get it right sometimes, but butcher it the next. Betrayals occur, but the basic harmony of the relationship between spies and their handlers or between allied intelligence services, such as the US and the UK, override individual episodes of human frailty, overreach and even betrayal. Few real spies can be as wise and indefatigable as George Smiley or live as many lives as Karla. However, the ability and determination of spies such as Oleg Penkovsky are the real stories of human espionage during the Cold War. Penkovsky was hugely important. He provided critical information to President Kennedy, namely, that Premier Khrushchev might retreat from his installation of Soviet IBMs in Cuba in October 1962, if the West just stood up to him. By the same token, Ames and Hanssen are examples of spies who have gone sour, betraying their colleagues and countrymen. These narratives are seldom fully captured in spy fiction. Espionage is, indeed, akin to a game of cowboys and Indians, but at a very high level. It is striking that the spy odyssey has continued in the post-9/11 era by reverting to the adventures of the OSS during World War II. We have rediscovered the spy commando who is inserted behind enemy lines. Today, the spy commando is tasked with searching out the Taliban and relaying the enemy’s whereabouts by satellite. With this information, Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles will be dispatched from remote locations. Once again, spy fiction has been unable to keep up. There is no spy novel that currently recreates the lives of men like Gary Schroen – who led the initial CIA incursion into Afghanistan in September 2001 – or Hank Crumpton – the Deputy Director of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center at that time. Moreover, there is no spy novel that mirrors the present work of Special Operations command operatives who fly over the Hindu Kush into central Afghanistan seeking out Taliban terrorists. In short, the reality of current day espionage far outpaces the efforts to keep up with it.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 179

21/02/2013 08:24

180

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Notes 1 John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974). 2 The pre-existing US military staff did have some experience in signals intelligence work. For example, the US Navy cracked the Japanese diplomatic code and was working on Japanese naval cryptography by the beginning of WWII. 3 Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (New York, NY: Free Press, 2011), p. 240. 4 Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–49 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), pp. 741, 744. 5 Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, p. 332. 6 Frederick P. Hitz, The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage (New York, NY: Vintage, 2004). 7 The ASA was later incorporated into the National Security Agency (NSA). 8 Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives (London: Macmillan, 2001). 9 Carter, Anthony Blunt, pp. 270–2. 10 This narrative is taken from the author’s recollection of the never-declassified CIA Inspector General on Aldrich Ames of 1994. 11 Viktor Cherkashin, Spy Handler (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 180

21/02/2013 08:24

PART II BRITISH INTELLIGENCE HISTORIOGRAPHY

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 181

21/02/2013 08:24

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 182

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 9 A PLAIN TALE OF PUNDITS, PLAYERS AND PROFESSIONALS: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE GREAT GAME Robert Johnson DEFINING THE GREAT GAME

During the nineteenth century, the inexorable acquisition of territories across Central Asia by Russia seemed to menace the security of British India. In response, the British tried to reach agreements with St Petersburg, launched military campaigns to secure their Indian borders and attempted to coerce the Afghans, Persians and Tibetans into protected spheres of influence. The British authorities in India sent intelligence agents to survey, map and monitor the approaches to the Indian subcontinent in preparation for a war that appeared to some, at least, as inevitable. This was the classic ‘Great Game’ immortalised by Rudyard Kipling (see Figure 11). There was, however, an internal dimension to the threat. The British did not, on the whole, fear an invasion of India itself, which could be thwarted, but they were concerned that anti-colonial sedition within India could be spread, if Russia drew close to the subcontinent or demonstrated its military prowess. These developments would, in turn, require a larger garrison and a greater financial outlay. Sir John Malcolm – who served in Tehran as a diplomat – captured the essence of that threat, when he stated that Russian strategy involved: ‘threatening and disturbing our Indian Empire in a degree that will have the immediate effect of injuring our resources and may ultimately endanger our power’.1 There has been much debate about not only what the Great Game was and when it began, but even how it should be entitled. The field has been dominated by popular writers and some professional historians, but scholars from international relations and strategic studies have been conspicuous by their absence. The concept of a Central Asian ‘pivot’ featured briefly during interest in geostrategy – most notably in the work of Olaf Caroe, a former frontier governor – but the Great Game was subsumed into broader studies of the Cold War after 1945.2 Britain’s departure from India in 1947 added to the neglect of the archival riches on the subject. As is so often the case, aside from the voluminous 183

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 183

21/02/2013 08:24

184

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 11 Cartoon of English writer Rudyard Kipling writing in an Indian bush watched by a lion and a snake (Mary Evans Picture Library, 100155555)

official records in the National Archives and India Office Records in London and the National Archives in Delhi, it is within the demi-official and private correspondence of the key players where the most detailed and revealing data is to be found. These private records are scattered throughout the national libraries

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 184

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

185

of the United Kingdom, but are also in the hands of private collections, societies and county record offices. The sheer scale of these records has perhaps deterred many scholars from attempting to shape them into a coherent form, particularly when, for so long, the Cold War overshadowed the older history of the region. There were also more significant problems of definition. Malcolm Yapp, in addressing the British Academy in 2000, argued that the Great Game was a ‘legend’.3 He posited that the term was not in common use until after the Second World War and was not used by either of its players or its contemporary actors. Captain Arthur Connolly – a Company officer on a diplomatic mission in 1842 – is often credited with the origin of the phrase, but in describing a ‘Grand Game’ to Sir Henry Rawlinson – later the President of the Royal Geographical Society – he was actually referring to an attempt to release slaves held by Central Asian despots in Khiva and Bokhara. Sir Francis Younghusband, while trying to outwit his Russian adversaries up on the Pamirs in the 1890s, also described the struggle for influence as a ‘big game’ played against the Russians. However, while Yapp drew attention to the rarity of the expression, that did not diminish the existence of serious and sustained efforts to gather intelligence – overtly or covertly – from rivals. Both sides made use of local peoples as informal agents, made deliberate and high profile military reconnaissance missions and sometimes engaged in more clandestine surveys. Malcolm Yapp had long advanced the idea that the Great Game was, in fact, no more than a policy debate about the means with which to ensure the strategic defence of India.4 In Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, Yapp focused on the way that policymakers had initially advocated support for Persia as the key component in the scheme of defence for India, before subsequently turning to Afghanistan. In the 1810s, the British had sought to bolster the Qajar Dynasty, training its troops and providing financial backing. However, after the Treaty of Turkmanchay in 1828, Yapp maintained that Afghanistan took the central position in the debate concerning the defence of India. Afghanistan was conceived of as a buffer state, and Herat, in particular, lying astride the routes from the north and west, was seen as the key to India. According to Yapp, Herat remained crucial to British strategic thinking for the rest of the century. In fact, the strategic defence of India was far more extensive than concern for a single settlement. In the 1830s, the Hindu Kush range was regarded as far more important, and by the 1870s, these mountains were considered to be the ‘scientific border’ for India and the most important, from a military point of view, for India’s defence. By the end of the century, Lord Salisbury – the Conservative Prime Minister – had overturned the Liberal preference for the delimitation of border lines or ‘close border’ policy of not engaging with the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 185

21/02/2013 08:24

186

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Afghans, in favour of a zone of defence in which the Russians would be delayed, harassed and ultimately destroyed if they ever attempted to assault India. It was Lord Salisbury who conceived of an intelligence screen using consulates and agents in an arc from Turkey to the north of India.5 Their role was to provide intelligence for the diplomatic solutions that were, in essence, the first line of defence for the subcontinent. Under his ministry, this was largely achieved. The idea of a network was first established at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Company had employed news-writers in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. Mountstuart Elphinstone – who led an official mission to Afghanistan from 1808 to 1809 – added to the network and employed agents casually across the country.6 By 1811, the network had reduced in size, until it was resurrected in 1832.7 By the 1880s, as L. P. Morris noted, there were agents operating across Central Asia, as well as within Afghanistan and Persia.8 It was clearly difficult for Europeans to operate undetected, and Asian personnel were preferred, because they were cheaper to employ, had fluent command of the necessary languages and were more integrated into society. Banking families with connections in India were the most favoured.9 However, it was still possible for the Afghans to subvert the information that these men proffered. The news-writers tended to rely on a combination of verified information and speculation in the bazaar, based on the frequent transit of caravans, horse traders, doctors, merchants and itinerants. When Indian Army personnel and Europeans did travel in Afghanistan as surveyors or envoys, often in disguise, in an attempt to protect themselves, they took on the identity of these professions and gathered information on routes, strength of defences and the allegiances of local populations.10 Few agree on how the Great Game should be defined, because of differing genres of scholarship. According to G. J. Alder and many other diplomaticpolitical historians, it was a power struggle in Asia between Britain and Russia that began with British plans to resist the Franco-Russian invasion of India that was expected to follow the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. This followed a British desire to thwart French attempts to wrest the subcontinent from the Company’s grasp, which could be dated to either Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 or perhaps as far back as the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1760s.11 By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain was concerned with ensuring the compliance of Persia, Afghanistan and China in the security scheme for India, requiring a sustained and extensive diplomatic effort. The Ottoman Turks also played a part in British calculations, since the Caliph was the nominal head of the Muslim world. Britain was eager to keep Russia out of Constantinople, in part to prevent the Russians exercising leverage over the millions of Muslims who lived under the British flag. Britain’s attempts to keep other European powers’ influence at bay have been the feature of a clutch of studies. For example, Christopher Wyatt and Rob

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 186

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

187

Johnson focused their work on the strategic defence of India, which extended into the wider region.12 By the end of the nineteenth century, the British had a clear policy towards Afghanistan and Persia – namely, to encourage their governments to reform and to develop their economies, so as to deprive Russia of the pretext for intervention. Stability was important, but so was the maintenance of order through good governance. Maintaining closer relations with these states, in order to keep out foreign influences, was extended to the Gulf States in 1903. In 1907, the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention formally demarcated spheres of influence and a neutral zone. In the First World War, this tacit Anglo-Russian cooperation was strengthened against a Turco-German mission, which sought to win Persian and Afghans allies against the British. In 1915, the Turco-German mission, accompanied by Indian nationalists, became the plotters at the centre of John Buchan’s novel Greenmantle, and it was Peter Hopkirk who sought to examine the historical narrative behind the story.13 In 2004, Antony Wynn investigated Sir Percy Sykes and his role in the British attempt to thwart the plot.14 The Afghan Conspiracy, when it reached fruition in 1919 under Amanullah, came too late to alter the course of the war, and this threat was contained. Milan Hauner has shown that the Germans made a second attempt to subvert British rule in India in the Second World War, with equally dismal results.15 According to historian Edward Ingram, we should not confuse international relations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with a very specific British policy of influence and information gathering, which he believes truly characterises the Great Game. He wrote: If the Great Game is treated as the struggle for control of Central Asia, Halford Mackinder’s Heartland, whose possessor was to dominate the world, the game is going on today. That is not how the subject should be treated . . . the phrase describes what the British were doing, not the actions of Russians and Chinese.16

Ingram argued that the British wanted their empire ‘on the cheap’ and refused to countenance large expenditures to secure their possessions, and, although they had created a large Indian Army, they felt that their frontiers were insecure and perhaps could not even be defended against a Russian invasion. Ingram summed this up: ‘The Great Game was planned as an offensive by which the British might escape the consequences of their military weakness’.17 Ingram’s views have been challenged. His contention that the British learnt they could not defend India by military means because of the wars in Afghanistan (1838–42) and the Crimea (1854–6) tends to generalise the findings of both political and military figures too much. While certain army officers did feel that India was difficult to defend, and there was a risk that the Indian population

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 187

21/02/2013 08:24

188

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

might rebel behind their frontier defences, the Company and Crown armies had proven their ability to check Russian and Afghan forces in the two conflicts, even though they could not hold either the Crimea or Afghanistan indefinitely. The key problem was not military or naval power, but information. It was the desire to acquire intelligence on topography, potential enemies, local leaders, troop deployments and probably invasion routes. It required local interlocutors to provide that information, and, thus, local elites to be compliant. Others have sought to redefine the Great Game with a more inward-looking emphasis. Ben Hopkins believes that the European conception of a Great Game – a struggle for influence and power – distorted the actual power relationships of the South and Central Asian region.18 Hopkins argued that the East India Company felt most equipped to tackle the threat posed by the Russian Empire across the steppe, because it mirrored its own annexation of South Asia, its force structures and its security concerns. In support of this view, it is clear that most disputes between the empires were resolved through diplomacy in the capitals, rather than on the battlefield of Central Asia. However, the Company – later the Raj – was less well-equipped to deal with the Asian states and potentates that existed in the region between the empires, including Persia and Afghanistan. Hopkins argues that the handful of European officers and explorers who survived the diseases, hostile peoples and objective dangers in their travels accrued for themselves the credit for playing the game, but this has obscured the calculations that had to be made, in regards to local powers. To this, we might add that Asian agents, who risked their lives in the service of empire, were also overshadowed.19 Hopkins suggests that the British invented the Great Game as a means to compensate for their lack of knowledge about internal threats and their inability to cope with rumours. He states that the threat posed by the Sikh Kingdom of Ranjit Singh in the Punjab was rendered less important, because the British could more easily conceive of a threat posed by the Russians, whose ways and means more closely mirrored their own. Crucially, they had no solution to the whispering campaigns in the bazaars. Thus, he argued: Control of rumour needed to be preventative. Efforts concentrated on combating the initiation of rumour, rather than containing or refuting one already disseminated. Thus it was better for the Company to pre-empt a Russian advance on India via Afghanistan by establishing its power there first . . . it did not require them to either understand or attempt to manipulate the unknown, the exotic and uncivilised other . . . The Chimera of the Russians was easier for British policy-makers to grapple than the reality of rumour in the Indian bazaar.20

It is surely difficult to accept that the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1838 was driven by the desire to thwart rumours in the bazaar, chiefly because it

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 188

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

189

assumes that the British were more concerned with unverified information amongst Indians than with the pragmatic business of governing or the risks of a Russian threat. Rather more persuasively, Hopkins argues that the British invasion of Afghanistan was driven by a desire to contain the Sikh Punjab, citing the size of the Sikh Khalsa (Army) as evidence of its potential to threaten India. The Punjab was important, insofar as it lay astride the routes from Kabul into India.21 Nevertheless, he plays down the Russian dimension of British planning, in favour of a critique of the British ‘information order’. For the evolution of that ‘information order’, or intelligence within India, Richard Popplewell’s excellent study Intelligence and Imperial Defence diminishes the extent of internal surveillance and intelligence, noting: ‘A strong aversion to the use of spies was one of the alien traditions of government which the British brought to India’.22 Tracing numerous episodes of where the British were badly informed, he shows that the British sought to avoid harassment of the people, concluding: ‘What they could not afford was to alienate the Indian public on a substantial scale. The maintenance of British rule in India depended upon the acquiescence and participation of the ruled’.23 Popplewell’s purpose was to show how intelligence developed in the early twentieth century and how it acquired a global range by the time of the First World War. It is clear from the archives that spy networks inside India and, indeed, the police were tasked to detect subversion, albeit with varying degrees of success. Lawrence James noted that it was in the interests of every colonial British soldier and civilian to keep alert to possible intrigue and sedition: ‘In the broadest sense, every Briton abroad in India was a spy, expected to use his ears and eyes and record what he had seen and heard’.24 C. A. Bayly points out that British rule in India in the early nineteenth century had been dependent on the acquisition of knowledge about India far beyond topographical information for the creation of military maps or the assessments of which passes could be traversed by Russian artillery. Information on languages, customs, loyalties, beliefs and ethnicity had a part to play in helping the British to rule India. Collating the various peoples of India gave the British: ‘a reassuring certainty that they were all identifiably distinct elements which could be arranged legibly and clearly in the “living museum of mankind” ’.25 The obsession with recording and collating can be traced back to the scientific traditions of the eighteenth century, but the Victorians faced the practical problem of how to govern a vast Empire of great diversity. As an example of how information made government possible, Bayly observes systemisation in the ordering of knowledge in anthropology, although it has to be said that the process emerged over time and in a piecemeal fashion.26 There was no one central agency directing the acquisition of intelligence for the purposes of British rule. However, it is perhaps

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 189

21/02/2013 08:24

190

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

significant that 468 photographs recording the various ethnic groups of the subcontinent in The People of India, which was begun after the mutiny in 1858, was kept in the Political and Secret Department of the Government of India – the repository of much intelligence material. Moreover, there were attempts to discern whether caste or ethnic identity had been a determinant of ‘loyalty’ during the uprising. The concept was developed into identification of ‘martial races’ and ‘inherent lawlessness’ in the late nineteenth century and became an important tool in the administration of the North-West Frontier Province.27 It is noticeable that commerce was also closely interlinked with intelligence assessments, both from its logistical potential and as a means to sustain the area administratively. At the end of British rule in India in 1947, Narendra Singh Sarila argues that the British continued to regard the subcontinent as the means with which to maintain its influence in the world against the Soviet Union.28 While the contemporary orthodoxy was that Britain was unable to contain the waves of communal and political unrest that gave rise to Independence and Partition – the very elements the British had feared for so long – Sarila argues, in The Shadow of the Great Game, that Britain was prepared to countenance Partition as the means to build better relations with Muslim Pakistan and therefore the wider Muslim world, on which its strategic influence and oil supplies depended.29 It was understandable that Sarila should find an answer to the question of the origins of Partition and its bloody consequences in international affairs, but the book tended to downplay Britain’s other strategic motives, particularly its desire to preserve what possessions it had left that were commercially or politically viable (such as Malaya and East Africa) and to establish close and enduring relations with the new nations (including the sharing of intelligence). Above all, Britain sought to maintain its influence, with some British officers staying on to mentor new national armed forces and intelligence services, without antagonising the local populations. The tragedy is that South Asian groups had sufficient agency to carry out the atrocities of Partition, even without the British generating the crisis. GREAT GAME INTELLIGENCE AND DIPLOMACY

Malcolm Yapp argued that the British believed in an existential Russian threat to India, but they did not think that the Russians could spark an uprising that would cast the British into the sea: ‘Britons did not believe that an Indian movement could muster sufficient unity for that purpose or that such a movement could prevail against the military power which Britain could bring to bear against it’.30 Such a view appeared to downplay the impact of the Indian Mutiny

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 190

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

191

on British rule in India and would suggest that the British must have had other motives when taking the extreme measures of invading Afghanistan, which, in the official archives, was justified as the means with which to prevent the establishment of Russian influence adjacent to India. Hopkins, in common with many other authors, draws attention to intelligence failure as the means to understand the British error of invading Afghanistan, blaming this on the erroneous way in which the British conceived of South and Central Asia. He illustrates how, exaggerating the threat of Russian interference, sometimes wittingly by ambitious officers who collated news-writers’ reports, the British blundered into Kabul in 1839. Hopkins notes: ‘By failing to invest in an intelligence network, the [East India] Company placed an enormous amount of power into the hands of a few men’.31 These men were driven by a new zeal, based on utilitarian and evangelical ideals, to create a bureaucratised, professional and, above all, civilised state, based on the principles of free trade. Afghanistan, like China and Persia, was to be ‘opened up’ to Western goods and systems. Corrupt and restrictive regimes were to be swept away. Hopkins argues that, while the archives of the Company articulated a Russian threat and a Great Game, it was this undercurrent of knowledge, opportunism and morality that was really driving change.32 Trade was certainly a consideration for the British diplomatic mission to Kabul in the early 1830s, but there is no evidence that proves trade was the priority in the invasion of Afghanistan in 1838 or, indeed, in 1879. The newswriters were not collecting commercial information. Anxiety about the arrival of a Russian envoy was not about the penetration of Russian goods. Indeed, the Russians had serious difficulties with trade in Central Asia, which Hopkins acknowledged.33 Intelligence gathered on the Afghans and the region in this period was military in nature, focusing on routes (and the practicality of roads for artillery and cavalry), fortresses, tribal groups and their military potential, defiles and passes. Nevertheless, Hopkins insisted that it was the domestic fear of revolt in India that drove the Great Game policies: ‘the real nightmare’, he argued, ‘was the loss of British prestige which would encourage internal dissent within India’.34 Yapp had also suggested that the role of prestige in British imperial thinking was important and made manifest in the Great Game. Deploying only minimal military forces and investing heavily in the recruitment of local troops carried an inherent vulnerability in maintaining internal security and in deterring rival external powers. The solution was to convey the impression of strength, although this was underpinned by self-confidence in the imperial and civilising mission amongst many in the British administration. In the 1960s and 1970s, studies of the Great Game were almost entirely

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 191

21/02/2013 08:24

192

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

focused on the diplomatic sphere. A. P. Thornton examined the diplomacy of British policy in Persia and the question of Afghanistan (1954; 1956), Alastair Lamb drew attention to the India–China policies towards Central Asia (1960), while Gerald Alder wrote an excellent account of the settlement of the northern borders of Afghanistan in the late nineteenth century.35 Relations between London and St Petersburg were dominant in these studies. In 1977, David Gillard gave a detailed diplomatic history of Anglo-Russian rivalry in The Struggle for Asia, as did Rose Louise Greaves with her study on Persia.36 Lars-Erik Nyman examined Russian relations over Chinese Central Asia, and Premen Addy assessed Tibet in this context.37 Similarly, Edward Ingram devoted much work to the origins of the Great Game, with the emphasis again on the diplomacy and power politics of Russia and Great Britain.38 There seemed to be general agreement that British policy favoured the creation of buffers, which changed to a policy of creating delimited borders in the later nineteenth century. This was, according to Ingram, an attempt to coerce Persians and Afghans to defend India’s outer perimeter on their behalf, but the atmosphere in which these policies were created was one of Russophobia.39 GREAT GAME AGENTS

The ‘players’ of the Great Game were, however, also beginning to emerge. In 1975, Michael Edwards wrote a short book, Playing the Great Game, to explore some of the anecdotes of covert intelligence-gathering. John Keay, in Where Men and Mountains Meet (1975), drew attention to William Moorcroft and other explorers, using evidence from the Royal Geographical Society Archives and the India Office records to highlight their geographical achievements, but also the imperatives of the Great Game. In The Gilgit Game (1977), he was more concerned to offer a critique of the policymakers in an excellent reappraisal of the northern Indian border area in the 1890s. Moorcroft was also the subject of study for Gerry Alder.40 In the United States, Derek Waller wrote a fascinating study on the Pundits – Asian personnel – who, disguised, were sent to gather topographical and military information in Afghanistan and Central Asia, and he also made extensive use of archival sources. George Pottinger highlighted the work of his namesake, Eldred, in Afghanistan in the 1830s (1983), while Gerald Morgan wrote a detailed biography of Ney Elias (1971) – the explorer and government agent who surveyed the Pamirs, prior to Russian annexation.41 Sir Francis Younghusband – the explorer and government agent who went on to lead a military expedition into Tibet in 1904, in order to deny it to Russian influence – was the subject of various biographies by George Seaver, Anthony Verrier and Patrick French, while agent Frederick Bailey was covered by Arthur Swinson (1971).42

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 192

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

193

The subject was then popularised by the verve of Peter Hopkirk’s narrative in The Great Game in 1990.43 Hopkirk gave a broad, if incomplete, survey of the British agents and the context in which they operated, making the efforts of individual ‘agents’ the main focus of his study. Hopkirk’s prose buzzed with energy, and, with the exception of the Second Afghan War (1878–81), it traced the development of the intense rivalry between the British and the Russians to 1907. The book was a successful historical study in its own right, but it also managed to capture the imagination by adopting the style of a John Buchan novel at the same time – a formula he repeated in subsequent studies.44 Jan Morris called Hopkirk ‘the Laureate of the Great Game’. Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac made another attempt to give a broad overview of the Great Game and its agents in The Tournament of Shadows in 1999. Taking their narrative further into the twentieth century, the book looked for an American dimension, and their style tried to emulate the pace and vividness of the original Hopkirk. After Hopkirk, the subject was bound to be exploited further, and a number of related or more detailed scholarly endeavours were to follow. In a synoptic study, Rob Johnson, making extensive use of the archives, tried to highlight the role of Asian personnel and to illustrate how the machinery of intelligence in India began to evolve alongside the agencies in London and across the Empire.45 The most recent manifestations are Stephen Wade’s Spies in the Empire (2007), which borrowed heavily on the secondary literature, and John Ure’s Shooting Leave (2009) and Jules Stewart’s Spying for the Raj (2006), which were both limited to descriptions of individuals – European and Asian – and their expeditions.46 A useful survey of personalities and their impact appeared in Hugh Leach’s history of the Royal Central Asian Society (RCAS), Strolling About on the Roof of the World (2003).47 Leach was able to show that those directly connected with the Great Game, both in terms of intelligence and diplomacy, were the architects of a society that was eager to exploit open-source information about the region. It was a group founded in 1901, in order to give ‘consideration of Central Asian questions from their political as well as from their geographical, commercial or scientific aspect’, the latter of which had been the emphasis of the existing Royal Geographical Society. Amongst the earliest adherents were Sir Francis Younghusband, Colonel Mark Sever Bell – an officer of the Military Intelligence branch in India – and Colonel Holdich – the military surveyor who had worked in Afghanistan in the 1880s. The RCAS went on to attract a variety of soldiers, diplomats, Indian administrators and writers.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 193

21/02/2013 08:24

194

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US KIM AND THE SOVIETS

In Kim, Rudyard Kipling’s colourful novel of the Raj, the fictional characters articulated an anxiety that existed in the real world – namely, that agents of rival empires would seek to rouse the frontier peoples of India and Afghanistan in a revolt against the British authorities.48 Kipling’s characters are sent to keep watch on the passes and confront the foreign surveyor-emissaries, ending with a dramatic struggle in the mountains. The thwarting of plots by Asian rulers and rival empires using resourceful and plucky agents was Kipling’s melodramatic conception of the Great Game. While only a novel, it was striking that Kipling alluded to real agents who were despatched, not only along the frontier, but also into Central Asia to report on Russian troop movements.49 Gerald Morgan believed that Kim ‘owed practically everything to Kipling’s imagination’, and the only thing that was not an invention was his use of the name ‘The Great Game’.50 Morgan argued there was no secret world of spies and counter-espionage endemic throughout northern India and central Asia. He tried to show how little that the British institutions in reality matched the mythical inventions of Kim, and he argued that even the Indian Survey Department, employing a number of Asian agents with code names, were not employed on intelligence work, for their tasks were strictly limited to gathering information on topography. Morgan played down the importance of the Intelligence Department, both in India and Britain, maintaining that their tasks were only really those of ‘collating information’. The Political Service, formed in 1820, was little more than the diplomatic corps designed to send agents to neighbouring states; their use of disguise, Morgan believed, fooled no one. These agents rarely collected information on the Russians and had no powers to make treaties. Their ‘special duty’ was carried out quite openly, with letters of introduction for the rulers they visited, and British officers never entered Russian territory without permission. Morgan even questioned the success of the intelligence officers, doubting if they achieved ‘anything’, beyond some geographical knowledge.51 Others are not convinced that Kipling’s work is entirely an invention.52 If the fictional struggle was between the Russians, who sought to encourage Afghans and frontier tribesmen to fall upon the British, and the loyal Indians and British agents who aimed to thwart them by observation and survey work, then the essence of Kipling’s story is not an exaggeration. Morgan was prepared to acknowledge the existence of ‘news-writers’ – the name given to local spies hired by British Political officers when they were en poste in Teheran, Kabul and Kandahar. He argued that they ‘rarely contributed much of importance’ and while Morgan admitted that, on at least one occasion, Asian agents were

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 194

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

195

despatched to spy on the Russian army, he promptly dismissed this as an ad hoc and isolated example.53 Morgan’s intention was to demolish the fanciful claims of the Soviet historian N. A. Khalfin, who believed that the British intelligence network was highly organised and aimed ultimately at ejecting Russia from Central Asia.54 Khalfin believed, like many Russian historians, that British agents had swarmed across Russian Central Asia ‘for the purposes of reconnaissance and propaganda’.55 The Russian scholar had apparently misunderstood the role of the ‘Pundits’ – Asian surveyors who moved across Central Asia and Tibet in disguise. He believed that they had been specifically trained in intelligence work at the ‘Captain Dalgetty School’. Morgan points out that the reference to a special school for spies came from a memoir by Captain Rollo Burslem.56 This officer had met a traveller who imparted information about Khokand, but he described him as a member of the ‘Captain Dalgetty School’. This was not, Morgan explained, a centre for training spies at all, but a way of describing a mercenary – Dalgetty was a fictional soldier of fortune of the English Civil War created by Sir Walter Scott. Khalfin’s work revealed that the Russians had long-feared the British annexation of Central Asia. Count Ignatiev led a large trade mission to Khiva in 1858 to forestall British designs. Unable to make any headway, he had moved on to Bokhara, only to learn that five British agents had recently visited the city. He also seems to have accepted the rumour that British officers were training the army of Khokand. The Russian anxiety about the British training Central Asian troops – a recurrent theme in the nineteenth century – was, Morgan argued, a ‘baseless rumour’.57 According to Morgan, gunrunning was ruled out by the British authorities, too. The Soviets took a keen interest in the British experiences in Afghanistan. Steinberg argued that, other than a few hot-headed generals, there had been no Russian plans for the invasion of India and that the British had used the myth of a threat to justify military expansionism or to denigrate Russia.58 M. A. Babakhdzhayev wrote on the First and Second Anglo-Afghan Wars using the standard Marxist–Leninist theoretical frameworks, as did Khalfin.59 The worst of the genre was E. Nukhovich’s work on Afghan foreign policy in 1962, which suggested, amidst theoretic Leninist justifications, that the Afghan state was historically an ‘active fighter for peace against colonialism and imperialism’, without bothering to seek any empirical evidence. Its only redeeming feature was to recognise the Afghan strategy of remaining neutral towards neighbouring empires and doing what it could to preserve its independence and sovereignty.60 Understandably, a number of Soviet studies dealt with the history of Afghan– Soviet relations, but many also attempted to explain Afghanistan’s economic backwardness and the incidence of peasant uprisings.61 The context of these

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 195

21/02/2013 08:24

196

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

evaluations was to justify the Soviet military intervention and the country’s economic ‘improvement’ in contrast to the neglect or aggression of the British Empire. Specific studies of intelligence, other than Khalfin’s, nevertheless failed to appear. Yet, Khalfin’s allegations – which were reinforced later by Mitrokhin – namely, that British agents had sought to undermine Russian rule in Central Asia, had some truth.62 British officers had trained the Persian Army in the 1810s, and there was a British gunrunning effort to support Imam Shamyl in his resistance to the Russian annexation of the Caucasus in 1836.63 Britain enlisted Afghan’s Central Asian agents to augment its news-writer networks to keep watch on Transcaspia and Turkestan. Yet, the purpose of intelligence work was not, as Khalfin suspected, covert operations and sedition against the Russians, but the desire to secure India and, by extension, maintain its influence over Persia and Afghanistan.64 THE GREAT GAME, IMPERIAL DEFENCE AND FUTURE RESEARCH

There are strengths in current studies of the Great Game. The shifting relationship between London and St Petersburg and the global context of Anglo-Russian relations is now more thoroughly understood. Histories of European exploration have also highlighted the role of the British and Asian surveyors and the missions of some of the more colourful characters who travelled across Central Asia have been examined in-depth.65 Curiously, for years, the agents and explorers were seen as figures concerned only with mapping and topography, without acknowledging that the purpose of this work fitted into the wider needs of intelligence-gathering. Christopher Wyatt places the strategic defence of India back at the heart of the subject, showing that the diplomatic and military policies on Afghanistan between 1903 and 1915 were much debated.66 The defence of India necessitated the acquisition of better intelligence. In an informative article, Rob Johnson noted that, in the absence of a general staff, the Intelligence Branch in India and the Intelligence Division in London supplied data and plans from the 1870s onwards and assisted in the establishment of a policy that would endure until the end of British rule in India – that is, to hold the strategic passes and routes on the frontier, to create a reserve expeditionary force and to secure allegiances of those on the peripheries of formal rule through a variety of means.67 Intelligence was critical to this policymaking, but, also, increasingly, as the means to nip seditious movements in the bud and to prevent widespread unrest within India. Thus, the Great Game was a facet of the construction of what Martin Thomas describes as an ‘intelligence state’ – an important aid to policy formation that was ‘pivotal to the survival of colonial states’.68 The future direction of research in the field is uncertain, but it seems likely

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 196

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

197

that debates over the rise of China, the contest for hydrocarbon resources and the gestation of internationalist Jihadism in the region will provoke interest in historical intelligence work.69 Indeed, the conflict in Afghanistan after 2001 generated studies on ‘human terrain’ analysis amongst military forces, which had echoes of the intelligence pioneers of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, specific academic studies of the Great Game still have much scope for development, particularly if scholars have command of Russian, French and either Farsi or Dari. Fragmentary Persian and Afghan diplomatic material needs collation and analysis, in order to complete this aspect of the strategic decision-making and reactions to the encounters with Europeans. There is still much that can be done on the relations between the Islamic and Western authorities in the region, as well as their construction and cultures of knowledge in the domain of strategy and foreign relations. Civil military relations in the context of the Great Game are still underdeveloped, and, while individuals have been such a significant part of the historiography, the systems and processes that they created and the bureaucratisation of intelligence that they served are less well understood. Detailed archival work of the records held in the Khyber Pakhtunkwa at Peshawar, the monthly reports held in the Proceedings of the Government of India in the India Office Records and several large sections of similar files in the National Archives in Delhi are also still needed. Thus, this is an area with a great deal of potential for future scholars.

Notes 1 Sir John Malcolm, Minutes, 4 July 1830, Bengal Secret Consulations 358, no. 3, 20 August 1830; Malcolm Yapp, ‘British Perceptions of the Russian Threat to India’, Modern Asian Studies, 21(4), 1987, p. 650. 2 Sir Olaf Caroe, Wells of Power: The Oilfields of Southwestern Asia: A Regional and Global Study (London: Macmillan, 1951); Peter John Brobst, The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India’s Independence and the Defense of Asia (Akron, OH: University of Akron Press, 2005). The most prominent studies on the beginning of the Cold War in the region include: Julian Lewis, Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-War Strategic Defence, 1942–47, 2nd edn (London: Frank Cass, 2003); Robert MacMahon, Cold War on the Periphery: India, Pakistan and the United States (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994); Martin A. Wainwright, Inheritance of Empire: Britain, India and the Balance of Power in Asia, 1838–1955 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994); R. J. Aldrich (ed.), British Intelligence, Strategy and the Cold War, 1945–51 (London: Routledge, 1992). The advent of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan produced numerous studies of the conflict, but included, from a geostrategic perspective, Rosanne Klass (ed.), Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited (New York, NY: Freedom House, 1987). 3 Malcolm Yapp, ‘The Legend of the Great Game’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 111, 2000, pp. 179–98.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 197

21/02/2013 08:24

198

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

4 Malcolm Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran and Afghanistan, 1798–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 5 W. H. Smith [Secretary of State for War] to Salisbury, 9 November 1885; Smith to Salisbury, 18 November 1885; Salisbury to Smith, 19 November 1885. WO 110/9, National Archives, Kew, UK. 6 H. W. C. Davis, ‘The Great Game in Asia’, Proceedings of the British Academy, p. 10; Ben Hopkins, The Making of Modern Afghanistan (Basingstoke and New York, NY: Palgrave, 2008), p. 14; George Pottinger, The Afghan Connection (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983), p. 71. 7 Robert Johnson, Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757–1947 (London: Greenhill, 2006), pp. 40, 49. 8 L. P. Morris, ‘British Secret Service Activity in Khorassan’, Historical Journal, 27, 1984, pp. 657–75. 9 Johnson, Spying for Empire, pp. 71–2. On the Seth family and the banking sector, see, for example, Mark Thornhill, The Personal Adventures and Experiences of a Magistrate during the Rise, Progress and Suppression of the Indian Mutiny (London: John Murray, 1884), pp. 10, 20, 68, 71. 10 See, for example, Pottinger, The Afghan Connection, pp. 25–7. See, also, John Keay, The Gilgit Game (London: John Murray, 1979), p. 116. 11 Edward Ingram, ‘Great Britain’s Great Game: An Introduction’, The International History Review, 2(2), April 1980, p. 161. 12 Christopher Wyatt, Afghanistan and the Defence of Empire: Diplomacy and Strategy During the Great Game (London and New York, NY: I. B. Tauris, 2011); Johnson, Spying for Empire. 13 Peter Hopkirk, On Secret Service East of Constantinople (London: John Murray, 1994). 14 Antony Wynn, Persia in the Great Game: Sir Percy Sykes – Explorer, Consul, Soldier, Spy (London: John Murray, 2004). 15 Milan Hauner, ‘One Man Against the Empire: The Faqir of Ipi and the British in Central Asia on the Eve of the Second World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 16, 1981, pp. 183–212. 16 Ingram, ‘Great Britain’s Great Game’, p. 160. 17 Ingram, ‘Great Britain’s Great Game’, p. 160. 18 Hopkins, The Making of Modern Afghanistan, pp. 34–5. 19 Robert Johnson, Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757–1947 (London: Greenhill, 2006). 20 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 42. 21 Douglas Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial Armies and the Garrison State in Early Nineteenth Century India (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995), p. 231. 22 Richard J. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire, 1904–1924 (London: Frank Cass, 1995), p. 10. 23 Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, pp. 28–9. 24 Lawrence James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India (London: Little, Brown, 1997), p. 145. 25 C. A. Bayly, Raj: India and the British, 1600–1947 (London: Abbeville Press, 1990), p. 254. 26 Bayly, Raj, p. 257.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 198

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

199

27 D. Arnold, Police Power and Colonial Rule, Madras, 1859–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 138. 28 Narendra Singh Sarila, The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition (London: Constable, 2005). 29 For a survey of the scholarship on this issue, see John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-Cold War World (London: Macmillan, 1988) and Wm. Roger Louis and Ronald Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Decolonisation’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22(3), 1994, pp. 462–511. 30 Malcolm Yapp, ‘The Legend of the Great Game’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 111, 2000, p. 179. 31 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 43. 32 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 39. 33 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 49. 34 Hopkins, Afghanistan, p. 59. 35 A. P. Thornton, ‘British Policy in Persia, 1858–1890’, English Historical Review, 69, 1954, pp. 55–71; Alastair Lamb, British and Chinese Central Asia (London: Routledge, 1960); Gerald Alder, British India’s Northern Frontier (London: Longmans, 1963). 36 David Gillard, The Struggle for Asia (London: Methuen, 1977). See, also, David Gillard, ‘Salisbury and the Indian Defence Problem 1885–1902’, K. Bourne and D. C. Watt (eds), Studies in International History (London: Longmans, 1967); Rose Louise Greaves, Persia and the Defence of India 1884–1892 (London: Athlone, 1959). See, also, J. D. Hargreaves, ‘Entente Manquee: Anglo Russian Relations 1895–6’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 1(65), 1953, pp. 65–92. 37 Lars-Erik Nyman, Great Britain and Chinese, Russian and Japanese Interests in Sinkiang, 1918–34 (Malmo: Esselte Studium, 1977); Premen Addy, Tibet on the Imperial Chessboard (Calcutta: Academic Publishers, 1984). See, also, J. Dobbs, A History of the Discovery and Exploration of Chinese Turkestan (The Hague: Mouton, 1963). 38 Edward Ingram, The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, 1828–34 (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1979). 39 Edward Ingram, ‘The Rules of the Game: A Commentary on the Defence of British India, 1789–1829’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 3 1975, pp. 257–9; G. J. Alder, ‘Britain and the Defence of India: The Origins of the Problem, 1789–1815’, Journal of Asian History, 6, 1972, pp. 14–41; J. H. Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950). See, also, Beryl Williams, ‘The Strategic Background to the Anglo Russian Entente of August 1907’, History Journal, IX(3), 1966, pp. 360–73. 40 G. Alder, Beyond Bokhara. The Life of William Moorcroft, Asian Explorer and Pioneer Veterinary Surgeon, 1767–1825 (London: Century, 1985). 41 George Pottinger, The Afghan Connection (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1983); Gerald Morgan, Ney Elias (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971). 42 George Seaver, Sir Francis Younghusband: Explorer and Mystic (London: John Murray, 1952); Anthony Verrier, Francis Younghusband and the Great Game (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991); Patrick French, Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer (London: HarperCollins, 1994); A. Swinson, Beyond the Frontiers: The Biography of Colonel F. M. Bailey (London: Hutchinson, 1971).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 199

