The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence 1585672742, 9781585672745

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Historians of Secret Service and their Enemies
Part I. From World War to Cold War, 1941-1945
1 Fighting with the Russians
2 A Cold War in Whitehall
3 Secret Service at the War’s End: SIS and the CIA
Part II. The Cold War Gets Going, 1945-1949
4 MIS: Defectors, Spy-trials and Subversion
5 The Counter-Offensive: From CRD to IRD
6 The Fifth Column of Freedom: Britain Embraces Liberation
7 Liberation or Provocation? Special Operations in the Eastern Bloc
8 The Front Line: Intelligence in Germany and Austria
9 Operation Dick Tracy: Air Intelligence in London and Washington
10 The Failure of Atomic Intelligence
11 GCHQ: Signals Intelligence Looks East
12 Defeat in Palestine
Part III. The Cold War Turns Hot, 1950-1956
13 The Korean War
14 Cold War Fighting in Asia
15 The Struggle to Contain Liberation
16 The CIA’s Federalist Operation: ACUE and the European Movement
17 Atomic Deception and Atomic Intelligence
18 At the Coal Face: Intelligence- Gathering
19 Moles and Defectors: The Impact of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean
20 At Home and Abroad: The Information Research Department
21 Defeat in the Middle East: Iran and Suez
22 Victory in Malaya
Part IV. The Cold War Widens, 1957-1963
23 Submarines, Spy-flights and Shoot-downs: Intelligence after Suez
24 Missiles and Mergers: Strategic Intelligence
25 Cyprus: The Last Foothold
26 Working Groups: special Operations in the Third World
27 The Hidden Hand Exposed: From the Bay of Pigs to Profumo
‘Behind the scenes of history'
Appendix: Note by John Drewfor Chiefs of Staff and SIS, 1949
Notes
Acknowledgements

Citation preview

The Hidden H and

B y the sam e author

The Key to the South: Britain, the United States and Thailand during the Approach of the Pacific War, 1929-1942 Intelligence and the War against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service

The Hidden H and Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence

RICHARD J. ALDRICH

THE OVERLOOK PRESS Woodstock & New York

First published in the United States in 2002 by The Overlook Press. Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. Woodstock & New York W o o d sto ck :

One Overlook Drive Woodstock. NY 12498 www.overlookpress.com [for individual orders, bulk and special sales, contact our Woodstock office] N ew Yo rk :

141 Wooster Street New York, NY 10012 Copyright © 2001 by Richard J. Aldrich All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

0 The paper used in this book meets the requirements for paper permanence as described in che ANSI Z39.48-1992 standard. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aldrich, Richard J. The hidden hand : Britain, America, and Cold War secret intelligence / Richard J. Aldrich p. cm. Originally published: London : John Murray, 2001. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Intelligence service— History—20th century. 2. United Sûtes. Central Intelligence Agency. 3. Great Britain. Secret Intelligence Service. 4. Cold War. I. Title JF1525.16 A436 2002 327.1241*009*045—dc21 2002020648 Printed in the United Sûtes of America ISBN 1-58567-274-2 First Edition

135798642

For I Jhby (the real informative information)

Contents Illustrations Abbreviations

ix xi

Historians o f Secret Service and their Enemies

1

Part I

1. 2. 3.

F rom W orld W ar to C old W ar , 1941-1945

Fighting with the Russians A Cold War in Whitehall Secret Service at the War’s End: SIS and the CIA

17 19 43 64

1945-1949

89

4. MI5: Defectors, Spy-trials and Subversion 5. The Counter-Offensive: From CRD to IRD 6. The Fifth Column o f Freedom: Britain Embraces Liberation 7. Liberation or Provocation? special Operations in the Eastern Bloc 8. The Front Line: Intelligence in Germany and Austria 9. Operation Dick Tracy: Air Intelligence in London and Washington 10. The Failure o f Atomic Intelligence 11. GCHQ: Signals Intelligence Looks East 12. Defeat in Palestine

91 122

Part II

P art III

13. 14. 15. 16.

T he C old W ar G ets G oing ,

T he C old W ar T urns

H ot , 1950-1956

The Korean War Cold War Fighting in Asia The Sưuggle to Contain Liberation The CIA’s Federalist Operation: ACUE and the European Movement

142 160 180 206 218 233 256 269 271 293 315 342

viii 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

C ontents

Atomic Deception and Atomic Intelligence At the Coal Face: Intelligence-Gathering Moles and Defectors: T he Im pact o f Guy Burgess and D onald Maclean A t H om e and Abroad: T he Inform ation Research D epartm ent D efeat in the Middle East: Iran and Suez Victory in Malaya

443 464 494

P akt IV

519

T he C old W a r W idens , 1957-1963

Submarines, Spy-flights and Shoot-downs: Intelligence after Suez 24. Missiles and Mergers: Strategic Intelligence 25. Cyprus: T he Last Foothold 26. Working Groups: Special O perations in the Third World 27. T he Hidden H and Exposed: From the Bay o f Pigs to Profum o

371 392 421

23.

521 550 567 581 607

‘Behind the scenes o f history’

637

Appendix: Note byJohn D rewfor Chiefs o fStaffand SIS, 1949 Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index

646 647 691 717 719

Illustrations ịbetween pages 176-177 and 480-481) 1. W inston Churchill in Berlin, June 1945 2. Anthony E den and Alexander Cadogan in the garden o f the British Embassy in Teheran 3. Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies, Chief o f the Secret Intelligence Service 4. Major-General Sir John Sinclair with General Mark Clark 5. A captured soldier o f the W ehrmacht 6. Air Marshal Sir John Slessor and Marshal o f the RAF Sừ A rthur Tedder Major-General John Lethbridge, the first Head o f Britain’s Intelligence Division in Germ any 8. T he last major Soviet release o f G erm an POW s to the West in 1955 9. T he inside o f Britain’s early elecưonic intelligence ‘ferret’ aircraft, 1945 10. Com m ander Edward Travis, D irector o f G overnm ent Communications Headquarters 11. T he bom bing o f the King David Hotel, 1946 12. T he Shah o f Iran, restored to power by means o f a joint CỈA-SỈS coup d’état in 1953 13. Forward posts in Korea, equipped with therm ite incendiary grenades to destroy sensitive signals intelligence if overrun 14. British Com m andos plant demolition charges on a railway behind enemy lines in Korea, April 1951 15. Political prisoners during the Korean War killed by suffocation, O ctober 1950 16. Training Korean internal security personnel in interrogation 17. Walter Bedell Smith, D irector o f Central Intelligence 18. Vice Admiral Longley-Cook, Britain’s D irector o f Naval Intelligence 19. American training for covert action inside the Eastern bloc 20. Allen Welsh Dulles, D irector o f Central Intelligence

7.

s.

X

Illu stra tio n s

21. Sir Percy SUlitoe, D irector o f MI5 22. Klaus Fuchs, the atomic scientist w ho ‘spied’ for Britain and the Soviet Union 23. and 24. Bombing o f the com m and centres o f Malayan Com munist Party guerrillas deep in the jungle 25. Com m ander Crabb, lost on an SIS mission in 1956 26. T he British submarine HMS Grampus which conducted signals intelligence operations in Artie waters in the early 1960s 27. T he new National Security Agency headquarters at Fort George Meade, Maryland, opened in 1957 28. Sir Eric Jones, D irector o f G overnm ent Communications Headquarters 29. T he Emergency in Cyprus, 1955-9 30. Colonel Grivas, the E O K A guerrilla chief 31. John F. Kennedy and Harold Macmillan 32. T he US Army 10th special Forces G roup practise underwater infiltration operations The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Plates 1 and 2, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London; 3 and 28, National Portrait Gallery, London; 4,5,8,10,13,14,15,16,17,20,27,31 and 32, United States National Archives; 6 ,1 1 ,1 2 ,1 8 ,1 9 ,2 1 ,2 2 ,2 5 ,2 6 ,2 9 and 30, Imperial War Museum; 7, Mrs Katy Lethbridge; 9, Public Record office; 23 and 24, Australian War Memorial. The cartoons that appear on pp. 130 and 395 are reproduced courtesy o f the Public Records office.

A bbreviations A-2 ABN ACAS(I) ACEN ACUE AFCN AFL-CIO AFO AFPFL AFSA AFSS AKEL ASA ASIO ASIS AVH BfV BJ BNA BRIAM BRUSA BSCF ‘C CAB CAS CAS (B) CAT CCF CCRAK CD CEP CGT CIA

US Air Force Intelligence Anti-Bolshevik Nations Assistant Chief of the Air Staff (Intelligence) Assembly o f Captive European Nations American Committee for United Europe American Friends of the Captive Nations American Federation of Labor-Congress o f Industrial Organisations Anti-Fascist Organisations (Burmese] Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (Burmese] Armed Forces Security Agency [American] Air Force Security Service [American] Greek Cypriot Communist Party Army Security Agency [American] Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Australian Secret Intelligence Service Hungarian Security Service West German Security Service Bluejacket file for signals intelligence Burmese National Army British Advisory Mission Vietnam Anglo-American signals intelligence agreement, 1943 British Society for Cultural Freedom Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Cabinet [British] Chief of the Air Staff [British] Civil Affairs Service [Burmese] Civil Air Transport [American] Congress for Cultural Freedom Combined Command, Reconnaissance Activities, Korea Chief o f the special Operations Executive [British] Captured Enemy Personnel French Trade Unions Council Central Intelligence Agency [American]

xii CIC CID CIG CIGS in CIOS CNO CNS COCOM comint comsec COS Cosmic CPGB CRD CRH CT

c c

ex

DCI DFP DMI DNI DoD DP DSI DSO EDC EEC eỉint EOKA ESD44 EUCOM EUSAK FBI FECOM FLN FOIA Force 136 FORD FTUC G-2 GC&CS GCHQ GLADIO GPU GRU

A b b revia tio n s

Counter Intelligence Corps [American] Criminal Investigation Department or Division Central Intelligence Group [American] Chief of the Imperial General Staff [British] Commander in Chief Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee Chief of Naval Operations [American] Chief of the Naval Staff [British] Western conưois on trade with the Eastern bloc communications intelligence communications security Chiefs of Staff [British] a high level o f NATO security clearance Communist Party of Great Britain Cultural Relations Department of the Foreign office Central Reconnaissance Establishment [British] Communist Terrorist [Malayan] prefix for a report originating with SIS Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA Directorate of Forward Plans [British] Director of Military Intelligence Director of Naval Intelligence Department of Defence [American] Displaced Person Director of Scientific Intelligence Defence Security officer (MI5) European Defence Community European Economic Community electronic intelligence Greek Cypriot guerrilla organisation Economic Survey Detachment 44 [American] European Command Eighth US Army in Korea Federal Bureau of Investigation [American] Far Eastern Command [American] Front libération National [Algerian] Freedom of Information Act [American] SOE in the Far East [British] Foreign office Research Department Free Trades Unions Committee US Army Intelligence Government Code and Cipher School Government Communications Headquarters [British] Western stay-behind organisation Soviet secret service, 1917—26 Soviet Military Intelligence

A bbreviations

GX HF/DF HMG IB ICBM IDC ID/CCG IFF IRD ISLD JARIC JCC JCS ỊIB

JIC _

JIC/FE JIC/M E JSM JS/TIC KGB KLO KMAG KMT KPD LCESA LCS

uo LRDG LSIB LSIC MCP MGB MI5 MI6 MiG MLO MNLA MoD MoMA MPAJA MRBM MSS MVD NATO

xiii

captured German aerial photography of the Soviet Union High Frequency/Direction Finding Her Majesty's Government Intelligence Bureau [Indian] intercontinental ballistic missile Imperial Defence College Intelligence Division of Control Commission, Germany [British] Identification Friend or Foe Information Research Department of the Foreign office SIS in the wartime Middle East and Far East [British] Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre [British] Joint Concealment Centre [British] Joint Chiefs of Staff [American] Joint Intelligence Bureau [British] Joint Intelligence Committee Joint Intelligence Committee, Far East [British] Joint Intelligence Committee, Middle East [British] Joint Services Mission, Washington [British] Joint Scientific and Technical Intelligence Committees [British] Soviet secret service, 1954-91 Korean Labor Organisation Korean Military Advisory Group [American] Kuomintang, Chinese nationalist party German Communist Party London Communications-Electronics Security Agency [British] London Controlling Section [British] Labor Information Officer [American] Long Range Desert Group [British] London Signals Intelligence Board [British] London Signals Intelligence Committee [British] Malayan Communist Party Soviet secret service, 1946-53 Security Service [British] Secret Intelligence Service (also SIS) [British] Mikoyan —Soviet fighter aircraft Military Liaison Officer, Malaya [British] Malayan National Liberation Army Ministry of Defence Museum of Modern Art in New York Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army medium-range ballistic missile Malayan Security Service Soviet secret service, 1953—4 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

xiv N KABS NID NIE NKGB NKVD NSA NSC NSG NUS NVDA OAS OB OCB OEEC OGPU ONI OPC OPS

oso

OSO-DoD

oss OUN PFIAB PHP PKI PLA PPS PRC PRU PSB PUSC PUSD PV PWE R5 RAAF RCMP RFE ROK RS SAM SAS Savak SB SCAP

Abbreviations Near Eastern Broadcasting Station Naval Intelligence Division [British] National Intelligence Estimate [American] Soviet secret service, 1943-6 Soviet secret service, 1934—43 National Security Agency [American] National Security Council (American] Naval Security Group [American] National Union of Students [British] National Volunteer Defence Army [Tibetan] Organisation Armée Secrète, the anã-Gauỉlist rebels in Algeria order of batde Operation Co-ordination Board [American] Organisation for European Economic Co-operation Soviet secret service, 1926-34 Office of Naval Intelligence [American] Office of Policy Co-ordination [American] Overseas Planning Section, part of PUSD [British] Office of Special Operations of the CLA [American] Office of Special Operations, Department of Defense [American] Office of Strategic Services [American] Ukrainian nationalist organisation President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board [American] Post Hostilities Planners [British] Indonesian Communist Party People’s Liberation Army [Chinese] Policy Planning Staff [American] People’s Republic of China Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Psychological Strategy Board Permanent Under-Secretary’s Committee [British] Permanent Under-Secretary's Department [British] positive vetting Political Warfare Executive [British] Requirements 5 section of SIS dealing with the Soviet Union Royal Australian Air Force Royal Canadian Mounted Police Radio Free Europe Republic of Korea Requirements Section of SIS [British] surface-to-air missile Special Air Service [British] Iranian Security Service Special Branch [British] Supreme Commander Allied Powers [MacArthur]

A bbreviations

SCIU SD SDECE SEAC SEATO SEP SHAEF SHAPE SI SIB SIFE sigint SIME SIS SOE

ssu

STIB SWPA T TCS T Force TICOM TRIC Typex UB UKUSA Ultra UPA USCIB USIS V-2 VHB VISTRE VOA WAY WFDY WIN W /T X-2 Y

XV

Special Counter Intelligence Unit [Allied] State Department [American] French intelligence service South East Asia Command [Allied] South East Asia Treaty Organisation surrendered enemy personnel Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Secret Intelligence Security Intelligence Bureau proposed for South Vietnam Security Intelligence Far East (MI5) [British] signals intelligence Security Intelligence Middle East (MI5/SI) [British] Secret Intelligence Service (also MI6) [British] Special Operations Executive [British] Strategic Services Unit, residue of OSS [American] Scientific and Technical Intelligence Bureau of ID/CCG South West Pacific Area [Allied] Treasury [British] SIS section for scientific intelligence scientific and technical intelligence unit in Germany Target Intelligence Committee dealing with signals intelligence Technical Radio Interception Committee [British] British rotor cryptograph Polish security service UK-USA signals intelligence agreements, 1948 British classification for signals intelligence Ukrainian nationalist guerrilla organisation US Communications Intelligence Board US Information Service German ballistic missile very heavy bomber Visual Inter-Service Training and Research Establishment [British] Voice of America World Assembly of Youth World Federation of Democratic Youth Polish resistance organisation wireless telegraphy Counter-intelligence branch of OSS wireless interception, usually low-level

H istorians o f Secret Service and their Enemies It is imperative that the fact that such intelligence was available should NEVER be disclosed. British Chiefs o f Staff, 31 July 1945'

he story o f modem secret service offers US a clear warning. Governments are not only adept at hiding substandal secrets, they are quick to offer theừ own carefully packaged versions o f the past. The end o f the Second World War was quickly followed by a litany o f secret service stories, often concerning the Special Operations Executive or SOE, Britain's wartime sabotage organisation, which suggested that now that the war was over its stories o f clandestine activity could be told. Innumerable figures who had worked with SO E or its American sister service, the Office o f Strategic Services, sat down to write their memoirs. This was misleading since some o f the m ost important aspects o f the conflict with Germany remained hidden. Only in the early 1970s, three decades after the end o f the war, did the story o f Ultra and Bletchley Park - the effort which defeated the Germ an Enigma cipher machine - burst upon a surprised world. Thereafter much o f the strategic history o f the Second World War had to be rewritten. O ne o f its m ost im portant aspects, the fact that the intentions o f the Axis had been largely transpar­ ent to the Allies, had been methodically airbrushed from thirty years o f historical writing. This was a carefully orchestrated process. Before the end o f the war, Britain’s m ost senior intelligence official, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, cousin o f the Duke o f Portland and Chairman o f the Joint Intelligence Committee or JIC, turned his mind to the problem o f the management o f the past. British records were certainly not a threat. Many would be burned at the end o f the war and others could remain under lock and key for decades. But unfortunately, in the summer o f 1944, with the invasion