21/02/2013 08:24

200

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

43 Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (London: John Murray, 1990). 44 See, also, Peter Hopkirk, Setting the East Ablaze: On Secret Service in Bolshevik Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 45 Robert Johnson, Spying for Empire. 46 Stephen Wade, Spies in the Empire: Victorian Military Intelligence (London: Anthem, 2007); John Ure, Shooting Leave (London: Constable, 2009); Jules Stewart, Spying for the Raj (Thrupp: Sutton, 2006). 47 Hugh Leach, with Susan Maria Farrington, Strolling About on the Roof of the World (London and New York, NY: Routledge Curzon, 2003). 48 Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 222. 49 HD 2/1, p. 34, National Archives, London. 50 Gerald Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality in the Great Game’, Asian Affairs, 60, 1973, p. 55. 51 Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality’, pp. 57, 58–9. 52 Peter Hopkirk, The Quest for Kim (London: John Murray, 1996), pp. 15, 33. 53 Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality’, p. 59. 54 N. A. Khalfin, Politika Rossii v Sredney Azii, 1857–1868 (Moscow: Central Asian Research Centre, 1960; translated by Hubert John Filmer Evans, Central Asian Research Center, University of Michigan, 1964). 55 N. P. Vernon, ‘Soviet Historians on the Russian Menace to India in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Indian History Congress (Calcutta: Indian History Congress, 1976); see, by contrast, Peter Morris, ‘Russian Expansion into Central Asia’, Peter Morris (ed.), Africa, America and Central Asia: Formal and Informal Empire in the Nineteenth Century (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1984); Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968). 56 Captain Rollo Burslem, A Peep into Toorkisthan (London: Pelham Richardson, 1846). 57 Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality’, p. 64. 58 E. L. Steinberg, ‘Angliiskikaia Versiia o “Russkoi Ugroze” Indii v XIX–XX v.v.’ (The English version of the ‘Russian Threat’ to India), Istoricheskie Zapiski, 33, 1950, pp. 47–66. This view was shared by some Indian nationalists: see K. Menan, The Russian Bogey and British Aggression (Calcutta: Eastern Trading Co., 1957). 59 M. A. Babakhdzhayev, Bor’ba Afganistana za Nyezavisimost (1838–42) (Afghanistan’s War for Independence) (Moscow: Oriental Literature Press, 1960); see, also, Nikolai Khalfin, Proval Britanskoy Agressii v Afganistanye (19 v. Nachalo 20 v.) (The Downfall of British Aggression in Afghanistan) (Moscow: Socio-Economic Literature Press, 1959). 60 E. Nukhovich, Vnyeshnaya Politika Afganistana (Afghan Foreign Policy) (Moscow: Institute of International Relations Press, 1962). 61 Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences, Afghanistan: Past and Present (Moscow: Social Sciences Today Press, 1981). 62 Morgan, ‘Myth and Reality’, p. 59; Khalfin, Politika Rossii (Russian Policy in Central Asia, 1857–1868) (London: Central Asian Research Centre, 1964); Leonid Mitrokhin, Failure of Three Missions: British Efforts to Overthrow Soviet Government in Central Asia (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987). 63 Hopkirk, Great Game, pp. 153–62; Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Routledge, 1994).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 200

21/02/2013 08:24

A Plain Tale of Pundits, Players and Professionals

201

64 The Iranian perspective can be found in M. Mahmud, Tarikhe Ravabete Siyasiye Iran ba Englis dar Qarne Nuzdahome Miladi (The History of Anglo Persian Diplomatic Relations in the Nineteenth Century); Teheran, pp. 1328–9, 1957–62. 65 John Keay, Where Men and Mountains Meet (Oxford and Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1977); Peter Hopkirk, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). 66 Christopher Wyatt, Afghanistan and the Defence of Empire: Diplomacy and Strategy During the Great Game (London and New York, NY: I. B. Tauris, 2011). 67 R. A. Johnson, ‘“Russians at the Gates of India”? Planning and the Defence of India, 1885–1900’, Journal of Military History, 67, July 2003, pp. 697–744. 68 Martin Thomas, Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder After 1914 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2008), p. 2. 69 Lutz Klevemann, The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia (New York, NY: Atlantic Books, 2004); Dilip Hiro, Inside Central Asia (London: Gerald Duckworth, 2009); Rob Johnson, Oil, Islam and Conflict: Central Asia Since 1945 (London and New York, NY: Reaktion, 2007); C. Dueck, ‘New Perspectives on American Grand Strategy’, International Security, 28(4), 2004, pp. 197–216; R. Menon, ‘The Strategic Convergence between Russia and China’, Survival, 39(2), 1997, pp. 101–25; S. G. Brooks and C. W. William, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, Foreign Affairs, 81(4), 2002, pp. 20–33.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 201

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 10 NO CLOAKS, NO DAGGERS: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF BRITISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE Jim Beach The history of military intelligence has now become almost inextricably bound up with that of intelligence generally. This is perhaps inevitable. As Sir Kenneth Strong, Eisenhower’s wartime intelligence chief, put it: Intelligence is indivisible. No area of activity – politics, economics, military affairs, science and technology – can be treated as a subject apart and treated in isolation.1

Although he was making a point about the necessity of centralised intelligence management, he captures the field’s inherent complexity and interdependence. In recent decades, the submergence of military intelligence can also be attributed to the higher profile of ‘civilian’ intelligence, especially of collection agencies, within Western popular culture. In Britain, the public automatically associate the MI prefix with the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), even though both organisations have long ceased to be closely connected to the military. But it is not for this chapter to analyse British intelligence history as a whole. Instead, this chapter will attempt to disentangle the historiography of British military intelligence from the whole, and, in so doing, will try to suggest why it now has a low profile. The chapter will also offer a survey of the current literature, in the hope that this may be helpful to new scholars of the subject. This body of work has been largely focused on the pre-1945 period, so that date has been adopted as a de facto cut-off point.2 The chapter draws the overall conclusion that, in order to get ‘better’, studies of British military intelligence will probably need to get ‘duller’. The first challenge facing the academic historian of military intelligence is to define the parameters of the subject. The second challenge is to position their activity in relation to the broader fields of military history and intelligence studies.3 Definitional debates can often generate more heat than light, but, in this case, it is important to try to peg out what falls inside military intelligence and what does not. Because it was agreed, presumably by consensus, as far back as 1981, NATO’s definition of intelligence is a useful starting point: 202

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 202

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

203

intelligence / renseignement | Int. INTEL | The product resulting from the processing of information concerning foreign nations, hostile or potentially hostile forces or elements, or areas of actual or potential operations. The term is also applied to the activity which results in the product and to the organizations engaged in such activity.4

Laid down at a time when that organisation had a very clear military purpose in defending against an external Soviet threat, the potential targets are defined by their intent, and there is an overt link to operational activity. Taking this as a primary focus also allows the filtering out of the cognate areas of security intelligence, counter-intelligence, deception and special operations. This conceptualisation is helpful in providing a general context, but it does not discriminate between military intelligence and broader ‘civilian’ intelligence. Delineating military intelligence by its producer is the obvious solution. Intelligence produced by people in military uniforms may be consumed mainly by those who also wear them, but the difficulty is that this relationship is not an exclusive one. What the military collect and analyse may be of interest to many others. Things may be further confused if a country’s wider intelligence services are subordinated to their military command structures. The alternative would, therefore, seem to lie in defining military intelligence by its consumers, with all intelligence that might be used by those in uniform being labelled as military intelligence. This is better, but is still problematic, as the net could then be thrown so widely, as to become meaningless. Therefore, the solution would seem to lie in accepting, first, that its boundaries are always going to be blurred and, second, that military intelligence is not an absolute, but is conditional upon the wider military context. In simple terms, what the people in uniform want or need will vary continually and may include material that, at other times, would be given the more civilianised labels of ‘political’, ‘technical’ or ‘economic’. To take an historical example, intelligence on the political stance of the Vichy French regime and its influence upon the behaviour of their forces would have been of considerable significance during the preparations for Operation Torch – the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. But eighteen months later, within the context of the invasion of Normandy, it would have been of marginal significance at best, because of the very different geographical, military and political circumstances of that operation. These boundaries of military intelligence are perhaps more porous at the top than at the bottom. At the higher levels of strategy, the use of the military as an instrument should be integrated closely with other aspects of a state’s power, so there will be greater overlapping of intelligence interests. Moving down to the operational and tactical levels, military organisations and their internal intelligence providers theoretically have more independence to conduct their business. This dichotomy also contributes

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 203

21/02/2013 08:24

204

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

to the overshadowing of military intelligence, with intelligence studies as a discipline defaulting naturally towards the study of the higher levels, where the military become merely part of the general mix, rather than a discrete entity.5 But this does not preclude serious historical examination of military intelligence matters at these higher levels. For example, Peter Jackson’s excellent book on French intelligence in the 1930s began as a DPhil thesis with a military title.6 The rest of this chapter explores the historiography of British military intelligence, by primarily examining the body of scholarly literature that currently exists. It also concentrates on the ‘modern’ period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as this is the point at which a formalised intelligence function can be discerned within military organisations.7 After pausing to examine the relationship between intelligence and military history, the chapter examines general surveys of military intelligence history. It then explores the specific histories of British military intelligence, using the four Ps – people, policy, process and product – as a checklist to understand their relative focus and merits. INTELLIGENCE AND MILITARY HISTORY

Intelligence was not completely missing from the history of warfare before Christopher Andrew and others proclaimed its significance in the 1980s.8 For example, the index of Cruttwell’s History of the Great War shows that half a century earlier, one former intelligence analyst had managed to make reference to intelligence and/or espionage over thirty times within 600 pages.9 To be fair, he mostly referred to general perceptions, rather than any meaningful discussion of intelligence systems, methods or reporting, but the scale and existence is still noticeable.10 Taking another snapshot, this time from the 1970s, Brian Bond’s France and Belgium, 1939–1940 contained a detailed discussion of Allied intelligence and military decision-making, with regard to the Mechelen Incident.11 But, again, his writing did not stray too far into judgements about the workings of the intelligence machinery. Instead, it focused on how commanders used the picture that they had been given; his key intelligence point being that: It is of course only too easy after a military disaster . . . to select those scattered items of intelligence which, if correctly pieced together in good time, would have enabled the defender to parry the blow.12

The growth of intelligence studies since, then, has, arguably, allowed military historians to provide a less forgiving perspective.13 In their landmark work on military effectiveness, Allan Millett and Williamson Murray placed intelligence systems alongside logistics and communications as key determinants of operational-level effectiveness.14 Therefore, just as the quality of an army’s

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 204

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

205

supply system or its radio network can be unpacked, analysed and judged, so, too, must its intelligence feed. Such enquiries might present specific methodological challenges, particularly with regard to sources and context, but they cannot be avoided if that military organisation is to be truly understood. In this conception, intelligence provision is not some centralised or civilianised deus ex machina, but an integrated part of the military system. Within military organisations, products – such as daily intelligence summaries – mount up at multiple levels at an alarming rate. This can present the researcher with a mountain of textual material to wade through, in order to understand the nature of the intelligence picture at any particular moment. Such painstaking jigsaw work is not for the faint-hearted, but can be very rewarding. Similarly, careful analysis of operational documentation can pick up the ‘echo’ of the intelligence picture, even when the latter has not survived intact. It has helped that, from the 1980s onwards, academic military history has become more sophisticated, moving away from its traditional ‘drum and trumpet’ roots.15 But the question then arises, as to whether historical examinations of military intelligence grew simply because of better academic military history or because of the emergence of intelligence studies? The answer would seem to be that the two have, to some extent, been symbiotic, with intelligence studies providing, in its simplest terms, something for military historians to lean against. The existence of basic concepts and on-going debates about matters such as intelligence failures or even just the intelligence cycle is helpful in framing historical work. For the mainstream of intelligence studies, the existence of military historians doing intelligence work adds diversity to their community and can provide robust case studies of previous intelligence practice. A rough parallel might be drawn here with the development of the medical humanities and their enrichment of military history. For example, Mark Harrison’s awardwinning studies of military medicine in the British Army during the First and Second World Wars or the burgeoning literature on military mental health.16 Mischievously, it might also be argued that military intelligence history simply constitutes intelligence studies at its least glamorous. As Gerard de Groot put it, when explaining why he shifted from studying Field Marshal Haig’s intelligence feed to studying the man himself: ‘Before long I discovered that [military] intelligence has very little to do with cloaks and daggers, being mostly about boring reports and endless statistics’.17 HISTORIES OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Academic military historians can be simultaneously gladdened and saddened by the popular military history market.18 In Britain, the proliferation of war

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 205

21/02/2013 08:24

206

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

documentaries on digital television channels, the large military history sections of high-street bookshops and the popularity of conflict-based computer games testify to the public’s fascination with the subject.19 Although such a high profile might be envied, there is always the nagging concern that popular military history is still too wedded to old-fashioned genres, which thereby devalues the overall currency of the field. It is difficult to see how this can be changed. Indeed, its commercial success may be the very thing that makes it impossible for popular military history to break away from its well-worn subjects and favoured modes of expression. Military intelligence history is certainly not exempt from this context; in fact, the public’s fascination with spies, spooks and secret agents means that a similar dichotomy has always existed between academic and popular writings on intelligence matters.20 Looking for popular surveys focused upon British military intelligence, one is immediately struck by their scarcity.21 The ‘best fit’ for this requirement is probably Peter Gudgin’s Military Intelligence: The British Story, which was published in 1989 and again in 1999.22 The first part of the book is a synthesis of key secondary texts, which provides a potted history of intelligence in the British Army. This is followed by thematic chapters on intelligence functions, sources, espionage and counter-intelligence, and electronic warfare developments. The focus is inconsistent, as the latter sections drift away from the ostensibly British and military focus. In the last decade, the two most prominent works of popular military intelligence history have been John Hughes-Wilson’s Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-Ups (1999) and John Keegan’s Intelligence in War (2003).23 Both books adopt a case study approach, which includes British examples, as well as addressing intelligence in war from a general perspective. 24 Although they are both lively reads that are forthright in their judgements, they both rely on a very limited range of sources.25 More useful as scholarly entry points to the subject are recent encyclopaedia entries by Hugh Bicheno and Joe Maiolo.26 Bicheno skims across similar ground to Hughes-Wilson and Keegan and cites many of the same examples, but he does it in fewer words. Maiolo’s piece is much more helpful, as he signposts many of the milestone publications in military intelligence history, before summarising the evolution of the literature and debates on key issues, such as the contribution of signals intelligence during the Second World War. Similarly, although dated, both Jonathan House’s military intelligence research guide and Keith Robbins’ bibliography of British history contain some pointers to important older books.27 Also, Wesley Wark’s 1988 summation of the British intelligence historiography still repays attention.28 Shifting towards more scholarly surveys of intelligence, the military dimension is also present. Still a landmark in the historical study of British intelligence, Christopher Andrew’s Secret Service has a strong military flavour, particularly

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 206

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

207

in his discussion of what he calls the ‘Victorian Prologue’ and, of course, the two World Wars.29 Andrew also argues that the War Office made the ‘the first hesitant steps towards the creation of a professional intelligence community’.30 Jeffrey Richelson’s survey, A Century of Spies, makes a similar journey to Andrew’s, but with a wider international and chronological focus.31 Again, his wartime chapters have the most to say about developments in military intelligence and include a number of famous British examples. More recently, the National Archives have published British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources, in order to ‘highlight [their] rich and diverse collection of intelligence records’.32 Its chapters on military, naval and air intelligence fulfil this primary purpose, but they are more a miscellany than a coherent account of developments in each of these fields. Augmenting these general surveys, we now have a specific literature on military intelligence as a discrete field of study. To a great extent, responsibility for this can be attributed to the late Michael Handel and his erstwhile collaborator, John Ferris, who has continued to work in this field. This is not to argue that relevant work did not exist before their work in the early 1990s,33 but, in approaching intelligence from an overtly strategic perspective, they have provided – and, in Ferris’ case, continue to provide – its military form, with some strong theoretical and evidential foundations.34 The first key datum point is the 1990 special issue of Intelligence & National Security, which contained a very lengthy introduction by Handel that examined military intelligence within a Clausewitzian framework, as well as surveying a number of examples.35 Five years later, Handel and Ferris published a lengthy article, entitled ‘Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty and the Art of Command in Modern War’.36 Taking forward their theory and history themes, they set out an important framework for the ‘evolution of the role of intelligence in military operations and war’.37 This posited three phases to the development of military intelligence, starting from 1800, with the second phase delineated by 1914 and 1945. By examining various aspects of military intelligence practice across these periods and linking them to parallel developments in command and communications, they provided a very useful model for understanding both the past and present.38 HISTORIES OF BRITISH MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Categorising intelligence histories is not wholly straightforward. Although what follows is an adoption of a necessarily conventional and chronological structure, it is helpful to pause and reflect upon alternate typologies. Two varieties of military intelligence history can perhaps be labelled – those that are organisation-focused and those that are target-focused. However, they should

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 207

21/02/2013 08:24

208

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

be seen more as opposite ends of a continuum, rather than totally separate categories. Organisation-focused histories are perhaps more common and tend to dwell upon the more inward-looking aspects of people, policy and process. This is not to say that they are unimportant, just that they often provide only a necessary foundation for later work.39 An obvious example would be Thomas Fergusson’s study of British Army intelligence in the late nineteenth century.40 Target-focused histories are generally more outward-looking and privilege the intelligence product and the interactions with consumers. Within the normal academic ‘rules of engagement’, those studies which tend towards this end of the spectrum are arguably stronger, because they connect intelligence history more closely to its wider context. A classic British example from this category would be Wesley Wark’s The Ultimate Enemy.41 However, it should be noted that a necessary precondition for such a study is a mature military historiography within which the intelligence history can thrive. If the strategic and operational histories are immature, the intelligence historian will struggle to shape their own work to fit with its contours and controversies. This relative immaturity of the academic literature, rather than difficulties with the intelligence sources, may help to explain the relative paucity of post-1945 histories of military intelligence. Within the British context, it is also important to note the long tradition of regimental history as a particular flavour of military history. Despite their parochial focus and often celebratory purpose, these sources need to be taken seriously, particularly as, within their security restrictions, they often have interesting things to say about post-1945 developments. The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force have long had intelligence-related branches,42 but it is the Army’s Intelligence Corps, with a continuous ‘tribal’ identity since 1940, which has been the direct or indirect subject of histories since the early 1970s. The first was Brian Parritt’s The Intelligencers, which surveyed his corps’ antecedents from the seventeenth century to 1914.43 This was soon followed by Jock Haswell’s British Military Intelligence, which also had a great deal to say about the corps. Written by a former infantry officer and popular military historian, it provided a readable account of the wider intelligence context, its organisational development and individual contributions. Twenty years later, the Sandhurst academic and parttime Intelligence Corps officer Anthony Clayton produced a fully referenced official history, which covered much of the same ground.44 As works of history, all three books wrestle with the fact that the modern Intelligence Corps and its predecessors have always had a wide variety of tasks; from those engaged in strategic collection or special operations, who have simply worn their badge as a ‘flag of convenience’ in wartime, to the more conventional intelligence sections operating in support of frontline commanders. This necessitates a patchwork approach to the subject matter. These histories also labour under what might

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 208

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

209

be termed a ‘neglect complex’; a consistent theme, which is summed up by Parritt’s opening line: ‘The British Army has never liked or wanted professional intelligence officers’. From an organisational perspective, this piece of folklore may be useful, but, from an external viewpoint, the pace of intelligence professionalisation cannot be reduced to the vagaries of hierarchical prejudices.45 Hopefully, future histories will place the Intelligence Corps in a broader and more measured context. Starting our general survey with histories of pre-1914 British military intelligence, one notes their relatively small number, but also their improving scholarly quality.46 This is illustrated neatly by studies of intelligence support to the Duke of Wellington. Forty years ago, there was only Haswell’s popular history; ten years ago came Mark Urban’s study of code-breaking in the Peninsular War; and, more recently, we have had the emergence of academic work in the field.47 Moving forward to the mid-nineteenth century, there is Stephen Harris’ fascinating study of intelligence in the Crimea.48 The colonial campaigns of the second half of the century have attracted some attention, but, in light of their contemporary resonance, their relative neglect is perplexing.49 Organisational developments at home and in the field are captured quite comprehensively in Fergusson’s previously mentioned British Military Intelligence,50 and, for the period immediately prior to 1914, Matthew Seligmann’s painstaking reconstruction of the work of Britain’s military attachés in Germany.51 The period of the First World War is blessed with a greater range of work. The most prominent single-volume history is Occleshaw’s Armour against Fate (1989). Derived from a doctoral thesis, it sought to examine the Army’s intelligence efforts across the globe between 1914 and 1918.52 As contemporary reviewers noted, it was ambitious and informative, but also idiosyncratic and eclectic in its focus.53 Two decades on, it can be judged as perhaps typical of that ‘first wave’ of intelligence histories; it sought to do too much, it relied too heavily on private papers and it also tried to tap into a popular market for spy stories. But it still remains, to some extent, a military intelligence equivalent of Andrew’s Secret Service. Since Occleshaw, our understanding of the Army’s intelligence work has been expanded in a number of directions through more tightly focused studies. John Ferris has, with his customary thoroughness, examined signals intelligence, while Dan Jenkins has subjected the British Expeditionary Force’s Canadian Corps to close scrutiny.54 Here, also, the author must put modesty aside and mention his own work on the Western Front.55 The Middle Eastern theatres of operation have also proved fruitful areas for research. We now have some understanding of intelligence matters in Mesopotamia and the Dardanelles,56 but the most notable work is Yigal Sheffy’s outstanding study of military intelligence in Palestine.57 By integrating all the intelligence sources with a nuanced discussion

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 209

21/02/2013 08:24

210

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of organisational development and operational decision-making, Sheffy sets a high benchmark for future works of military intelligence history. Polly Mohs’ recent study of the Arab Revolt is also informative, but has an odd introduction, which betrays some ignorance of military intelligence developments elsewhere.58 Naval intelligence between 1914 and 1918 is, unsurprisingly, dominated by the story of code-breaking, and such studies have had a long pedigree.59 The key book is still Patrick Beesly’s Room 40, published thirty years ago,60 but, in recent years, our understanding has been greatly advanced by Nicholas Black’s study of the naval staff, which helps to put Room 40 in a better context, and by Jason Hines’ re-examination of intelligence and the Battle of Jutland.61 Until recently, the air dimension was poorly served, beyond John Ferris’ study of British air defence, but now, we have Terrence Finnegan’s exhaustive treatment of Allied air photography.62 The immediate post-war period is notable for developments in understanding of intelligence during the Irish War of Independence. Although the general context was sketched in long ago,63 more recent studies of lower-level activities have given a much better flavour of intelligence at the sharp end of a brutal guerrilla conflict.64 The Second World War and the years preceding it are now overshadowed by Ultra, as the signals intelligence output from Bletchley Park and its satellites was formerly known.65 Pushing aside the large and ever-growing popular literature,66 the core foundations for this field are primarily the dense volumes of Sir Harry Hinsley’s official history of British intelligence, which seek to give ‘an account of the influence of British intelligence on strategy and operations’.67 Although other forms of collection do appear, signals intelligence is the dominant feature.68 It is also worth noting that, despite its majesty, the history is quite clear about its structural limitations. As well as limited coverage of the war in the Far East, Hinsley notes that: While the archives are generally adequate for reconstructing the influence of intelligence in Whitehall, there is practically no record of how and to what extent intelligence influenced the individual decisions of the operational commands. It has usually been possible to reconstruct what intelligence they had at their disposal at any time. What they made of it under operational conditions, and in circumstances in which it was inevitably incomplete, is on all but a few occasions a matter of surmise.69

In short, the official history was far from being the final word. Indeed, even before it was fully published, it was being supplemented by the work of Ralph Bennett, a mediaeval historian, who – like Hinsley – had worked at Bletchley Park. In a series of studies focused on Ultra in specific campaigns, he unpacked the flow of the intelligence product and its impact in considerable detail.70 As Ferris noted in his assessment of Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy: ‘future stu-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 210

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

211

dents [of Ultra] would do well to adopt the model of Bennett’s method’.71 This point might also be applied to any history of operational intelligence. The effect of intelligence on the British war at sea, especially the Battle of the Atlantic, is one of the more developed areas of scholarship. Patrick Beesly’s early work helped to set out the organisational foundations,72 and this was followed with case studies of specific famous engagements.73 More recently, the focus has shifted to less well-known aspects of the conflict and a desire to understand the impact of intelligence across the campaign as a whole.74 Within this trend, Jock Gardner’s 1999 book Decoding History was a significant milestone, as it sought to assess the true significance of Ultra. In drawing what he describes as a rather ‘downbeat conclusion’, he offers a useful corrective to the wilder claims made about its contribution.75 Moving to the exploits of the British Army, Bennett’s body of work has been augmented admirably by Ferris’ exploration of signals intelligence developments in North Africa.76 Within the same theatre, Brad Gladman’s book, Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support, provides an excellent example of how intelligence, when integrated with the study of command and control, can bring fresh insights to a well-known campaign.77 Similarly, Kevin Jones’ work on the Eighth Army in Italy shows what can be achieved when intelligence below the theatre level of command is fully unpacked.78 For the Far East, the contributions of John Ferris, Anthony Best and Douglas Ford have generated a strong academic literature.79 Richard J. Aldrich’s Intelligence and the War Against Japan is focused upon higher level relationships, but his discussion of Singapore and the development of signals intelligence are pertinent.80 The air war has some coverage, notably of the Battle of Britain and, more recently, explorations of intelligence and the strategic bombing campaign.81 Finally, the contribution of air photography has emerged from the shadows, particularly the work of the Allied Central Interpretation Unit at Medmenham.82 REFLECTIONS

This chapter set out to excise pre-1945 British military intelligence from the general body of intelligence literature and subject it to close examination. The most obvious conclusion is that the literature remains unbalanced chronologically, because of the greater volume of material related to the Second World War. In the British case, one could argue that the national intelligence community reached maturity between 1939 and 1945, and so this focus is wholly justified. This is probably true, but in the military sphere, we still do not know enough about the journey up to that point. The archipelagos of case studies before 1939 need to become better connected. This does not necessarily demand that the gaps

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 211

21/02/2013 08:24

212

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

between them are ‘filled in’, as the survival of archival sources would probably not allow that.83 But we do need some carefully focused studies that explore some of our fundamental assumptions about organisational development and the integration of intelligence within the British military. Like archaeologists, we need to ‘dig across’ the lines delineated by Handel and Ferris, in order to test their boundaries. Looking forward from 1945, the maturing of the wider military history should provide a solid context for military intelligence studies. Looping back, exploration of military intelligence in the ‘irregular’ campaigns at the end of Empire perhaps also demands a much better understanding of such work during the period of Empire itself. Thematically, we also need to revisit our assumptions across the four Ps. Because of the survival of private papers and a fair number of memoirs, we may think that we understand the ‘people’ dimension. However, given that these sources are ultimately self-selecting, are we merely seeing ‘personalities’, rather than truly understanding the more prosaic dimension of ‘personnel’? Grappling with the latter would require painstaking collation of data from service records, so as to create something that would pass muster in social history circles. Similarly, we are probably confident that we have a good fix on ‘policy’ and ‘process’; but, again, is the picture we have simply a partial and overly formal one, largely determined by the more accessible high-level documentary sources? Do we know enough about the informal workings of the intelligence system and, more importantly, its interaction with consumers at the lower levels? But it is in the sphere of the military intelligence ‘product’ that the greatest work is probably required. Where people, policy and process are available as foundations, target-focused histories ought to become the default setting. Only by carefully analysing the intelligence output can its resultant picture can be compared to the operational context. Then, by understanding the connections and disconnections, the impact of intelligence on the wider military system can be properly understood. The advent of tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) within the humanities will surely help this process. Twenty years ago, Christopher Andrew declared that ‘most of the history of military intelligence has still to be written’.84 Although progress has been made, his statement remains largely correct. Furthermore, military intelligence history, particularly in its British manifestation, is unlikely to regain the high profile that it had in the early days of academic intelligence studies. But, as it incrementally nudges forward, it can still make a significant contribution, particularly to the development of wider military history. As Keith Jeffery put it, also twenty years ago, ‘the real impact . . . will not necessarily be in specialist texts, but in general accounts’.85 It is inevitable that the cloak-and-dagger connotations will always linger and the popular end of the market will always trade upon them, but

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 212

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

213

perhaps the true measure of success will be when this small subfield is viewed as being just as dull-but-worthy as military logistics.

Notes 1 Kenneth Strong, Men of Intelligence (London: Cassell, 1970), p. 168. 2 According to the Institute of Historical Research’s registers, between 1972 and 2009, there were fifty British and Irish history doctorates completed with ‘intelligence’ in the title. From this sample, forty-two have been completed since 1990, thirty-five were pre-1945, twenty-three had a military intelligence focus and, of those, sixteen dealt with British military intelligence. This information is available at: http://www. history.ac.uk/history-online/theses. From 1986 to 2010, the leading academic journal Intelligence & National Security (INS) published 123 articles on military intelligence history; fifty-nine had a British focus and, of these, forty-seven were pre-1945. This information is available at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/02684527. asp. Military intelligence history delineated by inclusion of military, naval/navy, army, air, defence/defense, a named military organisation or leader or a single battle/ campaign in title and relating to events at least ten years prior to publication date. 3 The validity of ‘intelligence studies’ as a distinct academic entity might be challenged. The author has listened to John Ferris doing so on more than one occasion. But for the purposes of this chapter, its existence is assumed, although it is acknowledged that it may be more of a bureaucratic/academic construct, than an intellectual/ academic one. 4 AAP-6, ‘NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions’, 2010, available at: http://www. nato.int/docu/stanag/aap006/aap-6-2010.pdf. 5 Although very different in their tone and content, the following are notable for the prominence that they give to military intelligence: Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha: The Inside Story of British Intelligence (London: Faber, 1996). 6 Peter Jackson, ‘French Military Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1936–1939’, DPhil Thesis, Cambridge, 1995; Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 7 For examples of military intelligence in ancient history, see Arther Ferrill, ‘Roman Military Intelligence’, in Keith Neilson and B. J. C. McKercher (eds), Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), pp. 17–30; Rose Mary Sheldon, Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome: Trust in the Gods but Verify (London: Frank Cass, 2005), pp.164–74. For the early modern period, see Gunther Rothenberg, ‘Military Intelligence Gathering in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, 1740–1792’, in Keith Neilson and B. J. C. McKercher (eds), Go Spy the Land (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), pp. 99–114; Barbara Donagan, War in England, 1642–1649 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 99–114. 8 The usual datum points are Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984); Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London: Heinemann, 1985); and the establishment of INS in 1986. A similar point was made by Keith Jeffery, in relation to the revelation

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 213

21/02/2013 08:24

214

9 10

11

12 13

14

15

16

17 18

19

20

21

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

of the ‘Ultra Secret’ in 1974: see Keith Jeffery, ‘Intelligence and Military History: A British Perspective’, in David Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 105. See, also, his general discussion of the relationship between intelligence studies and military history. C. R. M. F. Cruttwell, A History of the Great War, 1914–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936); Cruttwell served in MI2(e) at the War Office in 1918. The exceptions to this are: French intelligence very poor, due to inferiority in aeroplanes; Russian messages sent in clear captured order; Allied air superiority prevents German reconnaissance; failure to anticipate Ottoman crossing of the Sinai; sacking of Charteris; Allied propaganda against German Army. See Cruttwell, A History of the Great War, 1914–1918, pp. 17, 45, 80, 259, 351, 499 and 530. In January 1940, the Belgians captured, near Mechelen, a set of German invasion plans from a downed aircraft and passed the details on to the Allies. See Brian Bond, France and Belgium, 1939–1940 (London: Davis Poynter, 1975), pp. 78–81. Bond, France and Belgium, 1939–1940, p. 80. See, also, the frequent appearance of intelligence in Eliot Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (New York, NY: Free Press, 1990). ‘Do military organizations have the capability to support their operational practices with the required intelligence, supply, communications, medical and transportation systems?’: see Allan Millett, Williamson Murray and Kenneth Watman, ‘The Effectiveness of Military Organizations’, in Allan Millett and Williamson Murray (eds), Military Effectiveness, Volume 1: The First World War (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), p. 16. Michael Howard, ‘Military History and the History of War’, in Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich (eds), The Past as Prologue: The Importance of History to the Military Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 12–20. Mark Harrison, Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Mark Harrison, The Medical War: British Military Medicine in the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Both have won the Society for Army Historical Research’s prestigious Templer Medal Book Prize. Gerard De Groot, Douglas Haig, 1861–1928 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), p. ix. For a measured discussion of the popular military history market, see Jeremy Black, Rethinking Military History (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 39. For the long view, see Tim Travers, ‘The Development of British Military Historical Writing and Thought from the Eighteenth Century to the Present’, in David Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), pp. 23–44. For the context of history and heritage, see Jerome de Groot, Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 2009). For an exploration of the wider relationship between intelligence and the media, see Robert Dover and Michael Goodman (eds), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (London: Hurst, 2009). Jock Haswell, British Military Intelligence (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 214

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30 31

215

This text is, to a great extent, a history of the Intelligence Corps – it even has their cap badge on its dust jacket – and so it is examined in the next section. Peter Gudgin, Military Intelligence: The British Story (London: Arms & Armour, 1989). See, also, Peter Gudgin, Military Intelligence: The British Story (Stroud: Sutton, 1999). A former wartime tank officer, Gudgin’s other publications are on armoured warfare. John Hughes-Wilson, Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-ups (London: Robinson, 2004); John Keegan, Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda (London: Hutchinson, 2003). Keegan was a former Sandhurst academic and defence editor of the Daily Telegraph. Hughes-Wilson is a former Intelligence Corps officer and associate editor of Eye-Spy magazine. Hughes-Wilson: Barbarossa, 1941; Pearl Harbour, 1941; Singapore, 1942; Dieppe, 1942; D-Day, 1944; Tet, 1968; Falklands, 1982; Kuwait, 1990–1; World Trade Center/Pentagon, 2001. Keegan: Nile, 1798; Shenandoah Valley, 1862; Emden/ Coronel/Falklands, 1914; Atlantic, 1939–45; Crete, 1941; Midway, 1942; V-weapons, 1943–4. Hughes-Wilson includes a handful of primary documents in his bibliography, but he relies on a small number of popular secondary sources for each of his case studies. Keegan provides footnotes and draws upon some academic sources, but they are still fairly limited in their scope. See the following reviews of Keegan: Joseph Mazzafro, INS, 19(4), 2004, pp. 734–7; M. J. Barber, Canadian Military Journal, 5(1), 2004, pp. 57–8. Hughes-Wilson’s intelligence survey The Puppet Masters: Spies, Traitors and the Real Forces behind World Events (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004) has better supporting references and includes some discussion of military intelligence developments. Hugh Bicheno, ‘Intelligence, Military’, in Richard Holmes (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 447–8; Joe Maiolo, ‘Intelligence’, in Charles Messenger (ed.), Reader’s Guide to Military History (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), pp. 259–61. Jonathan House, Military Intelligence, 1870–1991: A Research Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993); Keith Robbins, Bibliography of British History, 1914–1989 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 351, 363 and 381. Wesley Wark, ‘Intelligence since 1900’, in Gerald Jordan (ed.), British Military History: A Supplement to Robin Higham’s Guide to the Sources (New York, NY: Garland, 1988), pp. 503–23. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 7–15, 20–33, 86–173, 448–86. The haphazard nature of historical writings on British intelligence before Secret Service is perhaps illustrated by two contrasting contributions to a 1984 volume ostensibly about intelligence before the two World Wars. One is a useful survey of pre-1914 policymaking, but has almost nothing to say about intelligence matters; the other surveys the pre-1939 intelligence community and discusses the utility of its products: Paul Kennedy, ‘Great Britain before 1914’; Donald Cameron Watt, ‘British Intelligence and the Coming of the Second World War in Europe’, in Ernest May (ed.), Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 172–204, 237–70. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 7. Jeffery Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 215

21/02/2013 08:24

216

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

32 Stephen Twigge, Edward Hampshire and Graham Macklin, British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources (Richmond: National Archives, 2008), p. 15. 33 For example, Strong’s Men of Intelligence was subtitled ‘A Study of the Roles and Decisions of Chiefs of Intelligence from World War I to the Present Day’ (1970) and examined the interaction between intelligence officers and their commanders. 34 For Handel and Ferris’ academic careers, see Richard Betts and Thomas Mahnken (eds), Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Michael Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. viii–x; John Ferris, Intelligence and Strategy: Selected Essays (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 1–7. Ferris’ extensive body of work is included, where relevant, in the next section. Because of the parameters set out at the start of this chapter, his excellent work on security, deception and non-military intelligence have been omitted. 35 Michael Handel, ‘Intelligence and Military Operations’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 1–95; Michael Handel (ed.), Intelligence and Military Operations (London: Frank Cass, 1990), pp. 1–95. The origins of the special issue/volume lay in a series of conferences on intelligence and military operations held at the US Army War College in the late 1980s. An earlier special issue had focused on leaders and intelligence: INS, 3(3), 1988; Michael Handel (ed.), Leaders and Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1989). This collection included Harold Deutsch, ‘Commanding Generals and the Uses of Intelligence’, pp. 194–260. 36 John Ferris and Michael Handel, ‘Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty and the Art of Command in Military Operations’, INS, 10(1), 1995, pp. 1–58; Ferris, Intelligence and Strategy, pp. 239–87. See, also, Michael Handel, ‘Intelligence in Historical Perspective’, in Keith Neilson and B. J. C. McKercher (eds), Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), pp. 179–92. 37 For commander’s interest in intelligence, organisation, scope and range, sources and reliability, problems, the balance of intelligence, solutions to problems and better use, see Ferris, Intelligence and Strategy, p. 281. 38 More recently, see Ferris’ forewords to Stephen Harris, British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War, 1854–1856 (London: Frank Cass, 1999); Brad Gladman, Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two: The Western Desert and Tunisia, 1940–43 (London: Palgrave, 2009). Respectively, these provide further reflections on nineteenth-century military intelligence and command and control in the two World Wars. See, also, his elegant summation of intelligence more generally: John Ferris, ‘Intelligence’, in Robert Boyce and Joseph Maiolo (eds), The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 308–10. 39 A similar point is made in Keith Jeffery, ‘Intelligence and Military History’, in David Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 110. 40 Thomas Fergusson, British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914: The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organization (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984). 41 Wesley Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1933– 1939 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1985). 42 For an accessible survey of RAF photographic intelligence, see Roy Conyers Nesbit, Eyes of the RAF: A History of Photo-Reconnaissance (Stroud: Sutton, 1996). 43 Brian Parritt, The Intelligencers: The Story of British Military Intelligence up to 1914

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 216

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

44 45

46

47

48 49

50

51

52

53

54

217

(Ashford: Intelligence Corps Association, 1983). It has recently been republished with some brief additional sections: Brian Parritt, The Intelligencers: British Military Intelligence from the Middle Ages to 1929 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011). His military career culminated as Director of the Intelligence Corps. Anthony Clayton, Forearmed: A History of the Intelligence Corps (London: Brassey’s, 1993). A similar ‘no one loved/loves us’ worldview can be discerned in the histories of army education: A. C. T. White, The Story of Army Education 1643–1963 (London: George Harrap, 1963); Leslie Wayper, Mars and Minerva: A History of Army Education (Winchester: Royal Army Educational Corps Association, 2004). Although it diverts unnecessarily into matters of domestic security intelligence, a short and accessible survey of the period can be found in Stephen Wade, Spies in the Empire: Victorian Military Intelligence (London: Anthem Press, 2007). Jock Haswell, The First Respectable Spy: The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington’s Head of Intelligence (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969); Mark Urban, The Man who Broke Napoleon’s Codes: The Story of George Scovell (London: Faber, 2001); Mark Romans, ‘Professionalism and the Development of Military Intelligence in Wellington’s Army, 1809–14’, PhD Thesis, 2005, Southampton; Huw Davies, ‘British Intelligence in the Peninsular War’, PhD Thesis, 2006, Exeter; Huw Davies, ‘Integration of Strategic and Operational Intelligence during the Peninsular War’, INS, 21(2), 2006, pp. 202–23. Harris, British Military Intelligence. Stephen Manning, ‘Learning the Trade: The Use and Misuse of Intelligence during the British Colonial Campaigns of the 1870s’, INS, 22(5), 2007, pp. 644–60; Edward Spiers, ‘Intelligence and Command in Britain’s Small Colonial Wars of the 1890s’, INS, 22(5), 2007, pp. 661–81. Adopting a broader chronological focus, but also useful for military intelligence in India, is Robert Johnson, Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757–1947 (London: Greenhill, 2006). For additional context, see Christopher Brice, ‘The Military Career of General Sir Henry Brackenbury, 1856–1904: The Thinking Man’s Soldier’, PhD Thesis, 2009, De Montfort, pp. 168–207; William Beaver, Under Every Leaf: How Britain Played the Greater Game from Afghanistan to Africa (London: Biteback, 2012). Matthew Seligmann, Spies in Uniform: British Military & Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Matthew Seligmann (ed.), Naval Intelligence from Germany: The Reports of the British Naval Attachés in Berlin, 1906–1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate for the Navy Records Society, 2007). Michael Occleshaw, ‘British Military Intelligence during the First World War’, PhD Thesis, 1984, Keele. For related work at this time, see David French, ‘Sir John French’s Secret Service on the Western Front, 1914–15’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 7(40), 1984, pp. 423–40. Keith Jeffery, ‘Sources of Confusion’, Times Literary Supplement, 10–16 November 1989, p. 1232; Ian Beckett, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 68, 1990, p. 220. John Ferris, ‘The British Army and Signals Intelligence in the Field During the First World War’, INS, 3(4), 1988, pp. 23–48; John Ferris (ed.), The British Army and Signals Intelligence during the First World War (Stroud: Alan Sutton for the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 217