T

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H isto ria n s o f Secret Service a n d tb eir E nem ies

o f France under way, Italian, Japanese and G erm an records were spilling out into the open from embassies and headquarters in the chaos o f Axis retreat. Initially this haem orrhage o f enemy secret papers did not seem to worry him: I expect that all we will need do will be to send half a dozen people out to see that the right archives are being sealed and placed under guard and that proper security measures are taken, after which it will probably be necessary to have one person keeping an eye on this business who could go round from time to time and see that the proper security measures are being taken and that our interests are being looked after until the research students and historians get to work on a job that will probably occupy the rest of theừ lives or the period until the next war, whichever may be the shortest.2 But his complacency was short lived. Gradually, it dawned on the author­ ities that some o f the m ost hidden aspects o f the war were now in danger o f seeping into the public domain. If Allied and Axis materials were com ­ pared side by side, then some o f the innerm ost secrets o f the war —the successes o f Ultra and the remarkable efforts o f secret deception teams that helped to mask the D-Day invasion - m ight soon be revealed. G C H Q , the new post-war name given to the organisation based at Bletchley Park, was forem ost in pressing for the tightest secrecy. T he breaking o f enemy codes and ciphers, known as signals intelligence o r sigint, was, in its view, best hidden for ever. T he mysteries o f sigint had to be carefully protected for use against ‘future enemies’, w ho were already massing on the horizon in 1945. T here were also potential problem s with the G erm an acceptance o f defeat. G C H Q argued that, if it became known that the Allies had been using Ultra to read H ider’s Enigm a communicadons, the G erm ans were likely to use it as an excuse to say that they were 'n o t well and fairly beaten’. T he dangerous but attractive myths o f ‘defeat by betrayal’ that had circulated in Germ any after 1918 might surface once m ore 3 By July 1945 the London Signals Intelligence Board, Britain’s highest sigint authority, had convened a special comm ittee to examine the problem o f how to handle history and historians. They were the first to suggest what became the standard Whitehall remedy. Simply to lock these secrets up was not enough and positive inform ation-control was probably required. T he public would soon demand a detailed and author­ itative narrative o f the war and som ething substantial had to be put in place. First, official historians should be recruited and indoctrinated into Ultra and then ordered not to ‘betray’ it in their writings. Secondly, a further body had to be created to review their work and also to sanitise the memoirs o f senior figures.4 Strategic deception was also a hot subịect which the secret services wished to see hidden for ever. Sir David Petrie, the head o f MI5, kept

H istorians o f Secret Service a nd th eir E nem ies

3

various Allied neutrals who knew too much, including Spaniards and Swedes, in detention and incommunicado from their embassies beyond the end o f the war in Europe. This was to gain time to figure out how MI5 could seal the secret o f the Allied manipulation o f the German secret service, the Abwehr, as a conduit for British deception.5 A detailed history o f deception was written by Roger Hesketh, an experienced deception planner, but this was for in-house consultation by those who were tasked to keep the art o f strategic deception alive for future contin­ gencies. N o mention o f deception and the turning o f German agents by MỈ5 was permitted in the public history that emerged prior to 1972.6 By the end o f July 1945 the leading lights o f British intelligence were increasingly worried about the complexity o f the history problem. They were beginning to recognise the scale o f the project before them. Large areas o f the past would have to be controlled if important secret methods were to be protected and embarrassments avoided. It would need a con­ certed programme for the management o f history equivalent to a wartime deception operation itself. The problem was passed to the Joint Intelligence Committee. O n the last day o f July 1945 the JIC considered the problem o f T h e Use o f special Intelligence by Historians’ and warned the Chiefs o f Staff that these things 'should NEVER be dis­ closed’. But sealing this subject, even for a few years, seemed almost impossible. As G CH Q had already realised, when intelligent historians got busy, 'the comparing o f the German and British documents is bound to arouse suspicion in theữ minds that we succeeded in reading the enemy ciphers’. W hat would tip them off was the speed o f Allied reac­ tions to Axis moves. London and Washington had based m ost o f theữ strategy and operations upon masses o f information that 'could not have been received from agents or other means slower than Special Intelligence’. There was nothing for it but to ‘indoctrinate’ some historians into the secret and ask them to work with the authorities on official accounts in order to disguise it. The tens o f thousands who worked on Ultra and deception would also have to be bound by an iron code o f secrecy. Retiring Ministers, generals and diplomats would have to be exhorted to remove all mention o f these things from their memoirs. Meanwhile the official history programme would become the last deception operation o f the Second World War, with the objective o f covering the tracks o f sigint and o f deception itself. These measures were quickly co-ordinated with the Americans.7 In March 1946 Colonel Wingate o f the London Controlling Section, the main wartime deception centre, had achieved agreement with the Americans over the redrafting o f Eisenhower’s final report on the D-Day operation and the invasion o f Europe in 1944 to avoid any reference to

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H isto ria n s o f Secret Service a n d th e ir E nem ies

deception. London was appalled to see that decepdon had appeared in the first draft and the Chiefs o f Staff were asked to make representadons at a high level ‘to stop the rot spreading any further’. T he same group also had to get to work on the memoirs o f Eisenhower’s aide, Captain Harry Butcher, w ho eventually published M y Three Years with Eisenhower'm 1946, dealing with the General’s dm e as Com m ander in Chief in Europe, but only after it had been toned down to suggest that deception was a m inor m atter at the tacdcal level, while all references to strategic decep­ tion were removed. London Controlling Section and its successors were requesting press restrictions in the 1950s and the 1960s to prevent any public mention o f its wartime activities.8 Britain’s top intelligence officials were pessimistic, believing that this elaborate scheme would not long survive sustained scrutiny. Any intelli­ gent comparison o f say, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's moves in the Western D esert, with the response o f his opponents, General Bernard M ontgomery and the Eighth Army, would give the game away, pointing to a break in Axis communications traffic. But the J1C underestimated the power o f positive inform ation control. Official history, in many mag­ isterial team-written volumes, together with authoritative memoirs and voluminous histories produced by leading figures such as W inston Churchill, constrained the conceptual horizons o f an entire generation. T he spell was not broken until 1972 when J. Mi.sterman published his m em oir The Doublecross System. M asterman was an O xford don who had run the committee which controlled wartime deception operations. He managed to persuade Whitehall to relent on its secrecy partly because many o f its inhabitants, and indeed the then Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home, had been taught by him at Oxford. T he decision to allow publication was resisted by many in intelligence, including Sir Dick White, long-time head first o f MI5 and then o f SIS, but others in govern­ m ent felt that this was a necessary counterblast to the damage done to the reputation o f secret service by figures such as Kim Philby. T he Doublecross m em oir was soon followed by Frederick W interbotham ’s Ultra Secrety which began to tell the story o f the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. In the event the historians had not detected these secret things and instead had been inform ed by the practitioners.9 N ot everyone had been taken in. Six years after the war, Sir H erbert Butterfield issued a strident warning about official history. Well con­ nected, but ultimately denied an opportunity to join the privileged ranks o f the insiders who were writing the official histories o f the war, Butterfield probably knew about the Ultra secret. Seemingly tipped off about what was afoot he said as much as he dared and warned, ‘I m ust say that I do not personally believe that there is a governm ent in Europe which wants the public to know the truth.’ He then explained how the

c.

H istorians o f Secret Service a nd their E nem ies

5

mechanisms o f secrecy and government claims o f 'openness’ worked in tandem. 'Firstly, that governments try to press upon the historian the key to all the drawers but one, and are very anxious to spread the belief that this single one contains no secret o f importance: secondly, that if the his­ torian can only find out the thing which the government does not want him to know, he will lay his hands on something that is likely to be significant.’ This exhortation echoes down the years as if written yester­ day. It stands as a salutary warning to scholars working in the immediate wake o f any major conflict who feed only upon material available in official archives. Government files that are allowed into the public domain are placed there by the authorities as the result o f deliberate deci­ sions. The danger is that those who work only on this controlled material may become something close to official historians, albeit once removed. There is a potential cost involved in researching in government-managed archives where the collection o f primary material is quick and conven­ ie n t Ultimately there is no historical free lunch.10 The Cold War dominated the international scene for half a century and it was against this backdrop that other aspects o f world politics were played out. This prolonged conflict was pervasive, shaping all our lives and sublimating itself in unexpected places. Secret service is fundamen­ tal to any understanding o f the Cold War. At the highest levels it was intelligence, especially very secret intelligence, that underpinned, even legitimated, so many policies launched in the conflict’s name. At the lower levels it was the secret services that formed the front line. Cold War fighting, and a growing conviction that the Cold War could be won through special operations or covert action, was critical in determining the character o f this Sttuggle. By the early 1950s, operations to influence the world by unseen methods - the hidden hand —became ubiquitous and seemed to transform even everyday aspects o f society into an exten­ sion o f this battleground. The Cold War was fought, above all, by the intelligence services. Now that this conflict is over, a struggle is being waged to understand the role o f the hidden hand and its work behind the scenes. This latter struggle has been an uneven one since the single his­ torian, armed with a pencil, is pitted in adversarial contest against the efforts o f the authorities. At the end o f the Cold War, as at the end o f the Second World War, new and more sophisticated modes o f control were required. Public commitment to openness moved in parallel with a range o f activities which remained sensitive. Well-packaged programmes o f document release have allowed governments to move beyond an old-fashioned ‘stonewalling’ approach to protecting government secrets into a new era in which the authorities set the agenda for archive-based researchers o f secret service. The new openness that has been announced in London,

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H istorians o f Secret Service and their E nem ies

Washington and Moscow thus has an ambiguous quality. O n the one hand, undeniably, it has brought forth many thousands o f new docu­ ments, some o f them fascinating and all previously classified. O n the other hand, this often serves to cloak a more elaborate programme o f information-management.11 In Britain, for example, when fewer than a hundred files relating to MI5 activities during the First World War were released - all that seems to survive from the security activities o f that period - the public reaction was not dismay but delight. Newspaper headlines claimed, *MI5 thrills historians with secret service archives'. The climate o f restriction in the 1980s had been so severe that these limited and tardy revelations generated excitement. The authorities were sensitive to this and put archival releases on secret service activities at the forefront o f their claims to be embarking on a new era o f openness.12 The scale o f twentieth-century archives often overwhelms contem po­ rary historians. The problem is particularly marked in the British and American national archives, which delineate the boundary between the private working files o f Whitehall or Washington and what the author­ ities deem fit for public inspection. In London, for example, the author­ ities select about 2 per cent o f Whitehall’s records for permanent preservation and the rest are destroyed. But individual historians Sttuggle even to examine the slivers that have been chosen for preservation. This problem o f scale distracts US from the wider problems o f the selection and destruction o f records. Historians do contest with government over secrecy, but mosdy these are tactical skirmishes. Arguments usually take place over the closure o f individual documents located within the thin slice o f material selected for preservation. Meanwhile the bulk o f con­ temporary history heads towards the incinerators unseen and largely uncontested. Most historians are remarkably untroubled by this and some have come to think o f the selected materials in the Public Record Office as an analogue o f reality. Contemporary historians who explore the state are quite unique. Nowhere else is the researcher confronted with evidence precisely managed by their subject. From astronomy to agriculture, from botany to the built environment, no investigator confronts information so delib­ erately preselected. Historians are what they eat and the convenient but unwholesome diet o f processed food on offer in national archives has resulted in a flabby historical posture. O f course, the huge proportion o f records not selected for preservation by officials are fairly unimportant and include materials such as the routine forms processed by social security offices. But within this vast programme o f selection, declassification and destruction there is ample scope to massage the rep­ resentation o f the more secretive aspects o f governm ent The new openness is double edged and in some ways has served only

H istorians o f Secret Service an d their E nem ies

7

to increase this problem. In April 1995 President Bill Clinton issued Executive O rder 12958 requiring government agencies to release materi­ als that were more than twenty-iive years old, with few exceptions. Some parts o f government had been tardy in this area and the US Army set out to discover exactly what archives o f this vintage were still closed within its domain and now needed to be released. A dismayed survey team even­ tually reported that there were 296 million pages o f documents awaiting declassification. The process was begun with the archivists and record managers dubbing this the ‘assault on the mountain* in deliberate parody o f the famous battle for Hamburger Hill during the Vietnam War, an event which was itself reinterpreted through the release o f these new archives. So far 160 million pages o f new US Army material have been released. The US Army is only one o f many agencies involved in this process. The CIA has developed a high-tech Declassification Factory using digital technology to deal with its backlog, but with 93 million pages o f documents exempted from Clinton’s Executive Order, it has a mere 66 million pages to process. Alongside this laudable exercise in openness we also have to consider what may be hidden beneath these mountains o f paper. There can be no doubt that some authorities have a curious view o f accelerated declassification. In 1998 officials prepared a report on the ‘Operations Security Impact on Declassificadon Management within the Departm ent o f Defense', for the US Assistant Secretary o f Defense. They warned that ‘Declassification decisions pri­ marily need to be assessed in terms o f value to adversarial organizations [rather than] public disclosure for the sake o f openness.’ It also suggested that ‘interesting declassified material’ such as information about the assassination o f John F. Kennedy could be released and even posted on the Internet, as a ‘diversion’. Newly released archives on such highprofile subjects could be used to ‘reduce the unrestrained public appetite for “secrets” by providing good faith distraction material’. If investiga­ tive journalists and contemporary historians were absorbed with the vex­ atious, but rather tired, debates over the grassy knoll, they would not be busy probing into areas where they were unwelcome.13 Accordingly, a central contention o f this book is that we do not yet know the full story o f the Cold War, indeed we may never know. Substantial Cold War secret service archives have been released, but much more remains closed, while further material has disappeared in a whirl o f organised destruction. In some respects this is quite proper. Secret services are worthless if they do not keep themselves hidden. W ithout a track record o f intense secrecy, future agents will not dare to work for them. Secret services are defence forces fighting with informa­ tion rather than weapons and a reputation for extteme secrecy is the m ost potent insưum ent in their armoury. Stripped o f this, they become

8

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ineffective and their self-esteem plummets. T here are few things m ore useless than a second-rate and demoralised secret service. Yet many researchers feel impelled to work to uncover these secrets. In countries such as Britain and the United States (but not France), secret services worked closely with the core executive during the Cold War. T he nerve centres o f governm ent, such as the National Security Council and the Cabinet Office, were not only the focus o f policy and planning, but were also intimately involved in the direction o f the hidden hand. Therefore properly to understand the inner thoughts and purposes o f those at the highest level, it is essential to consider the work o f secret services. Historians o f governm ent are bound to find these things compelling and see it as one o f their primary duties to uncover them. Accordingly, secret services will always enjoy an adversarial relationship with those on the outside w ho wish to study governm ent Efforts to manage historians have been at their least subtle in Moscow. Following the advent o f glasnost in the East, visitors from the West have accessed Soviet materials with only limited success. T here has been no general opening o f the critical areas o f KGB archives o r Stalin’s Secretariat. Moscow’s archives policy has been highly manipulative. Only specific batches o f docum ents have been released, often ripped from their archival context, and only selected historians have been given access to this material. Sometimes payments are dem anded and sometimes a KGB co-author is imposed. Much m ore has been achieved by those who have worked with KGB officers who fled to the West, taking their m em ­ ories with them and sometimes, quite remarkably, taking their archives as well.14 Glasnost in the West has been rather different and the m anagement o f secret service archives practised by governm ent has been quite sophisti­ cated. T he declassification o f docum ents has been both substantial and selective. Millions o f pages o f hitherto highly secret files have made their way to the archives, yet there has been a clear preference for certain types o f material. T he image that the authorities have been keen to project is o f an ‘enemy-led’ activity. Ultimately, secret service activity appears m ore justifiable when directed against the totalitarian regimes o f Nazi Germ any or Stalin’s Soviet Union during a period o f total war o r while confronted with the threat o f total war. It seems more questionable when the hidden hand is directed towards Third World states, neutrals, allies or the citizens o f one’s own coumry. T he prevailing distortion is the result o f omission. This follows the precedent o f the hiding o f Ultra and deception techniques after the Second World War. While archives, memoirs and m ost books offer US a reassuring ‘enemy-led’ view o f secret services initiated to vanquish dis­ tasteful and illiberal foreign foes, the reality was different. T he Western

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9

intelligence community - a network o f co-operation between the secret services o f developed states —began in the first decades o f the twentieth century to trade surveillance material on agitators, subversives, labour activists, pacifists and anti-colonial nationalists, ỉn many cases these were the troublesome elements among their own citizenry. Foreign intelli­ gence, outside the context o f active war, was a more difficult area o f co­ operation. Developed states have spent a great deal o f time watching neutral and friendly states, even each other, rendering the process o f co­ operation more awkward. Many still held true to the familiar dictum that ‘There are no friendly secret services, only the secret services o f friendly states.’15 There can be no question but that the Anglo-American intelligence relationship has been uniquely close. More than half o f the intelligence circulated in Western capitals during the twentieth century was gathered by a process o f exchange with allied services, something o f which even their political masters were not always aware. Yet a strand o f deep ambi­ guity was injected by the uniquely ‘global’ experience o f both Britain and the United States in the twentieth century. These two countries were closest because they alone shared the experience o f managing a system o f world power, albeit one in decline and one in the ascendant. Both came to understand that a global intelligence system was synonymous with successful management o f empire, formal or informal. It was therefore entirely natural that, in mid-century, Britain encouraged the development o f the American intelligence community, with a view to countering Germany, Japan and then the Soviet Union. Intelligence served to van­ quish aggressive challengers to the Anglo-American pattern o f domi­ nance. Many who served in the CIA during the 1950s had been trained in secret service by instructors loaned by British organisations such as SOE and SIS and spoke o f these organisations with some reverence.16 But intelligence has also served to increase tension among the Western powers. O ne facet o f Anglo-American co-operation in the wider world was what Churchill called the ‘changing o f the guard’, an orderly process in which British and American differences were put aside in pursuit o f loftier objectives and the maintenance o f world order. The second facet offers a picture o f American intelligence as assisting a corporate foreign policy in the displacement o f Britain in the wider world. These transatlantic tensions over business and empire were present throughout the twentieth century. But in the 1950s they were joined by anxieties o f a new kind. British officials began to describe the American Cold War appara­ tus as a Frankenstein’s m onster which might precipitate some major crisis, often forgetting that it was London that had done so much to encourage the creation o f this American apparatus only a decade earlier. Both these facets - co-operation and conflict - have their counterpart in