21/02/2013 08:24

218

55

56

57 58 59

60

61

62

63

64

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Army Records Society, 1992); Dan Jenkins, ‘The Other Side of the Hill: Combat Intelligence in the Canadian Corps, 1914–1918’, Canadian Military History, 10(2), 2001, pp. 7–26; Dan Jenkins, ‘Winning Trench Warfare: Battlefield Intelligence in the Canadian Corps, 1914–1918’, PhD Thesis, 1999, Carleton. Jim Beach, ‘British Intelligence and the German Army, 1914–1918’, PhD Thesis, 2005, London; Jim Beach, ‘British Intelligence and German Tanks, 1916–1918’, War in History, 14(4), 2007, pp. 454–75. Peter Morris, ‘Intelligence and its Interpretation: Mesopotamia, 1914–1916’, in Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes (eds), Intelligence and International Relations (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1987), pp. 77–101; Richard Popplewell, ‘British Intelligence in Mesopotamia 1914–16’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 139–72; Peter Chasseaud and Peter Doyle, Grasping Gallipoli: Terrain, Maps and Failure at the Dardanelles, 1915 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2005). Andrew Syk, ‘Command and the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force, 1915–1918’, DPhil, 2009, Oxford, pp. 92–129. Yigal Sheffy, British Military Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1914–1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1998). Polly Mohs, Military Intelligence and the Arab Revolt: The First Modern Intelligence War (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4–5. William James, The Eyes of the Navy: A Biographical Study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall (London: Methuen, 1955); Robert Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 1914–1918 (London: Putnam, 1969). See, also, David Ramsay, “Blinker” Hall, Spymaster: The Man who Brought America into World War I (Stroud: Spellmount, 2009). Patrick Beesly, Room 40: British Naval Intelligence, 1914–18 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982). For a more recent narrative drawing upon National Archives material, see Paul Gannon, Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War 1 (Hersham: Ian Allan, 2010). Nicholas Black, The British Naval Staff in the First World War (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2009); Jason Hines, ‘Sins of Omission and Commission: A Reassessment of the Role of Intelligence in the Battle of Jutland’, Journal of Military History, 72, 2008, pp. 1117–53. John Ferris, ‘“Airbandit”: C31 and Strategic Air Defence during the First Battle of Britain, 1915–18’, in Michael Dockrill and David French (eds), Strategy and Intelligence: British Policy during the First World War (London: Hambledon, 1996), pp. 23–66; Terrence Finnegan, Shooting the Front: Allied Aerial Reconnaissance and Photographic Interpretation on the Western Front – World War I (Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College Press, 2006); Terrence Finnegan, Shooting the Front: Allied Aerial Reconnaissance in the First World War (Stroud: Spellmount, 2011). Eunan O’Halpin, ‘British Intelligence in Ireland, 1914–1921’, in Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: MacMillan, 1984), pp. 54–77. For an even broader context, see Keith Jeffery, ‘British Military Intelligence following World War I’, in K. G. Robertson (ed.), British and American Approaches to Intelligence (London: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 55–84. Peter Hart, The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 293–315; Peter Hart, British Intelligence in Ireland, 1920–21: The Final Reports (Cork: Cork University Press, 2002), pp.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 218

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

65

66

67 68

69 70

71 72

73

219

1–16; John Borgonovo, Spies, Informers and the ‘Anti-Sinn Féin Society’: The Intelligence War in Cork City, 1920–1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007); John O’Callaghan, Revolutionary Limerick: The Republican Campaign for Independence in Limerick, 1913–1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010), pp. 168–86; William Sheehan, A Hard Local War: The British Army and the Guerrilla War in Cork, 1919–1921 (Stroud: Spellmount, 2011), pp. 70–90. For pre-war military intelligence, see Wesley Wark, ‘Baltic Myths and Submarine Bogeys: British Naval Intelligence and Nazi Germany 1933–1939’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 6(1), 1983, pp. 60–81; Wesley Wark, ‘British Military and Economic Intelligence: Assessments of Nazi Germany before the Second World War’, in Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds), Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan, 1984), pp. 78–100; Wesley Wark, The Ultimate Enemy; Wesley Wark, ‘In Search of a Suitable Japan: British Naval Intelligence in the Pacific before the Second World War’, INS, 1(2), 1986, pp. 189–211; J. Paul Harris, ‘British Military Intelligence and the Rise of German Mechanized Forces, 1929–40’, INS, 6(2), 1991, pp. 395–417; T. Harrison Place, ‘British Perceptions of the Tactics of the German Army, 1938–40’, INS, 9(3), 1994, pp. 495–519; Joseph Maiolo, ‘“I Believe the Hun is Cheating”: British Admiralty Technical Intelligence and the German Navy, 1936–39’, INS, 11(1), 1996, pp. 32–58; Joseph Maiolo, ‘Deception and Intelligence Failure: Anglo-German Preparations for U-Boat Warfare in the 1930s’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 22(4), 1999, pp. 55–76. Within British popular culture, it could be argued that Bletchley Park has become a very strong heritage ‘brand’. The reasons for this development lie well beyond the scope of this article, but, of the more popular works, the following are useful entry points: Michael Smith, Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park (London: MacMillan, 1998); Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000). F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War (London: HMSO, 1979, 1981, 1984), 1, 1939–41; 2, 1941–3; 3(1) 1943–4; 3(2) 1944–5. For a survey of a different collection technique, see Kent Fedorowich, ‘Axis Prisoners of War as Sources for British Military Intelligence, 1939–42’, INS, 14(2), 1999, pp. 56–178. Hinsley, British Intelligence, 1, p. x. Ralph Bennett, Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944–45 (London: Hutchinson, 1979); Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy (New York, NY: Morrow, 1989); Ralph Bennett, ‘Intelligence and Strategy: Some Observations on the War in the Mediterranean 1941–45’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 444–64; Ralph Bennett, Behind the Battle: Intelligence in the War with Germany, 1939–1945 (London: Pimlico, 1999); Ralph Bennett, Intelligence Investigations: How Ultra Changed History (London: Frank Cass, 1996). John Ferris, ‘Ralph Bennett and the Study of Ultra’, INS, 6(2), 1991, p. 484. Patrick Beesly, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre (London: Greenhill, 2000); Patrick Beesly, Very Special Admiral: The Life of Admiral JH Godfrey CB (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980). See, also, Ralph Erskine, ‘U-Boats, Homing Signals and HFDF’, INS, 2(2), 1987, pp. 324–30. Donald Steury, ‘Naval Intelligence, the Atlantic Campaign and the Sinking of the Bismarck: A Study in the Integration of Intelligence into the Conduct of Naval Warfare’,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 219

21/02/2013 08:24

220

74

75 76

77 78

79

80 81

82

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Journal of Contemporary History, 22(2), 1987, pp. 209–33; Patrick Beesly, ‘Convoy PQ 17: A Study of Intelligence and Decision-Making’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 292–322. Christina Goulter, ‘The Role of Intelligence in Coastal Command’s Anti-Shipping Campaign, 1940–45’, INS, 5(1), 1990, pp. 84–109; David Syrett (ed.), The Battle of the Atlantic and Signals Intelligence: U-Boat Situations and Trends, 1941–1945 (Aldershot: Ashgate for the Navy Records Society, 1998); David Syrett ‘Communications Intelligence and the Battle for Convoy OG 71, 15–23 August 1941’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 24(3), 2001, pp. 86–106. W. J. R. Gardner, Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra (London: Macmillan, 1999). John Ferris, ‘The British Army, Signals and Security in the Desert Campaign, 1940– 42’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 255–91; John Ferris, ‘The “Usual Source”: Signals Intelligence and Planning for the Eighth Army “Crusader” Offensive, 1941’, INS, 14(1), 1999, pp. 84–118; David Alvarez (ed.), Allied and Axis Signals Intelligence in World War II (London: Frank Cass, 1999), pp. 84–118. See, also, Brad Gladman, ‘Air Power and Intelligence in the Western Desert Campaign, 1940–43’, INS, 13(4), 1998, pp. 144–62. Kevin Jones, ‘Intelligence and Command at the Operational-Level of War: The British Eighth Army’s Experience during the Italian Campaign in the Second World War, 1943–5’, PhD Thesis, 2005, London; Kevin Jones, ‘A Curb on Ambition: Intelligence and the Planning of Eighth Army’s Liri Valley Offensive, May 1944’, INS, 22(5), 2007, pp. 745–66. John Ferris, ‘“Worthy of a Better Enemy?”: The British Estimate of the Imperial Japanese Army, 1919–41, and the Fall of Singapore’, Canadian Journal of History/ Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire, 28(2), 1993, pp. 224–56; Anthony Best, ‘“This Probably Over-Valued Military Power”: British Intelligence and Whitehall’s Perception of Japan, 1939–41’, INS, 12(3), 1997, pp. 67–94; Douglas Ford, ‘“A Conquerable Yet Resilient Foe”: British Perceptions of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Tactics on the India–Burma Front, September 1942 to Summer 1944’, INS, 18(1), 2003, pp. 65–90; Douglas Ford, ‘Planning for an Unpredictable War: British Intelligence Assessments and the War against Japan, 1937–45’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 27(1), 2004, pp. 136–67; Douglas Ford, ‘British Intelligence on Japanese Army Morale During the Pacific War: Logical Analysis or Racial Stereotyping?’, Journal of Military History, 69(2), 2005, pp. 439–74; Douglas Ford, Britain’s Secret War against Japan, 1937–1945 (London: Routledge, 2006). Richard J. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Sebastian Cox, ‘A Comparative Analysis of RAF and Luftwaffe Intelligence in the Battle of Britain, 1940’, INS, 5(2), 1990, pp. 425–43; Samir Puri, ‘The Role of Intelligence in Deciding the Battle of Britain’, INS, 21(3), 2006, pp. 416–39; Robert Ehlers, Targeting the Reich: Air Intelligence and the Allied Bombing Campaigns (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009); John Stubbington, Kept in the Dark: The Denial to Bomber Command of Vital Ultra and Other Intelligence Information during World War II (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010). ‘Operation Crossbow’, BBC, 15 May 2011. Taylor Downing, Spies in the Sky: The Secret Battle for Aerial Intelligence during World War II (London: Little, Brown, 2011).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 220

21/02/2013 08:24

No Cloaks, No Daggers

221

83 For example, much of the War Office’s intelligence archive was destroyed by the Luftwaffe. See Matthew Seligmann, ‘Hors de Combat? The Management, Mismanagement and Mutilation of the War Office Archive’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 84, 2006, pp. 52–8. 84 Christopher Andrew, ‘The Nature of Military Intelligence’, in Keith Neilson and B. J. C. McKercher (eds), Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 13. 85 Keith Jeffery, ‘Intelligence and Military History’, in David Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 115.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 221

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 11 THE STUDY OF INTERROGATION: A FOCUS ON TORTURE, BUT WHAT ABOUT INTELLIGENCE? Samantha Newbery

Interrogation that aims to collect intelligence from the person being interrogated has received scholarly and public attention, largely as a result of its connection with torture.1 The torture debate – as it is known – began when interrogators were unable to gain intelligence from ‘four suspect terrorists, among them Zacarias Moussaoui, being held in a New York prison following the September 11 attacks’.2 Many media organisations then responded to official cues and came out in support of the use of torture for counterterrorism.3 This debate has intensified discussions about what interrogation practices might be permissible in the pursuit of intelligence. Swathes of publications on torture have followed, many of them of an extremely high quality. Far from all of them, though, are of benefit to the study of interrogation or intelligence. As this chapter will demonstrate, there are sources on interrogation practices that are waiting to be exploited by scholars, and now that interrogation has captured the public imagination, it is likely that the amount of research being conducted will increase. This chapter will demonstrate the current state of scholarship that addresses, or is relevant to, interrogation for intelligence-gathering. The first of the three main themes is justifiability. The question of what interrogation methods might be justifiable has been approached by legal scholars and moral philosophers. Both put forward arguments as to whether controversial interrogation techniques ought to be used. The second theme concerns which methods are effective in the production of intelligence from the interrogated persons. This is linked to the first: if a particular interrogation technique does not produce intelligence, then discussions of whether it should be used are obsolete. As will become clear, though, it is difficult to speak with any authority on the effectiveness of particular techniques. This issue has been approached from a variety of angles, with former interrogators, historians and psychologists all making valuable contributions. How controversial interrogation techniques – including those that might be described as torture – come to be used is the third major theme of the existing scholarship and, thus, of this chapter. This, too, has seen input 222

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 222

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

223

from more than one discipline, notably politics, law and, once again, psychology. Drawing upon this variety of viewpoints is a productive way of approaching the topic of interrogation. Scholars in these disciplines have worked on various pieces of the puzzle. Only by putting them together can we see how far we have come in understanding interrogation practices and what work remains to be done. The common conception of interrogation as a form of questioning is that it is ‘officious and rankles’; however, this is too narrow.4 It is fairly easy to accept, instead, that interrogation involves direct questioning, but is not always acerbic.5 Before meaningful analysis can begin, it is also important to distinguish between interrogation and torture. They certainly can be, and are, used together, but interrogation does not necessarily involve torture, and collecting intelligence is only one among many reasons why torture is used. Edward Peters’ impressive history of torture serves as a reminder that, as well as being used to aid interrogation, it has been used as a punishment, to terrorise and to force confessions.6 The frequent confusion of interrogation and torture by the press and in TV dramas, such as 24,7 perpetuates the belief that torture increases the effectiveness of interrogation and that the latter cannot succeed without the former. It is likely that this confusion has both been a product of, and contributed to, the focus of the press and scholars on the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, rather than on the underlying issue of what makes interrogation effective. As will be outlined below, there is little consensus among interrogators, policymakers and academics as to whether torture enhances or impairs interrogation. JUSTIFIABILITY

Choices about how to define torture are influenced by what the definition will be used for. The public at large has a basic understanding of what the word represents; it has often been remarked that we know torture when we see it.8 It is a term, though, that is sometimes used to communicate the author or speaker’s view that what they describe is unjustified. A great deal of the literature on torture addresses its justifiability. Legal scholars have been particularly vocal on this matter. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading forms of treatment (CIDT) are prohibited by a number of statutes, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.9 Yet, few of these statutes provide definitions of torture or CIDT. As a result, legal scholars continue to debate what falls under these definitions, creating a sizeable body of thought on what is permissible, according to these laws. As methods that might be described as torture or CIDT are used to aid interrogation, these definitions are closely related to which

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 223

21/02/2013 08:24

224

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

interrogation techniques are legally permissible. Which techniques might be morally permissible will be addressed shortly. Case law provides examples of legal bodies’ findings in individual cases that sometimes provide interpretations of key terms, such as torture. The European Court of Human Rights’ 1978 ruling in Ireland vs. UK has proved particularly controversial. The Republic of Ireland initiated a case against the UK for a series of alleged breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights perpetrated in the months after internment was introduced in Northern Ireland in August 1971. The Court found that the ‘five techniques’ – comprising of hooding, a stress position, white noise, limited diet and limited sleep – used to aid the interrogation of fourteen detainees in Northern Ireland in late 1971, ‘did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture’.10 Elaine Scarry of Harvard University draws attention to the difficulty of expressing pain, serving as a reminder that the demands of grasping others’ pain further complicates the judgements involved in determining whether the severity criterion for defining torture has been met.11 The Court’s finding in Ireland vs. UK, namely that the ‘five techniques’ did not constitute torture, was not only contrary to the views expressed by many observers at the time, but it has been noted that more recent decisions of the European Court have ‘pointed to stricter standards’.12 Manfred Nowak – who has served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture – notes: ‘[t]here are good reasons to believe that the Court today would consider similar treatment torture’.13 The moving thresholds between torture, inhuman treatment and degrading treatment under the European Convention on Human Rights14 coincide, at the very least, with wider developments in the interpretation of human rights law. This example demonstrates that labels, even when issued after careful consideration by respected authorities, are not immune to controversy. The message for scholars of interrogation is that determining which practices are legal is not simple. The influence that severity of suffering has on whether a practice ought to be described as torture, CIDT or neither is not the only component of discussions about the legality of torture that is relevant to interrogation. It has been argued that in the case of the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) – which does give a definition of torture – CIDT and torture are also distinguishable on the basis of the intent behind them. UNCAT describes the latter as severe pain or suffering intentionally inflicted for named purposes that include obtaining information from the subject or a third party, or punishment of the subject. It also specifies that torture is something that is carried out ‘by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity’.15 It is apparent that some interrogation techniques will fall under this definition. Nowak argues that the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 224

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

225

‘requirement of a specific purpose is the most decisive criteria distinguishing torture from cruel or inhuman treatment’.16 Therefore, when controversial practices that meet the other elements of the definitions of CIDT and torture are used to aid interrogation, they are more likely to be classed as torture than as CIDT. The final contribution of legal scholars on what interrogation techniques might be permissible is the point that, as well as being open to interpretation, legal definitions can be manipulated. The manipulation of law by US Government lawyers after September 2001, in order to construct an argument that certain interrogation techniques were legal, is a popular example.17 They maintained that torture was wrong, but sought to massage the definition so that what most of us would define as torture fell outside of this definition and was therefore legally permissible. The lawyers’ motivation was based on the belief held within the US Government that certain interrogation techniques would produce much-needed intelligence.18 Further details of how people in authority facilitated the use of controversial interrogation techniques in this case, allowing them to become part of policy, will be given below. The power of this belief in the efficacy of interrogation techniques that were widely believed to be illegal draws attention to the need to examine this claimed efficacy. Only if it is genuine may it be a potential justification for manipulating or revising law. Despite their arguable illegality, some interrogation techniques are still being used by Western states. Although this causes discomfort for many observers, there is an argument that it should remain an option for those tasked with protecting national security. This tension has prompted moral philosophers to discuss not only the nature of objections to using torture, but objections to using it to aid interrogation aimed at collecting intelligence. Efforts have been made to try to pinpoint why torture is so widely considered to be wrong. Philosopher David Sussman persuasively suggests that what is morally special about torture, compared to most other kinds of violence, is that: ‘[t]he victim retains enough freedom and rationality to think of himself as accountable, while he nevertheless finds himself, despite all he can do, to be expressing the will of another, the will of a hated and feared enemy’.19 This and other attempts to describe what is so unpalatable about torture when used as an interrogation technique enhance our understanding of why we react the way we do to accounts of this kind of treatment. Analysis of the circumstances in which such methods might be justifiable has also been carried out. This is an area that has played a significant role in the rise of the subdiscipline of intelligence ethics. The ‘ticking bomb’ scenario is a popular stimulus for consideration of the ethics of using torture in conjunction with interrogation. There are variations of this scenario and which variation that is adopted affects

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 225

21/02/2013 08:24

226

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

what conclusions the scenario leads to. Vittorio Bufacchi and Jean Maria Arrigo manage to identify three persistent features: (1) the lives of a large number of innocent civilians are in danger; (2) the catastrophe is imminent, therefore time is of the essence; [and] (3) a terrorist has been captured who holds information that could prevent the catastrophe from occurring.20

The key question that follows is whether these circumstances could render torture for intelligence-gathering acceptable. There are certainly limits to what the scenario can help us achieve. It is based on a number of assumptions, including that the suspect possesses the required intelligence, that the intelligence will be used promptly enough to avoid the catastrophe and – an assumption that we will address in more depth shortly – that interrogational torture will succeed in collecting that intelligence. Neither does the scenario demand that we take the wider consequences of using torture for interrogation into account. Although the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario is useful in provoking reflection on the morality of controversial interrogation techniques, it is posed in a way that makes it difficult for respondents to reject torture. The abstract nature of discussions of this issue have also been criticised by the likes of Henry Shue – whose 1978 article overturns the argument that since killing is worse than torture, yet is sometimes permitted, then torture should also be permitted.21 More recently, he has argued that hypotheticals are ‘superior to reality and thereby a disastrously misleading analogy from which to derive conclusions about reality’. Shue goes on to argue that although interrogational torture is always wrong, there are times when it seems excusable.22 In other words, it may be necessary, but it remains morally problematic. Whilst these discussions from the perspective of moral philosophy should be praised for focusing on interrogation, intelligence and security, they rest on an implicit claim that torture can succeed in eliciting intelligence from suspects. Examining whether there is truth behind this claim is a crucial, yet neglected, element of discussion concerning what kinds of techniques ought to be used in the pursuit of intelligence. EFFECTIVENESS

Linked closely to the legal and moral perspectives on the justifiability of torture is the issue of whether it can be an effective aid to interrogation at all. Some practitioners and scholars believe torture can succeed in eliciting intelligence; others disagree. Both viewpoints will be discussed here. Claims that it is effective are frequently used as the basis for arguments about whether using controversial interrogation techniques are justifiable. As these claims are so fundamental to judgements of whether torture and other controversial methods should be used

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 226

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

227

for intelligence-gathering, it is worth attempting to find a way to assess them. Assessments of the reliability of claims about which methods are effective use testimony from interrogators, evidence from historical examples and research from the fields of neuroscience and psychology. Significantly, each of these approaches allows us to be specific about the methods being discussed and their results, mitigating the difficulties of talking about diverse groups of interrogation techniques. A number of interrogators have spoken out about which ways of conditioning people to be interrogated and which questioning techniques they believe to be effective. These range from book-length contributions to short quotations given to the press. One example that claims a specific method was effective was given by a police officer operating during the Malayan emergency of 1948 to 1960. Based on first-hand experience, Dato J. J. Raj (Jr) describes how a communist terrorist was persuaded to cooperate with his questioners when he was threatened with dogs.23 This is an example that succeeds in being specific about the methods used, but gives few other details about the circumstances of the interrogation. Limited detail in examples of what is or is not effective is frustrating, leaving the reader with little to go on in attempts to reconcile apparently conflicting statements. There are, of course, times when information has to be kept classified. Secrecy did not prevent, however, the publication of the United Kingdom’s ‘Consolidated Guidance to Intelligence Officers and Service Personnel on the Detention and Interviewing of Detainees Overseas, and on the Passing and Receipt of Intelligence relating to Detainees’ upon its coming into force in July 2010.24 Releasing information on interrogation methods currently in use can help the enemy with their interrogation-resistance training, if they have not already identified current methods though debriefing former prisoners. Nonetheless, interrogators have publicised details of methods, the circumstances in which they were used and the results, and these are valuable contributions to the torture debate. With such a hotly contested topic, it is particularly important to identify their reasons for speaking out. Matthew Alexander’s 2008 book was motivated by a desire to draw attention to the effectiveness of certain verbal interrogation techniques. Leading a team sent to Iraq to test new interrogation techniques in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, Alexander faced opposition from proponents of the existing system of interrogation, which was based on fear and control and included the use of death threats. Instead, his team were ‘trained to search out what motivates a detainee, then use that motivation to [their] advantage’.25 He describes the interrogations of Abu Haydar – a ‘big fish’ in al-Qaeda – who was taken into custody during a raid on a safe house. The old approach to interrogation was used on Haydar for

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 227

21/02/2013 08:24

228

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

twenty days with no success. By developing rapport, showing respect, stoking his ego and offering him an incentive to cooperate, Alexander’s team succeeded in its objectives. Haydar gave information that led them to their target: Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The US then killed Zarqawi in a missile strike on 7 June 2006. This book demonstrates that it is possible for interrogators to put specifics into the public domain, including the characteristics of those interrogated, the methods used and the outcome. Further examples that provide these specifics have been made available by historians. The Algerian War is a frequently cited historical example of interrogation being used alongside methods that might be described as torture and in which these methods produced intelligence. This claim is often balanced by the sister claim that, overall, the use of torture in Algeria was disadvantageous, leading to ‘the political defeat of French colonialism’.26 Darius Rejali’s impressive book offers accounts of ‘clean tortures’ – in other words, those that leave no physical marks. Addressing the Battle of Algiers from 1956 to 1957 – a key episode in the National Liberation Front’s (FLN) campaign for independence – Rejali describes the water and electrical tortures used by French soldiers.27 He finds that though the FLN was defeated in the Battle of Algiers, it was not because of successful interrogations. Instead, the key factors leading to success were the instilling of terror among the population through widescale arrests and violence, effectively deterring them from working with the FLN, and the use of informants, some of whom were recruited on the threat of torture or death.28 Of the thousands of individuals who were interrogated and tortured in Algeria, Rejali does find one case where ‘critical secret information’ was collected.29 A further example of interrogation techniques and their effects stems from the London Reception Centre. Opened in January 1941 to sort ‘refugees from the Continent’, it looked into the details of an estimated 33,000 aliens, with ‘only three enemy agents with missions in Britain . . . known to have passed through undetected’.30 It has been reported that: ‘[t]he whole process . . . was greatly facilitated by an informal and friendly ethos. Most interviews were one to one and conducted in a relaxed manner’.31 These interrogations were successful, not only against innocent refugees, but against some agents, who – it is more than likely – set out to deceive their interrogators. It was difficult for them to maintain cover stories, as the facility was supported by a database, known as the Information Index.32 In this example, a relaxed interrogation environment, supported by access to information for cross-referencing, had what we can describe as a high success rate. These are not the only examples where the specifics of the interrogation methods, the people that they were used against and their results are known, as research on ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland demonstrates.33 Research that unearths such examples has a lot to offer our under-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 228

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

229

standing of whether certain interrogation techniques are effective for collecting intelligence. It is not only interrogators and historians who can shed light on the effectiveness of certain interrogation techniques. Neuroscientists have examined the chemical effects of sleep deprivation on the brain. They have found that prolonged sleep deprivation ‘has a deleterious effect on memory’.34 While an inability to use one’s memory properly will impair ability to stick to a cover story, it will also impact on one’s ability to share accurate information. The latter is a clear disadvantage for intelligence-gathering. There are certainly other examples of research in this field, in psychology and in psychiatry, which can contribute to understanding the impact of certain aids to interrogation on the individual and how that impact relates to their ability and inclination to cooperate with the interrogator.35 Drawing upon what these disciplines have to offer can help the study of intelligence-gathering by interrogation. Psychologists have addressed police interrogation, which forms a part of criminal investigations, to a much greater extent than they have interrogation for intelligence-gathering. Research into the effects of sleep deprivation on police interrogation has found that ‘interrogative pressure on sleep-deprived subjects leads to a lack of reliability in answering’.36 This appears to be applicable, in principle, to interrogation for intelligence-gathering. It also appears likely that psychologists’ research into how to avoid inducing false confessions and how to identify false confessions in the context of criminal investigations would be of use to interrogators aiming to collect intelligence, as both seek the truth.37 Any differences between these practices, such as the legal environment, do, of course, have to be given due consideration. In the 1950s, a group of prominent psychologists sought to explain the rates of compliance exhibited by American prisoners of war subjected to communist ‘brainwashing’ during the Korean War.38 It has been found that isolating prisoners increases the likelihood they will communicate with their interrogators, as cooperation allows them to ‘enjoy in some degree a much needed social relationship’.39 To put it another way, there is an innate desire to communicate that interrogators can exploit. It has also been shown that ‘interrogation late at night, when the accused would normally be asleep, places them at their lowest level of resistance and resilience’.40 This material is useful to the scholar interested in the relationship between certain methods of interrogation and intelligencegathering. The question that remains unanswered is to what extent interrogators aiming to collect intelligence draw upon this research. Psychological approaches have featured in interrogation training at the US Army Intelligence Centre,41 and CIA interrogation manuals have drawn upon psychologists’ work directly.42 Psychology, then, has a lot to offer practitioners and scholars, who

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 229

21/02/2013 08:24

230

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

are seeking to understand what makes interrogation an effective way to collect intelligence. Before moving on, it should be noted that the quality and quantity of intelligence produced by interrogation is not the only way to assess its effectiveness. We might also, for example, assess the impact of public knowledge of controversial interrogation techniques on attitudes towards the government that is using these techniques. Importantly, controversial techniques can also affect the well-being of the people who experience them, and, as a result, research into how best to rehabilitate victims of torture has been conducted.43 Effects are also felt by friends, families and communities. There is a long way to go before competing statements on what interrogation techniques work can be reconciled, but progress is being made. HOW CONTROVERSIAL INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES COME INTO USE

The final theme in the publicly available material on interrogation concerns how controversial interrogation methods come to be used. First, there is material that addresses, or sheds light on, how such methods have come to have official approval. As a result of significant media attention paid to the treatment of prisoners in the ‘War on Terror’, many useful primary sources have been made public, and two edited volumes provide easy access to these sources.44 A series of memos contained therein reveal the process through which it was made possible for the US to argue that captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were not prisoners of war and the subsequent implications for how they could be treated. These memos significantly advance our understanding of how interrogation techniques, widely regarded as torture, came to be a part of US policy. When seeking to argue that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters, Alberto R. Gonzales – Counsel to the President and later to become US Attorney General – noted that this would allow the US to obtain information quickly, in order to save lives.45 These memos contain the famous quote attributed to Assistant Attorney General John Bybee, which caused outrage by specifying that only pain of a kind associated with organ failure would satisfy the severe pain component of the definition of torture,46 and Donald Rumsfeld’s similarly provocative comment – not intended for the public domain – questioning why prisoners’ standing time should be limited to four hours, when he stood for eight to ten hours a day.47 Rumsfeld also expressed concern about certain techniques, including ‘good cop, bad cop’ and dietary and environmental manipulation, specifying that they should only be used on detainees believed to possess ‘critical intelligence’.48 These documents have been built upon with

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 230

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

231

interviews and analysis, which have gone further towards explaining how controversial interrogation techniques came to be approved by the US Government for use in the ‘War on Terror’, further highlighting the role that some government lawyers played in the manipulation of law.49 While it is helpful to have access to this evidence on how controversial methods can become policy, there is scope to ask further questions about the extent to which intelligence-gathering was the motivation of the actors involved in approving them. Far from all uses of controversial interrogation techniques are approved by senior decision-makers. Impetus for these practices has also come from the individuals who are directly responsible for the welfare of prisoners, and there is also a grey area, in which there is no official approval, but in which official tolerance or encouragement can be identified. Enlightening research into how individuals come to be able to mistreat others in this context has been carried out by psychologists. Notable in this field is Mika Haritos-Fatouros’ work on the use of torture under the military dictatorship in Greece from 1967 to 1974. Based on interviews with former torturers, Haritos-Fatouros argues that torturers are made, not born. She is one of a group of authors who describe the facilitating effect that the dehumanisation of victims gives to trainee torturers.50 They also found that exposure to torture and violence can desensitise trainee torturers51 and that a process of ‘routinisation’ normalises the acts.52 In addition, language can play a facilitating role. Drawing on interviews with victims of torture, their families and torturers, Marguerite Feitlowitz examines how the use of language facilitated and cloaked the controversial treatment and disappearances of thousands of people during Argentina’s Dirty War of the 1970s. In the La Perla camp in Córdoba, for example, torture chambers were known as ‘operating theatres’, which were used ‘as a distancing, enabling device’.53 There is insight available, then, into how the impetus for controversial interrogation practices can come from above or below and how individuals come to fill the roles expected of them. Research into how controversial interrogation techniques come to be used provides valuable parts of the puzzle for those seeking a holistic understanding of interrogation. CONCLUSION

Individuals specialising in a range of disciplines have contributed to the understanding of interrogation for intelligence-gathering, often motivated by an intention to shed light on practices that are commonly regarded as immoral and illegal. However, focusing on torture can mask their contributions to intelligence studies. Swapping the popular trend of focusing on torture for a focus on interrogation draws attention to the unresolved matter of what techniques are effective for collecting intelligence. Asking whether techniques fulfil their aim of

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 231

21/02/2013 08:24

232

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

eliciting intelligence from those interrogated is an important element in assessing their justifiability. Whether the techniques used are in breach of legal prohibitions of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment also affects whether they are described as justifiable. The popular ‘ticking bomb’ scenario can guide discussion of the morality of torture as an aid to interrogation, but is based on assumptions about effectiveness that warrant further research. Despite the volume of publications on torture, there is plenty of scope for further work on what results particular policies and interrogation techniques have brought about. Research into how and why controversial practices have arisen, as well as being worthwhile in itself, is a valuable dimension of efforts to judge the justifiability of these practices.

Notes 1 For example, see Alex J. Bellamy, ‘No Pain, No Gain? Torture and Ethics in the War on Terror’, International Affairs, 82(1), 2006, pp. 121–48; David Leppard, ‘Secrecy Law to Shield MI6 over Torture’, The Sunday Times (London), 27 May 2012, p. 2. 2 Neil Macmaster, ‘Torture: From Algiers to Abu Ghraib’, Race & Class, 46(2), 2004, p. 3. 3 Macmaster, ‘Torture: From Algiers to Abu Ghraib’, p. 3. 4 Cyril Cunningham, ‘International Interrogation Techniques’, RUSI, 117, September 1972, p. 32. 5 CIA, ‘KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation’, July 1963, p. 5, available at: www. gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm. 6 Edward Peters, Torture (Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 7 See Jane Mayer, ‘Whatever it Takes’, The New Yorker, 83(1), 19 February 2007, pp. 66–82. I am grateful to Jo Milner for pointing me to this source. 8 Jeremy Waldron, ‘Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House’, Columbia Law Review, 105(6), October 2005, p. 1695. 9 Nigel S. Rodley, ‘The Prohibition of Torture: Absolute Means Absolute’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, 34(1), 2006, p. 152. 10 Ireland v. United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights (1978), Series A, No. 25, 39. For more on this, see Samantha Newbery, Bob Brecher, Philippe Sands and Brian Stewart, ‘Interrogation, Intelligence and the Issue of Human Rights’, Intelligence and National Security, 24(5), October 2009, pp. 631–43. 11 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 12 Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law (London: Allen Lane, 2008), p. 215. 13 Manfred Nowak, ‘What Practices Constitute Torture? US and UN Standards’, Human Rights Quarterly, 28(4), 2006, p. 837. 14 Malcolm D. Evans, ‘Getting to Grips with Torture’, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 51(2), April 2002, p. 370. 15 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 232

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

16 17 18

19 20

21 22 23

24

25

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34

35

233

Punishment, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, 10 December 1984, UNTS, 1465, Article 1. Nowak, ‘What Practices Constitute Torture?’, p. 830. See Waldron, ‘Torture and Positive Law’. This view was held, for example, by James T. Hill (General, US Army) and Michael E. Dunlavey (Major-General, US). Hill to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, ‘Counter-Resistance Techniques’, 25 October 2002, in Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 223; Dunlavey to Commander, United States Southern Command, ‘Counter-Resistance Strategies’, 11 October 2002, in Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers, p. 225. David Sussman, ‘What’s Wrong with Torture?’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33(1), 2005, p. 29. Vittorio Bufacchi and Jean Maria Arrigo, ‘Torture, Terrorism and the State: A Refutation of the Ticking-Bomb Argument’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 23(3), 2006, p. 358. Bufacchi is a philosophy scholar; Arrigo is a psychologist. Henry Shue, ‘Torture’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 7(2), 1978, p. 125. Henry Shue, ‘Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb’, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 37(2–3), 2006, p. 231. Dato J. J. Raj (Jr), ‘A Canine Threat’, in Brian Stewart (ed.), Smashing Terrorism in the Malayan Emergency: The Vital Contribution of the Police (Subang Jaya: Pelanduk, 2004), pp. 150–1. HM Government, ‘Consolidated Guidance to Intelligence Officers and Service Personnel on the Detention and Interviewing of Detainees Overseas, and on the Passing and Receipt of Intelligence Relating to Detainees’, July 2010, available at: http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2011/DEP2011-1796.pdf. Matthew Alexander with John R. Bruning, How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, To Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq (New York, NY: Free Press, 2008), p. 77. Alexander writes under a pseudonym. Macmaster, ‘Torture’, p. 7. Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 157–65. Rejali, Torture and Democracy, pp. 483–4. Rejali, Torture and Democracy, p. 491. Oliver Hoare, ‘Introduction’, in Oliver Hoare (ed.), Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi Spies, The Official History of MI5’s Wartime Interrogation Centre (Richmond: Public Record Office, 2000), pp. 16–17. Hoare, ‘Introduction’, p. 17. Hoare, ‘Introduction’, pp. 16–17. For example, Samantha Newbery, ‘Intelligence and Controversial British Interrogation Techniques: The Northern Ireland Case, 1971–2’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 20, 2009, pp. 103–19. Shane O’Mara, ‘Torturing the Brain: On the Folk Psychology and Folk Neurobiology Motivating “Enhanced and Coercive Interrogation Techniques” ’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(12), December 2009, pp. 497–8. For example, A. T. Woods, E. Poliakoff, D. M. Lloyd, J. Kuenzel, R. Hodson,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 233

21/02/2013 08:24

234

36

37 38

39 40 41

42

43

44 45

46

47

48

49 50

51

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

H. Gonda, J. Batchelor, G. B. Dijksterhuis and A. Thomas, ‘Effect of Background Noise on Food Perception’, Food Quality and Preference, 22, 2011, pp. 42–7. Mark Blagrove, Dominic Cole-Morgan and Hazel Lambe, ‘Interrogative Suggestibility: The Effects of Sleep Deprivation and Relationship with Field Dependence’, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 8, 1994, p. 177. See, for example, Gisli H. Gudjonsson, The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook (Chichester: Wiley, 2003). Of the resulting publications, perhaps the most well-known is Albert D. Biderman, ‘Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War’, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 33(9), September 1957, pp. 616–25. I. E. Farber, Harry F. Harlow and Louis Jolyon, ‘Brainwashing, Conditioning, and DDD (Debility, Dependency, and Dread)’, Sociometry, 20(4), December 1957, p. 277. Gudjonsson, The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions, p. 312. Chris Mackey with Greg Miller, The Interrogator’s War: Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda (London: John Murray Publishers, 2004), pp. 39–42. Mackey gives an account of his 1991 training at the Centre. CIA, ‘KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation’, July 1963, available at: www. gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm; CIA, ‘Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual’, 1983, available at: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/index.htm. For example, Jacqueline C. Bouhoutsos, ‘Treating Victims of Torture: Psychology’s Challenge’, in Peter Suedfeld (ed.), Psychology and Torture (New York, NY: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, 1990), pp. 129–41. Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers; Mark Danner (ed.), Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (London: Granta Books, 2005). Alberto R. Gonzales (Counsel to the President), ‘Memorandum for the President’, 25 January 2005, in Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 118–21. Jay S. Bybee (Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice) to Gonzales, 1 August 2002, in Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 176. David Luban notes that it appears that the principal author of this document was John C. Yoo (Deputy Assistant Attorney General). Also, see David Luban, ‘Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb’, Virginia Law Review, 91(6), 2005, p. 1427. William J. Haynes II (General Counsel) to Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), 27 November 2002, in Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 237. Rumsfeld to General James T. Hill (Commander, US Southern Command), 16 April 2003, in Greenberg and Dratel (eds), The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 361–4. See Sands, Torture Team. Mika Haritos-Fatouros, The Psychological Origins of Institutionalised Torture (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 63; Albert Bandura with Claudio Barbaranelli, Gian Vittorio Caprara and Concetta Pastorelli, ‘Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement in the Exercise of Moral Agency’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2), August 1996, p. 366. Haritos-Fatouros, The Psychological Origins of Institutionalised Torture, p. 7; Janice

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 234

21/02/2013 08:24

The Study of Interrogation

235

T. Gibson, ‘Factors Contributing to the Creation of a Torturer’, in Peter Suedfeld (ed.), Psychology and Torture (New York, NY: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, 1990), p. 84. 52 Haritos-Fatouros, The Psychological Origins of Institutionalised Torture, p. 164; Herbert C. Kelman, ‘The Social Context of Torture: Policy Process and Authority Structure’, in Ronald D. Crelinsten and Alex P. Schmid (eds), The Politics of Pain: Torturers and their Masters (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 30–1. 53 Marguerite Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 65.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 235

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 12 WHITEHALL, INTELLIGENCE AND OFFICIAL HISTORY: EDITING SOE IN FRANCE Christopher J. Murphy

In the historiography of British intelligence, the publication of SOE in France – an officially sponsored account of the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War – stands out as a significant moment. While the existence of the organisation and its activities already constituted something of an open secret – a consequence of numerous memoirs and investigative works published since its dissolution in 1946 – SOE in France was an account of part of the wartime secret world, which was published by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office: an official history, based on access to SOE’s own records – material that would not begin to make its way into the public domain for a further thirty years. Its publication proved controversial; legal action from disgruntled ex-agents who objected to their treatment in the book soon followed, resulting in the speedy appearance of an amended second impression, while work began on a more extensively amended second edition. Chronicled in the national press – which had already shown interest in the book – the controversy was not only public, but costly.1 In July 1969, it was recorded that the book had resulted in lawsuits which saw £10,000 paid out in damages and £5,613 in associated costs, despite the fact that the manuscript had spent almost three years going through an extensive editorial process.2 While the origins of the book, and the various factors that led Whitehall to commission it, have already been explored in some detail, and the personal recollections of the author, Professor M. R. D. Foot, have also been published, little is known about the period between the original submission of Foot’s manuscript in May 1963 and the book’s publication in April 1966.3 This chapter seeks to explore the manuscript’s journey during this time and to consider why an editorial period of such length failed to address the issues that would cause such trouble after publication. As such, it aims to shed some light upon Whitehall’s first experience of preparing official ‘secret history’ for publication, highlighting the key issues and decisions taken, which emerge in the file material that is now available at the National Archives. 236

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 236

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

237

The decision to commission a history of SOE had been reached at a meeting held on 18 May 1960.4 Having led the Working Party that had arrived at this conclusion, Sir Burke Trend – soon to become Cabinet Secretary – proceeded to head the Steering Committee that took responsibility for the project, working alongside Peter Wilkinson, Norman Mott and Edwin (‘Eddie’) Boxshall – all three of whom were ex-SOE personnel, whose post-war careers in Whitehall continued to involve them with the intelligence world.5 The search for a suitable historian to research and write the book resulted in an approach being made to M. R. D. Foot, the approval of the Chief of SIS, Sir Dick White, having first been obtained.6 On 7 November 1960, Wilkinson offered Foot the job of writing a history of SOE in France. A full-time position, it was expected that the work, ‘based on official material which would be made available’, would take 18 months to complete. Covered by the Official Secrets Act, Wilkinson explained that publication of the completed work was not guaranteed and that changes to the text may be demanded ‘for reasons of security’.7 Foot ‘gladly’ took on the project, work formally beginning on 9 November.8 SECURITY CONCERNS

In late April 1963, Foot informed Wilkinson that his finished draft was in the hands of ‘our friends’ [ie SIS] typists’.9 By early May, it reached Wilkinson, who immediately arranged for it to be read by Mott (‘our friend’s [sic] security expert’) and by representatives of the Foreign Office.10 He received Mott’s ‘preliminary views’ on 5 June.11 While acknowledging that he needed to ‘go through it again with a hair-comb’, Mott’s initial impression was that there was ‘little which is objectionable on straight security grounds . . . it seems to me that the book, even if published as it stands, would do little or no harm to real security interests’.12 Mott later confirmed his original impression that there was little of concern from a security point of view, listing only eleven ‘Security Points’ for further consideration: M.1 Reference to ‘sizeable . . . deception industries’ (but can possibly pass nowadays). M.2 Refs. to ‘the head of the Secret Service’. M.3 Ref. to ‘the head of the intelligence service’. (an open secret that there is one, but should not appear in an officially-sponsored book.) M.4 Ref. to an amendment to SOE’s charter, ‘extending SOE’s sphere to neutral countries’. (no great secret but possibly best omitted.) M.5 Ref. to ‘secret vote’. M.6 Refs. To ‘P.W.E.’ (I am uncertain whether these initials are now ‘respectable’ or whether ‘P.I.D.’ should still be used.) M.7 Ref. to the use of American and Vatican diplomatic bags.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 237

21/02/2013 08:24

238

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

M.8 Ref. to ‘the intelligence service’. M.9 Ref. to Embassy and Consulate help to escapers. M.10 Ref. to MORTIMORE ‘under MEW cover in LISBON Consulate’. M.11 Ref. to currency operations – ‘but once’.13

Mott’s points formed part of a larger document, which was compiled for discussion in October, where they were grouped with ‘kindred points’. The description was a little wide of the mark; these drew attention to ‘Belittlement or Criticism of de Gaulle and/or Gaullism’, along with ‘Disparaging and possibly slanderous remarks’ made by Foot – hardly matters of immediate security concern. At a meeting to discuss all the points raised held on 29 October, five of Mott’s ‘Security Points’ (namely, 1, 5, 6, 8 and 9) were allowed to pass; the references to SOE activity in neutral countries and the use of American and Vatican diplomatic bags were to be deleted, while the remaining four points were to be amended.14 Of the ‘kindred points’, fifteen were to be amended, nine were to be allowed to stand and one omitted. Three of the remaining points were felt to warrant legal advice. These concerned the notorious agent Henri Dericourt and the former second in command of the SOE’s French (F) Section, Nicholas Bodington.15 Save for these outstanding issues and the need for the author to make a small number of amendments to the text, by the end of October 1963, the security side of the editorial process was, effectively, complete. Other issues, not directly related to security, now proceeded to occupy the attention of the Steering Committee. POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

Wilkinson’s initial comments on the manuscript saw the editorial process immediately move beyond security matters. He informed Trend that he had found it ‘very readable, so far as I can judge it is accurate, and with certain reservations I think that it is publishable as an official history’.16 Wilkinson’s reservations related to ‘passages concerning the origins of S.O.E., rivalry between M.I.6 and S.O.E., and S.O.E.’s running fight with the Foreign Office’, where the potential for official embarrassment was high. He argued that such passages would be ‘picked on by the sensational press, and cannot fail to damage the memory of S.O.E. and the reputation of M.I.6.’.17 Wilkinson also predicted, correctly, that the Foreign Office ‘might propose some toning down in the interests of AngloFrench relations’.18 Martin Young – representing the Central Department – suggested that the book was in need of a ‘disarming’ introduction, which would help make much of what followed altogether more palatable for a French audience. He considered this an important move, as the book was ‘dealing

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 238

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

239

with a subject close to de Gaulle’s own heart and to the pride of Frenchmen in general’ (adding that, if it ‘can say deservedly nice things about de Gaulle and the French so much the better’).19 Young also detailed ‘all the remarks which struck me on first reading as regrettably critical or otherwise undesirable’.20 Totalling fifty-three points, these were broken down into eight categories: French lack of security (points 1–10); other French failings (11–18); remarks tending to belittle or criticise General de Gaulle or Gaullism (19–29); criticism or belittling of French resistance and also of de Gaulle (30–5); suggestions of anti-Gaullist policy by Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) (36–40); the role of the Foreign Office (41–4); remarks about the US, Spain and Switzerland (45–48); along with five miscellaneous points. These were all discussed, alongside security considerations, in October. Just under half of Martin’s points were dismissed, eight were marked for omission and one for alteration. The views of the Western department were to be sought on the remaining fourteen points, which were primarily concerned with alleged French security failings.21 Over the course of several meetings – one of which saw Foot in attendance – amendments to the text were agreed upon, and, by September 1964, the draft was considered ‘acceptable to the Foreign Office from the political point of view and from the security point of view’.22 This did not, however, mark the end of the political editing process, as it was ‘understood that the Paris Embassy had some points to raise’. Two pages of comments were subsequently received from the Embassy, which included particular concern over a passage that illustrated the extent of anti-Gaullist feeling in London during the war, which was considered ‘much more likely to be picked up and used against us by French official propaganda than anything which the S.O.E. organisation might have said or done’.23 A number of the points raised were duly communicated to Foot for his consideration.24 Nor did this see the end of politically driven comments on the manuscript. Further concerns were raised by the newly appointed British Ambassador in Paris, Sir Patrick Reilly, in January 1965. Sir Patrick’s appointment coincided with a ‘low ebb’ in Anglo-French relations, following de Gaulle’s veto of Britain’s attempt to join the Common Market – an application with which Sir Patrick had been heavily involved.25 He requested that ‘every possible effort should be made to remove any language not essential to the story to which exception could reasonably (from their point of view) be taken by the French’.26 While noting that ‘Mr Foot is to be congratulated on a remarkable piece of work’ and that he would ‘be very reluctant to recommend against publication’, Sir Patrick felt that the book had the potential to cause ‘serious trouble’ for Anglo-French relations: In spite of the generous tribute to General de Gaulle, there is, I think, a good deal in the book which is likely to be resented by committed Gaullists and by the

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 239

21/02/2013 08:24

240

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

General himself. He is after all made to look pretty silly in a number of places . . . If Anglo-French relations were reasonably good at the time of publication or de Gaulle himself were no longer ruler of France and Head of State, the book might easily pass without serious protest. As things are, Anglophobe supporters of the regime could easily make much capital out of it: and no amount of emphasis that the author’s views are his own only will affect the fact that the book is published by H.M. Stationery Office.27

Sir Patrick’s points were forwarded to Foot by Boxshall on 19 January, and it was hoped that, ‘in spite of the lateness of the hour’, he would be able to give them ‘all due consideration’.28 As a result of Sir Patrick’s comments, which ran to a total of five pages, further amendments (described as ‘substantial alterations’29) were made to the galleys. Some were made, quite literally, overnight,30 while it took until the summer for others to be addressed to the satisfaction of the Foreign Office.31 Sir Patrick returned to voice further concerns on the subject, after the publication of the book in April 1966, when arrangements for a French language edition collided with a new effort for Britain to join the European Economic Community (EEC).32 THE HUMAN FACTOR

On 26 March 1964, Trend wrote to the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, asking him to approve the publication of SOE in France in principle.33 Both Douglas-Home and the Foreign Secretary, R. A. Butler, agreed, and the news soon hit the national press.34 The now heavily amended manuscript (Trend had apologised to Douglas-Home for its condition, but turning this into a virtue, he noted that it ‘illustrates the extent of the amendment and revision which have been effected so far in an attempt to ensure that the book is free from objection’35) was sent to the Stationery Office for galley proofs to be prepared in early May.36 A decision now needed to be taken relating to the question of who should be allowed to read, and comment upon, the galleys, and agreement was reached over those who were ‘to receive a full set of galley proofs’ and those who were ‘only to be shown excerpts regarding themselves’.37 A full set was to be made available to Maurice Buckmaster, who headed SOE’s independent French (F) Section for much of the war, and Sir James Hutchinson, who had, for a period, headed RF Section, which worked with the Free French. A small number of former high-ranking members of SOE – Lord Gladwyn, Brigadier Mockler-Ferryman, Robin Brook, Douglas Dodds-Parker, David Keswick and Harry Sporborg – were to be ‘invited to read those passages which contain reference to themselves’ and were also permitted to read the full text, ‘if they specially requested to do so’. Nicholas Bodington, who had worked for F Section, was

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 240

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

241

to ‘be invited to read extracts referring to himself on the premises of the Paris Embassy’.38 Beyond former members of SOE, relevant passages were to be sent to those politicians who were mentioned in the text, as a consequence of their involvement with SOE’s affairs during the war: Churchill, Macmillan, Lord Selborne, Lord Attlee, Lord Avon, Lord Thurso and Lord Chandos, with the complete text being made available to them, if so requested. The question also prompted consideration to be given to other SOE officers and agents mentioned by name in the history, described collectively by Boxshall as ‘the “small fry” ’,39 as to whether they ‘would have to be asked for their consent on whether they would have to be referred to by their pseudonyms’ – an issue that proceeded to arouse considerable debate. It was felt that to use SOE codenames would ‘detract from the book’s value’, but, at the same time, it was acknowledged that ‘those who joined a secret organisation in wartime might justifiably expect their connexion with it to remain secret after the war’.40 The debate raged for some time, the issue being recognised as one which ‘engenders a good deal of feeling’, with opinion ‘fairly evenly divided on whether the names should be published or not’.41 The ‘burning question’ was finally settled at a meeting between Foot and Trend, at which it was agreed that the names of F Section agents ‘could probably be published’, alongside those of other sections active in France.42 The galleys were finally despatched for comment in October, the resulting responses necessitating further amendments to the text. Anthony Montague Browne – representing Churchill – expressed concern over the manner in which a disagreement between the Prime Minister and de Gaulle had been described: . . . Sir Winston’s reaction to de Gaulle’s outburst is described as ‘equally infantile’. I feel that it would be more appropriate to substitute ‘almost as extreme’. A distinction should really be drawn between de Gaulle’s prima-donna attitude and the reply of the overburdened Prime Minister.43

Foot ‘readily accepted’ the point.44 What was later described by Trend as the only comment ‘of substance’ to be received from an ex-Minister came from Lord Avon, who was ‘not happy at the account given of the F.O.’s part in the business’, nor with comments that he and Hugh Dalton – SOE’s First Minister – had got on badly.45 Here, the author stood his ground; Foot suggested that he ‘may have forgotten in twenty years much that was notorious at the time’.46 Buckmaster’s reaction to the galleys brought with it the first threat of legal action. Wilkinson had earlier acknowledged, upon first reading the manuscript, that Buckmaster did ‘not come out of the story at all well’, but believed that this was ‘only fair’.47 Trend was now informed that Buckmaster had ‘written a v. vigorous letter about allegedly libellous remarks about himself + stating that he

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 241

21/02/2013 08:24

242

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

was referring the matter to his solicitors’.48 Buckmaster expressed concern over the portrayal of certain members of his section and objected ‘most strongly to the light in which I am presented’: The book is full of cynical innuendos, of tendentious conclusions based on a haphazard and arbitrary assessment of motives. I am made to appear irresponsible, callous, partial, inefficient, ‘crassly’ insensitive in my optimism, and frequently mistaken in my judgement, although such reflections are often followed by a rather generalised explanation . . . which half-heartedly invalidates these criticisms. In this manner a picture is built up which discredits my personal character and my role as head of F Section.49

Buckmaster’s complaints resulted in further changes being made to the text. Here, the secrecy that had surrounded the project, and the associated reluctance to allow Foot to interview surviving members of SOE’s French sections, revealed its inherent limitations, prompting Foot to observe that: much trouble would have been saved if he and I had been allowed in touch some years ago . . . Many of his comments are valuable, and I have gladly incorporated them; you will see that I have fallen in with almost all of his principal objections.50

As a result of a continued stream of suggested amendments, so many changes were made to the galleys that it was agreed that a fresh set would have to be prepared. By the end of January 1965, the revised text had been sent to the Stationery Office for new galleys to be prepared, and it was hoped that little further work would be required; in order to help ensure this, it was agreed that they would not receive wide circulation.51 This hope, however, was short-lived. The belief that ‘Buckmaster’s wrath seems to have been assuaged’ was proven wrong, as he continued to press his outstanding points, along with the desire from the Foreign Office for further consideration of the points raised by Sir Patrick Reilly, discussed above.52 While Foot had accepted twenty-three of Buckmaster’s thirty-four points, eleven remained unresolved. It was agreed that an effort should be made ‘to persuade Buckmaster to withdraw as many of his remaining objections as possible’,53 and so it was proposed that Foot and Buckmaster should be allowed to meet, for reasons that had little to do with the accuracy of the text. As one official noted, if such a meeting did not go ahead: I can foresee, after the book is published, Buckmaster announcing that he had never met Foot and the latter saying in his turn that he was not allowed to see Buckmaster. This situation might appeal to reviewers, and it would be difficult to give a convincing reason why Foot was not allowed to see Buckmaster at any stage.54

As there was a lack of consensus on the matter, it was put to Trend, who agreed that the two men could meet.55 At the meeting held on 26 July, after ‘consider-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 242

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

243

able argument’ and debate ‘at length’, Buckmaster withdrew some of his remaining objections, while a number of further amendments to the text were also agreed upon.56 Clearly aggrieved by the fact that he had not been approached during the writing of the book (‘It looked to me as if I was not to be trusted’),57 Buckmaster remained unhappy at the end of the meeting, but, by this point, it was widely agreed that the only eventuality that would satisfy him would be if the project were completely abandoned. LEGAL QUESTIONS

As noted above, the Steering Committee had recognised that legal advice would be necessary during the initial meeting to discuss the manuscript held in October 1963. A copy of the manuscript was subsequently sent to the Office of the Treasury Solicitor, with the request that certain passages be considered from a legal perspective, including references to the controversial agent Henri Dericourt. The Principal Assistant Treasury Solicitor, F. W. Charlton, read the specified passages, along with much of the remainder of the manuscript, ‘in order to understand the background’. Charlton was favourably disposed to the work, finding it both ‘absorbing’ and a ‘valuable historical record’. In terms of possible legal action, he believed that, subject to a number of amendments being made, ‘the risk of successful civil or criminal proceedings being brought in England for libel or injurious falsehood against the author, printers or publishers is very small’.58 He explained that it would be possible to: successfully resist any proceedings on the grounds that the statements of fact are true . . . The facts on which the author relies for his narrative appear to be well documented by the footnotes to which he refers, and which I imagine have all been carefully checked.59

Charlton similarly qualified his views (‘Assuming the facts are correctly stated . . .’)60 on the specific passages that he had been asked to read. As such, while he was able to advise on the removal of certain specific passages that, he felt, lent themselves to innuendo, much of the remainder of his opinion rested upon the assumption that reference back to the original source material had been made. While Charlton was kept appraised of, and continued to advise upon, subsequent amendments to the draft, at no point did so much as the possibility of such reference back to the SOE archive appear to have been discussed by the Committee. Yet, although displaying such faith in the work of their historian, at the same time, concerns about specific passages persisted. A desire for a second check to be made of passages describing the torture suffered by F Section agent Odette Hallowes (née Sansom) resulted in the former Chief of SOE, Sir Colin

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 243

21/02/2013 08:24

244

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Gubbins, being asked to look again at the relevant passages.61 Having done so, he agreed ‘that it can stand as [Foot] has put it’.62 It was only after Hallowes herself made a threat of legal action, prompted by a journalist from the Daily Mail who was reviewing the book and read the relevant lines to her over the phone, that Charlton was sent the relevant papers from the SOE archive, in order to provide a legal opinion, which did not put the Steering Committee’s minds at rest, as he pointed to discrepancies between the file material and the text.63 Yet, while Charlton expressed concern, at this point – literally days before the book hit the shelves – it was too late for any action to be taken. Nor was this the only legal issue that was raised at the eleventh hour; a need to amend the text still further emerged after the book had gone to press. Alongside the editorial process, negotiations had been taking place concerning overseas publication. In addition to a desire to see a French language version appear as quickly as possible, there was interest in pursuing an American edition. To this end, Charlton made enquiries in the United States, regarding how the book would likely fare under US law. He reported that both his contacts and the legal advisers of the prospective US publisher, Knopf, had ‘expressed doubts about some parts’ of the book’s Appendix A, which discussed the available sources on SOE and included an annotated bibliography on existing works on SOE.64 An urgent memo to Trend on 17 February 1966 drew attention to the implications of these views for the British edition: What is rather worrying is that, according to Mr Charlton, United States law is not materially different from English Law so far as liability to legal proceedings over the appendix is concerned. Mr Charlton frankly admits that he did not examine the appendix as closely as the text of the main book and that if he had, he might have suggested alterations to it. The book, however, has now gone to press. If we required the minimum alterations to be made to Appendix A, HMSO calculate that this will cost about £200 and delay publication by not more than two weeks.

Trend agreed that the necessary changes should be made, and printing was halted. The first edition of SOE in France finally went on sale on 28 April 1966.65 REFLECTIONS

At the front of the second volume in a series of Cabinet Office files that chronicle the process whereby SOE in France was commissioned, edited and published, a ‘First Review Form’ has been inserted, on which an official has suggested that the files should be permanently retained, noting that: ‘In view of the controversy and legal proceedings generated by this History, it is desirable that all parts of this file should be retained for future administrative reference’.66 It will not be possible to fully explore the extent of the shadow cast by the experience of SOE

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 244

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

245

in France for some time; the files of the subsequent intelligence-based official history project – the five-volume British Intelligence in the Second World War – are only now beginning to trickle slowly into the public domain. While surviving paperwork detailing the later official histories of SOE written by Charles Cruickshank will hopefully see the light of day in the foreseeable future, the release of official paperwork surrounding the more recent authorised accounts of the Security Service and the SIS must be considered to be, at best, decades away. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to conclude that the editorial process provided a number of lessons that those involved in any similar enterprise in the future would do well to remember. It is clear that difficulties were caused, unsurprisingly, by the path-breaking nature of the project: an officially sponsored account of an organisation that had formed part of the wartime British intelligence community. The tentative approach adopted – to see if such a book could be written, in the first instance, and to discuss possible publication later – itself hindered the process; a number of the problems that subsequently arose may not have done so, had Foot been allowed greater access to former members of the organisation, rather than being confined, in large part, to what survived of the paper record – a point that was noted some months after publication. Discussing the possibility of further histories of SOE in 1967, a Foreign Office official questioned whether these should: be written in the first instance without benefit of interviews with former participants . . . or whether any eventual authors could start consulting participants straight away; in the light of our experience over ‘S.O.E. in France’ the latter course might turn out to be advisable.67

Yet, the innovative nature of the project can surely only explain so much and not, perhaps, the limitations of the legal advice offered by the Office of the Treasury Solicitor, which was tacitly acknowledged in the same 1967 study of possible future histories of SOE, which observed: The Treasury Solicitors . . . say that no matter how carefully galley proofs may be checked, they can never totally guarantee that libel actions will not ensue from publications of this kind. But this risk will naturally be more present in the minds of those responsible for reading and approving any future draft texts on the subject of SOE than was the case with Mr Foot’s work.68

While Wilkinson would later point the finger at Foot for the trouble that followed (‘I am horrified to learn how much the publication of “SOE in France” has cost the tax-payer partly at least for the really almost unpredictable reason that a scholar of Winchester and New College and a professional historian was found guilty of not verifying his references!’),69 the Committee certainly needs to be apportioned its part of the blame; having recognised that certain

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 245

21/02/2013 08:24

246

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

passages were problematic, they failed to ensure that they were thoroughly investigated. What drove the editorial committee? Perhaps surprisingly, it had little to do with security concerns; on the contrary, the manuscript was quickly passed from a security point of view, with only a limited number of revisions considered necessary. Overall, one cannot help but feel a certain ironic symmetry at work, as the history of an organisation that had long been tagged derisorily as a collection of ‘amateurs’ was itself taken through the editorial process by a group of former SOE officers-turned-civil servants, who were themselves ‘enthusiastic amateurs’ when it came to the world of publishing. But beyond such a sense of ‘amateurness’, the editorial priorities of Whitehall are clear. In his essay ‘Official History: Its Pitfalls and Criteria’, Herbert Butterfield suggested that it ‘is difficult for men to place truth above public advantage’, citing ‘the circumvention of a diplomatic crisis’ and ‘the covering of a reputation’ as two areas that would likely impact upon official history.70 The influence of these factors can be seen in evidence very clearly during the editing of SOE in France; of greater concern than ‘security’ were Foreign Office fears that the book would have a negative impact upon present day Anglo-French relations, alongside a desire to ensure that references to prominent politicians were ‘carefully examined for accuracy and propriety’, with such individuals also given the opportunity to read relevant passages, in order to ensure that they were portrayed in a light that was satisfactory to themselves.71 That option was given to only a select few; many others named in the book were given no such opportunity, the battle for anonymity having been fought and lost, primarily for reasons of ‘readability’.72 A later postmortem on the experience of SOE in France acknowledged that this had been a mistake, pointing out that the book had been ‘bitterly criticised for the fact that it went beyond what some critics regard as the proper role of a historian in giving the true names of individuals without their consent’.73 With its attention thus focused, the editorial committee perhaps lost sight of the fact that the book was, at its heart, an account of the bravery and heroism of numerous individuals involved in the front line of resistance activity during the war. The very fact that such individuals were described during the editorial process as ‘the “small fry” ’ certainly suggests, in terms of the legal action that followed, a degree of hubris and an editorial process that would, ultimately, pay for its chosen priorities.

Notes 1 See, for example, ‘Frozen Secrets Start to Thaw’, Sunday Telegraph, 4 October 1965; ‘How to Keep a Well-Meaning Spy Out in the Cold . . .’, The Daily Sketch, 20 January 1966; ‘GC Heroine’s Torture was “Untrue”, Says Govt Book’, The Evening News, 21

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 246

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

2

3

4 5

6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15

247

April 1966; ‘Torture or Imagination?’, Daily Mail, 28 April 1966; ‘Resistance Author Hits at Critics’, Sunday Telegraph, 1 May 1966; ‘Author’s Fee of £4,761’, Daily Telegraph, 24 May 1966; ‘Letters to the Editor (M. R. D. Foot)’, The Times, 11 July 1966; T. H. Johnston, ‘Secret Agent Gets Libel Settlement’, The Evening News, 27 January 1969. All references are to documents held at The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), Kew. CAB103/570, ‘Study of the Pros and Cons of Publication of Further Histories of SOE in the Light of Experience Gained Since the Decision to Publish “SOE in France” ’, PUSD, FCO, July 1969. See M. R. D. Foot, Memoirs of an SOE Historian (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2008); Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119(483), 2004, pp. 922–53; Christopher J. Murphy, ‘The Origins of SOE in France’, Historical Journal, 46(4), 2003, pp. 935–52; Mark Seaman, ‘Landmarks in Defence Literature’, Defense Analysis, 3(2), 1987, pp. 191–3; Christopher R. Moran, Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). PREM11/5084, SOE History – Meeting, 18 May 1960. Having joined the Foreign Office in 1947, Wilkinson spent the early 1960s working in the Permanent Under-Secretary’s Department (PUSD) at the Foreign Office, followed by a secondment to the Cabinet Office in 1963. (John Ure, ‘Wilkinson, Sir Peter Allix’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at: http://www. oxforddnb.com/view/article/74315.) Boxshall had joined the SIS following the dissolution of SOE, ‘with the title of consultant to the Foreign Office . . . In 1959 he was appointed custodian of the SOE archives’. (Richard Davenport-Hines, ‘Boxshall, Edwin George’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at: http://www. oxforddnb.com/view/article/45718.) Mott headed the SOE Liquidation Section upon the organisation’s demise, where his knowledge of the organisation proved ‘of untold value’, joining the Foreign Office in 1948. (TNA, HS9/1653, Note; Christopher J. Murphy, Security & Special Operations (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006), p. 211.) CAB103/571, ‘S.O.E. History’, E. G. Boxshall, 23 September 1960. CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Foot, 7 November 1960. CAB103/571, Foot to Under-Secretary of State, 7 November 1960; Wilkinson to Foot, 22 November 1960. CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Wyatt, 8 February 1963. By this point, Wilkinson had been seconded to the Cabinet Office, succeeded at PUSD by Geoffrey Arthur. Writing to Trend on 8 May, he suggested that he ‘had better continue to steer this operation since my successor at P.U.S.D. has no S.O.E. background and knows absolutely nothing of the politics and passions that this particular subject inflames. I am of course keeping him fully informed’ (CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 8 May 1963). CAB103/571, Boxshall to Wilkinson, 5 June 1963. CAB103/571, ‘Mr Norman Mott’s Preliminary Remarks on the Draft History’, 4 June 1963. CAB103/571, ‘Comments on M. R. D. Foot’s “S.O.E. in France” ’. CAB103/571, ‘CONFIDENTIAL, Meeting on October 29, 1963, 4.30–6pm’. Point 2 and point 3 were to be replaced with ‘The Head of the Intelligence Service’. Suspected of having been in contact with the Germans during the war while acting

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 247

21/02/2013 08:24

248

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

31

32

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

as Air Movements officer for SOE’s French (F) Section, Dericourt had been arrested in France in November 1946 and put on trial. He was subsequently acquitted in 1948, following evidence given by his friend (and former Second in Command of F Section), Nicholas Bodington. CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 22 May 1963. CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 22 May 1963. CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 22 May 1963. CAB103/571, ‘S.O.E. in France’, M. F. Young, 19 July 1963. CAB103/571, ‘S.O.E. in France’, M. F. Young, 19 July 1963. CAB103/571, Boxshall to Wilkinson, 7 November 1963. CAB103/572, ‘Notes on Meeting in Cabinet Office’, 23 September 1964. CAB103/572, ‘Comments of Peter Ramsbotham and Robin Farquharson on the Galley Proofs’, Leahy to Boxshall, 13 November 1964. CAB103/572, Leahy to Boxshall, 13 November 1964. Leahy suggested that, in passing on the comments, Boxshall should ‘omit the reference to “suppressing” a passage, since it would not be very tactful’. John Ure, ‘Reilly, Sir (D’Arcy) Patrick’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/73087. CAB103/573, Patrick Reilly, 7 January 1965. CAB103/573, Patrick Reilly, 7 January 1965. CAB103/573, Leahy to Boxshall, 19 January 1965. CAB103/573, J. H. G. Leahy, 19 January 1965; CAB103/573, ‘S.O.E. History’, 21 January 1965. Figg noted that: ‘The last comments to arrive, which were also numerous, were those of Sir Patrick Reilly, the Ambassador-designate to Paris. I believe Foot stayed up most of the night taking these into account in order to get the amendments made to the galley in time for his meeting with Woods’ (CAB103/573, Figg to McIndoe, 25 January 1965). Reviewing the revised galley proofs in April with a view to checking ‘whether the Ambassador’s amendments and comments . . . have been met’, Tickell was ‘able to track down most of them but not all’. While he noted that the author had ‘in general removed those various sentences to which the Ambassador drew attention, which could be construed as needlessly offensive to the French’, he also pointed out that ‘few of the general points’ made by Sir Patrick had been met and that while Foot had ‘done his best to meet the Ambassador’s detailed points’, there remained ten separate instances ‘where it seems to me that he has not done so’ (FO146/4628, Tickell, ‘S.O.E. IN FRANCE’, 23 April 1965.). Further amendments to the proofs were subsequently made, in order to address Sir Patrick’s outstanding points. (FO146/4628, ‘Mr. Foot and S.O.E.’, Tickell, 18 June 1965.) CAB103/574, McIndoe to Thompson, 18 February 1966. In February 1966, HMSO had been given the green light to enter into negotiations with a prospective French publisher. Originally in favour of a French language edition, by November, in light of the new British application, Reilly had changed his mind. While it was initially felt that ‘the Ambassador is showing rather too strong signs of alarm’ (STAT14/2956, ‘Note’, Logan, 26 July 1966), by December, it was agreed to recommend to Ministers that the French edition should be ‘postponed’ (STAT14/3956, Greenhill to Reilly, 16 December 1966). In February 1967, Curtis Brown was informed that a decision

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 248

21/02/2013 08:24

Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50

51 52 53

249

had been taken to no longer proceed with a French language edition (STAT14/3956, Thompson to Waters, Curtis Brown Ltd, 10 February 1967). CAB103/572, Trend to Prime Minister, 26 March 1964. CAB103/572, Wilkinson to Trend, 10 April 1964; Butler to Prime Minister, 6 April 1964; ‘Resistance History to be Published’, Daily Telegraph, 14 April 1964. CAB103/572, Trend to Prime Minister, 26 March 1964. CAB103/572, L. C. W. Figg, 6 May 1964. CAB103/572, ‘S.O.E. in France’, 13 July 1964. CAB103/572, ‘S.O.E. in France’, 13 July 1964. CAB 103/572, Boxshall to Figg, 13 July 1964. CAB103/572, Notes on Meeting in the Cabinet Office, 3.30pm, 23 September 1964. CAB103/572, Figg to Woods, 9 December 1964. The question was put out for consultation, but this only served to entrench the opposing perspectives: Bill Deakin was strongly in favour of the majority of names being ‘disclosed in a straightforward historical manner’, while Colin Gubbins had already argued that, ‘unless the consent can be obtained from S.O.E. H.Q. staff for their names to be quoted, they should be referred to by their symbols’ (CAB103/572, Deakin to Trend, 7 December 1964; Draft Steering Minute, 24 January 1964). CAB103/572, Woods to Figg, 15 December 1964; CAB103/573, ‘Record: S.O.E. HISTORY’ (undated). CAB 103/572, Montague Browne to Trend, 9 October 1964. CAB103/572 Anon to Leahy, 11 December 1964. PREM13/949, ‘The History of the Special Operations in France’, 3 August 1965; CAB103/572, Avon to Caccia, 28 October 1964. CAB 103/572, Foot to Boxshall, 9 November 1964. Wilkinson’s apparent lack of concern over Buckmaster appears to have had as much to do with his post-war discussion of SOE as with his wartime activity. Having discussed the history with Gubbins, Wilkinson reported to Trend: ‘Unfortunately Mr. Foot’s draft quite legitimately exposes Colonel Buckmaster’s repeated incompetence as head of F Section, as well as the inaccuracies in his own book describing his experiences. In view of his past behaviour, particularly since the end of the war when he has done nothing but blow his own trumpet, Colonel Buckmaster deserves the scantiest consideration, but we agreed that it might save trouble if he were shown the draft’ (CAB 103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 12 December 1963). CAB103/572, Minute to Trend, 20 November 1964. CAB103/572, Buckmaster to Boxshall, 11 November 1964. CAB 103/572, Foot to Boxshall, 16 November 1964. Buckmaster’s involvement was summarised in a note for the record in January 1965, which stated that he ‘submitted a great number of points on the galley proofs; and after going through them with great care, Charlton had two meetings with Buckmaster and a meeting with Foot. As a result, a substantial number of amendments will have to be made to the text . . . A number of the points which Buckmaster had made were valid . . . but although these points were accepted and changes made . . . Buckmaster is still quite incensed with the general tone of the history’ (CAB103/573, ‘Note For Record’, 13 January 1965). CAB103/573, Figg to McIndoe, 23 January 1965. CAB103/573, Note to Trend, 23 April 1965. CAB103/573, Figg to Trend, 18 May 1965.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 249

21/02/2013 08:24

250

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

54 CAB103/573, Figg to Trend, 18 May 1965. 55 CAB103/573, Figg to McIndoe, 16 July 1965. Boxshall felt that such a meeting ‘would not be advisable at this late stage’ and ‘may be counter-productive in that it would give Buckmaster a further chance of reopening certain questions which were satisfactorily disposed of during two meetings he had with Charlton four months ago’ (CAB103/573, Figg to Trend, 18 May 1965). 56 CAB103/573, Meeting in Treasury Solicitor’s Office, 26 July 1965. 57 CAB103/573, Meeting in Treasury Solicitor’s Office, 26 July 1965. 58 CAB103/572, Charlton, 20 January 1964. 59 CAB103/572, Charlton, 20 January 1964. 60 CAB103/572, Charlton, 20 January 1964. 61 In the text, Foot suggested that Hallowes had been ‘confused’ when recalling the details of the horrific treatment that she had received (See CAB103/575, ‘SOE in France’, 21 April 1966). As SOE’s final Executive Head (CD) and an integral member of the organisation since its early days, Colin Gubbins had been sent a copy of the manuscript with Trend’s approval in late 1963 (CAB103/571, Wilkinson to Trend, 31 October 1963). 62 CAB103/573, Gubbins to Boxshall, 10 May 1965. 63 CAB 103/575, ‘Threat of Libel Action by Odette Sansom (Mrs Hallowes)’, Boxshall to Jackson, 18 April 1966. Boxshall reported that Charlton had ‘examined the surviving papers on Odette Sansom’s file which he asked me to make available to him’. Having reviewed the material, Charlton pointed to the fact that Sansom’s interrogation reports – dated 12 May 1945 – were ‘incomplete’. He described this as ‘unfortunate’ and ‘of some importance because Foot says in his book that in her formal interrogation on her return she made no reference to this incident at all. I do not see how he can say this if he has not seen the whole of the interrogation . . . I feel that Counsel for Mrs. Hallowes could make considerable play with this document as it stands at present’. Charlton also pointed to the ‘difficulty’ presented by the relevant medical certificate, which was ‘quoted as the authority for saying that Odette Sansom for many months had difficulty in distinguishing fantasy and reality, unfortunately does not contain words to this effect’. 64 CAB103/574, McIndoe to Trend, 17 February 1966. 65 CAB103/575, Charlton to Sauerwein, 29 April 1966. 66 CAB103/572. 67 CAB103/569, Jackson to Reid, 23 May 1967. 68 CAB103/570, ‘Study of the Pros and Cons of Publication of Further Histories of SOE’, p. 13. 69 FCO12/75, Wilkinson to Salt, 4 July 1969. 70 Herbert Butterfield, ‘Official History: Its Pitfalls and Criteria’, in Herbert Butterfield (ed.), History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), p. 183. 71 CAB103/572, Note for Record: ‘S.O.E. in France’, 23 March 1964. 72 CAB103/570, ‘Study of the Pros and Cons of Publication of Further Histories of SOE’, p. 10. 73 CAB103/570, ‘Study of the Pros and Cons of Publication of Further Histories of SOE’, p. 10.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 250

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 13 A TALE OF TORTURE? ALEXANDER SCOTLAND, THE LONDON CAGE AND POST-WAR BRITISH SECRECY Daniel W. B. Lomas The immediate post-war period saw the publication of a number of secret service accounts recounting wartime exploits, giving the impression that, with the end of hostilities, these could now be revealed.1 In fact, as has been clearly demonstrated by Richard J. Aldrich, officials in Whitehall attempted to manage the release of intelligence-related subject matter into the public domain, largely to protect the secrets of code-breaking and strategic deception.2 While receiving the most attention, these were not the only wartime activities which were strictly off-limits to publishers, as far as the authorities were concerned. Efforts to publish details of prisoner interrogation – a valuable source of human intelligence (HUMINT) – also gave cause for official concern, prompting the authorities to engage in a lengthy process to prevent Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Paterson Scotland from detailing his experiences as head of the London District Cage. While the authorities certainly attempted to keep these secrets, their efforts to do so met with mixed results. They were hampered by two significant limitations. First, they had to know, of course, that such publications were in the pipeline. In addition, they had to deal with authors and publishers, who, while warned of the potential consequences of publication, pressed ahead, regardless. Here, the authorities muddied the waters with an apparent tendency to vary their response; the differing consequences that authors could face being effectively illustrated by the cases of Alfred Duff Cooper and Eddie Chapman. A Chair of the wartime Security Executive and close ally of Winston Churchill, Cooper had published a lightly fictionalised account based on the now-famous Operation MINCEMEAT in November 1950, but was not prosecuted; the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, quickly ruling that retrospective action would be ‘unprofitable’ – a stance that only infuriated others, but which ended with the publication of The Man Who Never Was in 1953.3 The career criminal and MI5 agent Eddie Chapman was treated quite differently. An earlier attempt to publish in a French newspaper, with the assistance of Sir Compton Mackenzie – the former SIS officer and himself a victim of the Official Secrets Act – led to Chapman being prosecuted 251

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 251

21/02/2013 08:24

252

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

under the Act. Further attempts to tell his story in Britain were unsuccessful; one effort resulting in the withdrawal and pulping of an entire edition of a national newspaper. The authorities also raided his flat and eventually found a handwritten copy of a memoir, which was subsequently destroyed.4 Instances where individuals were seemingly allowed to publish without consequence, such as Duff Cooper, themselves served to strengthen the hands of other would-be authors, who had been successfully persuaded to keep silent. Such cases gave these individuals further leverage in their battle to publish; the authorities having dealt a blow to their own arguments that they should desist from publication. As such, while the authorities wanted to prevent the release of certain information into the public domain, the process by which they attempted to achieve this can be best described as contradictory and messy. In the case of The London Cage, despite the intervention of Special Branch – in itself, illustrative of the lengths that the authorities were prepared to go to in order to prevent publication – the authorities failed in their efforts to prevent details about the work of the Cage entering the public domain, primarily due to the impact of further unexpected, and unauthorised, disclosures. As such, the case of The London Cage further illustrates the fact that the course of official secrecy did not always run smoothly in post-war Britain. While code-breaking and deception are regularly cited as the intelligence secrets that officials sought to protect, the authorities could resort to comparable tactics to prevent other intelligence activities, such as prisoner interrogation, from reaching the public domain. In the case of The London Cage by Alexander Scotland, officials were concerned by the potential disclosure of such information and the controversy it generated, owing to allegations of torture. The book focused on the London District Cage, known as the Cage – an interrogation facility in Kensington run by the Prisoner of War Interrogation Service (PWIS), commanded by Scotland.5 Under War Office supervision, the Service was tasked with the extraction and collation of intelligence from Axis captives taken during hostilities, prior to their transferral to a permanent prisoner of war (POW) camp. Scotland went on to run the successor organisation, the War Crimes Investigation Unit (WCIU), formed in December 1945 to gather evidence regarding suspected war crimes.6 From Kensington, the Cage played an important part in the conviction of German war criminals and, from WCIU’s formation until its disbandment three years later, a total of 3,573 men were interrogated at the Cage, with around 1,000 giving statements concerning war crimes.7 While influential in Britain’s war crimes convictions, operations at the Cage were blemished by persistent allegations of maltreatment and torture made by several former prisoners.8 One of these, Fritz Knochlein – an SS officer later sentenced to death for his part in the deaths of British prisoners of war – alleged

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 252

21/02/2013 08:24

A Tale of Torture?