10

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reality. But official history and official archives tend to emphasise the first. T he purpose o f this study is to redress the balance and so here emphasis is placed upon the second.17 T he hidden hand o f secret service manifested itself everywhere in the first two decades o f the Cold War and this book cannot hope to capture all its aspects. O n one level it sets out to offer a different view o f the clan­ destine Cold War that was waged by the West against the East. It seeks to escape the well-explored world o f moles and m ole-hunters, which has received so much emphasis, and instead to look at the regular work o f British and American secret service officers engaged in other fascinating but neglected areas o f the struggle against world communism. T he Cold War involved a great deal o f fighting by those who were frustrated by the straitịacket imposed by nuclear deterrence, rendering this conflict m ore dangerous than we have hitherto realised. This Cold War fighting began conttoversially in Central and Eastern Europe and then spread gradually to m ost areas o f the underdeveloped world by the 1960s.18 Western secret services were also engaged in an awkward struggle o f ally against ally. Britain’s secret services were certainly less engaged with the Cold War than those o f the United States. Instead they were busy containing a m ore elusive enemy, the decline o f Britain as a world power. Set in these wider terms, neutral countries —even allies like the United States —could look threatening and sometimes received the attentions o f Whitehall’s hidden hand. Secret service organisations and covert propa­ ganda agencies that were set up in 1947 as anti-Soviet did not remain solely anti-Soviet for very long. Instead they soon mutated to serve a much expanded purpose. ‘Anti-anti-British’ was their own compelling definition o f this broader tasking. In other words, the new secret agencies o f the post-war period were turned against all those w ho offered a poten­ tial threat to what remained o f Britain’s position in the world.19 But the Cold War inttoduced a new sense o f threat. T he United States was now m ore than just an economic rival and political competitor. By the late 1940s it seemed to pose a military danger to Britain’s continued exis­ tence. T he US, together with a minority element in Britain, was showing signs o f wishing to ‘win’ the Cold War before the Soviet Union achieved strategic parity with the West. By contrast m ost policy-makers in London sought a less challenging solution and were prepared to work for coexis­ tence with Moscow. In D ecem ber 1950 Sir Bill Slim, the Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, returned from a visit to W ashington and warned his fellow service chiefs that: The United States were convinced that war was inevitable, and that it was almost certain to take place within the next eighteen months; whereas we did not hold this view, and were still hopeful that war could be avoided. This atti­ tude of the United States was dangerous because there was the possibility that

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11

they might think that because war was inevitable, the sooner we got it over with the better, and we might as a result be dragged unnecessarily into World W arm 20 Throughout the 1950s, Washington wished to press on with a forward policy, often by covert means, while London wished to apply the brakes. In April 1954, President Eisenhower eloquendy expressed the American view o f this intense controversy. The Bridsh, he complained, ‘have a morbid obsession that any positive move on the part o f the free world may bring upon US World War III’.21 Inidally, Washington had been slower than London to engage with the Cold War, but by the 1950s it was making up for lost time. The urge to ‘do something’ about communism expressed itself through a programme o f radio propaganda and ‘liberadon’ activities. Between 1948 and 1950 these expanded rapidly, pardy in response to pressure from the influential director o f the Policy Planning Staff at the State Departm ent, George Kennan. O n 6 January 1949, Kennan wrote to Frank Wisner, who superintended American covert action, complaining that the opera­ tions he had planned for 1949—50 met only the minimum requirement. ‘As the international situation develops, every day makes more evident the importance o f the role which will have to be played by covert opera­ tions if our national interests are to be adequately protected.’ London saw this as provocative and dangerous. By 1951, some believed that this was part o f an American decision to set a target date for war, hoping to fight a preventative war while the United States still enjoyed military superiority. This resulted in a mercurial change in the nature o f British thinking about threat assessment. American acceptance o f the likelihood o f war had become the main enemy, while the Soviets were seen as unpleasant yet comparatively cautious and predictable. After the out­ break o f the Korean War in the summer o f 1950 the British increasingly focused on containing the possibility o f war, more than on containing communism. In practice that meant containing Washington and secret service was often at the forefront o f this m ost awkward struggle.22 Washington shared London’s ambiguous vision o f its allies as trouble­ some, unpredictable and deserving o f constant vigilance. The British and the French in Europe, the Israelis in the Middle East and the Nationalist Chinese in Taiwan often seemed duplicitous and vexatious associates. They were content to draw vast resources from the United States through generous assistance schemes, yet seemed to apply themselves only erratically to the main business o f dealing with the Soviet Union. Washington did not hesitate to deploy its secret services to address this problem. London’s determination to look to the past, to Empire and Commonwealth, rather than to look to a potential future as an integral part o f Europe, was especially frustrating. George Kennan visited

12

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London in 1949 and compared Britain in Europe to the place o f New England in early America, inevitably submerging its political identity in a wider United States. Some leading American figures were infuriated by Britain’s hesitant attitude towards European unity. T he United States had poured billions into reconstruction and the encouragem ent o f a strong and unified Western Europe through the Marshall Plan, the program m e o f American aid for European economic recovery, while Britain had agreed to support w hat was an explicitly federalist European scheme. Britain was alarmed when it realised that the United States sought a federal United States o f Europe constructed in its own image. It led the resistance against the federalist Europe which Washington envisaged as the ideal bulwark against Soviet communism. In Britain, Labour and Conservative administrations alike truculently refused to move forward with ideas such as a European army, which the United States saw as crit­ ical to plans for G erm an rearm am ent and the security o f the West. O ne o f the m ost elaborate post-war CLA operations in Western Europe sought directly to underm ine British foreign policy in this area. T he CLA rescued the European M ovement from bankruptcy, encour­ aged replacements for the anti-federalist British leadership and then financed a massive popular campaign to encourage support for unity among European youth. T he CIA also covertly funded British groups, even Labour MPs, who would oppose British foreign policy on federal­ ism. H idden American funds were secretly offered to ardent British fed­ eralists who worked with the Economist in a campaign o f influence designed to persuade key opinion-form ers that a m ore positive line on Europe would pay dividends to British business. This sort o f activity was not an exception. Around the world Britain was perceived as old fashioned in its attem pts to manage the Third World through a system o f suggestible princes and pashas. By contrast the CIA actively prom oted younger nationalist elements in areas like the Middle East, often middle-ranking military officers with political ambitions, who seemed to be both anti-communist and anti-British. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian leader during the Suez Crisis, was a CIA protégé o f the early 1950s. Nevertheless, British and American secret ser­ vices were equally com fortable teaming up together against other allies, such as the French and the Belgians, o r against mutually troublesom e T hird World neutrals. Secret service in this turbulent period often seemed an anarchic struggle o f ‘all against all*. Lurking beneath the internecine struggle between the Western Allies was a further conflict that was no less awkward. Each ‘national* intelli­ gence community in the West was regularly convulsed by rancorous quarrels. This was m ost visible in the United States where, ironically, repeated attem pts at centralisation only created further separate

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13

fiefdoms that fought bitterly over policy and resources. Responsibility for the direcdon o f US covert operadons before 1950 was vague. Immediately after the war such acdvides were carried out by a curious array o f private bodies and also military organisadons that had absorbed some remnants o f the wartime OSS. After June 1948, however, the National Security Council decreed that such activities were superin­ tended by Frank Wisner’s Office o f Policy Co-ordination (O P Q , which was to carry out covert operations o f the sort that ‘if uncovered the United States Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for*. Curiously, Wisner received his orders from not one but three separate authorities. Although OPC came under the administrative umbrella o f the CIA, it took its orders from the State Departm ent and the National Security Council, which insisted that they would ‘maintain a firm guiding hand’.23 Here was a perfect recipe for infighting and confusion. As one OPC official remarked at the time, ‘Divided or part authority never works. N o person or agency can at the same time serve G od (NSC), Mammon (State) and an Administrative and Financial Overlord (only), which the Director o f CIA now is.’ In 1950, the new Director o f the CIA, Walter Bedell Smith, insisted that OPC be fully subordinated to the CIA, but such were the animosities that this uncomfortable process took years to complete. Moreover, this was the wrong decision and instead o f taking covert action away from the State Departm ent and placing it with a sep­ arate CIA, all o f the CIA should have been placed under the State Department. The decisions reached at this time served only to decentral­ ise the Washington system further.24 In the 1950s American signals intel­ ligence was similarly a byword for bitter division and pointless duplication. The 1960s American government spawned yet new intelli­ gence agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency. Stupefied British officials in Vietnam remarked that there were more than a dozen American intelligence services camped out around the outskirts o f Saigon and their competition was hard fought and bitter.25 British poverty prevented the lavish duplication and labyrinthine rival­ ries o f the American intelligence system. But London’s secret service struggles were sometimes more vicious precisely because the stakes were smaller. For a decade after 1945, Whitehall was locked in a prolonged struggle between hawks and doves over secret service approaches to the Soviets. Top military figures often sided with the Americans in wishing to accelerate the clandestine Cold War and indulge in Cold War fighting. Lord Tedder, Chief o f the Air Staff, declared that he looked forward to the collapse o f the Soviet Union within five years under the weight o f these secret pressures. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the first post-war Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, called for ‘an all out offensive by every available agency', while Air Marshal Sir John

14

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Slessor advocated the use o f every secret weapon and technique short o f assassination. Britain’s Foreign Secretaries urged the diplomats to resist what they described as the ‘fascist’ tendencies o f the military. N or did they believe that the hidden hand o f subversive warfare against Moscow would pay dividends. A bitter struggle developed between the diplomats and the military, first over how the Soviets should be viewed, and later over how far they should be deliberately subverted. T he legacy o f these internal batdes was significant. We can trace the central architecture o f the current British foreign policy-making machine to a struggle by the diplo­ mats to prevent ‘wild’ military elements from taking over the direction o f Britain’s secret Cold War and to stop the creation o f independent agen­ cies capable o f launching covert operations. For this reason all aspects o f the British Secret Intelligence Service stayed very firmly under the control o f the Foreign Office in a m anner that was quite different to the position o f the CIA in the United States. These sorts o f struggles - one Whitehall corridor against another required the tightest secrecy o f all. In 1946 M ontgomery vented his fury in his private diary about the problem s o f communicating secredy with his fellow commanders in these matters. He wished to send extremely sensitive inform ation, including ‘red hot personal views on personalities’, to senior officers in the Middle East. He had marked his telegrams ‘very private’ but to his ‘great shock' he discovered that senior officials in Whitehall had the power to order the cipher branch to hand the messages over to senior officials and had done so. To his intense dismay som e o f his ‘extremely outspoken and inflammatory material’ had been doing the rounds. W hat were the options for really secure communications? I f he comm itted it to SIS for transmission, what M ontgom ery called ‘C ’s secret channel’, it was certain that ‘hot signals’ would be shown privately to the Foreign Secretary ‘which would be even worse’. He had wondered about some secure Cabinet Office channel, but this had to be ‘written o ff because it ‘might well be open to the Prime Minister’. Ultimately the only safe conduit was ‘by hand o f officer' who had to be flown personally to the recipient in Middle East with the letter buttoned in his jacket pocket.2* These three vistas o f secret service - East versus West, West versus West, and each W estern state bitterly divided against itself - m ust somehow be reconciled. How, or indeed why, could the special intelli­ gence relationship between Britain, the United States and other close Allies continue, indeed develop and grow, alongside these multiple acri­ monies? A central purpose o f this book is to explain the curious coexis­ tence o f these complex and seemingly contradictory struggles. T he intense fragmentation o f secret service into myriad com partm ents in all

H isto ria n s o f Secret Service a n d th e ir E n em ies

15

countries offers US some answers. T he ‘Western intelligence community’ is a useful shorthand term , but it is often misleading. M ost intelligence co-operation in the West took place in specific functional areas. T he result was many separate Western intelligence communities specialising in subjects such as hum an intelligence, signals intelligence, photographic interpretation, dom estic security and covert action. Many areas were exưemely arcane and obscure, such as atomic intelligence-gathering from seismic sensing or intelligence derived from the undersea acoustic m onitoring o f submarine engines. Specialisation and fragmentation were increased by the rigid com partm ents and ‘need to know’ rules required for reasons o f security. T he result was loose federations o f many groups, a myriad o f patterns, rather than any coherent Western intelligence com ­ munity. These complex patterns rendered many aspects o f Western intelli­ gence co-operation peculiarly resilient. Co-operative links would often survive high-level disagreements over Cold War policy, or the revelations about the dramatic security failures and moles o f the 1950s and 1960s. T hus the Suez Crisis o f 1956 fractured some relationships, but other kinds o f intelligence co-operation continued quite undisturbed. T he notorious Kim Philby affair desttoyed som e aspects o f the AngloAmerican intelligence relationship, but other aspects continued quite untroubled by these dramatic revelations. T he fissiparous nature o f secret service, each com ponent with its own concerns and networks, makes any generalisation about the overall mosaic o f W estern intelli­ gence co-operation m ore difficult. W hat follows is an attem pt to begin to piece together some o f this mosaic, but it is not an easy pattern to trace. T he hidden hand assisted British and American policy in every area o f the world and so the story m ust necessarily be fragmentary and uneven, requiring some diversions from the main throughfares o f the Cold War narrative and some re­ tracing o f steps. T he central purpose o f this study, which arises out o f m ore than ten years in the archives, is to ‘say it with docum ents’. It seeks to provide the first well-documented and reliable account o f post-war British secret service and its relations with its im portant American part­ ners, from the m om ent o f Hitler’s breathtaking assault on the Soviet Union in June 1941 to the near-simultaneous departure o f Macmillan and Kennedy at the end o f 1963. T he limitations o f constructing such a story from archives controlled by the subject that one is studying, o r their suc­ cessors, are self-evident. N otwithstanding this, there are remarkable frag­ m ents o f the story which have lain undiscovered in improbable places for m ore than fifty years. Since the end o f the Cold War we have heard much about the historical treasures that have been released from the archives o f Moscow and Beiịing, and the new light that they have thrown upon

16

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the Cold War. But the greatest secrets may still remain locked within Western archives, and we do not yet know the real shape o f British or American policy during the dramatic early post-war years. Here too new archives on a tremendous scale await US and new revelations are only just around the corner. O ur best hope o f compledng this complex mosaic, and understanding how the West fought the Cold War, are aggressive and inquisitive historians who believe that there are no real secrets, only lazy researchers. When the vast pattern o f Western Cold War is Anally recon­ structed, and when we can stand back and gaze upon it as a whole, at its very centre we are likely to And the hidden hand.27

PART I

F rom W orld W ar to C o ld W ar

1941-1945

1 Fighting with the Russians The habits of the Red Army are particularly worthy o f m ention... Faeces were everywhere. From baths to lift shafts to cupboards; from the Flying Control Tower to the chairs in the Officers’ Mess; and the Russians, both Officers and men, were working and feeding in these surroundings. Lavatory pans were filled, the seats put down and the seats themselves piled high. The Officers’ Mess in particular seemed to come in for especially liberal treatm ent... Bugs too were everywhere. And in places four or five D.D.T.ings were needed... Wing Commander George Keat, Austria, 1 October 1945

ng Commander George Keat o f the RAF encountered Soviets forces for the first time in Austria on 1 O ctober 1945. Germany and Austria had been partitioned among the Allies and his task was to take over control o f Schwechat Airfield from the Red Army Air Force, and report on what he found there. His first encounter with the front­ line reality o f Soviet military power, the force that had crushed Hitler’s Reich, made a deep impression. He was simultaneously struck by its raw power and by its filth and squalor. This was, he confessed, ‘one o f the most disgusting experiences o f my life*. Face-to-face encounters o f this very physical kind, often at quite a low level, were critically important in shaping the oudook o f Western intelli­ gence upon the Soviet Union during the war. This was especially true for secret service officers and for the military liaison staifs who enjoyed extended contact with their Soviet counterparts, and even for diplomats, incarcerated in their embassies. Physical experience filled a vacuum. Lacking coherent evidence about the future pattern o f Soviet behaviour in world affairs - indeed confronted with a complete absence o f serious information about high-level Soviet thinking —they chose to report the microcosm o f their personal experiences on the ground. There was large-scale intelligence exchange between East and West during the war against the Axis, leading to some notable successes. Nevertheless, British and American intelligence officers in Moscow, by and large, did not get on well with theừ Soviet counterparts. The texture o f this relationship

20

F rom W orld W ar to C old W ar, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 5

was characterised by abrasiveness and deep suspicion. This fed direcdy into secret service views o f future Soviet behaviour in world affairs. T he views o f Wing Com m ander Keat in Austria are symptomatic. T he thoughts that welled up as a result o f his experiences then flowed out into his prescriptions for how the Soviets should be treated. His recom m en­ dations capture a tidal wave o f physical revulsion and deep suspicion that fed into Western thinking, particularly Western military thinking, after 1942. Recounting his Austrian exploits to London, he moved seamlessly from expositions on the backwardness o f Soviet ttoops to generalisa­ tions about Soviet peoples and their barbaric character. Prescriptions about the need for steely toughness in any dealings with them followed naturally. Forces that lacked an efficient latrine system were m ore ‘foreign’ than the tidy Germ ans. Keat developed the idea o f the Soviet soldier w ho was not only ‘filthy’ and ‘scruffy’ but also characterised by ‘a dullness and stupidity o f expression that is quite remarkable’. These were n ot urbane Europeans and so they required a quite different sort o f treat­ ment: T h e y are peasants and should be regarded as such.’ Prescription quickly followed and Keat explained that ‘if a firm hand is taken they respect it’. Indeed, he insisted that he had used this approach and had achieved results. If a robust demand is made, ‘respect­ ful acquiescence almost inevitably follows.’ By contrast, he warned, the idea o f building up a friendly relationship and developing a partnership based on amicability and deliberate bonhom ie, which inspired some new Anglo-American wartime initiatives towards Moscow, was fruitless. Any attem pt to ingratiate oneself with the Soviets, he said, ‘is m et with a con­ tem ptuous refusal’. T he way to deal with this sort o f organism was to draw a line in the sand —in a word, containm ent. Britain, he continued, should give the Soviets full credit for theừ supreme achievements in war, but should not condone ‘their general filth and stupidity’. T here should be ‘no mincing o f words’. T re a t them ’, he exhorted, ‘with the stern justice they themselves know and understand. This is no time, I have found, for appeasement.’1 Keat’s missive was unexceptional. A vast wartime influx o f som bre reports by intelligence and military liaison officers shaped a mental con­ struct o f the Soviet Union developing in London and Washington. O n exactly the same day, 1 O ctober 1945, the British Military Attaché in Poland was penning his thoughts on the new Soviet occupation and reflecting on the Svidespread murder, rape and loot by Russian troops so familiar to US here’. Again, high policy directed by Moscow was read from face-to-face encounters with barbaric acts perpetrated by what he called ‘a primitive and largely Asiatic race’. Racial stereotypes suffused his thinking. Even making ‘every allowance for semi-Orientals in a generally lower state’, he confessed himself shocked by the ‘dirty, ill-disciplined

F ighting w ith the R ussians

21

and lawless Russian soldiery*. The Soviets alarmed British representa­ tives on the ground, not so much through the extent o f newly established Soviet rule in Europe as through their barbaric behaviour. The idea o f containment arose naturally in response to the image o f dangerous barbarians at the gates o f a civilised Europe. But it also reflected a sense that it was a realistic objective. The Soviet forces were immense, but in 1945 they were in an ‘extreme state o f military exhausdon* and were also perceived as technologically inferior. These groundlevel views percolated upwards and eventually distilled themselves as controversial intelligence reports circuladng at Cabinet level in London and Washington. Among the military they reinforced hostile attitudes that had been established as early as 1918, when the West had supported the Whites against the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war. Indeed, not a few o f those compiling the reports were British and American veterans o f the White Campaign. Others, like Captain Clanchy, wartime head o f the Russian Section o f Britain’s Naval Intelligence —N ID 16 —had wit­ nessed the purges while an attaché in the 1930s and confessed himself already ‘deeply disillusioned’ by his previous experiences in Russia.2 More broadly, the massive wartime increase in co-operation and contact was critical in shaping views o f the Soviet Union and how it should be dealt with. It was the military who enjoyed the majority o f work­ aday contacts. These wartime experiences resulted in military views that were starkly different from those o f the diplomats based in London and Washington, many o f whom felt that the war had lowered the profile o f communism and the Communist Party within the Soviet Union and ren­ dered it a more ‘normal’ country. By contrast the diplomats saw cause for optimism and they believed this transition would continue after the war. Cold War conceptions o f the Soviets and o f containment, eventually popularised by diplomats like George Kennan and Frank Roberts from late 1945 —who had also enjoyed prolonged personal contact with the Soviets —were already firmly accepted by the Western military as early as 1943, but less so by the diplomats. Thereafter controversy raged over the future behaviour o f Stalin and his acolytes. During 1945 Stalin himself settled the dispute through palpable demonstrations o f unpleasant beha­ viour in Eastern Europe, especially in the Soviet Zone o f Germany. But, although a stern interpretation o f Soviet ambitions was more widely accepted by the end o f 1945, the division between diplomatic and military minds continued. Well into the 1950s, various camps in Whitehall and Washington fought their own Cold War for control o f a conflict that was neither stricdy military nor strictly political. The new bone o f contention was whether to stop at containment or to try to roll back Soviet domina­ tion in Eastern Europe by all means short o f open warfare, including a programme o f resistance, subversion and psychological warfare. Some

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maverick individuals in the remnants o f wartime secret services had already begun the first unauthorised steps in this enterprise by 1946. The hostility o f the military mind towards the Soviets was not new, and bad wartime experiences overlaid an already hostile predisposition. The West had been engaged in a low-level Cold War with the Soviets since 1917. Military officers and colonial policemen had played a leading role in a global struggle against Bolshevism and the work o f the Comintern (the Soviet-controlled Communist International) which stretched through the inter-war period and was barely interrupted by the Second World War. It was accompanied by vitriolic propaganda and large-scale programmes o f espionage and subversion by both sides. Indeed, both London and Washington were slow to recognise the rise o f the Axis powers during the 1930s in part because their intelligence ser­ vices were obsessed with the Bolshevik threat. In late 1941, British intel­ ligence chiefs in India complained that they still could not get their subordinates to turn their eyes eastward to focus on the growing Japanese menace. They remained stubbornly fixated upon the N orth West Frontier and the ‘old enemy’ o f Russia that threatened to set the Empire ablaze. Moscow represented double jeopardy. The ‘odious’ nature o f Bolshevism, with its desire to subvert the social and political fabric o f Empire, did not detract from suspicions o f the Soviet Union as a rival imperial power.3 Moscow directed a highly organised campaign through the Comintern to seek control o f communist and socialist organisations outside the Soviet Union, and to subvert those that eluded it. The still-controversial affair o f the Zinoviev letter o f 1924 - which tried to claim subversive links between Moscow and the British Labour Party - stood as testimony to fears o f Moscow’s attempt to manipulate the British left. More impor­ tant was the highly effective campaign run by Willi Münzenberg to m ob­ ilise Western intellectuals and leading cultural figures in favour o f Soviet objectives. Twenty years ahead o f their opponents in the West, the Soviets recognised that the struggle between communism and capitalism would be more than a traditional conflict between states. Instead it would be a struggle between ideas, societies and ways o f life, played out as much in the fields o f trade unionism, literature and music as in the world inhab­ ited by diplomats and the military. In this respect the Soviets invented the concept o f the Cold War and were adept practitioners by the 1930s. However, the majority o f the Soviet Union’s secret service operations beyond its frontiers during the inter-war period were o f a security polic­ ing variety. White Russian émigré communities across the world were penetrated and networks o f and-Soviet activity disrupted, often by bloody assassination. The role o f the British secret service was dictated by the accident o f

F ighting w ith the R ussians

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Empire. The Soviet Union was effectively contained from the outset by a curtain o f British colonies, or by states under strong British influence. From the Bälde states to the Balkans, from Turkey to India, areas o f tra­ ditional intrigue with Czarist Russia now formed the front line in an espi­ onage war which raged through the 1920s and 1930s. From remote areas such as Persia, local British intelligence oflicers cast their lines deep inside the Eurasian hinterland. In the early 1930s figures such as Leo Steveni, the British Military Attaché at Meshed, ran agents into Central Asian territories and interrogated refugees escaping from Stalin’s south­ ern rimlands. These efforts to m onitor activities inside the Soviet Union were remarkably similar to those conducted from the British and American embassies in Teheran after 1945. Leo Steveni, who finished his career as regional head o f the Secret Intelligence Service in Asia, was well equipped for these duties, for he had served with the Whites and acted as a liaison with Admiral Kolchak during the Russian civil war.4 MI5 and special Branch units watched the work o f communists in the colonies and their work was effective. Meticulous letter interception o f coded communist communications in the Far East eventually led to the collapse o f the Comintern in the Far East. In 1931 its entire archive was seized in the international setdement o f Shanghai and key figures were arrested. Even Ho Chi Minh, leader o f the Indochinese Communist Party, found himself imprisoned by the British in Hong Kong and only narrowly escaped extradition to the French, who wished to execute him. When the Comintern attempted the gradual revival o f its networks within the colonies o f Asia, the agent it chose for this work was himself in the employ o f the British special Branch. By the 1930s, even the Secretary General o f the Malayan Communist Party, Lai Tek, was working for the British. Lai Tek had been deliberately inserted more than a decade before and his career advanced through the ranks o f the MCP by the judicious arrest o f his superiors.5 American officials were equally committed to the Cold War o f the 1920s and the 1930s. Several red scares swept the United States in the early 1920s. Government intelligence and private detective agencies employed by industry worked together to try and negate Bolshevik influence within labour movements, while the nascent FBI took a strong interest. As in Britain, Army and Navy Intelligence adopted a leading role in the inter­ war surveillance o f communists, collecting a vast amount o f what they called ‘negative intelligence’, a euphemism for domestic political surveil­ lance. In the late 1920s, the FBI and the American military strengthened links with a pre-existing network o f Empire-Commonwealth security policing to form the first coherent *Western intelligence community’. Surveillance records generated by Britain’s MI5 and the Special Branch on suspected Soviet agents, fellow travellers and colonial agitators that no

24

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longer exist in Britain can nevertheless be read in US archives. T his material underlines the origins o f the Western intelligence com m unity which lie, n ot so much in the exchange o f intelligence on enemy states, as in swapping security inform ation on their own citizens.6 Tills low-level inter-war conflict with the Soviets conditioned the atti­ tudes o f military, intelligence and police officials in the West. Limited and uncertain moves towards co-operation with the Soviets against the Axis during the mid-1930s were overshadowed by the Stalinist purges, which underm ined faith in the Soviet arm ed forces. T he purges alarmed even those well disposed towards Moscow, while in the Soviet Union they eliminated many interested in building bridges with the capitalist states. Even a hint o f foreign associations could trigger denunciation, arrest and worse. Unsurprisingly, in the sum m er and early autum n o f 1939, with w ar with Germ any imminent, London and Paris still took their time about seeking an alliance with Moscow.7 Indeed, between 1939 and 1941 L ondon and Washington considered the Soviet Union to be effectively an ally o f Germany. In Berlin, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Foreign Minister, ardendy pursued the idea o f a four-power bloc, consisdng o f Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union, which would carve up the world between them. Ribbentrop, although not overly bright, was a prac­ tical man and believed in the idea o f the 1939 N azi-Soviet Pact, a com m on-sense network o f military and economic agreements that also gave Stalin Eastern Poland and the Baltic states. However, Stalin did not share R ibbentrop’s geo-strategic vision, any m ore than H ider did, and both signed it to buy time. Like Chamberlain’s Munich Agreem ent o f the previous year, it was underpinned by a sense o f unpreparedness for war and set against the background o f a frantic race to rearm.8 R ibbentrop’s four-power geo-political scheme struck fear into the hearts o f British strategists, confronting them with the prospect o f an unholy alliance dividing up the world between four revisionist powers. But for intelligence and security officers the near-enemy status accorded the Soviet Union was not an unwelcome development. It confirm ed their suspicions, nurtured during the inter-war years, that the Soviets were the real enemy. Simultaneously the N azi-Soviet Pact came close to causing the collapse o f many Western com m unist parties. In the 1930s com m u­ nist parties had launched broad anti-fascist fronts and had enjoyed bum per recruitm ent as a reward. But the new line from Moscow was all b ut inexplicable and the com m unist m em bership deserted in droves. MI5 and special Branch found it easy to recruit disillusioned m embers willing to shed light on the bitter internal arguments developing within the Com munist Party o f G reat Britain. Meanwhile, Soviet humiliation in the W inter War with Finland in 1940 ensured that there was a universally low regard for Soviet military power.9

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By 1940 London was planning covert intervention against Moscow. Forerunners o f the sabotage organisation in London, the special Operations Executive or SOE, prepared for the sabotage o f Soviet oil production. Meanwhile an elite group from the Coldstream Guards was undertaking ski training in the French Alps. Its members belonged to a secretive fifth battalion o f the famous regiment, formed from volunteers specifically for despatch to fight as an 'International Brigade’ in Finland. This move was halted only by the surprise Russo-Finnish armistice o f March 1940. However, the Special Operations Executive continued to prepare exotic anti-Soviet schemes while British Military Intelligence looked at fomenting uprisings in Transcaucasia. Remarkably, in prepara­ tion, during March-April 1940 Britain undertook secret reconnaissance flights inside the Soviet Union to obtain intelligence on important targets. Britain came far closer to war with the Soviet Union than is com­ monly realised and it is the Anglo-Soviet alliance o f 1942 that represents the aberration, not the onset o f post-war anti-Soviet hostility.10 April 1941 brought dramatic change. Signals intelligence from the growing British effort against Germ an high-grade ciphers based at Bletchley Park —known as Ultra —began to show something quite unex­ pected. German troops had begun to move away from the West to the borders o f the Soviet Union. SIS had been receiving agent reports as early as April the previous year indicating that Germany was preparing to attack the Soviet Union but it was not believed in London. The idea that Hitler would fail to finish off his weak British opponents in the West and instead plunge into the Soviet hinterland seemed so implausible that even the firm evidence from Ultra was hard to believe. It was not until May 1941 that London fully accepted that Hitler intended an all out attack on Stalin, rather than merely presenting him with an ultimatum demanding more territory in Central Europe. Even on 31 May, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office Sir Alexander Cadogan still found it almost beyond belief. Although Stalin also refused to accept that a Germ an attack was imminent, not everyone in Moscow suffered from myopia. O n 18 June, four days before Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa crashed down on the Soviet frontier, Sir Stafford Cripps, the British Ambassador, who had returned to Britain on a brief visit, and Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador to London, had a very frank and private talk about the future over lunch. Both o f them knew what was coming. Cripps told Eden, 'H e tried to persuade himself and me that they could hold the Germans, I don’t think he succeeded in convincing himself, and he did nothing to convince me.’11 Stalin was not an ideal figure in the world o f leaders as intelligence consumers. But there had been other problems. The Soviet agent net­ works in Germany had been badly damaged by the purges and those who

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had survived this process had been mercilessly hunted down by Hitler’s security elements. Indeed some had endured a German concentradon camp before being handed to the Soviets and placed in the Gulag as a result o f the brief period o f the Nazi-Soviet Pact which encouraged a trading o f desired polidcal prisoners. Moreover it is likely that German Enigma messages and also the German one-dme pad system remained beyond the capabilities o f the cipher specialists in the NKVD, the Soviet secret service.12 Hider’s impending Operation Barbarossa brought with it the difficult issue o f intelligence co-operation with new allies in Moscow. Churchill's decision to pass Ultra-derived information about Hider's plans to the Soviets required him to disguise its source. When he insưucted Cripps to hand over intelligence about German armoured formations redeployed to the East, it was described as having come from a human spy. Unfortunately, this ruse also fooled Cripps, who did not appreciate the critical importance o f the information. He decided not to bother Stalin personally and handed it a Soviet junior minister. If the message ever reached Stalin, no response was forthcoming. Churchill was furious with Cripps. But Stalin would certainly have regarded any warning from London with suspicion. Logically, London had everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying to draw the Soviets into a war with Germany, so Stalin suspected a plot. Matters were not helped by Stalin’s intense per­ sonal distrust o f Churchill.13 Stalin was equally stubborn in refusing to believe strident warnings about the impending attack from neutral and communist sources. More than eighty separate warnings were rejected. Some o f these pointers were quite unambiguous. Heinkel bombers, converted for photo­ reconnaissance, had recently crashed well inside the Soviet Union with huge mapping cameras in theừ bomb-bays. They had been busy charting the future course o f Hitler’s Panzer armies in the East. But Stalin dis­ missed this as a German effort to give substance to what he thought would be a mere ultimatum. So rigid was his thinking that, when Soviet border troops relayed the news o f the German invasion on 22 June 1941, he ordered them not to open fire. He was convinced that this must be some mistake by an over-eager local unit. When the true nature o f the German assault became clear, he suffered mental paralysis, and retreated to his country dacha for seven days o f complete isolation.14 London and Washington did not expect the Soviet Union to last long. In London, the highest intelligence authority, the Joint Intelligence Committee or JIC, predicted that the Soviet Union, weakened by Stalin’s recent purges, would hold out for only eight to ten weeks against Hitler’s crack units. Henry Stimson, the American Secretary o f War, insisted that the Soviets would capitulate immediately. Nevertheless, it was decided to

F ighting w ith the R ussians

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send a unit called 30 Military Mission to offer the Soviets every assis­ tance, even if this contribution could serve only to make the presumed Germ an victory in the East a little more costly. N o secret service element joined 30 Military Mission, as London concluded that the only efficient part o f Stalin’s regime —the N K VD —would soon smell out any clandes­ tine activity. The British Military Attaché in Moscow was instructed to begin handing over intelligence on the order o f battle o f the German forces. But its source —Ultra decrypts o f German communications from Bletchley Park - continued to remain hidden, as it would do throughout the war.’5 Hider’s attack on the Soviet Union in the summer o f 1941 trans­ formed what was essentially a European war into a world war, a process completed by Japan's surprise attack at Pearl Harbor later that year. A global war required global strategic intelligence, providing military forces with operational information at record speed. Expansion followed for the two kinds o f intelligence-gathering that could provide intelligence quickly: signals intelligence and photo-reconnaissance. By the end o f the war an estimated 30,000 people were involved in the highly secret busi­ ness o f Allied signals intelligence. This was the ‘industrial revolution’ in intelligence-gathering - hitherto a cottage industry —and this revolution would continue to gather pace into the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime Axis communications were never completely penetrated by the West. But by 1941 the successful American attack upon Japanese dip­ lomatic communications - known as Magic - and the British penetration by Ultra into growing amounts o f German Enigma traffic transformed the nature o f the war. In the West, the clearest window into the thinking o f Adolf Hitler was provided not by Ultra but by the messages that 'Hitler’s Japanese Confidant’, the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin, sent back to Tokyo. The speed o f this process was remarkable. At times these Axis telegrams could arrive on Churchill’s or Roosevelt’s desks before they reached their intended recipient. In a war o f mobility, this was o f critical importance. This kind o f work was demanding and o f the highest technical difficulty. Vast numbers o f personnel were required. And so Britain and the United States were compelled to look more sympatheti­ cally at the idea o f intelligence-sharing with allies, even in this super­ sensitive area. In 1942 the British and the Americans signed the Holden Agreement, the first milestone in signals intelligence co-operation, heralding further treaties in 1943 and 1944, and the emergence o f an elaborate new ‘diplomacy o f intelligence’. Britain signed these agree­ ments on behalf o f the Empire-Commonwealth, while other agreements and understandings had been reached with European Allies and neutral states.16 The important questions surrounding Western secret service and the