253

sleep deprivation and physical abuse. Knochlein had claimed that, during one particularly brutal interrogation, a fellow prisoner had received repeated blows to the face, leaving ‘his face smashed and his eyes bleeding’ – allegations that Scotland later dismissed as ‘lame’.9 As both the British war crimes tribunals and allegations of prisoner abuse drew the attention of the national press, literary agent George Greenfield telephoned Scotland, proposing that he should consider committing his recollections to paper. During a telephone conversation on 2 November 1953, Greenfield expressed his interest in meeting Scotland in person to discuss the publishing of his wartime experiences.10 Scotland proceeded to send Greenfield a selection of personal papers, which, Greenfield believed, would ‘form the basis of an eminently publishable book’.11 In due course, Scotland agreed to produce detailed notes of an account of his wartime experiences, and the journalist Alan Mitchell, co-author of several wartime memoirs, was tasked with turning these, and the results of further conversations, into a publishable manuscript.12 Greenfield approached Evans Brothers Ltd and, on the basis of Scotland’s notes, its Managing Director, Lesley Browning, agreed to commission the book. The company was no stranger to controversial subject matter, having recently published The Man Who Never Was. By mid-December, a contract was agreed for a book entitled The London Cage. During discussions with Greenfield and Mitchell, Scotland recalled that he was asked ‘about other experiences, not included in the book’.13 At this point, the decision to include details of interrogation techniques used at the Cage – material which, alongside Scotland’s belligerent attitude, would provoke a forceful response from the authorities – was taken. Evans Brothers felt that such information would be a ‘most valuable addition’; Mitchell’s discussions over serialisation rights having indicated that there was an audience eager for details of interrogation, possibly because of its sensational nature, especially after the post-war war crimes trials, with one magazine, John Bull, keen on the inclusion of ‘as many examples’ as possible.14 Mitchell decided that the book should focus on ‘the work and methods of an interrogator’, asking Scotland to provide material on the interrogations of German war criminals. While he later claimed to have objected to the inclusion of such material, the available correspondence shows that Scotland was happy to discuss his ‘lurid past operations’.15 The manuscript was completed by mid-June and, with hopes high for a ‘big success’ that ‘should earn considerable royalties’, it was submitted to the War Office public relations department for review and subsequently circulated to various interested parties.16 Its contents gave considerable cause for concern. In July, John Waterfield of the Foreign Office summarised the department’s reaction, stating that ‘publication of acts of an apparently irregular behaviour’ within

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 253

21/02/2013 08:24

254

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the context of prisoner interrogation would ‘cause considerable embarrassment to Her Majesty’s Government’.17 In particular, the Foreign Office was concerned about public opinion in the German Federal Republic, given its planned incorporation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.18 Further official concerns, beyond political embarrassment, were highlighted by Lieutenant Colonel Broughton of MI11 – the War Office’s security branch – on 9 August.19 Broughton identified a number of irregularities regarding the treatment of prisoners that could be deemed to contravene the Geneva Convention, concluding that publication of the book, providing such insight into the methods of interrogation would be ‘highly undesirable’.20 A month later, another MI11 official suggested that publication would be ‘highly embarrassing’ to the War Office, the Security Service and the Foreign Office, resulting in the re-opening ‘of the case of German war criminals by the Germans which would not show the War Office in a good light’.21 Further resistance came from the Director of Military Intelligence, Major-General Valentine Boucher, who recommended that the War Office notify the publisher that it was ‘not prepared to clear the book’ and suggested that action against Scotland was needed, in order ‘to dissuade others from exploiting their war service for financial gain’.22 The irregularities earlier identified by Broughton were the focus of a report by Bernard Hill – MI5’s legal adviser – in January 1955. Hill’s concerns were set within the context of the Cage’s function as a transit camp, where, unsupervised by the International Red Cross, prisoners could be made ‘to do chores, etc. . . . as a matter of expediency to keep such a camp running’. Under the subheading ‘Embarrassing Disclosures’, Hill pointed to instances in Scotland’s manuscript that not only illustrated breaches ‘of the spirit’ of the Geneva Convention, but ‘worse’.23 Referring to the case of several U-boat officers, who had provided no significant information after days of interrogation, Scotland wrote: We took away their uniform and set them to work in denim suits on cage chores for three days . . . we found the ruling of the Geneva Convention that prisoners may be employed on various duties and chores in a transit camp to be useful on many occasions.24

After this treatment, the officers ‘were broken’. Hill concluded that the whole interrogation ran ‘completely contrary’ to the Convention. Another case cited involved a ‘young Nazi’ who was forced to stand for twenty-six hours, after which, in Scotland’s words, ‘he answered my questions freely’. Of greater concern, was the fact that many of the cases detailed showed that the Cage ‘was not being used as a transit camp at all, but a centre to which prisoners from camps were specifically sent for interrogation’ during which various pressures were ‘used to extract information’.25

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 254

21/02/2013 08:24

A Tale of Torture?

255

By the end of August 1954, Greenfield was notified that the authorities were not prepared to sanction publication and that any attempt to do so would breach the Official Secrets Act, particularly Section 2, which committed individuals working with sensitive information to refrain from disclosing it for perpetuity.26 Responding, Greenfield conveyed Scotland’s disappointment, arguing that it was unreasonable for Scotland to be ‘expected to accept a sort of blanket veto on the whole book’, and asked for details of ‘the specific passages which are regarded as a contravention of the Official Secrets Acts’, suggesting that these could be ‘discussed with the author’.27 Scotland, meanwhile, proceeded to criticise the decision in public and was quoted in The Times, claiming that much of the information contained within his memoir had previously been revealed in open court, pointing to the Knochlein trial, during which several disclosures were made regarding the Cage.28 Prior to this, Scotland had visited the offices of MI11 using ‘threats, blandishments and every conceivable argument for quick approval of his manuscript’. His belligerent attitude continued in a subsequent meeting with Pulverman, during which Scotland stated that ‘the book would be published both in the UK and United States with a foreword saying that this was the book which the War Office refused to grant permission to publish’.29 Officials would no doubt have taken the threat seriously; the earlier publication by Chapman having shown Whitehall’s inability to prevent disclosures overseas – a weakness later exploited to great success by others, including J. C. Masterman, author of The Double Cross System. The authorities’ unwillingness to discuss changes led Greenfield to protest how ‘[t]his “censorship of silence” hardly accords with the various freedoms’ for which Scotland ‘served with considerable distinction in two major wars’. Greenfield claimed that Scotland’s character had suffered since 1947, when he had been ‘wrongly accused . . . of mistreating German prisoners at the London District Cage’. Ironically, given the earlier observation that the book illustrated breaches of the Geneva Convention, Greenfield argued how the banning of the memoir denied Scotland the opportunity of clearing his name.30 Browning also attempted to overturn the War Office decision, claiming that their stance had imposed a great hardship on author and publisher alike and suggesting that he was willing to work with the authorities to delete objectionable passages. Scotland’s memoir would also refute, he claimed, suggestions by Fritz Wentzel in his biography of Franz von Werra – a Luftwaffe pilot – that German prisoners of war had been ill-treated by their Allied captors.31 The War Office’s response was lukewarm. On 3 December, Broughton explained that objections were ‘only’ being made to the publication of information acquired by Scotland during ‘the course of his employment under the War Office’ and not material acquired outside of this period. With much of

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 255

21/02/2013 08:24

256

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the material detailing the former, Broughton suggested that ‘no good purpose’ would be served by complying with the request to discuss specific passages.32 This provoked further threats from Scotland. During a meeting with Diane Hewitt of the War Office on 4 January 1955, he announced his intention ‘to send the book to his friends in America who would arrange publication there’. Replying to suggestions that this would result in serious repercussions, Scotland went on to state ‘that he did not in the least mind going to prison’.33 Maintaining this position at a subsequent meeting with Wood on 20 January, Scotland said that, whatever happened, he intended to ‘publish the book in one form or another’, believing that the War Office would never prosecute and suggesting that, should they attempt legal action, he ‘would be happy to have the . . . authorities examined in Court’.34 By permitting the publication of The Man Who Never Was and The Scourge of the Swastika – an account detailing several German war crimes – he also argued that War Office policy was inconsistent.35 These books, in his view, contained information that was ‘far more . . . harmful’ than his memoir.36 Complicating matters further, the authorities also found themselves dealing with a film script, telling the story of Scotland’s wartime service.37 Scotland’s persistent belligerence now led the authorities to take serious measures. During a meeting attended by Bernard Hill, Commander Leonard Burt and Detective Superintendent Smith of Special Branch on 3 February, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Theobald Matthew, authorised action to confiscate Scotland’s manuscript, believing he was about to publish. Days later, having obtained the warrant, detectives travelled to Scotland’s home, seizing all correspondence regarding the book’s publication and a large quantity of material detailing work at the Cage, including interrogation reports and prisoner statements, allegedly retained ‘for security reasons’.38 Detectives also visited Greenfield to take possession of the manuscript. During questioning, Greenfield stated that, after he had received it, three copies were made and sent to the editor of Empire News, Evans Brothers, while he retained the last copy. Greenfield agreed to recover the copy from the editor of Empire News and submit this, as well as his own, to Special Branch. Questioned about publishing overseas, Greenfield answered that his company had not conducted any negotiations for the book to appear outside the Commonwealth. Further activity followed and, just days later, Smith approached Browning, who reiterated that, throughout the case, both he and his company had been willing to cooperate with the authorities and would not seek to publish without War Office approval. During the meeting, Browning expressed his strong disapproval of Scotland’s persistent intervention, claiming that this interference had occurred without his knowledge. Asked if he was prepared to hand over his manuscript, Browning – on the advice of the Evans Brothers’ solicitor –

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 256

21/02/2013 08:24

A Tale of Torture?

257

indicated that ‘serious consideration would have to be given to the matter’ if an official request was made, probably not to abandon any chance of publishing a revised form of The London Cage.39 Special Branch’s involvement led to increased interest in the case. In an article on 14 February, Scotland described the visit by detectives, detailing how he had handed over a ‘fairly thick wad of material’.40 By the next month, details also appeared in The New York Times.41 On 3 March, questions were addressed to the Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, in the House of Commons. Anthony Marlow – Conservative MP for Hove – enquired about the circumstances surrounding Special Branch action, asking the Home Secretary what evidence, if any, there was to suggest that Scotland had intended to break the Official Secrets Act and whether he was satisfied that, in carrying out action prior to an offence being committed, the Act had been correctly enforced. Lloyd George responded, arguing that the Act allowed a search warrant to be issued if it was clear that a breach of the Act was about to occur, effectively defending the granting of a warrant, citing Scotland’s threats to release a book ‘containing unauthorised disclosures of confidential information’.42 Responding, Marlowe portrayed Scotland as a loyal servant of the Crown, who had ‘served the country well’, and asked whether assurances could be given that detectives had not intervened to ‘enforce Foreign Office policy’.43 Anthony Greenwood – Labour MP for Rossendale – suggested that, rather than containing material damaging to security, Scotland’s manuscript questioned War Office competence during the war. Drawing attention to the paradoxical nature of War Office vetting, Greenwood echoed Marlowe’s sentiment, suggesting how it was unfortunate that Scotland should be ‘hounded . . . whilst more influential people, like Field Marshall Montgomery and the Prime Minister, have got away with publishing their memoirs based largely on official information’. Unable to comment, given the on-going nature of the case, the Home Secretary withdrew.44 The debate highlighted the contrasting cases of Scotland and others, such as Churchill. While the latter enjoyed privileged access to government papers, Scotland faced the wrath of Whitehall for attempting to tell his own wartime story.45 In short, there was one rule for the high and mighty and another for smaller fry. Scotland proceeded to prepare a heavily revised version of his memoir, now entitled The Scotland Story. This avoided any mention of his wartime service, focusing instead on his involvement in the war crimes trials, particularly his cross-examination in court. The first part of the manuscript was submitted to the War Office by early summer and quickly received approval. On 22 July, Broughton wrote that MI11 held no security objections.46 Details of the second half were provided by Greenfield later in the month, who explained that it would deal with the war crimes trials in which Scotland had testified and that he did

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 257

21/02/2013 08:24

258

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

‘not intend to discuss the London Cage nor any of the details of the work he did there’.47 By mid-September, the remainder of the manuscript was submitted. A memo by MI11 suggested that, as much of the information had been disclosed in court, the War Office held no objection to publication. Matthew agreed; writing that, in his view, any further demand to remove material would be ‘pedantic’ and that the book was unlikely to be a ‘sensational success’.48 At this point, Scotland’s ability to make reference to the Cage shifted unexpectedly in his favour. The serialisation of Cyril Jolly’s book, The Vengeance of Private Pooley, in the Evening Standard in December considerably undermined War Office arguments for the retention of information about the London Cage. Jolly’s account contained several references to the Cage and detailed the questioning of two war crimes witnesses, Signaller Albert Pooley and Private William O’Callaghan, by Scotland and other members of his unit.49 War Office surprise at the publication was apparent in a note dated 28 December, in which an official suggested that the department had known nothing about the book. The serialisation revived the controversy regarding the content of Scotland’s memoir. On 13  December, Greenfield, angered by Jolly’s account, wrote to Wood, demanding to know why references to the Paradis case appeared within Jolly’s account. Greenfield concluded by stating that, as material had been written concerning Scotland, it seemed unfair that ‘Scotland himself has not so far been permitted to tell his own version of the story’.50 Greenfield’s complaint over the serialisation of The Vengeance of Private Pooley led Curtis to write to Matthew, rightly predicting that the protest would not be the last regarding the case. He determined that some of the information gained by Jolly, including that about the Cage and Scotland, came from Pooley, who had been discharged from the Army prior to his visit to the Cage, and his disclosure of information to Jolly had occurred sometime after the Cage had ceased to exist as a ‘prohibited place’ under the Official Secrets Act. In response, Matthew noted that, although a place had ceased to be prohibited under the Act, this did not allow an individual to publish material about it, though he conceded that any decision to prosecute would be for the War Office to decide.51 No further correspondence about prosecution followed. Despite the absence of further archival material, it can be suggested that the unexpected appearance of Pooley’s account provided Scotland with considerable leverage to mention the Cage, both in wartime and during the subsequent war crimes enquiries, in his now revised memoir – the most obvious alteration being the change of title from The Scotland Story to The London Cage. Scotland also found that he was able to discuss his War Office service. While the cases of the U-boat officers and the ‘young Nazi’ were removed from the final book, details of the Cage’s wartime operations were retained, despite the earlier assur-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 258

21/02/2013 08:24

A Tale of Torture?

259

ances from Greenfield. While brief, segueing between Scotland’s pre-war and post-war experiences, Scotland made clear reference to the Cage, describing it as an ‘important transit camp’. In addition, examples of wartime interrogation were also included. One of these, a traumatised survivor of the German warship Bismarck – the ‘Boy Who Wouldn’t Stop Laughing’ – was said to have surrendered information on ‘the latest types of German mines’.52 Another case involved ‘the Graf Spee spy’, part of a South American ‘Nazi spy ring’, who ‘resigned himself’ to answering Scotland’s questions after extensive interrogation.53 The Cage again featured in the latter part of the memoir, concerning ‘the most massive task of all – the investigation of War Crimes’.54 This part of Scotland’s memoir, while telling the story of several war crimes cases, included detailed references to interrogations conducted at the Cage, primarily to deny accusations of ill-treatment – claims that had ‘greatly troubled’ Scotland. In his account, Scotland vigorously denied allegations that he, and members of his staff, turned to violence to exact confessions, explaining: ‘We were not so foolish to imagine that petty violence, nor even violence of a stronger character, was likely to produce the results we hoped’.55 In the case of Fritz Knochlein, who, during his trial, had alleged the use of coercive techniques, Scotland provided information to the contrary, referring to his ‘pitiful behaviour’ at the Cage. During his final nights at the Cage, Scotland stated that Knochlein ‘began screaming in a half-crazed fashion, so that the guards . . . were at a loss to know how to control him’. The next evening, Scotland ‘removed everything from his room, even his bed – leaving only a mattress on the floor to ensure that he did no damage’.56 Other examples citing the Cage included the investigations into the deaths of unarmed RAF personnel, following their escape from a German prisoner of war camp. One example was the interrogation of Max Wielen – head of the Criminal Police in Breslau – later sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the killings, who Scotland threatened to ‘punch on the nose’.57 While detailing post-war experiences, these and other examples gave insight into the Cage and came from information obtained during Scotland’s employment with the War Office. * * * This chapter has illustrated the somewhat random nature of post-war secrecy in Britain. While the authorities certainly attempted to suppress the release of intelligence-related material in the post-war years, their efforts to do so were not always successful. Officials could only attempt to prevent the appearance of such publications if pre-warned of their existence and were powerless to prevent disclosures from would-be publishers and authors who refused to play by the rules. In such cases, an aversion to resort to retrospective measures – which would likely draw further unwanted attention to a subject considered sensitive – tended

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 259

21/02/2013 08:24

260

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

to result in little action being taken. Absurdly, by submitting their work for official approval, authors such as Scotland effectively created their own worst case scenario: the risk of their books being banned and the prospect of prosecution. By informing the authorities and subsequently adopting a somewhat combative stance, Scotland invoked the wrath of Whitehall, culminating in the involvement of Special Branch and the confiscation of his manuscript and papers. Through these actions, the case certainly illustrates that the authorities were perfectly willing to take action to halt the release of what was considered sensitive information into the public domain. Yet, even after such action was taken, Scotland was eventually able to publish more on the subject of the Cage and prisoner interrogation than the authorities wished, on account of the publication of another, hitherto unknown, book – The Vengeance of Private Pooley. The authorities were frustrated in their efforts to constrain Scotland by the actions of those who were willing to ‘publish and be damned’; Scotland’s eventual ability to refer to the Cage was not, as Donald Thomas suggests, the result of parliamentary and press interest, but a consequence of the unauthorised, and unexpected, release of material on the Cage by Cyril Jolly.

Notes 1 Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), p. 1. By 1945, details of the work of Britain’s Special Operations Executive had begun to emerge, see Mark Seaman, ‘Good Thrillers, But Bad History: A Review of Published Works on the Special Operations Executive’s Work in France during the Second World War’, in K. G. Robertson (ed.), War, Resistance and Intelligence: Essays in Honour of M. R. D. Foot (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999), pp. 119–49. 2 See Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence Since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119(483), 2004, pp. 922–53. 3 CAB 21/3943, Brook to Clement Attlee, 5 November 1950; Ewan Montague, The Man Who Never Was (London: Evans Brothers, 1953). 4 Ben Macintyre, Agent ZIGZAG: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 318; Nicholas Booth, ZigZag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman (London: Portrait, 2007), p. 302. 5 Biographical material outlining Scotland can be found in A. P. Scotland, The London Cage (London: Evans Brothers, 1957). For previous accounts of the publication of The London Cage, see David Hooper, Official Secrets: The Use and Abuse of the Act (London: Coronet, 1988), p. 246; Donald Thomas, Freedom’s Frontier: Censorship in Modern Britain (London: John Murray, 2007), pp. 296–7. 6 On the importance of wartime interrogations, see Kent Fedorowich, ‘Axis Prisoners of War as Sources for British Military Intelligence, 1939–42’, Intelligence and National Security, 14(2), 1999, pp. 156–78; Andrew Barry Sullivan, Thresholds of

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 260

21/02/2013 08:24

A Tale of Torture?

7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

261

Peace: Four Hundred Thousand German Prisoners and the People of Britain, 1944–48 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979). WO 208/4294, Note on the operations of the War Crimes Interrogation Unit, 30 November 1948. Liddell 9/24/195 (Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, LHCMA); Fred Redman and Joseph Garrity, ‘The Strange Case of the Hanged Colonel’, Sunday Pictorial, 20 January 1949; WO 208/4685, London District Cage: Complaints of Ill Treatment by War Criminal Fritz Knoechlein and Heins Druwe. For recent revelations regarding the allegations, see Ian Cobain, ‘The Secrets of the London Cage’, The Guardian, 12 November 2005, p. 8. Liddell 9/24/195, Statement about occurrences in the London District Cage by Fritz Knoechlein; Scotland, The London Cage, p. 85. WO 208/5381, Statement by Greenfield, 15 February 1955. WO 208/5381, Greenfield to Scotland, 12 November 1953. WO 208/5381, Statement by Superintendent Smith, 17 February 1955. WO 208/5381, Statement by Scotland, 11 December 1955. WO 208/5381, Mitchell to Scotland, 16 May 1954. WO 208/5381, Statement by Scotland, 11 December 1955; WO 208/5381, Scotland to Greenfield, 19 December 1953. WO 208/5381, Greenfield to Scotland, 6 June 1954. WO 208/5381, Waterfield to Pulverman, 31 July 1954. Thomas, Freedom’s Frontier, p. 296. WO 208/5381, Broughton, ‘Article; “The London Cage” ’, 9 August 1954. WO 208/5381, Broughton to Director of Public Prosecutions, 9 September 1954. WO 208/5381, Memorandum by Pulverman, 3 September 1954. WO 208/5381, Boucher to VCIGS, 16 August 1954. WO 208/5381, ‘Security Service Report’, 26 January 1955. WO 208/5381, ‘Security Service Report’, 26 January 1955. WO 208/5381, ‘Security Service Report’, 26 January 1955. Official Secrets Act 1911 (Original as Enacted), available at: http://www.legislation. gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/1-2/28/contents/enacted. WO 208/5381, Greenfield to Wood, 30 August 1954. ‘Colonels Book Banned’, The Times, 25 August 1955. WO 208/5381, ‘Article “The London Cage” ’, 13 August 1954. WO 208/5381. Greenfield to Wood, 8 September 1954. WO 208/5381, Browning to Wood, 16 November 1954; Fritz Wentzel, Single or Return? (London: William Kimber, 1954). WO 208/5381, ‘The London Cage-Lt. Col. Scotland’, 3 December 1954. WO 208/5381, Hewitt to MI11, 4 January 1955. WO 208/5381, ‘Interview – Col. Scotland’, 20 January 1955. See Edward Frederick Langley Russell, The Scourge of the Swastika: A Short History of Nazi War Crimes (London: Cassell, 1954). WO 208/5381, ‘Interview – Col. Scotland’, 20 January 1955. The script led to the film The Two-Headed Spy. Allegedly a ‘true’ account of Scotland’s wartime exploits, it told the fictitious story of General ‘Schottland’ played by Jack Hawkins – a German staff officer and British ‘master spy’ who courageously ‘fooled Hitler’. Due to a lack of interest in a ‘fictional script’, the producers attempted to

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 261

21/02/2013 08:24

262

38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

portray the film as ‘the true story of how the allies secured secret information from inside Germany’. While they could find no security objections to the script, War Office officials held reservations concerning the producer’s claim that the film was ‘based on a true story’ and asked for any such claims to be removed (WO 32/16025, Film Britain’s Two-Headed Spy: provision of facilities and correspondence with Colonel A. P. Scotland). WO 208/5381, ‘Lt. Col. A. P. Scotland – Retention of Official Documents’, 7 March 1955. WO 208/5381, ‘Metropolitan Police, Special Branch’, 15 February 1955. This final outstanding manuscript was handed to Special Branch on 11 March after the intervention of the Attorney General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller. ‘Colonel’s Banned Book: Visit From Special Branch Officials’, The Times, 14 February 1955. ‘British Spy Seeks to Tell His Story’, The New York Times, 2 March 1955. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 537, cc. 2213, 3 March 1955. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 537, cc. 2213–4. Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 537, cc. 2214. On Churchill’s multi-volume war memoir, see David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (New York, NY: Random House, 2005); David Reynolds, ‘The Ultra Secret and Churchill’s War Memoirs’, Intelligence and National Security, 20(2), 2005, pp. 209–24. WO 208/5381, Broughton to Wood, 22 July 1955. WO 208/5381, Greenfield to Wood, 26 July 1955. WO 208/5381, Matthew to Curtis, 14 December 1955. For references to Scotland within the text, see Cyril Jolly, The Vengeance of Private Pooley (London: William Heinemann, 1956), pp. 153–6. Pooley was one of two survivors of a massacre perpetrated by second SS ‘Totenkopf’ on 27 May 1940 near La Paradis, France. WO 208/5381, Greenfield to Wood, 13 December 1955. WO 208/5381, Hornby to Greenfield, 28 December 1955. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 70. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 71. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 72. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 159. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 86. Scotland, The London Cage, p. 137.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 262

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 14 1968 – ‘A YEAR TO REMEMBER’ FOR THE STUDY OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE? Adam D. M. Svendsen*

Nineteen-sixty-eight was a momentous year for a multitude of reasons. In the wider context of the Cold War, the ‘Prague Spring’ was underway in Eastern Europe, whilst the war in Vietnam was gathering an ugly momentum. Both Martin Luther King and Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy were assassinated.1 Albeit mixed, uneven and occurring on incremental bases, in the context of British intelligence, trends towards a greater degree of ‘liberalisation’ were gradually emerging. As scholar Richard J. Aldrich has argued vis-à-vis the world of intelligence and amid various political propaganda battles: ‘Secret service exploits were emerging as one of the most eye-catching variants of the Cold War story and each side wished to be seen as ahead in this clandestine war’. Among many activities conducted by intelligence communities, a forward lead in helping to shape overall narratives, extending to wider discourses, was adopted. Aldrich continued: ‘Accordingly, the 1960s were peppered with authorised memoirs by veterans of secret service’.2 And the year 1968 was no exception. On closer examination, 1968 stands out as a significant year for the study of British intelligence. Significantly, a revised second edition of M. R. D. Foot’s ‘classic study’, SOE in France (1966), appeared – in essence, refining a text which can be regarded as forming the first overt ‘“official history” in all but name’3 of a British secret service (the Second World War era Special Operations Executive). Also significant were two other intelligence books. First, British journalist and former intelligence officer Donald McLachlan’s Room 39: Naval Intelligence in * Adam D. M. Svendsen would like to acknowledge and thank David Higham Associates Ltd, London, for their generous permission to use material from Donald McLachlan, Room 39: Naval Intelligence in Action 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968). Permission was also extensively sought to use the extracts from Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong, Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of an Intelligence Officer (London: Cassell, 1968). However, despite best efforts at investigation with due diligence (with thanks to Orion, Continuum, Random House and Octopus publishers of London), unfortunately, no record of the current rights holder could be found.

263

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 263

21/02/2013 08:24

264

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Action 1939–45; and, second, retired senior British military intelligence officer Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong’s memoirs: Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of an Intelligence Officer.4 While SOE in France has generated a sizeable reflexive literature, both Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top are also deserving of in-depth analysis by scholars. Henceforth, they form the main focus of this chapter.5 RATIONALES, MOTIVATIONS AND INTENTS?

Further background contextualisation of these texts is helpful. Together with Oxford Professor and former wartime British intelligence officer Hugh TrevorRoper’s offering in The Philby Affair (1968), some addressing of perceived widespread ‘intelligence imbalances’ and/or other intelligence-related ‘misconceptions’ can be claimed as being provided by McLachlan and Strong.6 However precisely conceptualised in its overall configuration, this ‘addressing effect’ soon emerged as especially useful, even timely. The publication of Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top occurred, whether merely by coincidence or due to the natural ‘ebb’ and ‘flow’ of time, around the same time as My Silent War – the captivating memoirs of ‘Cambridge Five’ Soviet spy Harold (H. A. R.) ‘Kim’ Philby. My Silent War was completely unauthorised and included a foreword by the famous British novelist and former wartime MI6 officer Graham Greene.7 Strikingly, both Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top were published in a period when British intelligence was under an uncomfortable degree of public scrutiny. The biggest ‘headline-grabbing’ event came in 1967 with the so-called ‘D-Notice Affair’, which saw renowned British investigative journalist Chapman Pincher disclose illegal ‘cable monitoring’ by the UK Government’s Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).8 Different partisan camps were forming. As highlighted by the common saying ‘nature abhors a vacuum’, contemporary evaluations of the subject of intelligence were similarly suffering from all of its surrounding attendant secrecy. A greater degree of ‘neutrality’ regarding its examination required better encouragement, together with greater ‘transparency’ – if not ‘openness’ – being actively encouraged. As many suitably informed and knowledgeable commentators increasingly argued, including Greene, the need for the greater discussion of intelligence on ‘better-balanced’ terms, particularly in Britain, was growing.9 PIONEERING WORKS?

The stimulus and, indeed, the rationale for exploring McLachlan and Strong’s books stems from their treatment alongside one another in a book review

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 264

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

265

of Intelligence at the Top. The review, which featured during April 1969 in International Affairs – the journal of the British Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) – was written by another well-informed individual. This individual was Ronald Lewin: a Royal Artillery officer during the Second World War and later an employee of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and established military historian.10 Although the review itself is brief, Lewin quickly recognised and conveyed the importance of these two books. He argued that they ‘are a stimulating start for that process of opening closed doors in which the British lag far behind the Americans’, a trend which he attributed to ‘reasons which may seem watertight to the [Military] Service Departments in Whitehall but sometimes appear faintly ridiculous to the dispassionate student’.11 In his foreword to Room 39, then Admiral of the British Navy Fleet Earl Louis Mountbatten declared: This book tells an absorbing story for any reader. It is also an important story to have on the record for future generations of Commanders of all three Services. I hope it will be a much used book in all Staff College Libraries.12

These commendations were not merely hyped-up in the style of Mad Men 1960s advertising and marketing rhetoric. Today, in 2012, some forty-four years after their original publication, these two texts continue to respond remarkably well to being revisited by both the ‘informed’ and ‘novice’ reader, especially when exploring the historiography of British intelligence. This chapter now continues with a general discussion of both Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top. In particular, attention will be given to what they can offer students of British intelligence history. Moreover, it will ask whether they have any relevance to the contemporary intelligence practitioner. PRELIMINARY INSIGHTS

Briefly leafing through both Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top allows for the ready communication of several preliminary insights. Room 39 and Intelligence at the Top reflected the main forms of ‘serious’ non-fiction literature on British intelligence available in 1968.13 Both authors were conscious of this fact. As Strong observed in his introduction: Three kinds of books have been written about Intelligence. First, there are spy stories, written in the main to be taken at a draught and then forgotten; of these only a few – largely those concerned with the activities of real agents – are serious contributions to the study of affairs.14

He continued, outlining further diversity within contemporary intelligence studies literature: ‘Secondly, there are some earnest tomes, almost all American,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 265

21/02/2013 08:24

266

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

whose object is to outline the role of Intelligence in support of national policymaking; these are mainly academic studies, intended for specialist readers’ and, finally: ‘The third group consists of autobiographies or memoirs by actual Intelligence officers. Books of this kind are relatively rare’. Strong, unsurprisingly, was under no illusions as to where he saw his own contribution fitting into the overall literature: ‘It is to this third group that my book belongs’.15 Meanwhile, Room 39 reflects what could be termed a ‘lite’ history of an institution – in this case, the British Naval Intelligence Department (NID) during the Second World War. Boasting at least some initial ‘foundational’ value, this volume is substantially informed by, first, McLachlan’s personal first-hand experience of having worked in the NID institution itself – most notably, in terms of his intelligence work, he served on the personal staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence (1941–5), including an attachment to the Psychological Warfare Division of US Army General Dwight Eisenhower’s staff (1944–5); as well as, second, being further enlightened by his extensive consultation of other suitably informed contemporaries, including Strong – himself a holder of several important high-ranking wartime and post-war intelligence posts, both within Whitehall and beyond;16 and, third, by McLachlan having similarly consulted many of his former NID colleagues.17 Room 39 appropriately belongs to the category characterised by Strong as that of ‘earnest tomes’. Moreover, it substantially represents what can be regarded as a good example of a rare, early British contribution to that group. From an official perspective, McLachlan was a respected individual, someone who was ‘on-message’ about the world of intelligence. By working at prominent Establishment-friendly news outlets, such as The Economist and The Sunday Telegraph, he had respectable credentials. His ‘safe’ status was demonstrably the case, as suggested by his consideration for other ‘sensitive’ intelligence-related jobs during the Cold War, including after his respected earlier wartime performance in the NID.18 Indeed, perhaps it was from their knowledge of one another and their respective thinking, which can offer us an explanation for Lewin’s remark, in his early-1969 review of Intelligence at the Top, that: ‘It is interesting to observe how McLachlan and Sir Kenneth converge in their final assessments’. He continued: ‘Both stress strongly, as a result of the realities of wartime, the need for Services (and indeed for Allies) to organise and maintain a joint Intelligence set-up’.19 Written by well-placed former British Intelligence ‘insiders’, Intelligence at the Top and Room 39 both offered authoritative contributions to the overall developing field of intelligence studies, then in its very early days. In the public domain, much unhelpful ‘noise’ surrounding contemporary interpretations of ‘intelligence’ was also becoming increasingly apparent during the 1960s. By

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 266

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

267

contrast, Strong and McLachlan offered a clearer ‘top-down’, more ‘officially’ imbued picture. Both authors ably sampled more widely than merely their own, personal thoughts. They both drew on the valuable insights of friends and colleagues while crafting their work. For Strong, this included allies from abroad, such as former CIA Director Allen Dulles (who had earlier written his own ‘guiding’ book, The Craft of Intelligence, published in 1963). Strong also befriended Professor Sherman Kent – the traditional doyen of US intellectual thought on the field of intelligence analysis. With Dulles’ support, Kent launched the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence journal in the late 1950s, devoted to raising intelligence studies to the level of ‘serious’ scholarship. Strong was also able to consult Canadian colleagues, with whom he had liaised with in an intelligence capacity.20 In their texts, both McLachlan and Strong tried to capture what intelligence meant to practitioners. Moreover, in their respective explorations, they both tried to offer a range of ‘lessons learnt’. Indeed, their ‘retirements’ were anything but: they further attempted to ‘broach’, if not, at this early stage, going as far as to ‘bridge’, the contemporaneous ‘scholarship-study/practitioner’, ‘insider/ outsider’ or ‘poacher/gamekeeper’ divides that they each encountered.21 As Strong remarked, in his introduction to Intelligence at the Top: ‘I have thought it appropriate to use my experience as a basis for comment upon certain aspects of Intelligence organization and on the relationship of Intelligence to national policy and decision-making’.22 Therefore, those studying present-day intelligence, together with its historical development, can learn much from what both McLachlan and Strong had to say. DONALD MCLACHLAN AND ROOM 39

Demonstrating Room 39’s heuristic value, glimpses into the contemporaneous thinking about intelligence at the end of the 1960s are offered. More specifically regarding the organisation of intelligence, as Mountbatten noted: ‘One of the chief lessons this book brings out is the enormous benefit which the British gained from realizing that Intelligence must be a joint Service activity’. He continued: ‘The other main impression the book has made on me is the outstanding success of civilians, in and out of uniform, in some of the most vital Intelligence jobs’.23 Furthering perspectives into civilian/military (CIV/MIL) and intelligencerelated ‘comprehensive approach’ areas, ranging more widely to dealing with organisational/institutional issues, McLachlan ably provided some current insights into British intelligence developments at an arguably pivotal time of its reorganisation – namely, soon after the unitary UK Ministry of Defence

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 267

21/02/2013 08:24

268

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

had been created in 1964. Notably, as he remarked: ‘at the time of writing, the process of integrating Intelligence is well under way after some eighty years of independent – or almost independent – naval activity in this field’.24 McLachlan demonstrated where he believed any discourse on intelligence should ideally begin. This was accomplished through his early presentation of a working ‘functional’ definition of ‘intelligence’. While continuing to be a controversial area within intelligence studies, fraught with multiple difficulties, McLachlan argued that: ‘Simply defined, intelligence is no more than information about events or people’. Extending his definition, he claimed: ‘Give the word a capital letter and it stands for a vast area of state activity, both in peace and war. Take the capital letter away again and it still stands for something more than bare fact’.25 McLachlan was also quick to debunk any whiffs of conspiracy surrounding the phenomenon of intelligence, beloved by intelligence fantasists. ‘If Intelligence has come to be associated above all with espionage, violence and skulduggery that is the fault chiefly of fiction writers; but they have been given their opportunity to romance’ – here referring to intelligence being intimately associated with covert action and other clandestine, paramilitary and readily deniable activities.26 In his writing, McLachlan was clearly keen to encourage a greater degree of ‘openness’ to address what he saw as gaps and imbalances within the overall history of the Second World War: Foremost in the minds of those who helped to get this book started was the conviction that so long as nothing is written about this aspect of the war against Germany, Italy and Japan, the historical record would be seriously incomplete and unbalanced.27

Because he clearly had only limited documentary access, McLachlan humbly urged: ‘I hope that this study – it is neither full enough nor sufficiently documented to claim the word history – may open a new vein for historians’ mining’.28 Indeed, the last sentence of Room 39 suggested an area that was ready for future research in 1968: ‘How the [Naval Intelligence] Division met the challenge of the First World War is a theme which has still to find its historian’.29 This formed a call that Patrick Beesly later answered in a well-accomplished manner in 1982.30 McLachlan offered more than just peripheral educative utility to intelligence practitioners. He argued that his study: should also show that the work demands special kinds of skills and courage, that it merits more respect as an intellectual and administrative activity than Service opinion has generally given it, and that the picture of it created by fiction writers is for the most part a great nonsense.31

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 268

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

269

Again, he was keen to ‘mythbust’ and, arguably, better establish the discipline of the serious scholarly study of intelligence. Sturdy parameters were established for his work. McLachlan highlighted caveats for, what he believed, could be accomplished in 1968. Several frustrations were apparent: Anyone who sets out to write seriously about Intelligence has to accept in advance certain limitations. Because it has been surrounded with secrecy, which has generated myth, the subject is ill defined. The very word provokes in different people completely different expectations. Because it has to do with methods and tricks which may be needed again, some think it wise to remind enemies as little as possible of past triumphs and failures. Because so much of the work goes unrecorded on paper, lost forever in scrambled talk and burnt teleprinter flimsies, any account must be incomplete. One runs, therefore, the risk of arousing the historian’s interest without fully satisfying his curiosity.32

Reminding us that a degree of methodological reflection about any work on intelligence is essential, he later emphasised that: ‘Sources being so personal, uneven and diverse this study may appear as unbalanced as it is incomplete’.33 Prolonging his important methodological introspection, he reminded modern intelligence studies scholars of the central ‘archival constraints’ confronting them: ‘The sources available have been limited by the fifty years rule which, at the time of writing, is only just giving way to the thirty year rule about access to official documents’.34 Some greater ‘liberalisation’ was gradually beginning to emerge, as evidenced by the second edition of SOE in France. McLachlan, too, was a beneficiary of the fact that Whitehall was beginning to ‘relax a little’, with the Naval Historical Branch of the Ministry of Defence giving him support.35 Some disappointment with McLachlan’s book was inevitable. In his review of Room 39 in the journal Military Affairs, former US Intelligence officer Robert E. Bublitz particularly criticised the scholarly deficiencies of Room 39, lamenting: One approaches Room 39 anticipating a solid buffet of scholarship, spiced with tales of wartime exploits and complemented by the wine of mature contemplation. The spice is fine, but the buffet unfortunately lacks scholarly substance and the conclusions are poorly presented.36

Despite his criticism of Room 39, Bublitz did provide some contextualisation. He acknowledged the sizeable ‘archive-deficit’ problems then confronted by McLachlan, with the qualifying comment: ‘British Naval archives remain closed to scholars until 1975’. More positively, Bublitz concluded: ‘Room 39 points the way for the more scholarly treatment Operational Intelligence deserves. Until it is, Room 39 is the best work available on this important area of Military Intelligence’. By 1968, the current rate of progress was appropriately captured by his concluding remark: ‘Such endeavors move slowly, however’.37

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 269

21/02/2013 08:24

270

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Generally, given all the methodological and document access-related constraints he confronted, McLachlan’s study was suitably ambitious for the era. Even while a substantial degree of caution remained, he could offer some further valuable insights. For instance, in his coverage of topics, he did not shy away from addressing major themes, even enduringly ‘sensitive’ ones, such as intelligence liaison. On the theme of international intelligence cooperation, he revealed: Increasingly after 1948 [international intelligence] work was shared with allies. Either directly and bilaterally with the Navy Department in Washington, which had shown itself ready to continue close co-operation with NID in London [postwar]; or less directly and multilaterally with a dozen or more North Atlantic Treaty [NATO] allies in Paris.38

Indeed, taking this last theme further, for students of the history of AngloAmerican intelligence relations, as Bublitz noted in his review of Room 39: ‘the efforts of British Naval Intelligence to tutor the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence and establish a broad US/UK intelligence exchange program are particularly interesting’.39 Further research ‘stimulants’ which could, and would, be followed up further into the future were increasingly crystallising.40 The recurrent theme of the ‘educational influence’ of UK intelligence on US intelligence, found throughout intelligence studies literature, was, again, distinct.41 Showing Room 39’s enduring utility, in 2001, another well-respected former British intelligence officer Michael Herman recommended it as one of ‘the best introductions to the all-source [intelligence product] role’.42 Moreover, according to the ‘Introduction to catalogue’ of the collection of papers assembled in 1981 by Captain Stephen Roskill – naval historian and former Keeper of the Archives at the Churchill Archives Centre, University of Cambridge – McLachlan was rated as one of ‘the best qualified and most successful writers on British Naval Intelligence in the 20th century’.43 By 2012, McLachlan’s work has evidently stood the test of time well. Albeit perhaps frequently being overlooked or forgotten, Room 39 actually imparts some valuable knowledge and insights. Instead, therefore, it should arguably be considered more suitably and become better regarded more widely on general bases, as holding a sufficiently important position within the early, specialist and overall ‘serious’ intelligence studies literature. Students should be directed to better consider what Room 39 has to impart on the theme of British intelligence and its closely related entities. As many of McLachlan’s highly personalised quotes ‘speak for themselves’, Room 39’s dusting off is a worthwhile effort. Here, we should also recall that more oral-style histories similarly have their value and, while simultaneously heeding human intelligence (HUMINT) constructs and parameters, their ‘voices’, likewise, deserve to be heard.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 270

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

271

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR KENNETH STRONG AND INTELLIGENCE AT THE TOP

On 9 May 1966, Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong retired from his final senior post as the first Director General of Intelligence, UK Ministry of Defence (1964–6).44 Intelligence at the Top was published two years later. Although his book was declared as being ‘mainly autobiographical’, similar to McLachlan’s contribution, Strong, too, sought to provide some of his thoughts regarding British intelligence. He was keen to do so, despite his personal reservation about the value of ‘opening up’ about intelligence. In an important caveat, he wrote: ‘public discussion of Intelligence must be inhibited by the inevitable secret content of the topic’.45 The careful exploration of intelligence was stressed. However, offering some further ‘added value’ to his account, alongside his more traditional memoir treatment, Strong attempted a scholarly approach, noting: ‘I have made free use of the literature now available’.46 In-depth open sources regarding intelligence were becoming increasingly accessible to the informed reader, provided that they knew where to look or who to ask. While he keenly sought to avoid any sensationalism in his account – ‘[t]he reader will find no explosive secrets or dramatic revelations in its pages, for a great deal of Intelligence work is not concerned with the secret and the esoteric’47 – Strong was interested in providing readers with greater ‘openness’ regarding intelligence. Indeed, as he emphasised during his process of contextualisation: ‘it is undesirable and unhealthy that there should be no public debate or consideration of a subject that is of crucial importance in national and international decision-making, and to which, after all, public funds are devoted’. He also deemed that: ‘Public debate is also necessary in order to avoid currency being given to wrong conceptions of Intelligence’.48 On the theme of accountability, Strong astutely remarked: ‘I doubt whether I shall be able to say enough to satisfy the political analyst that there is no scope for the abuse of the power which is inherent in any apparatus that deals in secret information’. Yet, while remaining somewhat enigmatic, he carefully sought to offer some reassurance: ‘Nevertheless, I am well satisfied that procedures and institutions exist for preventing abuses even though they do not operate in full public view’.49 Distinct areas of the intelligence world clearly continued to be more ‘fenced-off’ from external scrutiny at the time of writing.50 Deeply extending security and counter-intelligence (CI) related ‘smoke’ and ‘mirrors’ persisted in their presence and placement. However, the ‘blocks’ encountered did not have an entirely hindering effect. In his discussion of the question ‘what is intelligence?’, Strong presented, first,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 271

21/02/2013 08:24

272

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

a ‘structural’ definition of intelligence. He argued: ‘In the first place it can be seen as representing an array of antennae through which a Government receives messages or signals that determine its image of the world to which its policies must relate’.51 He then followed with a definition of ‘intelligence’ that, like McLachlan’s definition, was more ‘functional’ in its nature: ‘Secondly, Intelligence can be regarded as an insurance policy’.52 Unsurprisingly, since he was a former practitioner and high-level manager, both practical and pragmatic considerations loomed large in his definition. Strong sought to convey many insights. Another argument he emphasised and which continues to be highly worthy of note by scholars of intelligence today, particularly to newcomers to the subject, is that: ‘The initial point of any discussion of Intelligence is of course a definition of the word’.53 Highlighting persisting problems encountered when defining intelligence, he pondered a familiar intellectual dilemma surrounding conceptualisation of the subject’s core terms: ‘Perhaps [my] definitions of Intelligence do not differentiate it sufficiently from other forms of government activity. Many departments of government need information on foreign countries in the normal course of their work’.54 Differences and the on-going dynamic interplay between the two terms of ‘information’ and ‘intelligence’ were articulated. Importantly, in his knowledgeable methodological explorations, Strong highlighted the multidisciplinary nature of intelligence. He stressed: ‘Intelligence . . . is not concerned primarily with a single-subject approach to the study of foreign phenomena. In support of policy-making at the highest national level Intelligence prepares balanced and comprehensive “multi-subject” appreciations of present and likely future situations’.55 He went on: A true Intelligence appreciation . . . is a balanced fusing of all the ingredients which contribute to an understanding of international relations. It is also objective . . . Intelligence is – or should be – free of pressure or prejudice, whether engendered within government or by groups outside the government.56

This is a lesson that is deserving of wider dissemination, especially in the context of the extended controversy surrounding the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, which continues to cast a long shadow today.57 Sustaining his analysis in a comprehensive manner, Strong raised further intelligence-related methodological problems. Notably, he cited qualitative (or cultural) ‘failings’: ‘We [in Britain] have sometimes had to contend with certain common scientific faults: lack of humility, trust in the universal beneficence of quantitative analysis, and neglect of areas where the latter cannot be brought to bear’.58 This echoes the oft-referenced argument concerning over-reliance on technical intelligence (TECHINT) and, by association, technology and techno-

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 272

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

273

cratic considerations, at the expense of cultural and ‘human factors’ and human intelligence (HUMINT).59 Strong also stressed another resonating contemporary theme, namely, the ‘professionalisation’ process of intelligence.60 Concerning the organisation of intelligence, cultural factors figured prominently, with Strong remarking: ‘The members [of a ‘national Intelligence staff’] should be intellectual equals and have equal access to all materials. Positions should be elaborated by consensus, and there should be provision for the expression of minority views’.61 Moreover, Strong offered his views on that perennial of themes, which continues to challenge intelligence communities to this day, namely, ‘recruiting troubles’. He conveyed his concern about an over-reliance on the idea, in Britain, that: ‘our much-advertised improvisatory brilliance will enable us to muddle through’, urging the adoption of a more scientific and organised approach, which included a mini-comparison to the system in America: The United States CIA has been able to recruit some of the best minds in its country for work of this kind – men who are attracted less by the salary and influence than by the unique fascination of this contemporary style of international pattern weaving.62

Britain, he felt, could learn much from their approach. Further useful lessons from history were presented, with critical judgement passed on the style of recruitment of the Cambridge Five.63 Similarly to McLachlan, Strong thought highly of Anglo-American intelligence relations. Indeed, according to his introduction, he even wrote Intelligence at the Top, at least in part, to ‘keep a promise made to [US Army] General Bedell Smith, Eisenhower’s wartime Chief of Staff, almost twenty years ago’.64 Again invoking the spirit of wartime camaraderie, Strong additionally dedicated Intelligence at the Top to: ‘old friends on both sides of the Atlantic’. With somewhat of an influential impact, American counterparts and colleagues were again, at least in part, helping to show the way forward to their British friends. Strong tackled the significance of the enduring ‘customer (user or consumer)– producer relationship’ during his analysis of intelligence. He declared that: The relationship between Intelligence on the one hand, and policy and decisionmaking on the other, are of course of crucial importance, and deserve special mention . . . If the Intelligence officer is to select the significant for study and comment he must be constantly aware of policy interests and concerns.65

The issue of intelligence ‘requirements’ figured significantly. Further demonstrating substantial degrees of continuity within the intelligence world over time, Strong’s conclusion from 1968 overlaps neatly with that expressed in 2006 by a former US Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 273

21/02/2013 08:24

274

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Production, Mark Lowenthal, who reinforced the lesson that intelligence ‘serves and is subservient to policy’ and that intelligence ‘works best – analytically and operationally – when tied to clearly understood policy goals’.66 Ultimately, Lewin’s overarching observation concerning Intelligence at the Top – namely, that: ‘It is impossible to summarise [(all)] the rewarding details in this book’67 – continues to resonate, to an extent. For Strong’s continued relevance almost thirty years later, in his groundbreaking book published in 1996, Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Michael Herman cited Strong’s memoirs (alongside those of former US Directors of Central Intelligence William ‘Bill’ Colby and Admiral Stansfield Turner) as providing useful ‘impressions of management at the top level’.68 According to his earlier definition, Strong could also be seen as providing somewhat of an ‘earnest tome’. Over time, Intelligence at the Top has continued to provide an array of important and relevant insights concerning intelligence. In their endurance, these insights still resonate to a considerable extent today. Indeed, there is a harmonious overlap between Strong’s insights and those provided more recently by Sir David Omand.69 Contemporary practitioners and students of intelligence ought to continue to take note of these lessons. CONCLUSION

During 1968, a greater degree of ‘liberalisation’ was slowly emerging surrounding the subject of intelligence. This trend was also beginning to be reflected textually. Perhaps some old-age ‘mellowing’ was taking place?70 When generally exploring the landscape of the historiography of British intelligence studies, arguably, some notable contributions to the literature were made in 1968. As this chapter has demonstrated, these are certainly deserving of some further contemporary analysis. Both the books explored in this chapter – McLachlan’s Room 39 and Strong’s Intelligence at the Top – continued the trend of demonstrating that the domain of defence and military intelligence (MI or MILINT) substantially led the way for pioneering the ‘serious’ study of intelligence. This was followed shortly afterwards by signals intelligence (SIGINT) focused tomes. Following common trends and past continuities – perhaps even, at times, to what might be considered paradoxical degrees – those contributors helped lead the way.71 Albeit heavily caveated, collectively, these contributions from 1968 could offer some increased ‘opening-up’ regarding British intelligence. Eroding some of the barriers constructed by secrecy considerations, this was especially concerning how intelligence operated historically during the Second World War. Indeed, arguably, that objective was clearly one of the authors’ main intentions.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 274

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

275

Published on the cusp of the 1970s, these books helped to contribute towards further developments. In short, Strong and McLachlan assisted in paving the way for others. Other texts that followed included: Strong’s Men of Intelligence (1970);72 Patrick Beesly’s Very Special Intelligence (1977) and his Room 40 (1982);73 Frederick Winterbotham’s The Ultra Secret (1974); Ronald Lewin’s Ultra goes to War (1978) and The Other Ultra (1982); and former Bletchley Park intelligence officer Peter Calvocoressi’s ‘The Value of Enigma’ (1977).74 As personal to institutional/organisational experience soon showed, some greater ‘openness’, rolling forward on incremental bases, was sufficiently survivable over time. The exploration of other ‘sensitive’ wartime activities was also facilitated – for instance, as notably discussed in William Stevenson’s A Man Called Intrepid (1976), published with a foreword by ‘Intrepid’ (Sir William Stephenson) himself;75 Professor R. V. Jones’ Most Secret War (1978);76 and M. R. D. Foot and J. M. Langley’s MI9 (1979).77 It is worth noting the comments of Canadian intelligence scholar Wesley Wark, who said in 2003: ‘A substantial literature on intelligence did not begin to emerge until the last quarter of the twentieth century’. According to Wark, several of the motivations behind the literature were traceable from some discernible roots: It was sparked in the beginning by a historical fascination with newly released documentation on the impact of signals intelligence during World War II, the famous story of Ultra, and contemporary concerns about intelligence abuses, particularly in the conduct of covert operations . . .

On intelligence historiography, he remarked: Since the mid-1970s, the literature on intelligence has grown exponentially and moved well beyond its original interests. Intelligence now has at least the outlines of a usable past, with a library of case studies, national histories, and synoptic studies waiting the reader.78

In essence, the era dating from the 1960s helped contribute towards laying the foundations for what was to come in the 1970s and beyond. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Strong and McLachlan, the year 1968 represents ‘a year to remember’ for students of the history of British Intelligence.

Notes 1 On the ‘Prague Spring’, see various references: J. L. Gaddis, The Cold War (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2005); T. Judt, Postwar (London: Heinemann, 2005); J. Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003). 2 R. J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 275

21/02/2013 08:24

276

3

4 5 6

7 8

9

10 11 12

13

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

(London: John Murray, 2001), p. 627; see, also, ‘revelation-creep’ in K. Jeffery, ‘The TLS and National Security’, The Times Literary Supplement – TLS, 22 September 2010; C. R. Moran, ‘The Pursuit of Intelligence History: Methods, Sources, and Trajectories in the United Kingdom’, CIA Studies in Intelligence, 55(2), June 2011, pp. 33–55. N. Atkin, ‘SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the Special Operations Executive in France, 1940-1944’, The English Historical Review, CXXII(497), 2007, p. 855; see, also, C. J. Murphy, Security and Special Operations: SOE and MI5 During the Second World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Major-General Sir K. Strong, Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of an Intelligence Officer (London: Cassell, 1968). D. McLachlan, Room 39: Naval Intelligence in Action 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968). See, for instance, these aspects as discussed in detail later in this chapter; see, also, the essays in R. Dover and M. S. Goodman (eds), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011). Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 627; K. Philby, My Silent War (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968); H. Trevor-Roper, The Philby Affair (London: William Kimber, 1968). See C. Pincher, ‘Reflections on a Lifetime of Reporting on Intelligence Affairs’, in R. Dover and M. S. Goodman (eds), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (London: Hurst, 2009), p. 160; see, also, R. J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (London: HarperPress, 2010), pp. 238–41. Arguably more ‘sensationalist’ in its somewhat swashbuckling narrative style, yet sufficiently ‘serious’ in what it has to communicate, for a non-fiction account on intelligence work around at the time, see, for example, the work of Lieutenant Colonel O. Pinto in, for example, Spycatcher (London: Panther, 1961 [originally published in 1955]), which is particularly focused on WWII counter-intelligence themes based on his experiences. For more background on Graham Greene, see, for example, discussion in A. D. M. Svendsen, ‘Painting Rather than Photography: Exploring Spy Fiction as a Legitimate Source Concerning UK–US Intelligence Co-operation’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 7(1), March 2009, pp. 1–22. R. Lewin, ‘Book Review: Intelligence at the Top . . .’, International Affairs, 45(2), April 1969, pp. 316–17. Lewin, ‘Book Review’, p. 317. Earl L. Mountbatten of Burma, KG, Admiral of the Fleet, ‘Foreword’ to McLachlan, Room 39: Naval Intelligence in Action 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), p. xi. See, also, texts such as M. R. D. Foot’s SOE in France (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1966 [1968]); (perhaps) H. Montgomery Hyde’s Room 3603: The Incredible True Story of Secret Intelligence Operations During World War II (Guildford, CT: The Lyons Press/The Globe Pequot Press, 1962), which interestingly includes a ‘foreword’ by James Bond author Ian Fleming, who also served in the NID during the Second World War and who was a colleague of McLachlan. This book was originally published in the UK as The Quiet Canadian: The Secret Service Story of Sir William Stephenson (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962). However, see, also, Charles Howard Ellis’ comment regarding this text in the ‘Historical Note’ of W. Stevenson,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 276

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’?

14

15 16 17 18 19 20

21

22 23 24

25

26

27 28

277

A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1976), p. xviii. Hyde’s contribution could, therefore, be judged more a covert or clandestine ‘official history’ – see, also, Richard Aldrich’s comment on UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and other UK Government Ministers’ concerns in his The Hidden Hand, p. 627. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xi; see, also, C. R. Moran and R. Johnson, ‘Of Novels, Intelligence and Policymaking – In the Service of Empire: Imperialism and the British Spy Thriller 1901–1914’, CIA Studies in Intelligence, 54(2), June 2010, pp. 1–22. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xi. For Strong’s full (Military) Service record, see http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/ STRONG.shtml. McLachlan, Room 39, pp. xv–vii; for Strong on McLachlan, see Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 222. On McLachlan’s background, see, for instance, Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 159. R. Lewin, ‘Book Review: Intelligence at the Top . . .’, International Affairs, 45(2), April 1969, p. 317. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. xii–iii; McLachlan, Room 39, pp. xv–vi; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), ‘A Look Back . . . The Creation of Studies in Intelligence’, CIA.gov, July 2011; A. W. Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1963). See, also, for further practical impact, S. Marrin, Improving Intelligence Analysis: Bridging the Gap between Scholarship and Practice (London: Routledge/Studies in Intelligence Series, 2011); see, also, these ‘dynamics’ as discussed in ‘“Poacher” or “Fellow-Gamekeeper”? Researching Intelligence and Liaison, and Accounting for Wider General Intelligence Cooperation Trends’, in A. D. M. Svendsen, The Professionalization of Intelligence Cooperation: Fashioning Method Out of Mayhem (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Chapter 3. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xii. McLachlan, Room 39, p. xi. McLachlan, Room 39, p. 371; see, also, on similar ‘organisation’ themes, C. Grey, Decoding Organization: Bletchley Park, Codebreaking and Organization Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). McLachlan, Room 39, p. xiii; for ‘challenges’ defining intelligence, see, for instance, G. F. Treverton, S. G. Jones, S. Boraz and P. Lipscy, Toward a Theory of Intelligence: Workshop Report (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006); M. S. Goodman, ‘Intelligence Education: Studying and Teaching About Intelligence: The Approach in the United Kingdom’, CIA Studies in Intelligence, 50(2), 2006; S. A. Taylor, ‘The Role of Intelligence in National Security’, in A. Collins (ed.), Contemporary Security Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 248–69. McLachlan, Room 39, pp. xiii–iv; see, also, former Deputy Chief of the UK SIS (MI6) in the 1960s, Sir John Bruce Lockhart’s comment, as quoted in L. Scott, ‘Secret Intelligence, Covert Action and Clandestine Diplomacy’, Intelligence and National Security, 19(2), Summer 2004, p. 322; P. H. Hansen, Second to None: US Intelligence Activities in Northern Europe, 1943–46 (Dordrecht: Republic of Letters, 2011). McLachlan, Room 39, pp. xiv–v (emphasis added). McLachlan, Room 39, p. xv.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 277

21/02/2013 08:24

278

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

29 McLachlan, Room 39, p. 378. 30 As discussed in the ‘Conclusion’ of this chapter. 31 McLachlan, Room 39, p. xv; see, also, Svendsen, ‘Painting Rather than Photography’, pp. 1–22. 32 McLachlan, Room 39, p. xiv. 33 McLachlan, Room 39, p. xvi. 34 McLachlan, Room 39, p. xv. 35 McLachlan, Room 39, p. xvii; see, also, M. R. D. Foot, Memories of an SOE Historian (London: Pen & Sword, 2008). 36 R. E. Bublitz, ‘Review: Room 39 . . .’, Military Affairs, 33(1), April 1969, p. 278. 37 Bublitz, ‘Review: Room 39 . . .’, p. 278. 38 McLachlan, Room 39, p. 368; for an in-depth history of these interactions, see Aldrich, The Hidden Hand. 39 Bublitz, ‘Review: Room 39 . . .’, p. 278. 40 See, also, R. J. Aldrich, ‘British Intelligence and the Anglo-American “Special Relationship” during the Cold War’, Review of International Studies, 24, 1998, pp. 331–51; Svendsen, Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror: Anglo-American Security Relations after 9/11; more widely/generally, A. D. M. Svendsen, ‘Exemplary “Friends and Allies”? Unpacking UK–US Relations in the Early Twenty-First Century’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 9(4), December 2011, pp. 342–61. 41 See, also, as discussed in A. D. M. Svendsen, ‘“Strained” Relations? Evaluating Contemporary Anglo-American Intelligence and Security Co-operation’, in S. Marsh and A. Dobson (eds), Contemporary Anglo-American Relations (London: Routledge, 2012); Svendsen, Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror, p. 5. 42 M. Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p. 197, fn. 9; see, also, R. L. Russell, ‘Achieving All-Source Fusion in the Intelligence Community’, in L. K. Johnson (ed.), Handbook of Intelligence Studies (London: Routledge, 2007), Chapter 14; J. Sims, ‘Intelligence to Counter Terror: The Importance of All-Source Fusion’, Intelligence and National Security, 22(1), February 2007, pp.38–56. 43 ‘British Naval Intelligence Papers, mainly of Donald McLachlan and Patrick Beesly’, Janus, available at: http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk. 44 S. Twigge, E. Hampshire and G. Macklin, British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources (Kew: The National Archives, 2008), p. 226; for further biographical information, including his full career history, see ‘STRONG, Sir Kenneth William Dobson (1900–1982), Major-General’, Survey of the Papers of Senior UK Defence Personnel, 1900–1975 (King’s College London: Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, 2009). 45 Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 241. 46 Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xiii. 47 Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xi. 48 Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 241. 49 Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. 241–2. 50 For later UK intelligence oversight and accountability developments that were not underway until 1994, see UK Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), Intelligence Oversight (Norwich: TSO, July 2002); A. Glees, P. H. J. Davies and J. N. L. Morrison, The Open Side of Secrecy: Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee (London: Social Affairs Unit, 2006).

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 278

21/02/2013 08:24

1968 – ‘A Year to Remember’? 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61

62

63

64 65 66

67 68

69 70

71 72

73

279

Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 241. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 241. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 242. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 242. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. 242–3. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. 242–3. See Chapter 4 in Svendsen, Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror, pp. 116–58; J. Doward, ‘Iraq War Inquiry Report Faces Long Delay as Doubts on Evidence Persist’, The Guardian, 16 October 2011. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. 245–6. See, for example, the discussion in Svendsen, Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror, pp. 27–30. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 244; see, also, for example, the work of Stephen Marrin, including his Improving Intelligence Analysis; Svendsen, The Professionalization of Intelligence Cooperation. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, pp. 243–4; see, also, Sir Richard Dearlove KCMG OBE, former Chief (‘C’) of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), 1999– 2004, ‘Our Changing Perceptions of National Security’, 2009 Peter Nailor Memorial Lecture on Defence, Gresham College, London, 25 November 2009. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 245; see, also, C. E. Lindblom, ‘The Science of “Muddling Through” ’, Public Administration Review, 19 (Spring), 1959, pp. 79–88; C. E. Lindblom, ‘Still Muddling, Not Yet Through’, Public Administration Review, 39, 1979, pp. 517–26. See the ‘Cambridge Five’ spy’s entries in M. R. D. Foot (selected), Secret Lives: Lifting the Lid on Worlds of Secret Intelligence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); ‘The Cambridge Spy Ring’, BBC News, 13 September 1999; P. Knightley, ‘The Cambridge Spies’, BBC History, 17 February 2011. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. xi. Strong, Intelligence at the Top, p. 244. M. M. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2006), p. xi; M. S. Goodman and Sir D. Omand, ‘Teaching Intelligence Analysts in the UK. What Analysts Need to Understand: The King’s Intelligence Studies Programme’, CIA Studies in Intelligence, 52(4), 2008. Lewin, ‘Book Review: Intelligence at the Top . . .’, p. 317. M. Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Chatham House [Royal Institute of International Affairs], 1996), p. 394. See, for example, Sir D. Omand, Securing the State (London: Hurst, 2010). See, also, for a prominent retired British military commander’s perspective on intelligence in 1968, Field-Marshal Viscount B. Montgomery of Alamein, A History of Warfare (London: Collins, 1968), pp. 16–17. See, for example, as reinforced by texts such as Pinto, Spycatcher, and Montgomery of Alamein, A History of Warfare. Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong, Men of Intelligence: A Study of the Roles and Decisions of Chiefs of Intelligence from World War I to the Present Day (London: Cassell, 1970). P. Beesly, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 279

21/02/2013 08:24

280

74

75 76 77 78

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Intelligence Centre 1939–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977); P. Beesly, Room 40: British Naval Intelligence 1914–18 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982). F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974); R. Lewin, Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story (London: Hutchinson, 1978); R. Lewin, The Other Ultra: Codes, Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan (London: Hutchinson, 1982); P. Calvocoressi, ‘The Value of Enigma’, The Listener, 3 February 1977, pp. 135–6; P. Calvocoressi, Top Secret Ultra (London: Cassell, 1980); G. Welchman, The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1982); see, also, for an official history, F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War (London: HMSO, 1979–90); F. H. Hinsley and A. Stripp (eds), Code Breakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid. R. V. Jones, Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978). M. R. D. Foot and J. M. Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion 1939–1945 (London: Bodley Head, 1979). W. K. Wark, ‘Introduction: “Learning to Live with Intelligence” ’, Intelligence and National Security, 18(4), Winter 2003, p. 11; see, also, for a ‘subject reader’ volume, C. Andrew, R. J. Aldrich and W. K. Wark (eds), Secret Intelligence: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2009); see, also, the discussions undertaken in sources such as, especially, Goodman, ‘Intelligence Education: Studying and Teaching About Intelligence: The Approach in the United Kingdom’; Moran, ‘The Pursuit of Intelligence History: Methods, Sources, and Trajectories in the United Kingdom’.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 280

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 15 THEIR TRADE IS TREACHERY: A RETROSPECTIVE Chapman Pincher

After I retired from daily Fleet Street journalism in 1979, aged sixty-five, I moved home to the quiet West Berkshire village of Kintbury, where I intended to make the most of the nearby trout-fishing and pheasant-shooting facilities. Though I expected to continue as a novelist, with occasional journalism, I thought my days of writing about defence issues and espionage, in particular, were over. Then on the summery afternoon of 4 September 1980, an unexpected telephone call plunged me back into the mainstream of treachery, politics and intrigue with national and international consequences, involving some of the most senior politicians, civil servants and legal authorities in the land. At the age of ninetyeight, those consequences are still dominating my investigative efforts. The call was from Lord (Victor) Rothschild, whom I had known for thirteen years, speaking from his home in Cambridge. He said that he was being visited by a friend from overseas, who wished to meet me. When I balked at the distance, he offered to send a chauffeured car from London to take me to his house for dinner. Then, he outlined, I would be driven back home the following morning. I knew that Rothschild had served in the MI5 throughout World War II with distinction. He was, by both nature and training, a devious person. Indeed, he was so further warped by his secret service that it was so difficult to get a straight answer from him, so much so that his biographer and close friend, Kenneth Rose, called his book Elusive Rothschild. I was, therefore, not surprised by his cloak-and-dagger manner when, around 8pm, I was ushered into his rather dark and clinical study, where he was sitting in shirt-sleeves. He passed me a list of names of known and potential Russian spies, saying that his guest, who, at that stage, I would know only as ‘Philip’, was prepared to talk about them. Naturally, I accepted, and my host disappeared, soon to be replaced by a smiling, blue-eyed man of medium height, with a fringe of white hair, leaning on a stick. ‘Philip’, who was 64, said that he was seriously ill with a blood-pressure problem. He also had a more urgent financial difficulty. Having retired from 281

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 281

21/02/2013 08:24

282

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

the MI5, where he had been the scientific expert, he was currently eking out a pension of only £2,000 year by running a small Arabian horse stud in Tasmania, where his daughter was already living. Importantly, he claimed to be so perturbed by pro-Russian treachery inside the MI5 and its official cover-up that he was writing a book, to be called The Cancer in Our Midst, in order to expose it. Having written ten short chapters, he was unable to continue and needed a professional author to complete it. More urgently, he needed £5,000 to avoid going bankrupt. In brief, he was prepared to be the first MI5 officer to reveal its secrets, provided that he received half the proceeds of the book, which, he believed, could be a bestseller. As an essential part of the deal, his name, which I soon learned was Peter Wright, was never to be revealed. I could not resist the lure of what looked like being a major scoop, especially concerning the ‘Hollis Affair’ – the suspicions that Sir Roger Hollis, the former Director General of the MI5, had been a spy for the Soviet Union – about which I had heard allegations. If Wright had convincing evidence, Hollis could have been the most dangerous traitor in history. So I told him that I was keen to oblige, but until I knew all of his information and had secured a willing publisher, I would be unable to assess the risks of my being prosecuted under the Official Secrets laws. (I was aware that so long as Wright stayed in Australia, he was immune to prosecution, as he could not be extradited under these laws. So I would be the author at the sharp end.) Further, I told him that I was not prepared to sign any document confirming any partnership, either then or ever. Nor would I ever involve myself directly in the payment of any money to him, as that could lay me open to a charge of corruption. He whetted my appetite with a few new names, such as Michael Straight, who, he revealed, had blown the proven traitor, Anthony Blunt, but was not prepared to show me the ten chapters, which he had already shown to Lord Rothschild, and insisted that I would have to visit him in Tasmania and spend up to three weeks with him, as he had so much to tell me. Rothschild then reappeared and we explained the situation to him, with Wright insisting that he must have some assurance that he would get his £5,000 up-front and receive his half-share of the rest of any proceeds. To my astonishment, Rothschild volunteered to set up a small company, to which the publisher (if one could be found) could pay the £5,000 advance and half of the subsequent royalties. That way, Wright’s identity and involvement could be held secret from the publisher and the public, as he was insisting. We then went into dinner with Lady Rothschild, who I knew as Tess, and there was no further conversation about the project. Wright did not appear at breakfast and may even have left after the dinner. What I did not know, until much later, was that neither Rothschild nor his wife ever communicated with

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 282

21/02/2013 08:24

Their Trade is Treachery: A Retrospective

283

Wright again. They had made pretence of liking him in front to me, but had secret reason to hate him. I left for Australia on 6 October 1980, breaking the journey in Hong Kong, where I had friends, and arriving in Sydney on 12 October. I flew to Hobart in Tasmania, where Wright’s wife, Lois, was waiting for me at the airport, ready to drive me to the small township of Cygnet, where I had been booked into a modest hotel nearby. Wright’s home proved to be a wooden shack made from two apple-pickers’ huts set in a former apple orchard, and I could see how, remote from the exciting life that he had formerly led, he had stewed there in the sticks on a miserable pension, while sitting on information that he knew to be eminently saleable. For nine days, I listened in wonder and made copious notes, while he poured out the MI5’s most sacred secrets. I was astonished by the depth of Wright’s knowledge and his involvement in so many interesting cases, which had provided evidence of Soviet penetration of the MI5 and MI6. He had entered the MI5 as its Scientific Adviser in 1955 and had been instrumental in developing ingenious devices for eavesdropping by radio, especially on foreign embassies. From 1964, he had specialised in anti-Soviet counter-espionage and had been a founder–member of the Fluency Committee, which investigated Hollis and other suspects. He had left the MI5 on retirement in 1976. I was even more astonished by his determination to tell me secrets for publication on a scale that I knew to be unprecedented in British history. He began by showing me his nine chapters – one having been removed by Rothschild – an act which, I was to realise later, had been of great significance. They were so disappointing, that I decided, with one exception – the Klatt Affair – I would ignore them. There was nothing whatsoever about the Hollis case, as he had not reached that far in his narrative. Wright would not let me keep the chapters, because he was most anxious that nothing should be traceable to him, should I be searched by customs on my return to London. He also warned me that, if the MI5 got wind of my visit and I returned with my copious notes in my luggage, they, too, might be intercepted at customs. So I sent the notes back piecemeal to an address where they were held for me. I worked a ten-hour day in Wright’s company and extended my notes when back at the hotel. He told me many details of the appalling penetration of both the MI5 and MI6 by British traitors, some of whom, like John Cairncross, Charles Ellis and Tom Driberg, were unknown as such to the British public. I realised that, of all his revelations, the most explosive, politically, was the fact that Sir Roger Hollis, who had worked inside the MI5 for twenty-seven years, had been so deeply suspected by his own officers of being a Soviet agent that he had been recalled from retirement to be formally interrogated by the MI5. He

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 283

21/02/2013 08:24

284

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

told me that this had resulted from the findings of the Fluency Committee – a small joint MI5–MI6 group, which was set up in 1964 (with Hollis’ reluctant agreement) to investigate security anomalies. Wright stated that Fluency had concluded that the MI5 had been penetrated by one or more Soviet agents since the departure of the proven spy, Blunt, and had suggested that ‘the preponderance of probabilities’ pointed to Hollis as the most likely culprit. Wright said that, in 1969, Fluency had been replaced by a small, permanent section inside the MI5 called K7, so as to explore penetrations, and that it, too, had decided that the evidence demanded a hostile interrogation of Hollis, which had taken place over two days in late 1969. He also told me that in 1974, during the premiership of Harold Wilson, the Cabinet Office had asked a former Cabinet Secretary (Lord Trend) to re-examine the evidence against Hollis (who had died in the previous year) and give his opinion as to whether or not the MI5 had pursued the case properly and reached the right conclusion on the facts that were available. Wright gave evidence to Trend and told me that he had left believing that Trend had been convinced that there was a reasonable case for suspecting that there had been a Soviet spy at high level in the MI5 and that the evidence extended from the entry of Hollis in 1938 until his departure in 1965. After nine days, Wright and I were so mentally exhausted, and I had learned so much, that I decided to end my visit. I had already decided to reject Wright’s title and to call the book Their Trade is Treachery. That had been the title of an insider MI5 booklet, which had been written to warn government officials of the wiles of the Russian Intelligence Service. The authorities had gone to great lengths to prevent me from publishing parts of it when I had secured a copy. So it would be satisfying to publish a more entertaining version. On returning to Kintbury, I wrote the book rapidly, checking facts with other sources when I could, hopefully, without arousing suspicion. I finished the book in less than four months. Meanwhile, towards the end of November, I contacted William Armstrong – the Managing Director of my existing publisher, Sidgwick & Jackson – who I had previously alerted about the possibility of the project, in which he had been immediately interested. I gave him a six-page synopsis and, having read it, he realised that it could be a big seller and was personally prepared to risk any Official Secrets dangers. He was also prepared to accept the payments arrangement that had been set up by Rothschild, so that my anonymous source could quickly be paid his £5,000. However, because the book would obviously cause a political sensation, he told me that he would have to discuss it with Sir Charles Forte – the catering industry entrepreneur – who owned Sidgwick & Jackson. I agreed, as Sir Charles was a particularly close friend of mine, whose judgement I respected. As Sir Charles numbered leading politicians, including the Prime Minister,

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 284

21/02/2013 08:24

Their Trade is Treachery: A Retrospective

285

Margaret Thatcher and senior Whitehall mandarins among his friends, he was perturbed by the security, legal and political implications. We discussed his concerns and then, having seen my synopsis, he decided that he needed professional advice – in my best interests, as well as in his own. As he happened to be a golfing friend of Sir Arthur (‘Dickie’) Franks – the Chief of MI6 – he showed him the synopsis, in order to secure his opinion. Neither I, nor William Armstrong, knew what he had done. Sir Arthur was shocked and alerted senior colleagues in both the MI6 and MI5, but, as he had promised, refrained from naming his source. He then told Sir Charles that he could not give a worthwhile opinion without seeing the full text. Sir Charles promised to supply it, but not before he had secured two firm undertakings from Sir Arthur. First, he secured an assurance that, if there were objections which prevented publication, neither I nor the publisher would be at risk of legal action simply for being in possession of the secret information. Second, Sir Arthur promised that nobody else should ever be told how, and from whom, he had received the typescript. On 13 January 1981, I delivered the typescript to Armstrong, who prepared a copy for Sir Charles, who passed a full copy to Franks in February. Again, neither I nor Armstrong knew what was happening. The MI6 made further copies for the MI5, where it caused consternation, for both the Cabinet Office and for the Treasury Solicitor. As proven by documents produced in an Australian courtroom in 1986, the crucial advice concerning any action about Their Trade is Treachery was left to the legal advisers of the MI5, who decided that there was no point in raising objections about parts of the text, as the whole book offended the Official Secrets acts, with breaches on almost every page. Inquiries had quickly convinced the MI5 that Wright had been my main informant, and, on security grounds, it was judged more expedient to dismiss the book as speculation (as duly happened), rather than to confirm that it was from a prime MI5 source, which would have led to damaging admissions. In the result, it was decided that it was not in the interests of the MI5 or MI6 that the book should be restrained in any way. That decision was confirmed at a final meeting at Number 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister, Home Secretary and Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong (now Lord and no relation to William Armstrong) would have preferred to see the book suppressed. In fact, all that had been needed was for Mrs Thatcher to have telephoned her friend, Sir Charles Forte, who would (as he confirmed to me much later) have rejected the book and advised me against publication anywhere, in my best interests, as well as the nations. She never had the opportunity to do that, because, under Franks’ solemn promise, she knew nothing of Sir Charles’ involvement.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 285

21/02/2013 08:24

286

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Sir Charles, therefore, received a message that the book could safely be published without deletions and, though ‘very surprised’ by that verdict, passed it on to Sidgwick & Jackson, who informed me, to my mutual delight. Later, further revelations exposed another reason why the MI5 legal advisers decided upon what would prove to be their unfortunate decision. Because of their ignorance about the source of the script, they assumed that an injunction would be needed to restrain the book and that I and my publisher would fight it in court. That would have raised the danger that legal argument might require the identity of the source to be revealed. The first public news of Their Trade is Treachery appeared on 23 March 1981 in the Daily Mail, which had bought the serialisation rights. On that day, Sir Robert Armstrong telephoned my publisher with an urgent request for a copy of the book, because Mrs Thatcher would be required to make a statement to Parliament about it. My advice was to supply a copy, if Sir Robert would give a written guarantee that the government would not prevent its publication. He immediately agreed to do so. (Five years later, during the so-called Spycatcher trial in Australia, Sir Robert was to admit that his request had been a deception to cover up the Government’s possession of the script. While denying that it had been a lie, he admitted that he had been ‘economical with the truth’ – a phrase which is now firmly embedded in the language.) The book, which Sir Robert would later describe in court ‘as a bombshell’, generated unprecedented publicity and became a bestseller. In Mrs Thatcher’s brief statement to Parliament, which had been prepared for her, she suggested that it was all speculation and insinuation on my part, when, in fact, by then, her advisers had identified Wright as my main source. Further, the book exposed major new spies, such as John Cairncross and Charles Ellis. It gave new details of the Philby case and much that was new about Blunt and George Blake. It also gave the codenames of former secret operations. Most sensitively of all, especially concerning relations with the US, it revealed the existence of an ultrasecret operation called Bride (later changed to VENONA), in which coded Russian messages had been deciphered, leading to the arrest of Klaus Fuchs, the atom-bomb spy, Maclean and others. Such disclosures could not possibly have been the result of speculation. Yet, to make them all appear old and stale, Mrs Thatcher stated that the MI5 investigations which I described had been undertaken ‘following the defection of Burgess and Maclean’ in 1951, which was nonsense. She claimed that the security disasters and proven leaks had emanated from Blunt, who had learned them while gossiping with old colleagues. In particular, she denied my account of the Trend Report, which I had based on Wright’s statements about it, suggesting that, instead, Trend had cleared Hollis.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 286

21/02/2013 08:24

Their Trade is Treachery: A Retrospective

287

Until Their Trade is Treachery appeared, there had been no public mention of the Trend Report. Although it was completed thirty-six years ago, academic researchers who sought its release are still being told that it must remain secret ‘in the interests of national security’. That its release would be embarrassing to the authorities was inadvertently revealed in The Authorized History of MI5 published in 2009, which recorded that Prime Minister Wilson wrote on his copy of the Trend Report: ‘This is very disturbing stuff, even if concluding in “not proven” verdicts’.1 Two people who read the report, Sir Michael Havers (when Attorney General) and Lord Chalfont, both told me that all Trend had been able to do, with respect to Hollis, was to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yet, the Trend Report remains one of the two reasons for the MI5’s policy of continuing to discredit the now substantial case against Hollis as a ‘myth’ originating in ‘paranoia’. (The current strength of the evidence has been exposed in detail in my recent book, Treachery.) Mrs Thatcher then undermined her own case by requiring the standing Security Commission to carry out the first independent inquiry in twenty years into the efficiency of the safeguards against further penetration of the secret services by foreign powers. In Parliament, she promised to publish its findings, but when the Security Commission produced its thick report in May 1982, she issued only a brief statement, listing many improvements, while referring to others as too secret to publish. It seemed peculiar that major changes in the operation of the MI5, MI6 and GCHQ should have resulted from a book branded as speculation. Publication of Their Trade is Treachery generated unprecedented media interest in intelligence affairs and especially in the MI5. Inevitably, most of the newspapers which had been severely scooped by the Daily Mail made the most of Mrs Thatcher’s apparent denial. In 1984, following intensive inquiries, I published a massive, detailed account of the Soviet espionage effort against the UK and the US, called Too Secret Too Long, which extended my previous disclosures and would not have been possible had Their Trade is Treachery been suppressed. Two years later, Wright published his own account of the MI5’s activities in a book called Spycatcher, both confirming and extending what I had published and revealing technical information about the MI5’s ‘bugging and burgling’ activities, which I had withheld. Regarding Spycatcher and the devastating problems that it caused the Government, following the futile attempt to suppress it in an Australian court, all that needs to be recorded here is that Wright’s legal case for publication was successfully based on the fact that, having agreed to the publication of Their

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 287

21/02/2013 08:24

288

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Trade is Treachery, the Government could not prevent the republication of what was essentially the same information.