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Soviet Union during wartime concern signals intelligence rather than hum an agents. For much o f the inter-war period, Britain’s codebreakers at the G overnm ent Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), SIS and M15 had been m ore interested in the Soviet Union than in G erm any o r Japan. How did GC&CS, which ran Bletchley Park, guardian o f Britain's m ost im portant wartime secrets, react to its new Soviet ally? T he British official history o f intelligence has declared that Britain stopped breaking Soviet communications traffic on 22 June 1941. But this is no m ore plau­ sible than the contention that the British ceased work on American com ­ munications traffic after Pearl H arbor on 8 D ecem ber 1941. Britain continued to intercept and break a certain am ount o f Soviet and American traffic during the war. In July 1941, sigint personnel in India were still working on Soviet material and showed no signs o f winding down their activities. In London, the Soviet material under attack con­ sisted mostly o f Com intern traffic between agents in Eastern and Central E urope and their controllers in Moscow. This work was based not at Bletchley Park but in a secret central London location on the top floors o f Berkeley Street. This was GC&CS’s London diplomatic comm unica­ tions annexe, o f which we still know remarkably litde. Here, for the dura­ tion o f the war, those on the top floors rubbed shoulders only with a select band o f personnel working on the traffic o f neutrals and Allies, including the American, Spanish and Free French.17 Despite Britain’s continued efforts against some Soviet comm unica­ tions, Moscow’s new Allied status introduced a different set o f calcula­ tions. Now that the Soviets were joined in batde with Hitler’s legions, it was in Britain’s interest to see secure Soviet communications. Indeed this was imperative if London and W ashington were going to give M oscow precious batde-winning intelligence derived from Ultra. They dared no t allow this material to leak back to the Germans. Accordingly, on the very day that the G erm ans attacked, Britain sent a stark warning to Moscow about the insecurity o f its military communications. Co-operation between GC&CS and the Finnish codebreakers during the RussoFinnish W inter War had shown the ease with which Soviet messages were being broken. Such warnings to allies were not uncom m on, and British and American signals intelligence chiefs were also struggling with the extreme insecurity o f Chiang Kai-shek’s arm ed forces in China. But this effort proved hopeless and their Chinese allies were soon taken ‘out o f the loop’ for any sensitive Allied intelligence.18 By the autum n o f 1941, London and Moscow were exchanging detailed estimates o f the G erm an order o f batde. Each service intelli­ gence branch in London was busy drawing up detailed inform ation for its Soviet opposite numbers. But the guiding principle was only to provide inform ation that was alreadv in the hands o f the Germans. This

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order was driven direcdy by what the British Director o f Military Intelligence (DMI) called 'the insecurity o f Russian ciphers’. Within days o f Barbarossa, Churchill had held detailed consultations with the Chief o f SIS, Sir Stewart Menzies, who was also responsible for Ultra distribu­ tion. Improbably, each individual item o f Ultra given to the Soviets was to be personally approved by Churchill. Menzies set up a direct wireless link between SIS headquarters in Broadway Buildings, London and the SIS station in the British Embassy in Moscow. As early as 17 July 1941, Churchill and Menzies found themselves arguing over whether they should warn Moscow that the Fourth Panzer Army was about to sur­ round large Soviet forces at Smolensk. Menzies was adamant they should not.19 Improvement in Soviet cipher security was essential if Moscow was to be offered more o f the priceless dividends o f Ultra, even in a disguised form. The main vehicle for this ‘improvement’ was the British 30 Military Mission in Moscow, which had begun to arrive by air within days o f the German attack. In all but name, 30 Mission was a large intelligence station. The staff had been chosen for their deep knowledge o f the Soviet Union and language skills which, perversely, meant many had served with the Whites during the civil war, or as attachés during the prickly 1920s. Some were from White émigré families, guaranteeing their impec­ cably anti-communist credentials. The Mission’s chief, General Noel Mason-MacFarlane, had been head o f intelligence for the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1939-40. ‘Mason-Mac’, as he was known, wondered what the perennially suspicious N K V D would make o f such an improbable team. But in the event his robust character and love o f amateur dramatics made him an ideal choice. He was well suited to the inexplicable delays, punctuated by acrimonious insults, that typified wartime intelligence relations with Moscow.20 Mason-Mac need not have worried about cutting an improbable figure in Moscow. Instead this role fell to the head o f a parallel British SOE mission, intended to liaise with the N K V D on resistance and sabotage. T he rotund and boisterous Brigadier George Hill was an extraordinary choice as leader. N ot only had Hill been an active practitioner o f clandes­ tine activities against the Bolsheviks in the inter-war period, he had chosen to publicise his role in a well-known memoir. His deputy, Major Turkouski, was a Pole who hated Russians with a passion and loathed communism. Hill’s twin saving graces were his ability to speak fluent Russian and his tremendous capacity to absorb alcohol. Why had Hugh Dalton, the Minister responsible for SOE, chosen such a person? There were two reasons. First, although Dalton had an infinite range o f sympathetic figures from the British left to choose from, it was already clear that such credentials cut no ice with the Soviets. Sir

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Stafford Cripps had been picked on this basis, only to discover that the Soviets hated hùn all the m ore for being o f the far left while not being strictly communist. Cripps represented the competition. At least with a good safe vigorous anti-Bolshevik like George Hill, SO E seemed to feel, everyone knew where they were. Moreover, Hill had the right personal attributes, he tteated his hosts with unfailing courtesy and he had the stamina to deal with the incessant drinking bouts.21 Second, and m ore importandy, the activities o f both Mason-Mac’s 30 Mission and Hill’s SO E Mission were determ ined by a shared belief in imminent Soviet collapse. In N ovem ber 1941, L ondon showed its hand and frankly told Moscow o f its fears that the Soviet oilfields at Baku were about to fall into G erm an hands. SO E even offered assistance in oilfield demolition and, remarkably, on 22 Novem ber, Stalin accepted. His lieu­ tenant, Andrei Vyshinsky, allowed a British team, including members o f S O E ’s 16(GR) subversion and sabotage group from the Middle East, to contact the N K V D at Baku and to make joint preparations to blow up the oilfields.22 This SO E group, eventually styled Mission 131, was warmly wel­ comed there by Merkulov, the deputy head o f the NK VD, w ho had a fearsome reputation and had played a key role in the Katyn W ood mas­ sacre o f 10,000 Polish officers in 1940. But, here in Baku, Merkulov proved an excellent host. T he Mission’s handbook on oilwell demolition was translated into Russian and a great deal o f hospitality exchanged. By D ecem ber 1941 the G erm an advance had slowed, so demolition was postponed and some equipm ent was moved to safer areas. In London, V ictor Cavendish-Bentinck, head o f the JIC , complained about the British mania for offering the Soviets advice in areas in which they were already com petent. But it could not be denied that SO E had scored a notable success with the Soviets where others had failed.23 SIS and SO E were also engaged in a degree o f carcase-picking. In the short term , the Soviets, under severe pressure, seemed willing to receive material assistance from unexpected quarters. In the medium term , both SO E and SIS had extraordinary ambitions to inherit valuable N K V D agent networks on a global basis, once Moscow was overrun. SO E mis­ sions in far-flung places were told to prepare for this expected windfall. London ordered the SIS and SO E Mission at Singapore to develop closer relations with the NKVD, which had been supplying L ondon with valuable intelligence on Axis schemes in Central Asia since the sum m er o f 1941. T hen, in Septem ber 1941, L ondon asked the local heads o f SO E and SIS at Singapore to receive jointly an N K V D liaison mission o f five officers. By D ecem ber 1941 the final details were under discussion at Kuibyshev, east o f a besieged Moscow. L ondon explained to Singapore that in the ‘event o f a collapse o f the present regime in Russia there

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would be sufficient senior N K V D officials at key points in British terri­ tory who could continue to control and direct, for our purposes, NK V D agents in various parts o f the world’. Ironically, it was Singapore that was soon to fall, while Moscow repelled its besiegers. O n 25 December, the N K V D liaison mission was redirected to Rangoon, but this too was soon overrun.24 George Hill, head o f the SO E Mission in Moscow, continued to be a hit with the Soviets beyond the convivial, but eventually abortive, Baku Mission. Fat, bald and garrulous, he was a great raconteur and played the game. After he had signed an agreement with the N K V D that offered assurance that they would not conduct active operations in each other’s countries without clearance they began to co-operate. Hill secured per­ mission from Menzies for N K VD agents to travel to England by sea for parachute insertion into Western Europe. This was not undertaken lightly, but after some animated discussion with Churchill it was agreed that these individuals would be brought to London and dropped by RAF Special Duties Squadrons. Churchill was probably swayed by the con­ tents o f the Iscott sigint traffic taken from the Comintern radio network which showed that Soviet undercover networks were genuinely working hard against the Axis all over Europe. Agents were dropped into the Balkans, Italy and France despite the protests o f the French government in exile. Hill’s sense o f duty knew few bounds. He further cemented his rela­ tionship with the Soviets by taking up with a girl from the NKVD. Who secured more information from whom as the result o f this domestic alli­ ance is a vexed question. Such amatory arrangements had been de rigueur for heads o f SIS stations in Eastern Europe between the wars. Indeed, a string o f such mistresses were kept on the books as ‘agents’ —by way o f a back-door pension —and some were still being paid for past services rendered in the 1950s. However, Hill reportedly pushed back the boun­ daries o f achievement for a British head o f station in this field when he managed to persuade the Foreign Office to send him £20,000 worth o f diamonds from Hatton Garden in order to persuade his mistress o f the benefits o f leaning towards the British camp. Understandably, Anthony Eden was uncomfortable about the possibility o f having to account for this deployment o f government funds.25 Hill was not an uncritical collaborator. Although he dutifully threw himself into the new alliance with gusto, privately he pressed caution on his superiors. In 1942 he warned that Colonel Ossipov, his NK V D partner, wanted to work with SO E in Turkey, Persia, the Balkans and Central Europe. ‘Such co-operation’, he warned, ‘is full o f dangers and at best would be very tricky.’ SO E in London, he observed, was ‘right in being sceptical’ about its practicality, and ‘right in instructing me to stall

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fo r the time being’. T he green light awaited Anglo-Soviet talks o n other issues. T he Soviets had a clear long-term plan for Europe once H ider was defeated, ‘which our G overnm ent has certainly not’. H e continued, ‘W hat th e y . . . want is, with our help, to infiltrate their agents into Central Europe, the Balkans, and in fact where ever they have difficulties . . . to create Com m unist cells in order to establish Com m unist dom inadon when the time becomes ripe. We m ust steer clear o f such a trap. This is not going to be easy, as we have already agreed in principle to drop Soviet agents into enemy territory ...* Like his counterparts in 30 Military Mission, Hill aedvely disliked the Bolsheviks, but was clever enough to cultivate a relationship as required by London. He was also capable o f standing back and taking the long-term view. N one o f the Allies, he con­ ceded, was really fighting for the same aims in this war: ‘N o t even we and the United States’. Accordingly, even if SO E facilitated Soviet agentinsertion, the N K V D should not be allowed to get inside SO E. London, he advised, should at all costs avoid working with the N K V D on a deep ‘inter-organisational basis’. However, officers working in SO E ’s Russian section using captured members o f General Vlasov’s Russian fascists nevertheless were suspicious o f his close relations with Moscow.26 SO E in London needed no urging from Hill to obstruct the scope and scale o f N K V D operations launched from England. Although a num ber o f agents were despatched to Germany, Italy and France, perhaps a dozen, the program m e was plagued by deliberate hesitation on both sides. T he Soviets often sent poor-quality agents, seeming not to wish to trust their best people to the British conduit. London unearthed all sorts o f communications and transport problem s which caused delay and arguments. Some o f the agents were not overly endowed with intelli­ gence, and the codename for these agents, Pickaxes, may have been chosen intentionally to imply manual labourers. In 1944 SO E and the N K V D found themselves in a further dispute over London’s plans to subvert Soviet citizens serving the Wehrmacht. This seemed a good idea on the face o f it since by now one in eight soldiers fighting for Hitler was a form er Soviet citizen. It was during the early phases o f D-Day that SO E secured the surrender o f thousands o f Russians in G erm an uniform in France, and forty were recruited into the SO E Russian section. But Moscow recoiled. O n 15 May 1944 the SO E station in Moscow advised L ondon that no m ore Pickaxes would be sent for despatch, and limited co-operation began to peter out.27 Hill’s Army colleagues in 30 Military Mission were less creative in the area o f Anglo-Soviet relations. Presuming that the Soviet Union would soon fall to G erm an conquest they did not trouble to disguise their disdain for what they saw. T he titanic clash between Hitler’s experienced divisions and the poorly organised but determ ined Soviet defenders

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offered an extraordinary spectacle for these officers. The Soviets suffered astronomical casualties and lost vast territories. But by late 1941 critical Germ an mistakes had revealed themselves that would eventually cost Hitler the war. The offensive had begun too late in 1941, because o f prob­ lems in the Balkans that had diverted key German forces. The size o f the Red Army had been greatly underestimated by Berlin. Finally, Hider had decided to sweep south towards the oilfields o f the Caucasus and the gateway to India, rather than seeking a decisive blow against Moscow. Even by August 1941 the previous predicdons o f the JIC in London that the Soviets would be an eight-week pushover were clearly quite wrong. By September, rain and mud were already slowing the Germ an advance.28 The survival o f the Soviet regime, albeit in a temporary location at Kuibyshev, slowed intelligence co-operadon. By 1942 the Soviets were less desperate, and formal procedure began to reassert itself. Russian officials at Kuibyshev, and also the Russian Liaison Group under General Golikov that had arrived in London, were creatures o f the purges. Obsessively secredve, they would do nothing without going through the wearisome formula o f obtaining authority from a high level in Moscow. In London, Golikov did business with the Bridsh Army’s ‘Soviet special­ ists’, which meant the hardened and-communists in the War Office. The only exception was the Royal Navy, which commanded the respect o f its Soviet equivalent and developed successful channels for exchanging detailed informadon on northern waters. Captain Alafuzov, a liaison officer to Britain’s Admiral Miles in Moscow, regularly handed over intel­ ligence on the Japanese and tried to help in batdes with Soviet diplomats for visas for more British staff to be sent to Moscow. O n one occasion in 1942 he greeted Miles with the words, ‘G ood morning, Admiral, I have to announce this morning a decisive victory over our common enem y. . . [the] Soviet Ministry o f Foreign Affairs.’ But Alafuzov was careless with his comments and in May 1948 was arrested and tried for his pains. Worries about Ultra security continued to impede the flow from Britain. Mason-Mac was a gloomy commander for 30 Mission in Moscow. Increasingly beset by black moods, he was given to condemning his Soviet opposite numbers for being crooked, stupid and obstructive, and characterising them as ‘terribly oriental and parochial’. Even his naval colleague and successor as head o f the Mission, Admiral Miles, who enjoyed better personal relations, privately complained o f having to deal with ‘men o f peasant stock disguised as officers’.29 O rder o f batde intelligence remained the highlight o f co-operation. Intelligence items supplied by the British had proved crucial, including detailed information on Germ an armoured formations during the batde for Moscow in late 1941. Away from the ‘concentration camp’ atmos­ phere that prevailed in Moscow, things were better. In early 1942, the

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Royal Navy built on its convoy operation to Archangel in northern Russia and gained perm ission to open a station for intercepting lowgrade wireless traffic known as *Y* interception, and allocated it the com ­ ically transparent cover-name o f Wye Cottage. T he Soviets tolerated this sigint establishment because o f theữ deep mutual concern for convoy protection. But despite British suspicions that Soviet naval cryptanalysts might also be reading high-grade G erm an naval signals, the issue o f Ultra could not be raised by British officers. Simultaneously, in Moscow, Edward Crankshaw, a British sigint expert from Bletchley Park, was reaching agreements with his Soviet opposite number, Maịor Tulbovitch, on Army and Air Force *Y’, and received a variety o f G erm an Army signals materials. Crankshaw, encouraged by these exchanges on *Y’, asked London w hether he could move on to talk to the Soviets about Ultra, but the reply was a firm negative.30 American relations with the Soviets developed m ore slowly. Despite the best intentions o f President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his special representative, the frail but animated H arry Hopkins, a familiar pattern could be detected. Colonel Ivan Yeaton, the American Military Attaché in Moscow, shared the anti-Bolshevik mentality o f his British counter­ parts. He sent a continual stream o f doom -laden messages, and evaded orders from American Military Intelligence in W ashington (G-2), to exchange real inform ation with the Soviets. His reports were full o f upbeat news on the activities o f the pro-G erm an fifth colum n in the Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic states. He was summarily removed in O ctober 1941. American supplies were already beginning to flow, but an American military mission would not appear until 1943.3' T he United States was increasingly conscious o f being left behind, even by the m odest standards o f Anglo-Soviet intelligence exchanges. It was unaware o f the limited discussions over *Y* interception and also over subjects such as bacteriological warfare. But during the sum m er o f 1942 Anglo-American ‘tu rf’ negotiations between OSS, SIS and SO E made it very clear that London wished to monopolise relations with the N K V D , and indeed over many other interesting areas, although eventu­ ally William J. Donovan, the head o f OSS, would insist on sending his own mission to Moscow.32 By 1943, as Am erican-Soviet exchanges were growing as a result o f Lend-Lease - Washington’s program m e o f military supply assistance - American officials on the ground in Moscow began to express similar sentiments to their British counterparts, regarding unequal exchange, obstruction and ‘stupidity’. But the US position was different. As the key volume manufacturer o f military technology in the West, its hand was stronger. Both the American military and the State D epartm ent increasingly recom m ended that the United States should move towards a system o f exchange that was based on quid pro quo,33

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35

Mason-Mac's anti-Soviet activities were directly encouraged by Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, in London. In April 1942 the Foreign Office complained that Brooke ‘is pressing General MacFarlane to be as inquisitive as possible’. This, it noted, was ‘the exact opposite’ o f what Anthony Eden wanted. As early as September 1942 the diplomats had concluded that with the British mili­ tary ‘their main interest in supplies to the USSR is as a means o f getting informadon’.34 During 1942, the gloomy Mason-Mac was replaced by Admiral Miles, who in 1943 was in turn succeeded by General Sir Giffard Martel. Indeed there was a 'sweep out’ o f many o f the senior officers in 30 Mission. Cripps, the British Ambassador, had tired o f Martel’s com­ plaints and asked London to send veterans o f the current war with combat experience. But experienced officers were not to be had and instead he was sent staff officers with inflated egos. Unfortunately 30 Mission remained consistently hostile to its hosts and Giffard Martel led the way. Like his predecessors, he viewed the Soviets as incomprehen­ sible ‘A siatics’.35 Matters were made worse by problems with the limited Ultra that London offered the Soviets in a disguised form. Ultra had enabled London to detect Hitler’s plans for a massive offensive planned for May 1943 on the eastern front. But British warnings were rendered ineffective by delays in the German schedule. New weapons had not yet arrived for what turned out to be the Fiihrer’s scheme to strike at Kursk in Operation Zitadelle, the largest tank battle o f the Second World War. Only when new arm our had arrived in early July did Hitler give the final order to attack. Some historians have suggested that Churchill decided not to pass full information to Moscow due to growing hostility. But this is not the case. Instead the failure o f the Germans to keep to their own schedule drove British intelligence predictions off course and prompted the Soviets to complain about being given bad information.36 Late 1943 saw important changes in American military relations with the Soviets. An American military mission at last arrived in Moscow. This was led by Maịor-General John Deane, assisted by General Hoyt Vandenberg, the post-war commander o f Cenưal Intelligence Group, an organisation that preceded the CIA in 1946-7. This was a more benign American military presence, and at a higher level, than Moscow had pre­ viously seen. However, those with the m ost intense dislike o f the Soviet Union, the form er Military Attachés, now assumed prominence in Washington. General J. A. Michela had been assigned to the G-2 section dealing with the Soviet Union, while his predecessor Colonel Yeaton had taken over the section dealing with exchanges o f technical information. At the top, General Clayton Bissell replaced General George Strong as head o f G-2 in Washington. Bissell immediately began to stress the

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importance o f gathering intelligence on the Soviet Army. All these figures, together with General Edwin Sibert, the US Army intelligence chief in Europe, embodied an attitude that was years ahead o f other departments in Washington in identifying the Soviet Union as a future opponent. This attitude connected comfortably with military thinking in Ix>ndon. All these streams now began to merge. Hitherto Britain and the United States had had separate patterns o f intelligence-gathering in Moscow. In early February 1944, long-term Soviet experts in British and American Military Intelligence met in London for a remarkable twoweek conference to compare their pictures o f the Soviet Air Force and Soviet Army. These two groups even prepared a joint Anglo-American version o f the Soviet order o f battle. They also concluded a formal agree­ ment to continue exchanging intelligence gathered on the Soviet armed forces and their progress on the eastern front. This agreement was drafted by the leading American and British exponents on the Soviet order o f battle, Randolph Zander and Nicholas Ignatieff respectively. The principal source o f information underpinning this agreement was material from Ultra decrypts o f German radio traffic on the eastern front. This agreement o f February 1944 was nothing short o f a landmark treaty. It was not only the first Anglo-American ‘Cold War’ intelligence treaty, it also underlined the critical importance o f Military Intelligence officers in marking the Soviets as the next enemy, to the dismay o f the diplomats. The diplomats were not supine in the face o f growing military hostil­ ity. In early 1944, Anthony Eden finally tired o f General Martel’s tirades against the Soviets. Martel was recalled and yet another head o f Britain’s 30 Military Mission was despatched in the form o f Eden’s old friend Lieutenant-General ‘Branco’ Burrows. However, Burrows was another Soviet ‘expert’ who spoke fluent Russian and insisted on wearing his campaign medals from his service with the Whites in 1919 to the recep­ tion where he was presented to Joseph Stalin. Burrows chose to work closely with the new high-powered American co-operative Military Mission, which was now overtaking the British in terms o f the intelli­ gence it charmed from the Soviets. Unsurprisingly, by the summer o f 1944 Stalin was already working for the removal o f Burrows.37 In London and Washington, Military Intelligence figures returning from Moscow were hailed as ‘experts’ on the Soviet question. The evicted Giffard Martel was invited to air his views on the Soviets at British Chiefs o f Staff meetings and urged a ‘firm line'. His expositions only reinforced Brooke’s intense suspicions about the Soviets. Diplomats had met with his successor, Burrows, before his departure and urged him to be generous, arguing that ‘a policy o f reprisals for its own sake would

F ighting w ith the R ussians

37

not pay’, but Brooke and the DMI decided to ask the the JIC to look at the issue of'reciprocity as regards information’. A struggle for control o f the JIC view o f the Soviets had already commenced. Cavendish-Bentinck observed, 'I have tried without success to impress upon my colleagues that the trouble lies mainly in the personalities o f the Service representa­ tives we have sent to Russia. This is one o f the few cases where I feel sympathy with the Russian attitude. If I had had to deal with most o f the Service representatives we have sent to Russia I should have difficulty in resisting an inclination to be obstructive and tiresome.'38 Stalin took the same line. In late September 1944 he met with Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr and Averell Harriman, the British and American Ambassadors respec­ tively. Stalin and his Foreign Minister Molotov both politely requested that Burrows, the new head o f 30 Mission, be removed on the ground that he looked upon Soviet officers ‘as savages and this hurt them’. ClarkKerr, obviously embarrassed, suggested there had been a misunder­ standing, but the Soviets were persistent: ‘Here Stalin begged me to believe him for he was telling the truth.’ A few days later Burrows was recalled and not replaced, for the diplomats were anxious to avoid further military representation o f any kind in Moscow.39 Stalin and Molotov had hit upon a rich seam. Cultural and racial stereotypes served to distort Western intelligence on Soviet capabilities and intentions throughout the war and for many years thereafter. This idea o f Russians as semi-oriental barbarian hordes reached its height during the last stages o f the war, especially in Germany and Poland. A substantial proportion o f the German population in the east committed suicide, rather than face the wrath o f the Soviet forces as they made their way towards Berlin in early 1945. However, racial assumptions did not only apply to the Soviets and were endemic in the intelligence machines o f wartime Whitehall and Washington. The extent to which this skewed both British and American intelligence about Japan in the 1930s and the 1940s is now extremely well documented. Ideas about the limited poten­ tial o f ‘orientals’ were not the sole preserve o f middle-ranking Army officers. Sir Alexander Cadogan, the senior official at the Foreign Office, described the Japanese in his diary as ‘little yellow dwarf slaves’. During the war Roosevelt ordered a programme o f research at the Smithsonian Institute which encouraged his own belief that the characteristics o f races, such as intelligence or aggression, were determined by physiologi­ cal features, especially skull shapes.40 Therefore, discussion about the Russians as ‘semi-orientals’ was important. Some asserted that Russian Europeanness was a mere façade behind which lurked ‘oriental’ characteristics, which were more peasant­ like, ranging from a low cunning to extteme violence. There were attempts to typify the Slav as slow-thinking and dull. Slavs were often

38

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described as resistant to sustained activity, naturally disorganised and technologically incom petent — therefore quite the opposite o f their G erm an opponents. More importandy, it has been argued that the sup­ posedly truculent nature o f the Slav peasant was often employed to excuse Stalin's extreme m ethods in mobilising the Soviet population. T he Gulag was repulsive, but arbitrary terror was thought necessary by som e in the West to turn the war effort around in this very different land, marked o ut above all by hum an intractability.41 A t some point during late 1943 o r early 1944, Western signals intelli­ gence priorities shifted dramatically, giving the Soviets much greater emphasis. H itherto, L ondon had been anxious to press the Soviets to improve their cipher security at every opportunity. But in April 1944 it suddenly decided not to tell the Soviets about the good results that the G erm an Luftwaffe sigint organisation was achieving against the Soviet Air Force.42 For some time Bletchley Park had been reading the Ultra key used by the Luftwaffe sigint organisation to send its material back to Berlin. Thus, for the rest o f the war, its entire ‘take’ was also enjoyed by London. O ne result was superbly detailed and accurate intelligence reports on Soviet air power. ‘Scooping’ G erm an sigint on the Soviets was a growing activity. By late 1944 the Royal Navy was also receiving topsecret Ultra material that gave it G erm an Naval Intercept Service reports o f Soviet units in northern waters.43 Bletchley Park had been happily col­ lecting Luftwaffe sigint traffic on the Soviet Union since the sum m er o f 1942, if not before. By the end o f the war the haul was vast and British Air Intelligence brought it all together at the end o f 1945 in a survey called ‘Soviet Air Force’ and then produced a review o f G erm an intelli­ gence work on the Russian Air Force order o f battle, the latter running to m ore than 200 pages.44 Bletchley Park’s successful effort to scoop G erm an sigint on the Soviet Union had a direct effect on its own relations with Soviet sigint agencies. In 1945 it explained that ‘the decision for co-operation on the part o f the British authorities waxed and waned perpetually owing to the insecurity o f Russian ciphers and the careless way in which their low grade ciphers were used for high grade secrets. O f this there was abundant evidence in the G erm an Air Force Enigma traffic originated by the G erm an Y service as studied by H ut 3 (3G).’ Sigint exchange was increasingly ham pered by different negotiating styles. T he Soviets clearly enịoyed haggling over individual docum ents and bartered like rug-merchants, but the British found this tiresome. Bletchley Park complained that the Soviets’ attitude was ‘precisely that o f a horse-dealer w ho enjoys the poste and riposte o f a bargain’ and their whole concept o f intelligence exchange was ‘on an eye for an eye basis’. GC&CS had hoped to open a range o f intercept sta­ tions across the Soviet Union on the basis o f swapping low-level

F ighting w ith the R ussia n s

39

Luftwaffe codes. But in the event it only managed to open the one naval intercept station —Wye Cottage —developed at Polyamoe.45 By early 1945, vast quantities o f intelligence were available to the West on the Soviet armed forces. Sigint intercepts were now augmented by Germ an prisoners who had previously fought on the eastern front. The British depended more heavily than ever upon their enemies for intelli­ gence about their allies. By 29 June 1945, MI3c, the Military Intelligence section responsible for the Soviet Union, declared that almost all o f its information on the Soviets had come from captured German docu­ ments, POWs and the German sigint effort By contrast its allies in Moscow had given it almost nothing.46 From the summer o f 1944, other kinds o f radio monitoring were in progress. Britain’s propaganda agency, and sister organisation to SOE, the Polidcal Warfare Executive, was busy compiling detailed reports on Soviet radio propaganda in Europe.47 The Soviets were known to be reading substandal quantities o f British material. In 1941 the Foreign Office held an animated discussion about how to pass information to the Soviets by sleight o f hand. One way was to send information to the Moscow Embassy in a British cipher that it knew the Soviets to be reading. But life was made more complex by the fact that the Soviets were aware that the British knew that this channel was being read, and so still might suspect that the information was being foisted upon them.48 The various British missions also provided the Soviets with opportunities. In June 1944 the British needed to send eight new Typex enciphering machines to the senior British naval liaison officer, because the old ones were worn out. Typex was the main British high-grade cipher machine and the equivalent o f the German Enigma machine. Moscow insisted that these Typex machines would ‘have to be examined by the Soviet Customs Authorities’, and this provided plenty o f opportunity for detailed inspection by Soviet cryptographic experts. In addition, John Cairncross, who spent much o f the war at Bletchley Park, was regularly handing material to the Soviets.49 In September 1944, despite a deteriorating climate in East-W est rela­ tions, dramatic exchanges o f secret intelligence were still possible. A notable example was co-operation against the key German secret weapon, the V-2 ballistic missile which threatened south-east England. Churchill specifically pressed Stalin for intelligence co-operation against the V-2. Stalin gave this immediate clearance and an Anglo-American missile intelligence team headed out to Moscow to join its Soviet counterparts. Together they visited the V-2 test site at Blizna in occupied Poland and then returned to Moscow. All this occurred before the first V2 had landed in England. Despite a German scorched-earth policy, they had been able to identify the type o f fuels being used and the peculiar launching mechanisms. The leaders o f the British and American teams

40

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confessed themselves to be very pleased and the exchange o f missile data continued into the autumn.50 The American OSS organisation, the remnants o f which would become the CIA in 1947, developed only limited relations with the NKVD. The British, as we have seen, tried to monopolise such dealings at the outset. However, by the autumn o f 1944 OSS launched a wave o f operations into Central and South-eastern Europe just as the Soviet Army moved into these areas. These operations, authorised by the US Joint Chiefs o f Stair, were designed not only to gather intelligence, but also to carry out political operations against the fading Nazi regimes in countries from Rumania to Hungary. Rounded up quickly by NKVD teams advancing with Soviet forces, they did nothing to reduce Soviet suspicions about OSS. Indeed a number o f OSS and SO E missions into areas such as Poland and Rumania at the end o f the war appear to have done little other than to alarm the local Soviet forces and enmesh local friendly elements in pointless trouble.51 Authoritative figures, such as General Marshall, the US Army Chief o f Stair, made bold attempts to sustain co-operation. In 1945 the Soviets were given raw Magic decrypts o f Japanese communications for the first time and were told o f their source. This had a definite impact upon the Soviet leadership, who already knew a lot about Western signals intelli­ gence achievements through the use o f human agents. However, Marshall could not single-handedly reverse the decline in East-W est confidence. By the end o f 1944 almost all exchanges on the German order o f battle, the main area o f intelligence co-operation, had ceased. In April 1945, both Eden and Churchill confirmed that the military mis­ sions should adopt tough bartering tactics when dealing with the Soviets, and British and American intelligence officers inside the Soviet Union now had little liaison to do. Their attentions were now directed almost entirely to gathering information on the cities, airbases and ports around them. Unmistakably, this was target data for planning future air attacks. At the end o f the war the JIC in London defined a new policy o f exchange based on ‘hard bargaining and reciprocity’.52 The hostile attitudes o f intelligence in the West were partly fuelled by events in their own countries. British and American intelligence had not, in all cases, been required to travel to Moscow to meet up with their Soviet counterparts. Security services in Britain and the United States could not help but be aware that communist parties and the NK VD were busy in their own countries. Surveillance o f the Communist Party o f Great Britain continued from the inter-war period into the twilight period o f the Nazi—Soviet Pact and the Phoney War. The most startling cases o f Soviet espionage were uncovered during this period between 1939 and 1941. A Soviet spy was uncovered in the Cipher Department o f

F ighting w ith the R ussians

41

the Foreign Office. John Herbert King had been suborned by NK VD agents o f Dutch nationality and had handed over large quantities o f tele­ graphic traffic and ciphers to the Soviets for money. This included conversadons between Hider and Sir Nevile Henderson, the Bridsh Ambassador in Berlin. It allowed Moscow detailed insight into the European developments at a critical moment. Careful comparison o f the material that King had access to and the course o f Moscow’s foreign policy has shown how this direcdy improved the performance o f Soviet diplomats in negotiations with London. Caught in 1939, King eventually received ten years’ imprisonment. His case underlined the vulnerability o f the British government to espionage conducted without the assistance o f overt members o f the Communist Party or even regular contact with the NKVD. But these lessons were not learned. Instead, the focus continued to be upon what was seen as the classic pattern o f activity based around obvious subversives. Welcome confirmation o f this classic pattern was received by MI5 in 1943 in the form o f the Douglas Frank Springhall case. Springhalt was National Organiser o f the Communist Party and used this position to recruit communist clerical staff, and even an Army officer, Captain O rm ond Uren, to spy for the Soviets. Springhall and Uren both received long prison sentences. More importantly MI5 activ­ ity increasingly concentrated on Communist Party networks. The Springhall case was also welcomed by those in MI5 who had argued for a continued high level o f surveillance against communists beyond June 1941, when the Soviets had become allies. This had been an awkward position to maintain at a time when the service’s resources had been stretched by Axis activities and the need to supply MI5 officers to bolster Army security in a dozen locations around the world.53 MI5 took a tren­ chantly anti-Soviet line throughout the war, maintaining heavy surveil­ lance o f Bolsheviks and repeatedly warning the Foreign Office that the Marxist-Leninist leopard had not ‘changed its spots’. In 1942 Sir David Petrie, head o f MI5, wrote to Cadogan and several other key figures about the dangers o f the Anglo-Soviet Treaty o f 1942. He enclosed an analysis by Roger Hollis, ‘Head o f the Division that Deals with Communism*, setting out the case for a Soviet reversion to type once the war with Germany was safely moving towards victory.54 Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, the ebullient British Ambassador who replaced Cripps, testified to this when recounting his first impressions in December 1942. In Moscow, he ventured, he felt he lived ‘in a cage’. The N K V D helped to confirm this by providing a level o f surveillance which was tangible. Only very occasionally did any individual dare to accept an invitation to meet him, and contacts were limited to rare meetings with senior Soviet officials. Clark-Kerr took his impossibly lively Airedale

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terrier on walkabouts in Moscow to break the ice, but though the citi­ zenry loved the dog, they gave the Ambassador and his obvious NK V D entourage a wide berth. The difficulty in meeting ordinary individuals, or fathoming what they were really thinking, was largely due to the very thorough activities o f the Moscow Secret Police’.55 But Clark-Kerr could still make light o f his predicament. In 1943 he compared his NK V D entourage with that o f the Japanese Ambassador: ’Whereas I have to content myself with a meagre band o f four guards, M. Sato gets eight.*56

2 A C old War in W hitehall This is very bad. Anthony Eden, 23 August 19441

xtended contact with the Soviets on the ground shaped the impres­ sions o f intelligence. This nurtured a pre-existing stereotype o f Russian barbarians whose boorish behaviour was intolerable and with whom it was impossible to conduct sensible bargaining. Intelligence officers and military staffs in Moscow, like Mason-MacFarlane and Martel, denied much real information about wider Soviet foreign policy, drew conclusions from the microcosm o f their own day-to-day experi­ ences. These experiences were mosdy bad and they filtered upwards into high-level strategic appreciations and intelligence estimates circulating among the military in London and in Washington. But the military is ultimately a hierarchical organisation and impres­ sions travel downwards more easily than they travel up. The tone was set at the top by senior service officers, who had sustained an anti-Soviet attitude for twenty years before the advent o f prickly wartime contacts with individual Soviets. Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the British wartime Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, led this anti-Soviet ten­ dency. He loathed what he called ‘this semi-Asiatic race with innate bar­ gaining instincts’. By 1943 he had concluded that the Soviets were bound to be the next enemy. A t the time he blithely reassured the diplomats that any anti-Soviet thinking was merely routine contingency planning. But that same year he confided his real thoughts in his diary. The Soviet Union, he insisted, ‘cannot fail to become the main threat in fifteen years from now. Therefore, foster Germany, gradually build her up and bring her into the Federation o f Western Europe. Unfortunately all this must be done under the cloak o f a holy alliance between England, Russia and America. N ot an easy policy.. .’2 By 1944 Brooke’s true feelings were an open secret in the War Office. Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, Chairman o f the JIC, astutely observed that this had a profound effect on those