Note 1 Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), p. 634.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 288

21/02/2013 08:24

Chapter 16 INTELLIGENCE AND ‘OFFICIAL HISTORY’ Christopher Baxter and Keith Jeffery1

The extraordinary expansion of contemporary and historical intelligence studies since the mid-1970s has been both reflected and stimulated by developments in government policy, as well as academic initiative.2 On the government side – and we are confining ourselves here to the situation within the United Kingdom – there are two main aspects to this. First, there is the commissioning and writing of ‘Official Histories’; and, second, the release of documents. One rationale for the UK government’s Official History programme is ‘to provide authoritative histories in their own right; [and] a reliable secondary source for historians until all the records are available in The National Archives’.3 We are not, however, going to discuss in any detail the release of intelligence records – which gained significant momentum after the Waldegrave Initiative on Open Government of 1993 – or the general writing of Official Histories – about which there is a slim literature – but, rather, the place of intelligence-related matters in the genre.4 Our aim in this essay is to review the place of intelligence in post-Second World War Official Histories (and some analogous productions) and the current ‘state of the art’, as represented by the recent Official (or ‘authorised’) Histories of the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Before the 1970s, in the British ‘History of the Second World War’ series, intelligence matters were generally either passed over in silence or falsified, as can be illustrated by looking at The War at Sea volumes, published between 1954 and 1961.5 In common with other Official Histories, each volume contains the statement: ‘The authors of the Military Histories have been given full access to official documents’6 – a statement which perhaps had more meaning in the period before the 1967 Public Records Act introduced the thirty-year rule for most official papers. Nevertheless, the bald term ‘official documents’ is not defined and carries with it a certain ambiguity. In his preface, by introducing a definite article, the overall editor of the military series, J. R. M. Butler, placed slightly more emphasis on the extent of the permission. ‘To the official United Kingdom records’, he wrote, ‘we have 289

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 289

21/02/2013 08:24

290

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

been allowed full access’.7 As for the specific sources used, Stephen Roskill, in his preface, stated that the ‘vast majority’ were ‘contained in Admiralty and Air Ministry papers and other State archives which are certain not to be made public, at any rate in their complete form, for many years’.8 It is certain that among these papers was a fair amount of intelligence-related material. It is not known, however, if Roskill had any access to the records of intelligence agencies themselves, though it seems highly unlikely that this was the case, or even if he felt such access would have been necessary to the satisfactory completion of his history. ‘Full access’ may have applied simply to those materials that he regarded as central to his endeavour. The point made here – and it is not, perhaps, one that needs to be stressed to properly sceptical, trained scholars – is that statements made in Official Histories about access to official records need to be viewed as critically as any other documentary source. One of the pleasures (and they are few enough) of reading the military series volumes is exploring the text, in order to spot instances where the true intelligence story has been glossed over or, you might say, has been historically enciphered. The contemporary reader can therefore engage in a bit of individual decoding.9 The War at Sea volumes are an obvious place to start. As a former Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, Roskill was well used to intelligence material, and he was certainly also aware of the ‘Ultra Secret’ and its contribution to Allied success in the Battle of the Atlantic. Yet he had to suppress, or occlude, that knowledge in his Official History. In July 1945, the Joint Intelligence Subcommittee (JIC) had issued instructions to official historians that ‘the fact that such intelligence was available should NEVER be disclosed’.10 In his first volume, for example, referring to 1941, Roskill stressed the importance of ‘wireless intelligence’ against U-boats, but asserted that it was used only for direction-finding.11 In a later volume published in 1960, he was slightly more expansive about the situation in 1943: Equally important was the fact that Allied intelligence was now working with great speed and accuracy. . . . Though no details of the methods employed can be given, a large share of our success can confidently be attributed to the combination of the intuition of certain experienced individuals with the most modern technical resources.12

The Official Histories of the war removed all traces of Ultra, in what has been described as ‘the last deception operation of the Second World War’.13 Stephen Roskill’s predicament, as a writer who was unable to use his knowledge of the ‘Ultra Secret’ to inform his war history, was shared at the highest level. Even Winston Churchill suffered under the JIC prohibition. In 1948, he argued to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, that: ‘he would find it difficult to complete his memoirs without including some statements “implying

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 290

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

291

that we were able to break the codes and cyphers of enemy powers” ’.14 But Brook (backed up by the British intelligence establishment) was unmoved and bluntly told the ex-Prime Minister that his duty (as was that of the many people who had served at Bletchley Park) was to maintain ‘complete secrecy’ about the matter, and, thus, the facts and role of Ultra was suppressed in Churchill’s Second World War. ‘In this crucial respect’, as David Reynolds has observed, Churchill’s memoirs ‘fell short of history’.15 Unlike Roskill or Churchill, however, some historians were able to revise their narratives after the Ultra Secret was revealed in the mid-1970s by F. W. Winterbotham, among others.16 One such historian was Peter Calvocoressi, who had worked at Bletchley Park, but, in 1972, was specifically prohibited from mentioning Ultra in his general history of the Second World War (even after raising the question at Prime Ministerial level). Thus, like Roskill and Churchill, he was obliged to write ‘in the full knowledge of certain things which I might neither mention nor explain’.17 Naturally, the Official Histories which deal with clandestine agencies have been more forthcoming about secret intelligence matters. In this respect, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) histories fall into a special category, with the late M. R. D. Foot’s SOE in France18 proving to be not quite the ‘pilot project’ (or, at least, not immediately so) for further SOE histories that the Cabinet Office had envisaged in the late 1950s.19 Foot was not given complete access, even to the papers of SOE (financial documents, for example, were denied him),20 and he referred only obliquely to the SIS as a whole, as well as its difficult relations with SOE.21 After the decision in 1992 to release SOE records to the National Archives, further SOE histories were commissioned, including Foot’s SOE in the Low Countries,22 in which the SIS is explicitly mentioned. Neither Foot volume contains a formal statement about access to official records akin to that discussed above in the previous Second World War volumes. The key Second World War works, however, are the five volumes by Sir Harry Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, commissioned in 1971 and published between 1979 and 1990. Each of these volumes contains a statement about access to sources, though with a small, but distinct difference from that already quoted: ‘the authors of this, as of other official histories of the Second World War, have been given free access to official documents’.23 In the military series volumes, it is ‘full access’; in Hinsley, it is ‘free access’. Is it significant that in one series it is ‘full’ but not ‘free’, while in another, it is ‘free’ but not ‘full’? It might be. Hinsley undoubtedly had readier access (if he wanted to exploit it) than the military series authors to, what he described as: ‘the domestic files of the intelligence-collecting bodies, which are’, he added, ‘unlikely ever to be opened in the Public Record Office’.24 The authors of some more recently completed Official Histories have also

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 291

21/02/2013 08:24

292

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

not only been given access to intelligence records, but have been able to explicitly acknowledge this. There is a significant difference in this respect between volumes one and two of Anthony Farrar-Hockley’s history of the Korean War. In the bibliography of volume one (published in 1990), he stated that he: ‘had unrestricted access to the files of all Departments of State and ministries involved in the events of the Korean War’.25 He provided a list of relevant departments, which did not include any intelligence agencies. He did observe, however, that ‘some of the documents relating to defence and overseas policy are still withheld from public view’.26 In volume two (published five years later), he observed that ‘legislation now permits me to mention that I have also had full access to the material held by: SIS, Security Service [and] GCHQ’ (the Government Communications Headquarters).27 The reference to legislation – the statutes enacted between 1989 and 1994,28 which placed the intelligence agencies on a statuary basis for the first time – while understandable, seems unnecessarily coy, since Hinsley had clearly acknowledged the existence of these agencies (and their records), both during the Second World War and in peacetime, albeit only explicitly before September 1939. In perhaps a special category of its own is Sir Brooks Richards’ account of clandestine sea operations to occupied Europe and North Africa during the Second World War. It was first published in a single volume in 1996, with a revised and expanded two-volume edition in 2004.29 Like Hinsley, Brooks Richards had personal experience of intelligence and clandestine work and had been involved in many of the sea operations about which he wrote. A naval officer, he had served in SOE during the war, ending up as head of its French Section in Algiers. Following the war, he had a successful career in the diplomatic service, but, in the mid-1970s, served for a term as security and intelligence coordinator in the Cabinet Office. In his volumes, he acknowledges the help of Gervase Cowell – SOE Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – ‘in enabling me to gain access to the essential records on the terms applied to Official Historians’.30 Richards did not specify the precise records that he had used, though they clearly included material from the SOE archives, which, at the time, was still closed to the public, though much of it has subsequently been released to the National Archives. He also covers a large number of SIS operations and may have had some access to the SIS archives. At the very start of each of his volumes, Richards follows the form of words employed by Hinsley – ‘free access to official documents’ – along with a statement (also made by Hinsley and other official historians) that the author ‘alone’ was ‘responsible for the statements made and the views expressed’. But Richards added further assurance that he, alone, was also responsible ‘for the accuracy of any information not obtained from official British documents’.31 The emphasis

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 292

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

293

– ‘not’ – is in the original and appears to reflect the fact that in the history of clandestine operations and agencies – more perhaps than in any other specific area – much relevant material, which the government might not wish to ‘officially’ admit, is already ‘in the public domain’. Acknowledging and handling this kind of material (whether in the form of memoir or careful scholarship, as well as more popular works) can pose a problem for the official historian, who, in many cases, cannot simply ignore its existence, but whose use of it may be taken in some way to authenticate or validate it. Indeed, Sir Lawrence Freedman, in the most recent official campaign history chronicling the Falklands conflict (published in 2005), trod a very careful line. In keeping with the increased openness about secret sources, Freedman explicitly noted his: ‘privileged access to all archive material, including . . . raw intelligence reports’.32 ‘With regard to intelligence,’ he wrote, ‘a variety of sensitive and delicate sources were tapped providing materials that contributed at all levels’. But there were limitations as to how he could use this material, which was then not much more than twenty years old: ‘Even if I had wanted to do so it would have been impossible to provide a comprehensive declassified evaluation of the performance of the intelligence community or even credit many of the contributors’.33 It led one critic to immediately wonder what had been ‘excised’ by the Cabinet Office, because, he argued, so much was already available in the ‘public domain’. However, as one official historian has argued, the ‘“the public domain” constitutes a great range of contexts, from unsubstantiated assertions in sensationalist and evanescent publications (what might be called “sub-prime intelligence literature”) to serious and scholarly articles by professional historians’. 34 In one sense, criticism of official historians and the use of intelligence were moving into a different area. The issue now was no longer whether official historians were able to draw on intelligence per se, but, moreover, were they revealing enough? The appetite for revelations was whetted once more in the same year as the publication of the Official History of the Falklands Campaign, when a study of intelligence cooperation between Poland and Great Britain during the Second World War was produced by the ‘Anglo–Polish Historical Committee’, with the official sanction of both governments. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, declared that the committee ‘has had unprecedented access to British Intelligence archives’.35 It was explained that ‘the UK side of the committee . . . were exceptionally granted access to the closed archives of the British Secret Intelligence Service’.36 This publication is remarkable for the fact that fourteen documents – thirteen of them in facsimile – are reproduced from the SIS archive.37 Intelligence-sponsored histories by the British government continued a year later, when, under the auspices of the British Official History series, Gill Bennett’s biography of Sir Desmond Morton, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, was

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 293

21/02/2013 08:24

294

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

released in 2006. This could not have been contemplated without access to intelligence records. The familiar ‘full access to official documents’ is mentioned at the start of the volume, and the bibliography contains a specific mention of ‘the records of the Secret Intelligence Service’. Bennett notes that SIS records ‘are not released into the public domain’ and adds that ‘no file references or file titles are given in the text or notes for records that are not available to public inspection’.38 Yet, even here, inconsistencies remain. In 1999, for example, Bennett, in her government-sanctioned FCO History Note on the 1924 ‘Zinoviev letter’ affair, in which she had ‘full and unrestricted access to all relevant files, including those of SIS and the Security Service’, used footnotes with simple referencing, such as ‘SIS files’ and ‘Security Service files’.39 What are we to make, then, of these discrepancies in approaches to intelligence material in Official Histories? Perhaps the major lesson to be drawn is that it is not possible to impose a one size fits all approach to applying disclosure rules to the use of intelligence in Official History. Each volume we have mentioned hitherto has been written where the environment concerning the release of secret material has had a different set of constraints. That landscape changed significantly once more, at the turn of the twenty-first century, when, in 2002, MI5 and, in 2005, the SIS, commissioned the publication of two authorised histories (see Figure 12). Here, for the first time, both agencies were willing to allow two individuals with established academic reputations access to their archives, although the parameters of each project were markedly different. Keith Jeffery was commissioned to write a history of the SIS from 1909 to 1949, while Christopher Andrew’s remit in writing the authorised history of MI5 was to tell the story from 1909 to 2009.40 Part of the stimulus for the commissioning of these histories was the 2009 centenary of both organisations, which developed from the creation of a ‘Secret Service Bureau’ in the autumn of 1909. From almost the very start, there were ‘Home’ and ‘Foreign’ departments – the former becoming the Security Service, with its primarily British domestic responsibilities; the latter becoming the Secret Intelligence Service, with a brief to acquire foreign intelligence from foreign sources. While the MI5 history covers the whole of the Service’s first hundred years (albeit with a necessarily less detailed treatment of the most recent events), that of the SIS only covers the Agency’s first forty years – a matter which prompted some comment on publication41 and criticism that, for example, it spared the Service the pain of retelling the story of the Cambridge spy ring. When asked about the terminal date of 1949, Sir John Scarlett – the Chief of the SIS who commissioned the history – said that he chose the date himself, specifically to ‘allow us to publish a full account which did not omit stories or issues on grounds of political embarrassment’.42 Kim Philby’s treachery, moreover, is

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 294

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

295

by no means belittled in the history.43 Justifying the chosen end date, Sir John Sawers (Chief of the SIS at the time of publication) argued that 1949 represented ‘a watershed in our professional work with the move to Cold War targets and techniques’ and asserted that ‘full details of our history after 1949 are still too sensitive to place in the public domain’.44 In any case, beyond a treatment of the whole century of its existence (which would inevitably have become extremely superficial, the more contemporary that it became), it is not clear what other feasible end date might have been chosen, bearing in mind the essential continuity of much British secret intelligence work throughout the whole forty-year period of the Cold War, from the late 1940s onwards. Andrew can justifiably assert that ‘no other of the world’s leading intelligence agencies has given similar access to a historian appointed from outside’. However, there is a question mark over what exactly Andrew was able to see, as he, himself, admitted that he had ‘been given virtually [emphasis added] unrestricted access to the Service’s twentieth-century files as well as to the more limited number of twenty-first century records I have asked to see’.45 On the other hand, Jeffery was ‘absolutely confident’ that he had ‘utterly unrestricted access to the [SIS] archives over its first forty years’.46 The simple answer, with regard to why Andrew had ‘virtually unrestricted access’ and Jeffery had ‘utterly unrestricted access’, is to do with the passage of time. The fact that Jeffery’s history was ending in 1949 made disclosure much easier than would otherwise have been the case. Andrew, on the other hand, in taking his volume up to 2009, would have undoubtedly confronted current and still operationally sensitive issues that could not be revealed or, for that matter, even permit access to relevant records. In addition to documentary records, Christopher Andrew also gathered information from serving and retired members of the Security Service.47 For obvious reasons, Jeffery was less fortunate in this respect, though the help of a number of retired members of the SIS who had died prior to publication is acknowledged in his volume.48 For Jeffery, conversations with former intelligence practitioners valuably provided some human colour to supplement the dry documentary record and illuminated the corporate ‘memory’ and esprit de corps of the organisation. The moral of this discussion concerning access to sources is, of course, caveat lector, especially about any statements made in the ‘preliminary matter’ – the ‘prelims’, as publishers call it – of Official Histories. But do these nuances and caveats in language invite suspicion on the part of the reader? A reviewer of Jeffery’s book on Amazon’s website is revealing here. The reviewer, writing under the pseudonym ‘Antaloorian’, was not prepared to grant the book five out of five stars: ‘What has cost the book its fifth star though, is the simple

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 295

21/02/2013 08:24

296

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Figure 12 Professor Keith Jeffery at the launch of MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (Press Association, PA.9499840)

fact that it is an “official” history and has therefore been written under the constraints imposed by MI6’.49 Len Scott and Peter Jackson, meanwhile, argue that: ‘for some academics the Ivory Tower should remain a sanctuary from the compromises of officialdom and provide a panorama (or, a camera obscura) on the world outside’.50 Anthony Glees supports such sentiments by forcefully suggesting that it is ‘a strong principle of a free society that the people who write its own history should be entirely free and unfettered’. ‘I don’t think governments should write their own history’, Glees maintains, while ‘academics should not become ambassadors or politicians, or work for the secret service’.51 A review of both Andrew’s and Jeffery’s prefaces, however, would immediately indicate that both authors had, at all times, striven to maintain their academic integrity. There are, anyhow, inherent dangers in becoming, as one critic has charged, a ‘court historian’.52 The major lesson to draw from our discussion so far is that files are eventually released, even those relating to intelligence. One only has to chart the JIC’s instruction to official historians in July 1945 that the ‘Ultra Secret’ should ‘NEVER’ be disclosed, to the appointment of Professor Harry Hinsley in 1971 to write about that ‘secret’, to the actual release of records from Bletchley Park into The National Archives at the end of the twentieth century under the ‘HW’

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 296

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

297

series. Ultimately, an official historian has to be accountable to the historical record, for if they sanitised that record now, they would only be making, as one scholar has observed, ‘whips for their own flogging’.53 It is, nevertheless, the restrictions placed on what can be published, which represent the most contentious, and perhaps the most critical, aspect of ‘Official History’, sharply distinguishing it from other sorts of history. It is notable that Richard J. Aldrich, in his recent book about the history of GCHQ, felt compelled to subtitle his work The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency.54 There is a clear intention here to disassociate himself from the authorised works of, for example, Andrew and Jeffery. Nevertheless, since the Second World War, the British Official History series has been populated by some very distinguished historians indeed, and the label ‘Official History’ has come to represent a kind of quality control signal. They have been perceived as enterprises, given the time, space and resources to try to ‘get it right’. The result might not always make for very exciting history, but it should be reliable and authoritative. Official Histories are commissioned; to be sure, their subjects do not spring fully armed from the head of the historian. The official historian works to the agenda, the research priorities and the funding capacity of another party, rather than selecting their own research topic.55 Yet, in the academic world today, agendas, research priorities and funding capacity are seldom purely in the hands of the individual scholar, but, in the case of the official historian, the selection and vetting of the individual concerned could serve to make him or her appear parti pris with the department concerned. In fact, the language adopted in the two most recent histories of the MI5 and the SIS refrained from any mention of the word ‘official’. In the foreword to Andrew’s Defence of the Realm, Jonathan Evans – the Director General of MI5 – remarked (among other things) that: ‘this book is not an “official” history within the terms of the Government programme of research and publication of Official Histories on a variety of subjects relating to government activity’.56 There was no reference, either, to the word ‘official’ in Jeffery’s MI6 book. Both books are ‘authorised’, but what does this mean? Indeed, does it mean anything significant at all? It may simply reflect the fact that each history is a ‘one-off’, independently commissioned by the department concerned and published by a company who bid for it, unlike works in the Cabinet Office’s Official History series, formerly published by Her Majesty’s Stationary Office and currently by Routledge in their ‘Whitehall History Publishing’ programme. The decision, in the end, for Jeffery’s book was that it should explicitly be neither one nor the other, though buried within the preface is a note regarding the citation of sources, which reads as follows: ‘Since records from the SIS archive are not released into the public domain, no individual source-references are provided to them. In this case I

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 297

21/02/2013 08:24

298

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

have followed the precedent set by past British official histories’.57 One could interpret that to mean (if only rather elliptically) that this, too, is an ‘Official History’. And, although, as R. Gerald Hughes observes, the ‘o’ word for Jeffery’s book had been given ‘a wide berth’, it would, ‘of course be used as a label in a casual fashion by readers and commentators alike’.58 As we have seen, the word ‘official’ has all sorts of unfortunate, if not unjustified, connotations. The words of Sir Basil Liddell Hart are often invoked in this sense, when he allegedly remarked that Sir James Edmonds’ multi-volume work Military Operations France and Belgium, 1914–1918 was ‘official but not history’.59 In 1962, Martin Blumenson – Staff Historian at the Office of Chief of Military History of the US Army – posed the question: ‘can official history be honest history?’60 He pointed out that critics of Official Histories had argued that, because they were commissioned by governments, they sometimes had to ignore pertinent information and ‘it cannot, consequently, meet the tests of objectivity, balance, and independence of judgment. At best a bland, cautious, diluted version of the truth, official history cannot be honest’.61 He, too, like Liddell Hart, particularly identified Sir James Edmonds’ work on the First World War as not ‘honest’, which has widely been described as tendentious, selfserving and overly protective of the reputation of Sir Douglas Haig. Blumenson, however, (perhaps understandably, as an ‘official historian’ himself) quotes a fellow United States army historian Kent Roberts Greenfield’s assertion, that it was possible to write good Official History if three criteria were met: it must be written by professional historians; the authors had to have free access to all the relevant documents; and the end product had to be free from censorship.62 The fact is, however, that the government, no matter how permissive it may be concerning the freedom of the historian involved to express his or her own independent judgements, can insist (with the backing of the law under the Official Secrets Act) on omissions, deletions and redactions from the text. And it is this that makes Official History different, in kind, to other sorts of history. This is not to say that ‘censorship’ does not exist in other historical works and that there are not circumstances in which the historian might self-censor text. For example, there might be information from personal, medical, financial or legal records, which it might be inappropriate or unethical to reveal. Considerations like this may be more acute for the modern or contemporary historian, than for the medieval one. Distance – personal, as well as chronological – can often make it easier to reveal some things, and this applies in the realm of security and intelligence history as much as it does for whatever intimate personal history one might be exploring. It begs the question as to whether historians necessarily have an absolute licence – a carte blanche – to publish absolutely anything.63 The onus, so far, has been on exploring the role of the official historian, but

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 298

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

299

what is the rationale behind commissioning such histories in the first place? What does a commissioning department want out of the exercise? There are, perhaps, a variety of reasons. These could include celebration for a significant anniversary (such as commemorating a hundred years of the existence of the SIS and MI5); corporate promotion; ‘lessons learned’; or morale-boosting/esprit de corps objectives. Both MI5 and the SIS admitted a clear operational motive that part of their purpose in commissioning the histories was (in the words of Sir Jonathan Evans, Director General of MI5) to help ‘generate the public understanding and support that is vital to the Service’s continued success’.64 Both services, however, clearly recognised that any publication which smacked of corporate-sponsored ‘hack history’ would do more harm than good, and (consonant with established British ‘Official History’ practice) they commissioned independent professional historians to write the works. Nevertheless, as far as government-sponsored work is concerned, there is also the suspicion – as expressed in 2004 by Richard J. Aldrich, specifically with regard to intelligence history – that as secrecy about Britain’s security and intelligence agencies began to erode, Whitehall became ‘increasingly convinced that official history was a useful way of managing the past, offering a judicious mixture of concession and control’.65 So, there may clearly be understandings and preconceptions about what may or may not be appropriate to include in any particular volume. Focusing on the word ‘conception’ is perhaps a convenient place to conclude – that is, the methodological side of ‘content’, which bears on the historical approach conventionally taken in Official Histories. Reflecting specifically on war history, Roberto Rabel – a New Zealand official historian – asserts that: an assumption has prevailed that the crucial purpose of an official history is to provide an account of each war experience which can be described as ‘definitive’, ‘comprehensive’ or ‘authoritative’. It is an approach which runs against the dominant currents in the historical profession’s epistemological assumptions over the last four decades or so.66

It is an argument that merits careful consideration. Official Histories are rarely the final, definitive word on the topic. We know that all history is interim, and Official Histories should, therefore, simply be a starting point, a kind of brushclearing exercise, a part, only, of the jigsaw, upon which others can build and which others can use to apply – what Rabel kindly calls – more sophisticated (and less theoretically impoverished) analyses of the matters concerned. Perhaps the last word should rest with the Oxford English Dictionary and its definition of the word ‘official’: ‘4. a. Derived from, or having the sanction of, persons in office; authorized or supported by a government, organization, etc.; hence (more widely) authoritative; formally accepted or agreed’.67

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 299

21/02/2013 08:24

300

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Notes 1 The authors are writing in a personal capacity. 2 For a review of these developments written in 1990, see Keith Jeffery, ‘Intelligence and Military History: A British Perspective’, in David A. Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992). 3 Cabinet Office Histories Openness and Records Unit, The UK Government’s Official History Programme, October 2006, p. 2. 4 On the release of intelligence documents, see Gill Bennett, ‘Declassification and Release Policies of the UK’s intelligence Agencies’, Intelligence and National Security, 17(1), March 2002, pp. 21–32. On the subject of Official History and intelligence, Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence Since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119(483), September 2004, pp. 922–53 is essential reading on this subject. More recently, a special section in Intelligence and National History was devoted to analysing the impact of the authorised publication of the history of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) by Keith Jeffery. See R. Gerald Hughes, Philip Murphy and Philip H. J. Davies, ‘The British Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(5), October 2011, pp. 701–29. See, also, Jeffrey Grey (ed.), The Last Word? Essays on Official History in the United States and British Commonwealth (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), especially Grey’s thoughtful introduction, pp. ix–xiii; and Jenny Macleod’s reflections on the conception and development of British Official Histories in Reconsidering Gallipoli (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), pp. 57–65. 5 S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea (London: HMSO, 1954–61). 6 Roskill, The War at Sea, p. ii (in each volume). 7 From J. R. M. Butler (ed.), ‘Preface’, in S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1954–61), p. xv (emphasis added). 8 J. R. M. Butler (ed.), ‘Preface’, in S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1954–61), p. xix (emphasis added). 9 This exercise need not necessarily be restricted to official histories, as a comparison (as discussed in Keith Jeffery, ‘Intelligence and Military History: A British Perspective’, in David A. Charters, Marc Milner and J. Brent Wilson (eds), Military History and the Military Profession (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992), p. 111) of the 1972 and 1989 editions of Peter Calvocoressi’s Total War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1972] 1989) will reveal. Calvocoressi had worked at Bletchley Park during the war. 10 ‘Use of Special Intelligence by Official Historians’, JIC(45)223(0)Final, 20 July 1945, CAB 103/288, TNA. 11 Roskill, The War at Sea, vol. 1, pp. 356, 469. 12 The War at Sea, vol. 3, p. 16. 13 Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past’, p. 927. 14 David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 161. 15 Reynolds, In Command of History, pp. 161–3. 16 F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1974). 17 Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint and John Pritchard, Total War, vol. 1, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989), p. xvii.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 300

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’ 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34

35

36

37

38 39

301

M. R. D. Foot, SOE in France, (London: HMSO, 1966). Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past’, p. 940. Foot, SOE in France, Appendix A, ‘Sources (i) Archives’, pp. 449–53. See, for example, Foot, SOE in France, p. 104. M. R. D. Foot, SOE in the Low Countries (London: St Ermin’s, 2001). Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 1, p. ii (emphasis added). Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 1, p. viii. Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, vol. 1, A Distant Obligation (London: HMSO, 1990), p. 469. Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, vol. 1, A Distant Obligation, pp. 469–70. Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, vol. 2, An Honourable Discharge (London: HMSO, 1995), p. 492. The Security Service Act (1989) and (for GCHQ and SIS) the Intelligence Services Act (1994). The first edition (which was published by HMSO) is Brooks Richards, Secret Flotillas: Clandestine Sea Lines to France and French North Africa, 1940–1944 (London: HMSO, 1996). The second (published by ‘Whitehall History Publishing’, in association with Frank Cass) is Brooks Richards, Secret Flotillas (2 volumes), Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany, 1940–1944, vol. 1; Clandestine Sea Operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Adriatic, 1940–1944, vol. 2 (London: Whitehall History Publishing, 2004). Richards, Secret Flotillas, p. xvi. The same statement appears in the second edition volumes. Richards, Secret Flotillas, p. vi. Emphasis added; Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, vol. 2 (London: Routledge, 2005), p. xxii. Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, vol. 2, p. xxiii. See Richard J. Aldrich, ‘“Even Had I Wanted To . . .”: Intelligence and Special Operations in the Falklands Campaign’, International Relations, 20(3), September 2006, pp. 352–7; Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), p. xii. Foreword by Tony Blair in Tessa Stirling, Daria Nałe˛ cz and Tadeusz Dubicki (eds), Intelligence Co-operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II, vol. 1, The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2005), p. xii. Tessa Stirling and Daria Nałe˛ cz, ‘Methodology’, in Tessa Stirling, Daria Nałe˛ cz and Tadeusz Dubicki (eds), Intelligence Co-operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II, vol. 1, The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2005), p. xx. Jan Stanisław Ciechanowski (ed.), Intelligence Co-operation between Poland and Great Britain during World War II, vol. 2, Documents (Warsaw: Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwow ´ Pan´ stwowych, 2005), pp. 945–1033. Gill Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. vi, 383. Gill Bennett, ‘A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business’: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924 FCO History Notes No. 14, London, 1999. Public interest in the ‘Zinoviev letter’

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 301

21/02/2013 08:24

302

40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56 57 58

59

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

was provoked by a book drawing on material from the Soviet KGB archives. Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives (London: HarperCollins, 1998). The affair broke when a letter purporting to be from the Soviet leader Grigori Zinoviev to the Communist Party of Great Britain urging them to rouse the British proletariat in advance of armed insurrection and class war was leaked to the British press and seriously undermined the position of the Labour government, which was then in power. See Jeffery, MI6 (London: Bloomsbury, 2011; published in the US by Penguin, New York, as The Secret History of MI6) and Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009; published in the US by Knopf, New York, as Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5). See, for example, the review by Jeremy Duns in the Mail on Sunday, 7 November 2010, p. 12. Neil Tweedie, ‘MI6 Has No Room For Mavericks’, Daily Telegraph, 9 May 2011, p. 21. And is amplified in additional material published in the UK paperback edition, see pp. 762–8. John Sawers, ‘Foreword’, in Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), p. vii. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. xxi. Jeffery, MI6, p. x. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. xxii, and scattered indications in the source reference notes. Jeffery, MI6, p. xviii. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/MI6-History-Intelligence-Service-1909-1949/dp/074 7591830/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335090445&sr=8-1. Len Scott and Peter Jackson, ‘The Study of Intelligence in Theory and Practice’, Intelligence and National Security, 19(2), Summer 2004, p. 153. Quoted in David Walker, ‘Just How Intelligent?’, The Guardian, 18 February 2003. See Scott and Jackson, ‘The Study of Intelligence in Theory and Practice’, p. 152; David Walker, ‘Just How Intelligent?’ The Guardian, 18 February 2003. See, also, Christopher R. Moran, ‘The Pursuit of Intelligence History: Methods, Sources, and Trajectories in the United Kingdom’, Studies in Intelligence, 55(2), June 2011, pp. 33–55. Moran, ‘Pursuit of Intelligence History’, p. 47. See Richard J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (London: HarperPress, [2010] 2011). Wording here is based on Bronwyn Dalley, ‘Finding the Common Ground: New Zealand’s Public History’, in Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips (eds), Going Public: The Changing Face of New Zealand History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001), p. 24. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. xvii. Jeffery, MI6, p. xvi. R. Gerald Hughes, ‘Truth Telling and the Defence of the Realm: History and the History of the British Secret Intelligence Service’, Intelligence and National Security, 26(5), October 2011, p. 707. See David French, ‘“Official but not History”? Sir James Edmonds and the Official

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 302

21/02/2013 08:24

Intelligence and ‘Official History’

60 61 62

63

64

65 66

67

303

History of the Great War’, The Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 131(1), March 1986, pp. 58–63. Martin Blumenson, ‘Can Official History be Honest History?’, Military Affairs, 26(4), Fall 1962, p. 153. Blumenson, ‘Can Official History be Honest History?’, p. 153. Blumenson, ‘Can Official History be Honest History?’, pp. 153, 155. See, also, the discussion in David French, ‘Sir James Edmonds and the Official History: France and Belgium’, in Brian Bond (ed.), The First World War and British Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 69–86. Another potential consideration for historians writing about contemporary or near-contemporary events is the possibility of libel. M. R. D. Foot’s SOE in France provoked a lively public debate involving surviving members of the organisation, questions in parliament, and a libel suit resulting in the first edition being withdrawn and replaced with a revised edition in 1968 (see The Times, 29 August 1966, p. 10 (‘“Odette” Libel Claim’); The Times, 29 July 1967, p. 7 (‘Damages for Slur in War Book’); Mark Seaman, ‘Good Thrillers but Bad History: A Review of Published Works on the Special Operations Executive’s Work in France During the Second World War’, in K. G. Robertson (ed.), War, Resistance and Intelligence: Essays in Honour of M. R. D. Foot (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999), pp. 127–8. Jonathan Evans, ‘Foreword’, in Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), p. xv. Sir John Sawers wrote that: ‘the aim was to increase public understanding of SIS’, see John Sawers, ‘Foreword’, in Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), p. vii. Aldrich, ‘Policing the Past’, p. 923. Roberto Rabel, ‘War History as Public History: Past and Future’, in Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillips (eds), Going Public: The Changing Face of New Zealand History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001), p. 64. See http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/130655.