E

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around him. In the Army these negative attitudes trickled down the chain o f command: ‘If the upper hierarchy o f the War Office are antiGuatemalan, then gradually the hum blest subaltern on Salisbury Plain will be convinced that the Guatemalans are the lowest o f twirps.’3 British diplomats, especially those serving outside Moscow, developed an entirely different view o f where the Soviets were going. Although negotiations with the Soviets were frequently awkward, many felt that there was a strong possibility o f change. Some even forecast the long­ term continuation o f the decline o f comm unism which had been seen within the Soviet Union during the war, and the prospect that it was gradually becom ing a ‘normal* country. By 1944 a bitter batde, focused on the JIC, was raging in Whitehall between the diplomats and the mili­ tary over intelligence estimates that forecast future Soviet behaviour. This was provoked by intelligence questions about the ‘basic assum p­ tions’ for post-war planning. W ho, the planners asked, would be the next enemy? Radically different intelligence predictions about how the Soviets would behave after the war reflected divergent roles as well as different circumstances. British diplomats recognised that, ultimately, it was their task to maintain good relations with the Soviets. T he bottom line for the military was to be ready to deal with matters should diplomatic relations ever break down, and breakdown, sooner or later, was what they expected. T he Whitehall battle over intelligence on the Soviets was long and bitter. It reflected not only different roles and responsibilities, but also the problems o f shifting power. Whitehall had responded to the war by rep­ licating itself. T he Foreign Office itself had moved from having no m ore than a dozen cosy departm ents to having twenty-seven. All over London, new ministries and departm ents sprang into existence, dealing with things that governm ent had hitherto left alone: food rationing, transport, propaganda, coalmining were all mobilised and regulated. Many o f these new ministries had roles that impinged on British foreign policy and the diplomats were anxious not to lose control to the ‘planners’ o f inform a­ tion, civil affairs, econom ic warfare and other strange activities. In a fierce conflict marked by resignations and recriminations, the diplomats hung on to core aspects o f foreign policy by a whisker. This Cold War in Whitehall did not end with the arrival o f the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Instead the tensions between military and diplomatic m ind­ sets ran on for m ore than a decade. Intelligence and special operations were at the heart o f this protracted struggle and, ultimately, this deter­ mined the very architecture o f the British Cold War machine itself. London diplomats had become accustomed to viewing Moscow as neither good nor bad, but as an irrelevance. D uring the inter-war period the Soviet Union had enịoyed a reputation for surly isolation. Although

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notably uncooperative it was also viewed as unproblem atic. Intelligence agreed that the Red Arm y was weak from self-inflicted injuries - the drastic purges —carried o u t in the 1930s. Victims included many experi­ enced middle-ranking Arm y officers w ho had been m urdered in theừ hundreds. Accordingly the Soviets were thought incapable o f harbouring anything m ore than defensive aims, perhaps erecting a security cordon that would allow them to protect socialism from G erm an ambitions. In 1940, Sir Alexander Cadogan captured the m ood, observing, ‘I person­ ally attach no im portance whatever to Russia.' M oscow could do Britain little immediate harm o r good.4 Accordingly, the Soviets could only represent a problem as part o f an unholy alliance with the Axis powers. Between 1939 and 1941 there was indeed the possibility that the world would be divided between four snarling revisionists: Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. This course o f action — an unholy alliance — m ade geo-strategic sense and Ribbentrop, H itler’s Foreign Minister, pressed this idea o n an unreceptive Führer throughout 1939 and 1940. In this period the Soviets were viewed as de facto allies o f the G erm ans and, at a high level in the War Office, ream s o f strategic planning for a war against Russia were com pleted. Understandably, L ondon’s tentative search for an alliance with the Soviets before June 1941 lacked sincerity and suggested that any such deal would be a flimsy expedient.5 O peration Barbarossa, H ider’s attack on the Soviet Union, launched on 22 June 1941, changed everything. Transform ing a series o f regional conflicts into a genuine world war, this attack could be considered the fulcrum o f the twentieth century. Initially it was not recognised as such. Senior figures in W hitehall and W ashington suggested that the Soviets would only hold out for a m atter o f weeks. But, once it appeared that the Soviet U nion would survive, British diplom ats m oved with surprising speed to em brace the idea that the Soviets would be im portant, benign and co-operative after the war.6 This favourable view seemed to follow naturally from the unimaginable destruction inflicted by G erm any o n the Soviets. It seemed self-evident that M oscow would need a long period o f post-w ar reconstruction, perhaps with W estern assistance. A continued G rand Alliance — Britain, the U nited States and the Soviet Union focused upon a proposed United N ations organisation, seemed the obvious way o f securing a m uch needed breathing space for recovery. Even as late as 1944, A nthony E den still seemed com m itted to this ideal o f a co-operative Soviet Union. Post-war co-operation with Moscow, he stressed, would be the key to the long-term suppression o f Germany. T he war also revised the image o f Stalin. In the public m ind he was mys­ tically transform ed by the newsreels from a malevolent creature into ‘G o o d O ld Uncle Joe’. T he Red Army was shown trium phing in a hundred

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nameless battles on the eastern front and by 1944 a public atm osphere was created Svhere criticism o f the Soviet Union was tantam ount to treason’. British diplomats were sensitive to the change in public m ood. Even those w ho were not swept up by enthusiasm for the Soviet war effort believed that a genuine change had overtaken the Soviet leadership. Religion and nationalism had been allowed to revive. T he Red Army had asserted itself as a force quite independent o f the Party. Some British diplomats even talked airily about the Soviet abandonm ent o f communism.7 T he leading light among the British ‘co-operators’ was Christopher Warner. W arner took over the N orthern D epartm ent o f the Foreign Office in May 1941, a m onth before the launch o f O peration Barbarossa. He knew nothing o f the Soviet Union and had certainly never been there. He could not have form ed a greater contrast to the cynical old Russia hands, the Military Intelligence veterans and Indian Army planners that now thronged the service departm ents and SIS. W arner was genuinely moved by the scale o f the sacrifice by Russian forces that were now car­ rying on the fight against Hitler alone and he suspected that the W estern Allies would not return to the continent for a long time. Meanwhile Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed on a Mediterranean sideshow, a deci­ sion that Stalin greeted with open disgust. Warner recognised the depth o f distrust generated in Moscow by this Second Front issue. Early in D ecem ber 1942 he warned his colleagues: You have here, I fear, constant fuel for the Soviet suspicion that we and the Americans in reality wish to sec the Russians and the Germans bleed each other to the maximum and to shut the U.S.S.R. out of the post-war settlement as much as possible. This is clearly a serious matter.. .* This captured the Soviets’ fears well; they had good reason to be anxious about attitudes in London and in Washington. W hen Germ any had first invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the United States was still not at war. At this m om ent an enterprising journal­ ist had stopped an obscure senator from Independence, Missouri called Harry Trum an on the steps o f Capitol Hill and asked him how the United States should react to this new development in world politics. Trum an responded with customary Mid-Western directness. Both regimes were nasty, he said, and so this new development represented an opportunity. T he United States should help the weaker side, whichever it was, but only with a view to sustaining the conflict as long as possible. Ideally Hitler’s Germ any and Stalin’s Soviet Union would grind each other to pieces. There were many am ong the British and American mili­ tary w ho shared this cast o f mind.9 By m id-1943, with no Second Front in sight, this was precisely how

s.

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M oscow saw W estern thinking. T here were plenty o f indicators o f grow ing Soviet hostility. In July 1943, Ivan Maisky, the Soviet A m bassador in L ondon, was recalled and replaced by a relatively junior official, Feodor Gusev, previously Soviet A m bassador in Canada. Since he was only 38 years o f age and had only one year o f foreign service, this was a deliberate snub to London. D uring 1938-40 G usev had been an under­ ling in the p art o f the Soviet Foreign M inistry dealing with Britain and became its head when his form er boss ‘disappeared’ in the purges. ‘H e then knew litde English, took no initiative and had the appearance o f having com e from a collective farm after a short course o f G PU training.' G usev had indeed previously served in the GPU, the pre-war Soviet secret service. Cadogan dismissed him as ‘stupid and inarticulate’ and com ­ plained that his conversation was limited to saying ‘H ow are you?’ in a voice o f thunder. E ven C hristopher Warner, a remorseless optim ist, had to concede that all this looked ‘rather sinister’. O rm e Sargent, a D eputy Under-Secretary, thought it an alarming indication that the Soviets had ‘m ade up their m ind to plough a lonely furrow ’. A nthony E den also found it ‘disquietening’ but thought it would be unwise to refuse the appoint­ m ent. T h eứ determ ination to press o n with ‘co-operation’ reflected fears that the Soviets would detach themselves from the united war effort.10 T his dogged determ ination o f the diplom ats to cling to forecasts o f post-w ar ‘co-operation’ w ith the Soviets has caused puzzlem ent in many quarters. H ow could any intelligent person remain so optim istic in the face o f a m ixture o f calculated insults and deliberate barbarities on the p art o f the Soviets? H ow could anyone fail to notice the revealing shadow cast by their pre-w ar record o f nefarious activities? Inevitably, perhaps, som e have sought to explain optim ism in term s o f a semi­ conspiracy, pointing to an influx into governm ent o f left-leaning intellec­ tuals, such as Stafford Cripps, the flrst wartime A m bassador to Moscow. Naive efforts to secure a better relationship, they argue, were exploited by others w ho ranged from independently m inded fellow travellers to lullblown Soviet agents. As we shall see, there can be no question that Cripps was exploited in this way.11 But the diplom ats were n o t w ithout evidence for a changing Soviet Union. Stalin had mobilised all o f Soviet society, forcing him to reawaken ideas that had hitherto been unpalatable and appeal to a wider audience. T his m eant invoking pre-revolutionary Russian heroes and reviving relig­ ion. G reat publicity was given to encouraging messages from the Patriarch o f the O rthodox Church and even from Muslim religious leaders. A Council to assist ‘Religious Cults’ was suddenly set up, albeit ‘largely drawn from the N K V D ’, which began to arrange for things such as the heating o f churches in winter. Some saw this as the thawing o f Soviet com m unism .12 In any case, im portant wartime business remained

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to be conducted and negotiating complex post-war setdem ents seem ed almost unthinkable without striving for a fairly friendly Moscow. Moreover, the diplomats had a trum p card. They righdy identified the possibility that pessimism would serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone accepted that the Soviets were over-sensitive and looked for slights. Anything other than open-handed co-operation was likely to result in disaster. Anti-Soviet intelligence estimates were bound to leak and aggravate the very problem they predicted. Optim ism and efforts to broaden the dialogue on practical m atters at least offered some hope o f escape from the trap o f perpetual confrontation.13 Cadogan caught the attitude o f m ost British diplomats at an early stage in the war: ‘It is essen­ tial to treat the Russians as though we thought they were reasonable hum an beings. But as they are not in fact reasonable hum an beings, bu t dominated by an almost insane suspicion we have to com bine this treat­ m ent with an infinite patience.’14 Standing like a rock against a tide o f diplomatic optimism and patience was the owlish and bespectacled figure o f Sir Alan Brooke, Chief o f the Imperial General Staff. ‘Brookie’, as he was known to his contem porar­ ies, epitomised military hostility to the Soviet Union. Bad personal rela­ tions between 30 Mission in Moscow and the Soviets ultimately darkened the picture, but Brooke already carried a gloomy vision from 1917. His deputy, Lieutenant-General Henry Pownall, also viewed his new Soviet allies with distaste. Indeed, on 29 June 1941, a week after the G erm an attack, Pownall noted in his diary that he could not bring him self to refer to the Soviets as allies. They were, he said, ‘a dirty lot o f murdering thieves’ and ‘double-crossers o f the deepest dye’. Like H arry Trum an in Washington, he reịoiced to see Stalin and Hitler, ‘the two biggest cut­ throats in E urope’, going for each other with vigour. T he brigadiers and colonels in the War Office Directorates o f Military Intelligence and O perations took their cue from Brooke and Pownall.15 In late 1941, when the fate o f the Soviet Union hung in the balance, Christopher W arner visited a new Military Intelligence section dealing with the Soviet Union known as MI3c. He was appalled by what he found, declaring that this section was so ‘anti-Russian as to be danger­ ous’. W arner was not alone. Cavendish-Bentinck also paid MI3c a visit. As head o f the Foreign Office departm ent that stayed in touch with the military — the Service Liaison D epartm ent — he liked his service col­ leagues. Nevertheless he found MI3c to be a very odd place: ‘W henever the Russians achieve some success or even succeed in stemm ing the G erm an advance, these officers becom e plunged in gloom. A Russian defeat fills them with ịoy.’ This was all the m ore alarming because the officers o f MI3c were, in his opinion, moderately bright, which he con­ sidered uncharacteristic o f British Military Intelligence.16

s.

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Brooke’s deep-rooted hostility to the Soviet U nion reached ou t beyond the service departm ents and affected the redirection o f Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. It was no secret that the wartime head o f SIS, Sir Stewart Menzies, a long-serving officer w ho had assum ed com m and in 1939, was regarded as a dud. His main talent was bureaucratic m anoeuvre and he used this to resist the wholesale reform o f SIS throughout the war, a treatm ent that in fact it cried o u t for. Cadogan, the senior official in the Foreign Office, gave full rein to his dismay about Menzies in the early years o f the war, complaining that he babbles and w anders’ and needed to be replaced. Instead Foreign Office minders were attached to SIS to keep an eye on his lack o f progress.17 Brooke also took a dim view o f Menzies. In 1943 he tried to make SIS m ore responsive to service demands. This involved im posing yet m ore m inders —three senior officers from the services —upon SIS as deputy directors. T hey would serve in SIS but their brief was to watch over service interests. T hese figures were little m ore effective than the SIS organisation they were benchm arking, but they allowed Brooke to feed his priorities into SIS. Brigadier E. H. L. Beddington was Brooke's choice as Arm y representative and both were clear that they loathed Menzies. Although moving from the Arm y to SIS, Beddington had his new term s o f reference drafted to ensure he was not solely answerable to Menzies. Shortly after the arrival o f this new military middle m anagem ent in SIS, Menzies began to turn SIS attention away from the Axis powers to the Soviet Union. This deliberate shift was marked by the setting up o f a new anti-Soviet section. A fter all, signals intelligence was providing the vast bulk o f the war-winning operational intelligence against the Axis, so Menzies had spare capacity.18 By the end o f the war the head o f the new SIS and-Soviet section was the rising star o f SIS, Kim Philby, a long-term Soviet agent. His memoirs, although highly selective, are, like the best propaganda, largely accurate. Philby rightly observed that, for many veteran SIS officers, this new shift was a welcome return to the familiar enemy o f the inter-war years: *When the defeat o f the Axis was in sight, SIS thinking reverted to its old and congenial channels; and a m odest start was made by setting up a small section, known as Section IX, to study past records o f Soviet and C om m unist activity.' As a stopgap an officer nam ed Sam Curries, approaching retiring age, was im ported from M I5 to get the section going. This seemingly unusual choice was n o t as strange as it first appeared. SIS and M I5 had worked with increasing closeness during the war. Moreover, MI5 had quietly kept up a steady stream o f work on com ­ munists. Philby had spent the war in SIS counter-intelligence work and was a natural choice as his perm anent successor.19 T he m ain focus o f sensitive work against the Soviets in W hitehall was

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n o t SIS o r MI5. Its heartland was the world o f the future military plan­ ners. Whitehall had never liked planning, regarding it as ‘crystal-ball gazing', and Cadogan had successfully fought the creation o f planning bodies in the Foreign Office. Churchill was even m ore opposed. Although in private he worried ceaselessly about post-war issues, and especially about the Soviets, his approach was to put off such m atters until he judged the m om ent right. W hen, in 1942, he discovered that som e diplom ats had been sounding o u t the Soviets o n plans for the future o f Eastern E urope w ithout consulting him, he »ras reported to have ‘emitted several vicious screams o f rage’.20 But future strategic planning was unavoidable. W ith it came a clear need for long-range intelligence on the Soviets, indeed on the shape o f the post-war world generally. Planners needed ‘basic assum ptions' to work with. T he trigger came as early as 1942 when an offer o f post-w ar bases from the Norwegian governm ent in exile prom pted the creation o f a small future planning body. G o o d staff were needed for wartim e oper­ ational activities and so the m em bers o f this small group were variously described as ‘hopeless’ o r ‘charm ing but rather d e a f’ o r 'entirely o u t o f touch’. Cavendish-Bentinck saw them as nothing m ore than ‘a figure o f fun’. H e had no idea o f the furores they and their successors would unleash.21 By 1943 the bigger post-w ar issues were emerging and m ore dynamic individuals were drafted in. T he diplom ats were keen to retain a grip on this growth area. T he ‘sternest voice, and certainly the guiding hand’, they insisted, should be a diplomat. By late 1943 this group had been rem oulded as the Post Hostilities Planning Com m ittee - o r P H P - a group o f military officers chaired by a diplomat. Cavendish-Bentinck had made no bones about his purpose, dem anding the ‘infiltration’ o f this future-look committee. It was no accident that the diplom at Gladwyn Jebb was chosen for the job. For the previous two years Jebb had been on loan to the Special O perations Executive —the new sabotage and secret army organisation - as its senior official. SO E was another odd body with foreign policy pretensions that made the diplom ats suspicious. Jebb was no stranger to controversy, but even so he was surprised by the vol­ atile nature o f his new job.22 W hat these planners needed to get going were intelligence forecasts on future Soviet policy. T he JIC had little to go on, so instead it was given vague and optimistic Foreign Office background briefs about the contin­ uation o f the G rand Alliance between the four main Allies, Britain, the United States, China and the Soviet Union, together with the creation o f the U nited N ations and free and independent federations in Eastern Europe. By the end o f 1943 the military and the diplom ats had begun to get o ut o f step on these basic intelligence assumptions. T he Chiefs o f