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 303

21/02/2013 08:24

INDEX

Note: Illustrations are indicated by page numbers in italics. 9/11 see September 11th attacks 9/11 Commission Report, 163 24 (TV series), 147, 159, 223 25-Year War, The (Palmer), 99 39 Steps, The (Buchan), 161 303 Committee, 66 A-12 aircraft, 9, 99 accountability, 70, 72, 271 Adams, Sam, 99 Addy, Premen, 192 Adler, Julius Ochs, 116 Afghanistan, 104, 105, 177, 185–9, 191–2, 193, 194, 195–6, 197 Agee, Philip, 119, 120 Ahern, Thomas, 99 Albania, 23, 24 Alder, Gerald, 186, 192 Aldrich, Richard J., 11, 19–41, 147, 211, 251, 263, 296, 299 Alexander, Matthew, 227–8 Algeria, 32, 228 Algerian War, 228 Alias (TV series), 147 Allen, George W., 99 Allen’s Gangsters in Action (Mader), 27–8, 40 Allende, Salvador, 100, 101, 118 al-Qaeda, 105, 227–8, 230 Alsop, Stewart, 113 America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe (Berghahn), 53–4, 55, 56, 61 Ames, Aldrich, 172–3, 177, 178–9 Andrew, Christopher, 10, 19, 28, 35, 92, 147, 153, 204

The Defence of the Realm, 10, 287, 294, 295, 296, 297 For the President’s Eyes Only, 92, 93, 94–106, 158 The Missing Dimension, 2, 19, 146, 147, 148 Secret Service, 206–7, 209 Angleton, James J., 156, 176–7 Arbenz, Jacobo, 67–8, 115–16 Archangel aircraft, 9, 99 Argentina, 231 Armour Against Fate (Occleshaw), 209 Armstrong, Sir Robert, 8, 285, 286 Armstrong, William, 284, 285 Army Security Agency (ASA), 176 Arrigo, Jean Maria, 226 ASA see Army Security Agency (ASA) ASIO see Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Australia, 24, 25 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), 25, 26 authenticity, 147, 148, 149–53, 155, 164 autobiographies see memoirs Avon, Lord see Eden, Anthony, Lord Avon ‘B team’ exercises, 101, 102 Babakhdzhayev, M. A., 195 Bailey, Frederick, 192 Baldwin, Hanson W., 29, 115 Barthes, Roland, 155–6 Batvinis, Raymond J., 142 Baxter, Christopher, 13, 289–99 Bay of Pigs, 9, 19–21, 31–3, 40, 72, 97, 116, 117

304

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 304

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Bayly, C. A., 189–90 Beach, Jim, 12, 202–13 Bearing the Cross (Garrow), 141 Beesly, Patrick Room 40, 210, 211, 268, 275 Very Special Intelligence, 268, 275 Belfrage, Cedric, 32–3, 38 Bell, Mark Sever, 193 Bennett, Gill, 293–4 Bennett, Ralph, 210–11 Berghahn, Volker, 53–4, 55, 56, 61 Bergner, Thomas see Mader, Julius Berkowitz, Bruce, 105, 106 Berlin Tunnel operation, 96 Bernstein, Carl, 67, 118 Best, Anthony, 211 Bicheno, Hugh, 206 Bitter Fruit (Kinzer and Schlesinger), 67–8 Black, Nicholas, 210 Blair, Tony, 293 Blake, George, 286 Bletchley Park, 6–7, 173, 210–11, 275, 291, 296; see also Ultra Blumenson, Martin, 298 Blunt, Anthony, 8, 174, 177, 282, 284, 286 BND see Bundesnachrictendienst (BND) Bodington, Nicholas, 238, 240–1 Bond, Brian, 204 Bond, James, 147, 148, 151, 154, 179 Boorstein, Eddie, 32–3 Boss, The (Theoharis and Cox), 138–9 Boucher, Valentine, 254 Bourne movie series, 150, 163–4 Boxshall, Edwin, 237, 240, 241 Boyle, Andrew, 8 Braden, Tom, 48, 51, 113, 118 Bradley, Omar N., 176 brainwashing, 229 British Guiana, 72, 73 British Intelligence (Twigge, Hampshire and Macklin), 207 British Intelligence in the Second World War (Hinsley), 11, 210, 245, 291, 296 British Military Intelligence (Fergusson), 208, 209 British Military Intelligence (Haswell), 208, 209 Brook, Sir Norman, 251, 290–1 Broughton, Lt Col, 254, 255–6, 257 Browning, Lesley, 253, 255, 256–7

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 305

305 Brysac, Shareen, 193 Bublitz, Robert E., 269, 270 Buchan, John The 39 Steps, 161 Greenmantle, 187 Buckmaster, Maurice, 240, 241–3 Bufacchi, Vittorio, 226 Bulgaria, 23, 24 Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), 27 Bundy, William P., 81 Bureau, The (Sullivan), 134 Burgess, Guy, 174, 177, 286 Burma, 32 Burn After Reading (Coen Brothers), 163 Bush, George H. W., 102, 104 Butler, J. R. M., 289–90 Butler, R. A., 240 Butterfield, Herbert, 246 Bybee, John, 230 Cairncross, John, 174, 283, 286 Calvocoressi, Peter, 275, 291 Cambridge Five, 173–4, 177, 273, 294; see also Blunt, Anthony; Burgess, Guy; Cairncross, John; MacLean, Donald; Philby, Kim Caroe, Olaf, 183 Carter, Jimmy, 103–5 Carter, Miranda, 177 Carver, George, 98, 99 Casey, William, 105, 121 Castro, Fidel, 32, 116, 118 Catholic Church, 140, 177 Caute, David, 35 CCF see Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) censorship, 8–9, 13, 31–2, 57, 77–8, 236–46, 251–60, 298; see also secrecy Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 303 Committee, 66 and Afghanistan, 179 and the Cold War, 21–41, 66–9, 73–82, 95–8, 111–13, 119, 121, 124, 172, 176–9 and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 11, 47–61 and covert action, 12, 19, 21, 22–3, 26, 32, 40, 65–83, 95–6, 111–24 and covert funding, 11, 47–61, 73, 80, 117 CREST search tool, 7, 123 culture of secrecy, 47, 58, 67, 71–2, 112, 122

21/02/2013 08:24

306

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

and declassification, 7, 11, 47, 65–73, 76–83, 97, 122 domestic operations, 7, 100, 112 establishment of, 6, 95, 113, 158, 160 ‘family jewels’, 69, 100, 101, 102, 103, 118 and the FRUS series, 11, 66–83, 95, 97 history of, 9, 11–12, 19–41, 47–61, 66–71, 90–106, 122 International Operations Division (IOD), 48, 51 and interrogation, 229 journalistic accounts of, 19–21, 23, 26, 40, 115–18, 122–3 and the Kennedy assassination, 37–9, 72 memoirs about, 4, 21–2, 119–21 narcotics trade, links to, 65 National Clandestine Service, 66, 67 Office of Policy Coordination, 50–1 Openness Task Force, 72 Operation CHAOS, 65, 118, 129 recruitment, 67, 104, 121, 176, 273 responses to fictional representations, 150, 151–2 Soviet-inspired writings on, 22–41 Special Group, 66 spying on allies, 29–30 and the ‘War on Terror’, 65 Central Intelligence and National Security (Ransom), 30–1 Century of Spies (Richelson), 207 CHAOS see Operation CHAOS Chalfont, Lord see Jones, Alun, Lord Chalfont Challenging the Secret Government (Olmstead), 103 Chapman, Eddie, 4, 5, 251–2, 255 Charles, Douglas M., 140–1 Charlton, F. W., 243–4 Cherkashin, Viktor, 178 Chicago Tribune, 113 Childers, Erskine, 152, 155, 159 Chile, 100, 101, 118 China, 37, 116, 186, 191, 192, 197 Chinese Civil War, 116 Chomsky, Noam, 136 Christianity Today, 132 Church, Frank, 103, 118–19 Church Committee, 66, 69, 102, 103, 118–19, 162 Churchill, Sir Winston, 173, 241, 251, 257, 290–1

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 306

Churchill’s Man of Mystery (Bennett), 293–4 CIA see Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) CIA, The (Wilford), 58–9 CIA in Guatemala (Immerman), 68 CIDT see cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT) cinema see films civil liberties, 133, 138, 159 Civil Rights movement, 39, 134, 136, 140, 141 civil war see Chinese Civil War; Spanish Civil War Clancy, Tom, 155 Clandestine Service see National Clandestine Service Clayton, Anthony, 208 Climate of Treason (Boyle), 8 Clinton, Bill, 7 Cloak and Dollar War, The (Stewart), 11, 22–6, 40 Cohen, Warren, 69–70, 77, 83 COINTELPRO, 129, 134, 135, 136–8, 139, 141 COINTELPRO (Perkus), 136, 137 Colby, William E., 81, 102, 119, 120, 121, 274 Cold War and the CIA, 21–41, 66–9, 73–82, 95–8, 111–13, 119, 121, 124, 172, 176–9 Cold War consensus, 113, 114, 117, 119 cultural, 21, 26, 47–61 end of, 2, 7, 70, 122, 158 and the FBI, 136, 137 and the Great Game, 183–5 and Indonesia, 73–82 and Russia, 21–2, 24, 25, 28–9, 31, 35–6, 38–40, 69, 74, 95–8, 100–1, 102, 104–6 and the SIS, 27, 97, 172 Cold War consensus, 113, 114, 117, 119 Coleman, Peter, 49–50, 51, 54, 55, 57–8, 60, 61 Communist Parties American, 34, 35, 36, 134 Australian, 25 British, 24, 25, 34 generally, 21, 31, 37 German, 39 Indonesian, 74, 75, 76, 78–9, 80–1 Congo, 32, 66, 82, 118 Congress (US), 9, 54, 55, 66, 70, 82, 112, 113, 114–15, 117–19, 122, 131

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), 11, 47–61 Connolly, Arthur, 185 Conrad, Joseph, 154 Consortium for the Study of Intelligence (CSI), 121 conspiracy theories, 22, 37–9, 40, 162–3 conspiracy thrillers, 161–4 Conversation, The (Coppola), 161 Cook, Fred J., 30, 132–3, 134 Cooper, Alfred Duff, 251 Cooper, Courtney Ryley, 129–31, 133, 134, 138 CORONA imagery satellite, 96, 97 Countercoup (Roosevelt), 70 Counter-Intelligence Corps (US Army), 28 Counterspy magazine, 119 covert action by the CIA, 19, 21, 22–3, 26, 32, 40, 95–6 definitions of, 111–12 by the FBI, 136 representations of, 12, 65–83, 111–24 and spy fiction, 268 Covert Action Information Bulletin, 119 covert funding, 11, 47–61, 73, 80, 112, 117 Cowell, Gervase, 292 Cowgill, Felix, 177 Cox, John Stuart, 138–9 Craft of Intelligence (Dulles), 9, 21, 267 CREST search tool, 7, 123 Crimea, 187, 188, 209 cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (CIDT), 223–5, 232 Cruikshank, Charles, 245 Cruttwell, C. R. M. F., 204 CSI see Consortium for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) Cuba, 9, 19–21, 30, 31–3, 36, 40, 66, 72, 97, 116, 117, 118, 179 Cuba vs. the CIA (Marzani and Light), 31–2 Cuban missile crisis, 36, 72, 97 Cullather, Nick, 122 cultural Cold War, 21, 26, 47–61 ‘Cultural Cold War, The’ (Lasch), 48–9, 54, 57, 60, 61 cultural theory, 12, 147–8 Cunningham, David, 137, 138 Cyprus, 100 Czechoslovakia, 24

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 307

307 Daily Express, 23 Daily Mail, 244, 286, 287 de Gaulle, Charles, 13, 30, 238, 239–40, 241 de Groot, Gerard, 205 de Vries, Tity, 59 Dearlove, Sir Richard, 91 Decent Interval (Snepp), 4, 119 declassification, 2, 7, 11, 47, 65–73, 76–83, 97, 122, 129, 245, 269, 296 Decoding History (Gardner), 211 DeCoste, Damon Marcel, 156 Defence of the Realm (Andrew), 10, 287, 294, 295, 296, 297 Deighton, Len, 155, 156 DeLillo, Don, 150, 161 Delmer, Sefton, 23 DeLoach, Cartha, 135 Denmark, 59 Denning, Michael, 154–5, 156 Deriabin, Peter, 29, 98 Dericourt, Henri, 238, 243 Deutsch, Arnold, 173–4 Diem brothers, 118 Dilks, David, 2, 19, 146, 147, 148 Directorate of Operations see National Clandestine Service Dirty War, 231 Dominican Republic, 118 Donovan, William J., 6, 31, 34, 113, 160, 173 Doolittle, James, 114 Double Cross System, The (Masterman), 255 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 240 Driberg, Tom, 283 Dujmovic, Nicholas, 11–12, 90–106, 151–2 Dulles, Allen, 19–20, 26–31, 75, 115–16, 159, 267 Craft of Intelligence, 9, 21, 267 Germany’s Underground, 26 Dulles, John Foster, 76, 77–8, 115, 116 Dunne, Kenneth, 29–30, 31, 40 East Germany, 27 East India Company, 188, 191 Eastern Europe, 22–3, 24, 26–8, 114, 263; see also individual countries Eden, Anthony, Lord Avon, 241 Edge of Darkness (TV series), 150 Edmonds, Sir James, 298 Edwards, Bob, 22, 28–30, 31, 40 Edwards, Michael, 192 Egypt, 32

21/02/2013 08:24

308

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 68, 70, 75, 96–7, 115, 116, 266 Elias, Ney, 192 Ellis, Charles, 283, 286 Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 186 Empire News, 256 Encounter magazine, 48, 57, 58, 117 Enemies: A History of the FBI (Weiner), 142 Enigma device, 173, 275; see also Bletchley Park; Ultra European Convention on Human Rights, 223, 224 European Court of Human Rights, 224 European Movement, 28–9 Evans, Sir Jonathan, 297, 299 Evans Brothers Ltd, 253, 256 Evening Standard, 258 Fairfield Foundation, 54, 55, 57 Falklands War, 293 ‘family jewels’, 69, 100, 101, 102, 103, 118 Farrar-Hockley, Anthony, 292 FBI see Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) FBI: A History, The (Jeffreys-Jones), 141–2 FBI and the Catholic Church (Rosswurm), 140 FBI Nobody Knows, The (Cook), 132–3, 134 FBI Pyramid, The (Felt), 135 FBI Story (Whitehead), 131–2, 133, 134, 138 FBI’s Obscene File, The (Charles), 140–1 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 12, 26, 37, 40, 118, 129–43, 160, 177–9 Federal Bureau of Investigation (Lowenthal), 131, 133, 134 Feitlowitz, Marguerite, 231 Felt, Mark, 135 Fergusson, Thomas, 208 Ferris, John, 3, 207, 209, 210–11, 212 fiction see spy fiction Field, Noel, 24 films, 21, 39, 122, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 155, 160, 161, 162–4 Finnegan, Terrence, 210 First World War, 141, 187, 209–10, 268, 298 Flaubert, Gustave, 155 Fleischman, Julius, 54 Fleming, Ian, 152, 154 Fluency Committee, 283, 284 FOIA see Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 308

Foot, M. R. D. MI9, 275 SOE in France, 10, 13, 236–46, 263, 269, 291 SOE in the Low Countries, 291 Foote, Alexander, 22 For the President’s Eyes Only (Andrew), 92, 93, 94–106, 158 Ford, Douglas, 211 Ford, Gerald, 69, 101–3 Ford Foundation, 54–5, 56 Foreign Office (UK), 237, 238, 239, 241, 242, 245, 253–4 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 11, 66–83, 95, 97 Forte, Sir Charles, 284–6 France, 10–11, 13, 24, 30, 203, 228, 236–46 France and Belgium (Bond), 204 Franks, Sir Arthur, 285 Freedman, Sir Lawrence, 293 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 68, 122, 129, 133, 136, 138 Freedom’s Crusade (Lucas), 51–2, 54–5, 56, 61 French, Patrick, 192 Friedman, Max Paul, 123–4 Friendship magazine, 25 FRUS see Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) Fuchs, Klaus, 176, 286 funding see covert funding G-Men, 12, 129, 132, 160 Galbraith, John Kenneth, 48, 65 Gaps in the Warren Report (Joesten), 38 Gardner, Jock, 211 Gardner, Meredith, 176 Garman, Douglas, 25 Garrison, Jim, 39, 164 Garrow, David J., 141 Gascoyne-Cecil, Robert, Lord Salisbury, 185–6 Gates, Robert, 71, 71–2, 105 GCHQ see Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) Gehlen, Reinhard, 23, 27 Geneva Conventions, 230, 254 Gentry, Curt, 139–40 Germany, 27, 28, 39, 187, 252, 254, 255 Germany’s Underground (Dulles), 26 Gillard, David, 192

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Glading, Percy, 25 Gladman, Brad, 211 Glees, Anthony, 296 Glomar Explorer, 101, 102, 103 Golitsyn, Anatoli, 176 Gonzales, Alberto R., 230 Good Shepherd, The (De Niro), 151–2 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 105 Gouzenko, Igor, 22 Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), 7, 264, 287, 292, 296 Graff, Garrett M., 142 Gramsci, Antonio, 52 Graves, Melissa, 12, 129–43 Great Game, 12, 152–3, 154, 160, 177, 183–97 Great Game, The (Hitz), 152 Greaves, Rose Louise, 192 Greece, 73, 231 Green, Marshall, 79, 81 Greene, Graham, 154, 155, 156, 264 Greenfield, George, 253, 255, 256, 257–8 Greenfield, Kent Roberts, 298 Greenmantle (Buchan), 187 Gruson, Sydney, 115–16 Guatemala, 30, 32, 66, 67–8, 69, 72, 73, 96, 115–16, 122 Gubbins, Sir Colin, 243–4 Gudgin, Peter, 206 Guevara, Che, 32–3 Gustafson, Kristian, 101 Guyana see British Guiana Hallowes, Odette, 243–4 Hampshire, Edward, 207 Handel, Michael, 19, 207, 212 Hanssen, Robert, 172–3, 177–9 Haritos-Fatouros, Mika, 231 Harris, Stephen, 209 Harrison, Mark, 205 Haswell, Jock, 208, 209 Hauner, Milan, 187 Havers, Sir Michael, 287 hegemony, 52–3 Helms, Dick, 31, 32, 36, 100–1 Heritage of Stone (Garrison), 39 Herman, Michael, 270, 274 Hersh, Seymour, 67, 118 Hewitt, Diane, 256 Hill, Bernard, 254, 256 Hines, Jason, 210

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 309

309 Hinsley, Sir Harry, 11, 210, 245, 291, 296 Hiss, Alger, 116 historical theory, 12, 147–9, 157, 161 History of the Great War (Cruttwell), 204 Hitz, Frederick P., 12, 152, 172–9 Hoblitzelle Foundation, 57 Holland see Netherlands Hollis, Sir Roger, 8, 13, 282, 283–4, 286–7 Hollywood, 105, 113, 150, 160, 163–4; see also films Hoover, J. Edgar, 12, 40, 129–37, 130, 138–41, 160 Hoover and the Un-Americans (O’Reilly), 136–7 Hoover’s FBI (DeLoach), 135 Hopkins, Ben, 188–9, 191 Hopkirk, Peter, 187, 193 Hostile Intent (Gustafson), 101 House, Jonathan, 206 How the American Secret Service Works (Joesten), 39 Hughes, R. Gerald, 92, 298 Hughes–Ryan Act, 111–12, 119 Hughes-Wilson, John, 206 human intelligence (HUMINT), 251, 270, 273 human rights, 223–4 HUMINT see human intelligence (HUMINT) Hungarian Revolution, 96 Hungary, 22–3, 24, 96 Hunt, H. L., 37 Hutcheon, Linda, 150, 154 Hutchinson, Sir James, 240 Immerman, Richard, 19, 68 India, 57, 59–60, 183–97 Indonesia, 66, 72, 73–82 Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), 74, 75, 76, 78–9, 80–1 Ingram, Edward, 187, 192 intelligence, definitions of, 202–3, 268, 272 intelligence analysis, 9, 27, 30, 98, 267 Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support (Gladman), 211 Intelligence and National Security, 1, 19, 151, 207 Intelligence and the War Against Japan (Aldrich), 211 Intelligence at the Top (Strong), 13, 264–7, 271–5

21/02/2013 08:24

310

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

intelligence cooperation, 60, 172–9, 266, 267, 270, 273, 293 Intelligence Corps (British Army), 208–9 Intelligence in War (Keegan), 206 Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Herman), 274 intelligence studies, 1–3, 7, 12, 90–106, 121–2, 146–65, 266–7, 268 Intelligencers, The (Parritt), 208, 209 International Affairs, 265 International Operations Division (IOD), 48, 51 interrogation, 12–13, 222–32, 251, 252–8 Invisible Government (Wise and Ross), 21, 70, 117 Iran, 32, 37, 66, 69–70, 72, 82, 83, 96, 103, 104, 115 Iraq 147, 227–8, 272 Ireland, 210, 224, 228 Irish War of Independence, 210 Islam, 103, 104, 186, 190, 197 Italy, 30, 72 J. Edgar Hoover (Gentry), 139–40 J. Edgar Hoover, Sex, and Crime (Theoharis), 139 Jackson, Peter, 146, 204, 296 James, Lawrence, 189 Jameson, Fredric, 12, 147, 161 Japan, 66, 72 Jeffery, Keith, 13, 147, 173, 212, 289–99, 296 Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, 92, 138, 141–2 Jenkins, Dan, 209 JFK (Stone), 39, 150, 162, 163, 164 Joesten, Joachim, 22, 30, 37–9 John Bull magazine, 253 John Paul II, Pope, 105 Johnson, A. Ross, 97 Johnson, Lyndon B., 39, 65, 66, 73, 81, 98–9, 117–18 Johnson, Robert, 12, 154, 183–97 Joint Intelligence Subcomittee (JIC), 290–1, 296 Jolly, Cyril, 258, 260 Jones, Alun, Lord Chalfont, 287 Jones, Kevin, 211 Jones, Matthew, 11, 65–83 Jones, R. V., 275 Josselson, Michael, 55–6, 57 journalism, 4–6, 19–21, 23, 24, 26, 31–2, 40, 65, 79, 115–18, 122–3, 160, 244

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 310

Kadane, Kathy, 79 Kalugin, Oleg, 35–6, 38, 40 Kane, Stephen, 68 Keay, John, 192 Keefer, Edward C., 78, 79 Keegan, John, 206 Keller, William W., 137, 138 Kennan, George, 48, 51 Kennedy, John F., 21, 32, 36, 37–9, 66, 72, 97–8, 162, 179 Kennedy, Robert, 76, 263 Kent, Sherman, 147, 267 KGB, 28–9, 31, 34, 35–6, 38–40, 98, 105, 174, 176 Khalfin, N. A., 195–6 Khrushchev, Nikita, 98, 179 Kim (Kipling), 12, 152–3, 154, 160, 194–6 Kimball, Warren, 70–1 King, Martin Luther, Jr, 135, 137, 141, 263 Kinzer, Stephen, 67–8 Kipling, Rudyard, 183, 184 Kim, 12, 152–3, 154, 160, 194–6 Knochlein, Fritz, 252–3, 255, 259 Knott, Stephen F., 159 Korea see Korean War; North Korea Korean War, 57, 229, 292 Kramer, Mark, 124 Kristol, Irving, 48 Ku Klux Klan, 137 Kuklinkski, Ryszard, 104–5 LaCapra, Dominick, 147–8, 153, 161 Lamb, Alastair, 192 Lane, Mark, 39 Langley, J. M., 275 Laos, 32, 72 Lasch, Christopher, 48–9, 54, 57, 60, 61 Lasky, Melvin, 48, 51, 58 Lawrence & Wishart, 23–4, 25 Le Carré, John, 12, 152, 154, 155, 161, 175 Smiley’s People, 176 The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 150 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 172, 174 Le Queux, William, 152, 155, 159 Leach, Hugh, 193 leaflet campaigns, 23, 28 Leffler, Mel, 72 Legacy of Ashes (Weiner), 11–12, 90–106 legitimacy, 28, 134, 159 Levine, Jack, 132–3, 134 Lewin, Ronald, 265, 266, 274, 275

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Liberal Conspiracy, The (Coleman), 49, 51, 54, 55, 57–8, 60, 61 Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, The (Keller), 137, 138 Liberty Book Club, 35 Libra (DeLillo), 150 Liddell Hart, Sir Basil, 298 Light, Robert, 31–2 Lomas, Daniel, 13, 251–60 London Cage, The (Scotland), 13, 251–60 London District Cage, 13, 251–60 London Reception Centre, 228 Look Over My Shoulder (Helms), 101 Lowenthal, Mark, 274 Lowenthal, Max, 131, 133, 134 Lukács, Georg, 155, 156 Lucas, Scott, 49, 51–2, 54–5, 56, 61 Luce, Henry, 115 Lumumba, Patrice, 32, 118 McCarthy, Joseph, 136, 137 McCone, John, 97, 99 Macdonald, Dwight, 57 MacEachin, Douglas, 105 McGarr, Paul, 11, 65–83 Mackenzie, Sir Compton, 251 Macklin, Graham, 207 McLachlan, Donald, 13, 263–70, 274–5 McLaughlin, John, 91 MacLean, Donald, 174, 177, 286 McMahon, Robert J., 77–8 Macmillan, Harold, 6 Maddrell, Paul, 26–7 Mader, Julius, 22, 27–8, 40 Maiolo, Joe, 206 Malaysia, 79 Malcolm, Sir John, 183 Man Called Intrepid, A (Stevenson), 275 Man Who Kept the Secrets, The (Powers), 101 Man Who Never Was, The (Montague), 251, 253, 256 Mandate for Change (Eisenhower), 70 Mangold, Tom, 156 Manhattan Project, 176 Mao Zedong, 116 Marchetti, Victor, 119 Marks, John, 119 Marshall Plan, 53, 57 Martens, Robert J., 79, 81 Marzani, Carl, 22, 30, 31–7, 38 Marzani & Munsell, 35, 37, 38

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 311

311 Masterman, J. C., 255 Masters of Deceit (Hoover), 132, 133, 136 Matthew, Sir Theobald, 256, 258 Maugham, Somerset, 152, 154, 155, 156–8 Mayaquez incident, 102 Mechelen Incident, 204 memoirs about the CIA, 4, 21–2, 119–21 about the FBI, 134–5 about the London Cage, 13, 251–60 about MI5, 4, 8, 13, 251–2, 281–8 about military intelligence, 263–75 Men of Intelligence (Strong), 202, 275 Menzies, Sir Stewart, 22 Merlin Press, 37, 38 Meyer, Karl E., 20–1, 193 MI5 and censorship, 251–2, 281–7 and Lawrence & Wishart, 25 memoirs about, 4, 8, 13, 251–2, 281–7 official histories of, 9, 13, 289, 294–5, 297, 299 surveillance of Gordon Stewart, 25 MI6 see Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service (Jeffery), 294–6, 297–8 MI9 (Foot and Langley), 275 MI11, 254, 255, 257 Miami District Fund, 57 Michelet, Jules, 155 Mighty Wurlitzer, The (Wilford), 58–9 Military Affairs, 269 military intelligence, 12, 202–13, 274 Military Intelligence (Gudgin), 206 Military Intelligence Blunders and Cover-Ups (Hughes-Wilson), 206 Military Operations in France and Belgium (Edmonds), 298 Millett, Allan, 204 Missing Dimension, The (Andrew and Dilks), 2, 19, 146, 147, 148 Mistry, Kaeten, 12, 111–24 Mitchell, Alan, 253 Mitrokhin, Vasily, 38 modernism, 156–7 Mohs, Polly, 210 Montague, Ewan, 251, 253, 256 Moorcroft, William, 192 Moran, Christopher, 1–14, 154 Morgan, Gerald, 160, 192, 194–5 Morris, L. P., 186

21/02/2013 08:24

312

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Morton, Sir Desmond, 293–4 Mosaddegh, Mohammad, 32, 70, 115 Most Secret War (Jones), 275 Mott, Norman, 237–8 Mountbatten, Louis, 265, 267 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 122, 162 Murphy, Christopher, 1–14, 236–46 Murray, Williamson, 204 My Silent War (Philby), 177, 264 narcotics, 65 Nation magazine, 48, 117 National Clandestine Service, 66, 67 National Security Agency (NSA), 29–30 National Security Archive (NSA), 80, 122 National Security Council (NSC), 80, 97, 105, 113–14, 120 National Student Association (NSA), 117 NATO see North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Naval Intelligence Department (NID), 266, 268, 269 Nazism, 23, 27, 28, 31 Netherlands, 59, 74 New York Times, 20–1, 23–4, 29, 32, 47, 65, 67, 69, 70, 77, 79–80, 115–18, 122, 257 New Yorker, 26 Newbery, Samantha, 12–13, 222–32 Newsweek, 31, 39 Nicaragua, 105 NID see Naval Intelligence Department (NID) Nixon, Richard, 65, 100–1, 118, 134, 135 No Left Turns (Schott), 135 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), 29–30, 53, 74, 202–3, 254, 269 North Korea, 100 North Vietnam see Vietnam; Vietnam War Northern Ireland, 224, 228 Novick, Peter, 148–9 Nowak, Manfred, 224–5 NSA see National Security Agency (NSA); National Security Archive (NSA); National Student Association (NSA) NSC see National Security Council (NSC) Nukhovich, E., 195 Nyman, Lars-Erik, 192 O’Callaghan, William, 258 Occleshaw, Michael, 209 Office of Policy Coordination, 50–1

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 312

Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 6, 26, 27, 31–5, 95, 113, 142, 158, 160, 172–3 Official and Confidential (Summers), 139 official histories, 9–11, 13, 21, 66–7, 131–2, 173, 236–46, 263, 289–99 Official Secrets Act (UK), 237, 251–2, 255, 257, 258, 282, 284, 285 Olmstead, Kathryn, 103 Omand, Sir David, 274 On the Trail of the Assassins (Garrison), 39 Operation CHAOS, 65, 118, 129 Oppenheimer, Robert, 48 O’Reilly, Kenneth, 136–7 Origins of FBI Counterintelligence (Batvinis), 142 Orwell, George, 28, 159 OSS see Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Oswald, Lee Harvey, 37–9 Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? (Joesten), 37–9 Other Ultra, The (Lewin), 275 Pakistan, 190 Pakula, Alan J., 161 Palmer, Bruce, 99 Palmer Raids, 131, 136 Parallax View, The (Pakula), 161 Parritt, Brian, 208, 209 Parsons, Douglas, 25 Pearl Harbor, 34, 173 Peninsular War, 209 Penkovsky, Oleg, 97–8, 179 Perkus, Cathy, 136, 137 Perlo, Victor, 38–9 Persia, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 196, 197 Peters, Edward, 223 Philby, Kim, 11, 29, 174–7, 264, 286, 294–5 Philby Affair, The (Trevor-Roper), 264 Philippines, 79 Philipsen, Ingeborg, 59 Pike, Otis, 118 Pike Committee, 69, 102, 103, 118 Pillar, Paul, 91 Pincher, Chapman, 5–6, 6, 13, 264, 281–8 Their Trade is Treachery, 8, 13, 281–8 Too Secret Too Long, 287 PKI see Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) Poland, 22–3, 24, 70 Politics of Apolitical Culture (Scott-Smith), 52–3, 54–5, 56, 61 Polmar, Norman, 103 Pooley, Albert, 258

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Pope, Allen, 76 Popov spy case, 96 Popplewell, Richard, 189 popular culture, 12, 21, 113, 122, 146–65, 172–9, 205–6, 223 Porter, Bernard, 4, 159 Portrait of a Master Spy (Edwards and Dunne), 29–30, 31, 40 Pottinger, Eldred, 192 Pottinger, George, 192 Powers, Richard Gid, 130, 140, 160, 162 Powers, Thomas, 101 Prague Spring, 263 press, the see journalism Prisoner, The (TV series), 150 Project AZORIAN (Polmar and White), 103 Prometheus Book Club, 35 Promise of Eurocommunism, The (Marzani), 37 propaganda, 21–2, 23, 24, 28, 40, 112, 114, 133, 136 Pullin, Eric, 11, 47–61 Pynchon, Thomas, 161 Rabel, Roberto, 299 race, 141–2; see also Civil Rights movement radio broadcasting, 23, 28 Ramparts magazine, 47, 65, 117–18 Ransom, Harry Howe, 30–1, 147 RCAS see Royal Central Asian Society (RCAS), 193 Reader’s Digest magazine, 160 Reagan, Ronald, 26, 69, 105–6, 112, 122 realism, 153–60 Reality Effect, The (Barthes), 155–6 recruitment, 67, 104, 121, 173, 176, 178, 191, 273 RED (Schwentke), 163 Red Orchestra, 22 Red Scares, 131, 137 regimental histories, 208–9 Reilly, Sir Patrick, 239–40, 242 Rejali, Darius, 228 Reston, James, 23 Reynolds, David, 291 Richards, Sir Brooks, 292–3 Richelson, Jeffrey, 92, 97, 105, 207 Riddle of the Sands, The (Childers), 155 Robbins, Keith, 206 Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 56 Rockefeller Commission, 69, 101, 102, 105

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 313

313 Rockefeller Foundation, 54, 56 Roman, Howard, 21 Room 39 (McLachlan), 13, 263–70, 274–5 Room 40 (Beesly), 210, 211, 268, 275 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 139 Roosevelt, Kermit, 70 Roosevelt, Theodore, 129, 131 Rose, Kenneth, 281 Rosenberg, Ethel, 116, 176 Rosenberg, Julius, 116, 176 Roskill, Stephen, 270, 289–90 Ross, Thomas, 19, 21, 70, 117 Rosswurm, Steve, 140 Rostow, Walt, 31, 32 Rothschild, Victor, 281, 282–3 Royal Central Asian Society (RCAS), 193 Rubin, Dan, 36 Rumsfeld, Donald, 230 Rush to Judgment (Lane), 39 Russell, Edward Frederick Langley, 256 Russia and the Cold War, 21–2, 24, 25, 28–9, 31, 35–6, 38–40, 69, 74, 95–8, 100–1, 102, 104–6 declassification of documents, 70 espionage by, 4, 8, 25, 28–9, 31, 35–6, 97–8, 173–4, 176–9, 282–4 and the Great Game, 12, 183–92, 193, 194–6 and the Second World War, 34, 173–4 Sabin, Margery, 55, 59–60 Salisbury, Lord see Gascoyne-Cecil, Robert, Lord Salisbury Sandys, Duncan, 29 Sarila, Narendra Singh, 190 Saturday Evening Post, 116, 118 Saunders, Frances Stonor, 49–51, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61 Sawers, Sir John, 295 Sayle, Edward, 159 Scarlett, Sir John, 294 Scarry, Elaine, 224 Schecter, Jerrold, 98 Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr, 21, 31, 32, 36, 48, 51 Schlesinger, James, 100 Schlesinger, Stephen, 67–8 Schneider, René, 118 Schott, Joseph L., 135 Schwar, Harriet D., 76 Scotland, Alexander, 13, 251–60

21/02/2013 08:24

314

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Scotland Story, The see London Cage, The (Scotland) Scott, Len, 146, 296 Scott-Smith, Giles, 50, 52–3, 54–5, 56, 61 Scourge of the Swastika (Russell), 256 Seaver, George, 192 Second World War Allen Dulles during, 26, 28 and the FBI, 141–2 historiography of intelligence during, 10–11, 204, 210–11, 236–46, 274–5, 289–93 London Cage, 13, 251–9 naval intelligence, 266, 268, 290 and official histories, 10–11, 289–93 and the OSS, 113, 158, 172–3 and Russia, 34, 173–4 and the SIS, 172, 173–5, 292 and the SOE, 10–11, 236, 291, 292 and Ultra, 7, 210–11, 290–91 Second World War (Churchill), 291 secrecy culture of in the CIA, 47, 58, 67, 71–2, 112, 122 and funding see covert funding and historiography, 149, 269, 271, 274–5, 290–7 and interrogation, 227, 251–60 and journalism, 4–6 lifting of see declassification and official histories, 290–97 and operations see covert action and public opinion, 112, 117–18, 161–4 and publication of memoirs, 3–4, 22, 251–60 see also censorship; covert action; covert funding; Official Secrets Act (UK) Secrecy and Power (Powers), 140 Secret Agent, The (Conrad), 154 Secret Empire (Taubman), 97 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and the Cold War, 27, 97, 172 establishment of, 159–60 official histories of, 9, 13, 173, 289, 291–6, 297–8, 299 and the Second World War, 172, 173–5, 292 and SOE in France, 237, 238, 245 and Their Trade is Treachery, 283, 285, 287 Secret Life, A (Weiser), 105 Secret Service (Andrew), 206–7, 209

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 314

Secret Service Bureau, 152, 294 Security Service see MI5 Seligmann, Matthew, 209 September 11th attacks, 65, 92, 142, 147, 158, 162–3, 222, 225 Sheffy, Yigal, 209–10 show trials, 23, 24 Shue, Henry, 226 Sidgwick & Jackson, 284, 286 Simple Heart, A (Flaubert), 155 SIS see Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Sitnikov, Vasilli, 29 sleep deprivation, 229, 253 Sloan Foundation, 56 Smiley’s People (le Carré), 176 Smith, Walter Bedell, 23, 26, 273 Snepp, Frank, 4, 119 SOE see Special Operations Executive (SOE) SOE in France (Foot), 10, 13, 236–46, 263, 269, 291 SOE in the Low Countries (Foot), 291 South Vietnam see Vietnam; Vietnam War Soviet bloc see Eastern Europe; Russia Soviet Union see Russia Spain, 28, 34 Spanish Civil War, 28, 34 Special Branch (UK police), 25, 252, 256–7, 260 Special Operations Executive (SOE), 10, 236–46, 291, 292 Spender, Stephen, 48 spy fiction, 12, 21, 146, 147–65, 172–9, 187, 194–6, 268 spy planes, 9, 19, 27, 96, 97, 99 Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The (le Carré), 150 Spy Who Saved the World, The (Schecter and Deriabin), 98 Spycatcher (Wright), 4, 8, 286, 287–8 Spymaster (Kalugin), 36 Stalin, Joseph, 34, 114, 177 Stasi, 22, 27 State Deparment (US), 11, 40, 51, 55, 66–71, 72–3, 76–7, 80, 81, 82–3, 101 Historical Advisory Committee, 68, 69, 70–1, 72, 73, 77, 83 Office of the Historian, 66–8, 70, 72, 73, 76–7, 79, 82 Stephenson, Sir William, 173, 275 Stevenson, William, 275 Stewart, Gordon, 11, 22–6, 40

21/02/2013 08:24

Index Stewart, Jules, 193 Stockwell, John, 119 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 133 Stone, Oliver: JFK, 39, 150, 162, 163, 164 Straight, Michael, 282 Strong, Sir Kenneth Intelligence at the Top, 13, 264–7, 271–5 Men of Intelligence, 202, 275 student protest groups, 101, 136, 137 Students for a Democratic Society, 137 Studies in Intelligence, 1, 9, 81, 90, 267 Study of Communism, A (Hoover), 132 Sukarno, President of Indonesia, 74, 75, 78, 80 Sullivan, William, 132, 134, 135, 141 Sulzberger, Arthur Hays, 116 Sulzeberger, C. L., 23 Summers, Anthony, 139 Survivor, The (Marzani), 35 Sussman, David, 225 Svendsen, Adam, 13, 263–75 Swinson, Arthur, 192 Sykes, Sir Percy, 187 Szulc, Tad, 20–1, 32 Taliban, 179, 230 Taubman, Philip, 97 Taylor, Stan A., 151 television, 19, 117, 122, 147, 150, 159, 206, 223 Ten Thousand Public Enemies (Cooper), 129–31, 133, 134, 138 terrorism, 158, 222, 225–6; see also September 11th attacks; ‘War on Terror’ Tet offensive, 98, 99 Text for President X (Marzani), 36 Thatcher, Margaret, 8, 285, 286, 287 Their Trade is Treachery (Pincher), 8, 13, 281–8 Theoharis, Athan G., 138–9 There’s Something Happening Here (Cunningham), 137, 138 Thomas, Donald, 260 Thomas, Martin, 196 Thornton, A. P., 192 Threat Matrix, The (Graff ), 142 Three Days of the Condor (Pollack), 161 Tibet, 192, 195 ‘ticking bomb’ scenario, 159, 223, 225–6 Time magazine, 115, 117, 160 Times, The, 255

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 315

315 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (le Carré), 172, 174 Tonkin Gulf incident, 98, 99 Too Secret Too Long (Pincher), 287 torture, 12–13, 147, 159, 222–32, 243–4, 252–4 totalitarianism, 53, 55 Trask, David, 68 Trend, Sir Burke, 11, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 244, 284, 287 Trend Report, 286–7 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 264 Trujillo, Rafael, 118 Truman, Harry S., 6, 23, 35, 95, 176 Tully, Andrew, 19, 21, 40 Turkey, 29, 186, 187 Turner, Stansfield, 103, 104, 274 Twigge, Stephen, 207 U-2 spy planes, 19, 96, 97 Ukraine, 28 Ultimate Enemy, The (Wark), 208 Ultra, 6–7, 173, 176, 210–11, 275, 290–1, 296; see also Bletchley Park Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy (Ferris), 210–11 Ultra Goes to War (Lewin), 275 Ultra Secret, The (Winterbotham), 275, 291 United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), 224 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 223 Unterberger, Betty, 68 Urban, Hugh, 149 Urban, Mark, 209 Ure, John, 193 USSR see Russia Van Hook, James, 83 Vengeance of Private Pooley, The (Jolly), 258, 260 VENONA intercept programme, 176, 286 Verrier, Anthony, 192 Very Special Intelligence (Beesly), 268, 275 Vietnam, 4, 72, 98–9, 100, 101, 102, 117, 118, 119, 140, 162, 263 Vietnam War, 4, 72, 98–9, 118, 119, 140, 162, 263 Village Voice magazine, 118 Volkov, Konstantin, 174

21/02/2013 08:24

316

Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US

Wade, Stephen, 193 Waldegrave Initiative on Open Government, 7, 289 Waller, Derek, 192 War at Sea, The (Roskill), 289–90 war crimes, 252–3, 256, 257–8, 259 War of Independence (Ireland), 210 War of Independence (US), 3–4 War Office (UK), 13, 207, 252, 253–4, 255–9 ‘War on Terror’, 65, 147, 225, 230–1 Wark, Wesley, 148, 153–4, 159, 161, 206, 208, 275 Warner, Michael, 67, 95 Warren Commission, 163 Washington, George, 3–4, 122, 158 Washington Post, 20–1, 24, 65, 70, 79, 117 Waterfield, John, 253–4 Watergate, 100, 101, 118, 119, 129, 162 We Can Be Friends (Marzani), 35 Weiner, Tim Enemies: A History of the FBI, 142 Legacy of Ashes, 11–12, 90–106, 91 Weiser, Benjamin, 105 Welch, Richard, 100 Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 209 Wentzel, Fritz, 255 West Germany, 27, 28, 39, 254 White, Sir Dick, 237 White, Hayden, 12, 147, 148–9, 157–9, 165 White, Michael, 103 Whitehead, Don, 131–2, 133, 134, 138 Who Paid the Piper? (Saunders), 49–51, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61

MORAN 9780748646272 PRINT.indd 316

Wielen, Max, 259 Wilford, Hugh, 51, 58–9, 60 Wilkinson, Peter, 237, 238, 241, 245 Willmetts, Simon, 12, 146–65 Wilson, Harold, 8, 29, 284, 287 Winterbotham, Frederick, 275, 291 Wise, David, 5, 19, 21, 70, 117 Wisner, Frank, 50–1 Wizards of Langley (Richelson), 97 Woods, Michael, 117 Woodward, Bob, 67, 118 Woolsey, James, 72 Woolwich Arsenal case, 25 World News and Views, 24 World War I see First World War World War II see Second World War Wounded Earth, The (Marzani), 37 Wright, Peter Spycatcher, 4, 8, 286, 287–8 and Their Trade is Treachery, 282–2 Wyatt, Christopher, 186–7, 196 Wynn, Antony, 187 Yapp, Malcolm, 185, 190, 191 Yapp, Winston, 160 Yeltsin, Boris, 71 Yom Kippur War, 100, 101 Young, Michael, 238–9 Younghusband, Sir Francis, 185, 192, 193 Zammito, John, 153 al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 228 Zegart, Amy, 147

21/02/2013 08:24