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Staff, and Brooke in particular, told this com m ittee privately that the idea o f a future U N — the continuation o f the wartim e G rand Alliance — together running an international police force was a farce. T he Chiefs o f Staff had already developed th ek own private intelli­ gence appreciation o f the post-w ar world. This was a fixed idea, unlikely to be shaken by any JIC appreciation, still less by the words o f the diplo­ mats. Gladwyn Jebb returned from prolonged and anxious discussion w ith Brooke and his circle to report w hat this idea was: ‘It was pretty clear that the cos for their part did n o t accept the Four Power Thesis. T hey argued that w hat in practice was likely to happen was that the [Anglo-American] Com bined Chiefs o f Staff would continue in being; that the Russians w o u ld . . . have their own security organisation; and that China was anyhow rather a joke.’ These were prophetic words. They revealed the military n o t only as anti-Bolshevik but also as anti-idealist. In their eyes, the bedrock o f world politics would always be the threat o f military power o r the use o f force.23 T h e struggle in W hitehall over forecasting Soviet intentions was complex. T h e military enjoyed support am ong a few diplom ats w ho had, like W ashington’s G eorge Kennan, boasted detailed personal knowledge o f real Soviet behaviour. Forem ost was Sir O w en O ’Malley, w ho had been British M inister in Budapest and was now British Am bassador to the Polish governm ent in exile in London. O ’Malley was dismissive o f diplom atic colleagues w ho forecast that the Soviets would allow a free C entral-E astern E uropean confederation after the war, deriding it as ‘Alice in W onderland’. H e accused them o f deliberately ignoring the ‘sin­ ister side’ o f Soviet policy. H e was also disturbed by those w ho happily accepted the idea o f Soviet predom inance in som e areas, predicting that it would bring untold misery rather than stability. As early as April 1943 he w ent on the offensive. O ’Malley saw this partly as a m oral question, and he did n o t m ince his words. ‘A t w hat cost in hum an values would n o t the sovietization o f central and south-eastern E urope be achieved?’ H ow could L ondon con­ tem plate 'the surrender to the cruel and heathenish tyranny o f the Soviets o f a large part o f the heritage o f Rom an and Byzantine civilisa­ tion’? But his Foreign Office colleagues felt that to spotlight the em bar­ rassing difficulties that lay ahead was merely unhelpful. O ’Malley’s intervention, although generating one o f the first sustained debates about how assessments o f future Soviet intentions m ight be made, was too h o t to handle and it was n o t allowed to circulate around Whitehall. O ’Malley’s critics were stung into action and were quick to develop a counter-charge. T he military school o f thinking about the Soviets, they replied, was rooted in racism. Gladwyn Jebb, w ho sat with the military planners o n PHP, complained that stereotyped views could be found

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‘running through the whole passage’. O ’Malley, he complained, saw th e Russians as ‘sub-hum an, Asiatic barbarians’, while feeling that the G erm ans, ‘though our enemies now, may at some future point becom e our allies . . . Presumably we just sit down and prepare for a war w ith Russia.' O n 10 May 1943,Jebb denounced the idea that the Soviets w ould take over Eastern Europe as quite implausible. Indulging in som e stereo­ types himself, he condnued, ‘Personally I don’t believe the Russians have either the capacity or the inclination to absorb 110 million tem pestuous sub-humans. This clash between diplomatic and military mindsets was revealing. T hose w ho took a pessimistic view tended to be those w ho had seen Soviet practices at first hand. Although such individuals could claim a realistic understanding o f the texture o f Soviet behaviour, this told th em only how they would rule. It told them nothing about the extent o f Soviet territorial ambitions. Yet diplomatic optimists could claim no g reater knowledge o f Soviet intentions and, like Jebb, were reduced to arguing that Soviet appetites would be limited by what they were practically capable o f absorbing. In 1943 there was no solid intelligence o n Stalin's intentions and both camps were arguing from profound ignorance. In late 1943, the main future planning vehicle, the PHP, struggled to find consensus. Its mem bers continued to talk o f a co-operative Soviet U nion, whose appetite would be limited by weakness and the need fo r ten years o f rehabilitation.25 But on 20 March 1944 this com prom ise w as blown apart by the JIC in a forecast entitled ‘Soviet Policy after the W ar’. T h e JIC removed the weak linchpin o f consensus —long post-w ar re c o v ­ ery times —by arguing that the strategic heartland o f the Soviet U n io n , now located safely behind the Urals, would not need rehabilitation. Reconstruction problem s would apply only to those areas occupied by Germany, offering the prospect o f a strong and confident Soviet U n io n .26 T h e JIC had sounded the klaxon about Soviet capabilities, and tro u b le now loomed. Moreover, by May 1944 the military figures o n P H P h a d again been upgraded. W ith new status and seeming backing from th e J IC , it o pted for a worst-case future scenario. T he committee pointed o u t th a t the Soviets would be the m ost powerful force on the continent by 1945 while the Americans would be on their way home. It pretended th a t th e re was no political agenda to this estimate and that this reflected ‘n a tu ra l prudence’ and a wish to cover all eventualities. But underneath lurked a clear presum ption th at any sound intelligence estimate would finger th e post-w ar Soviet U nion as hostile and dangerous.27 T h e PH P controversy finally exploded in late May 1944. A lthough th e explosive material was intelligence estimates about hostile Soviet b e h av i­ our, the issue that lit the blue touchpaper was Germany. T h e contro­ versy began quietly, w ith the PH P calling for updated forecasts fro m th e

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diplomats. Jebb and Cavendish-Bentinck were initially inclined to be tol­ erant. They knew that the military needed som e sort o f paper opponent to plan their own force scales. This reflected the fact that the ‘main enem y’ for the military was n o t the G erm ans nor even the Soviets but th e British Treasury, bent on post-w ar retrenchm ent. T he military had to And a plausible post-w ar adversary if they were to have any hope o f avoiding radical cuts in their forces. Jebb also accepted that extreme optim ists — like W arner — were ‘adopting an ostrich like policy’. T he Soviets m ight well misbehave w hen the war was over.28 Cavendish-Bentinck, W hitehall’s intelligence co-ordinator, was also h alf sympathetic. H e knew that the workaday business o f swapping intel­ ligence with the Soviets was hard going and that som e anti-Soviet feeling arose n o t out o f prejudice b u t out o f justified annoyance: ‘I have seen it s a id . . . that the Service D epartm ents are violendy anti-Russian. Ỉ do not think that is quite correct. T hey are peeved with the Russians because the latter have been on the whole frustrating.’ But, although he and Jebb counselled a middle way, they were beginning to feel like the jam in the sandwich. Moreover, the state o f denial in the Foreign Office regarding G erm an am bitions in the 1930s cast a long shadow, giving the diplom ats an ‘ostrich like’ reputation.29 T heir advice to seek a middle way w ent unheeded. Senior diplom ats sought to block the military by any means possible. Cavendish-Bentinck was dismayed to learn that they looked to him and the JIC , the source o f high-level intelligence estimates, to provide a roadblock. If JIC forecasts were to be m ore benign, then the military would be underm ined. Cavendish-Bentinck pleaded that this ‘was n o t easy’ and in any case the JIC was overworked with wartim e operational business. But his pleas were ignored and he was required to com e up with a m ore sympathetic portrait o f M oscow’s intentions, even while Soviet m isbehaviour over Polish governm ents in exile was becom ing apparent by early 1944.30 All pretence at W hitehall consensus was abandoned on 20 July 1944. T h e military had fired the first shots by effectively calling for the rearm a­ m ent o f G erm any against the Soviets. T he PHP, invigorated with younger officers, was now closer to the Chiefs o f Staff. T he military chiefs insisted that any W estern association in E urope and w hat remained o f a dism em bered G erm any should be specifically for use against a hostile Soviet Union. Jebb was quickly withdrawn as chair o f PHP, which ceased to be a joint diplomatic—military com m ittee.31 Christopher W arner was outraged. H e was determ ined to blunt the military incursion into the realm o f British foreign policy. Military thinking, he insisted, however speculative, was now dangerous: *The distance to the next step —“we had better start building up G erm any pretty soon and so we had better no t knock her dow n too completely” - is a very short one, particularly for the

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military mind and for those w ho suffer from the anti-Bolshevik complex.1 Recriminations developed within the Foreign Office. W arner accused Cavendish-Bentinck o f selling out to the military.32 Jebb tried to convince the military that active and open anti-Soviet precautions would am ount to a self-fulfilling prophecy by desưoying any prospect o f a continued G rand Alliance. T he policy o f building up enemies in order to be ready to defeat allies, he complained, seemed ‘to derive from some kind o f suicidal mania’.33 Sargent saw the military line as a ‘m ost disastrous heresy’ and others warned o f ‘alm ost fascist assumptions*. W arner counselled complete separation, suggesting that the PH P should be given ‘all the rope they want to hang themselves’. Anthony E den was briefed on the widening schism and he agreed that P H P ’s thinking was dangerous. All this, he ordered, should ‘be avoided like the plague’.34 T he diplomats tried to com fort themselves with the thought that P H P was only a tem porary outfit. It had been entrusted with future strategy only because the regular Joint Planners were busy with wartime military operations. As soon as the fighting in Europe ceased, the regular military planners would take over, so PH P was doom ed. T he only way it could prolong its life was to get into preparatory work for the Allied Control Commissions that would look after occupied territories, but this work was dull and P H P had been ưying to ‘shuffie out o f control work’. *[We] need not regret’, noted the diplomats, ‘these gendem en com m itting harikiri’.3S But the diplomats were wrong. By August 1944 it was becom ing clear that the members o f PH P were not renegades, but instead were mere symptoms o f a deeply entrenched military mentality. In mid-August 1944 British diplomats steeled themselves for an ‘assault on the wild talk’ o f the PHP.36 Eden was warned that the Chiefs o f Staff and their subordinates ‘are thinking and talking o f the Soviet Union as being enemy num ber one and even o f securing G erm an assis­ tance against h e r ... these, I fear, are their real thoughts.’ He was urged to find a way o f ‘putting a stop to this kind o f thinking and speaking’. E den was shocked. T h is is very bad’, he wrote, and shot off to talk to General ‘Pug’ Ismay, Secretary to the Chiefs o f Staff. Ismay proved to be slippery and misleading. He politely assured E den that the Chiefs o f Staff had ‘given no thought to the issue’ and insisted that the controversy was the work o f a few eccentric and misguided staff officers in PHP. This was quite untrue.37 Back in the Foreign Office, Jebb and Cavendish-Bentinck knew where these ideas really emanated from and that the dynamic force behind them was Brooke.38 A subterranean struggle was also developing over JIC intelligence appreciations. Cavendish-Bentinck had been told to use the JIC to apply the brakes to the military and his efforts were partly successful. In late

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August 1944 everyone eagerly awaited a new JIC forecast on ‘Russian Capabilities in Relations to the Strategic Interests o f the British Commonwealth*. Cavendish-Bentinck delivered a masterly perform ance and steered JIC ’s political forecasts back towards a reaffirmation o f the idea o f ‘co-operation’ and benign Soviet intentions. Capability was less easy to fudge because the Soviets now looked sưong. T he JIC predicted a rapid Soviet recovery and great post-war military strength. War with Britain, it conceded, was a real option for the Soviets within ten years. T h e diplom ats regarded the contents o f the paper as ‘explosive’. But in reality Cavendish-Bentinck had done his job. T he military had hoped that nasty Soviet behaviour in Poland would be regarded as a vindication o f th eừ views. Instead the sober words o f the JIC had a dam pening effect upo n them. Staff colonels recorded that the latest views o f the JIC were ‘rather a setback for the would be drinkers o f Russian blood’, adding that the ‘proposed world wide appreciation o f our war against Russia is to be d ro p p e d ^ 9 T he struggle for control o f JIC assessments o f the Soviets continued into Septem ber 1944. T he military now dismissed diplomatic forecasts o f Soviet policy as ‘the usual story, but this time even m ore foolishly w orded’. Instead they dem anded a full-scale secret study o f the options open to an aggressive Moscow. They proposed that ‘a special interService team should undertake a study o f the courses o f action open to an aggressive Russia’, setting their findings o u t in detail. This was an amazing proposal — the setting up o f nothing less than a shadow Politburo consisting o f British intelligence officers, w ho would secondguess Stalin’s post-war moves. T he scheme harked back to an earlier bold experim ent in British strategic intelligence at the start o f the war. In 1940 a sub-group o f the JIC , called the Future O perations (Enemy) Section, had tried to anticipate H itler’s thinking in exactly the same way. W hen Cavendish-Bentinck chaired a JIC m eeting on 18 Septem ber 1944, these new proposals were ‘suddenly produced’ by the military. But the JIC con­ cluded that it did not have the inform ation to run such a shadow exer­ cise. I f it ever did, it would not w ant to com m it it to paper. By O ctober, a new agreem ent between E den and the Chiefs o f Staff over tight secur­ ity for talks about the Soviets ‘shot dow n the proposals’ and no m ore was heard o f them .40 T ight security was the big issue emerging from this confrontation in the autum n o f 1944. T he military had clearly decided to finger M oscow as the next enemy and the diplom ats could do litde about this. But Christopher W arner's m ain w orry was that they were talking about it too openly. W hen G eneral Sử Giffard Martel had returned from 30 Mission in May 1944 the diplom ats wanted him to be ordered n o t to ‘speak about his experience in Russia at all’. O n 30 August E den was warned that high-placed military

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officers were talking ‘freely* o f the Soviet menace in front o f foreigners. A few days later it was clear that well-informed journalists were on to the military idea o f using G erm any against the Soviets. M oscow had its sources and the news would soon reach the Soviet Embassy, the diplo­ mats said, if it ‘was not perfectly well known there already’.41 A t the end o f Septem ber 1944 P H P produced plans for a West European bloc which was ‘even m ore hostile to Russia’ than before. It was now obvious to all that this 'm ust represent the real thoughts o f the Chiefs o f Stair. T he diplom ats had theữ confidential sources in the War Office —liberal-minded officers, w ho tended to be those on tem porary wartime duty. These ‘sources’ had spoken frankly to the Foreign Office o f their ‘anxiety about the attitude towards Russia o f their superiors and asked w hether som ething could not be done to stop it’. T he advent o f C ontrol Commissions for Axis territory m eant that military contacts with the Soviets were growing. ‘I f drastic action is not taken at the to p ’ there would be confrontations that m ight be ‘fatal’. E den was called in once again. Senior diplom ats warned him that this m atter was ‘o f such im portance’ and the dangers were ‘so great’ that he should act immedi­ ately. Some sort o f counter-directive had to be issued, and indeed delib­ erately leaked to the Soviets. O nly the sternest action could prevent the situation ‘from getting completely out o f hand’. E den decided it was now time to speak to Churchill.42 E den had another ‘showdown’ with the Chiefs o f Staff on 4 O ctober. They could n ot agree on forecasts o f future Soviet intentions. T he mili­ tary conịured up the ultimate nightm are o f a future Soviet-G erm an alli­ ance, arguing that if the West did not join up with G erm any then the Soviets would. O nce m ore E den pointed to the paranoid nature o f Soviet foreign policy —som ething on which they were all agreed - and w arned o f self-fulfilling prophecies. This was a strong argum ent and he used it effectively to extract prom ises o f the severest security dam pdow n on talk o f the Soviets as an enemy. C urrent papers were withdrawn. In future all such dangerous talk would be placed in special confidential annexes that would be given super-tight circulation and ‘restricted to the narrow est possible limits’. Meanwhile the main papers —merely top secret —would refer to the Soviets using ‘brief and anodyne phrases’. T he results were surreal since no one could be sure w ho had seen the real paper. T he privileged few w ho were part o f this inner drcle joked that any papers across which ‘the shadow o f the bear* m ight fall were to be labelled 'B urn before reading*. Eventually any thoughts on this sensi­ tive subject ‘would be recorded in cypher on a one time pad* and m ade available only to the eyes o f the Cabinet Secretary. In short, E den had ensured that there were to be ‘no m ore games o f Russian scandal*. But there were also practical problem s here. W hat were they to do, military

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officials asked, *when the conclusions o f a secret annexe contradict the conclusions o f the main paper’? T hese were strange times in W hitehall, with relations between the diplom ats and the military at an all-time low.43 But the damage had already been done. Much o f the earlier work had already fallen into the hands o f the Soviets. In W ashington, the figure in charge o f the Chancellery —indeed o f all British Em bassy security —was the Soviet spy D onald Maclean. P H P papers routinely w ent there and it seems likely that he had seen m ost o f them . In the governm ent depart­ m ents in C anberra and Ottaw a too, copies o f P H P papers made their way into the hands o f Soviet agents in 1944 and 1945. In 1999 O leg Tsarev, a senior retired K G B officer, reviewed the seminal material obtained by Soviet intelligence in the mid-1940s and spirited o u t to Moscow. T he work o f the P H P on rearm ing G erm any against the Soviets was a prize exhibit.44 W hitehall feared leaks to W ashington as well as to Moscow. Roosevelt, o f all Allied leaders, seemed m ost com m itted to the ideal o f a continued G rand Alliance. Thinking always in groups o f four, he envisaged a post­ w ar world secured by Four World Policemen. T he U nited States, the Soviet Union, Britain and China would develop the U N as the mainstay o f his liberal internationalist vision. British diplom ats were anxious to prevent the leakage o f anti-Soviet planning, fearing that Roosevelt would be infuriated by such talk. But at the military level at least there was a grow ing private Anglo-American consensus o n the ‘Russia problem ’. In June 1944, M aịor-Generaỉ Colin Gubbins, the head o f SO E, visited G eneral M acA rthur at his South West Pacific Area headquarters. M acA rthur launched into a tirade lasting one and a half hours against Russia. N o t much later another senior British intelligence officer visited the Americans and accidentally came across ‘super-secret’ appreciations o f the Soviet U nion as the next enemy that were circulating in W ashington.45 By the end o f 1944 the diplom ats had at least regained full control o f the JIC . O n e o f Cavendish-Bentinck’s subordinates, Sir A rthur N oble, was set the task o f ensuring that the Soviets were portrayed as defensive in their behaviour. T he tide o f his new paper said it all: ‘Russia's Strategic Interests and Intendons from the Point o f View o f her Security'. But by early 1945 events in E urope underm ined its assertions and, while the turm oil in Central and E astern E urope lasted, the JIC was notably silent on the big question o f Soviet policy. In May 1945 the com m ittee recom ­ m ended that m atters such as intelligence exchange be handled on a quid pro quo basis b ut specifically emphasised that ‘we exclude any discussion o f m atter o f high policy’. O nly in January 1946 did the JIC feel safe to revisit this explosive issue.46 In May 1945, within days o f G erm any’s defeat, Churchill ordered

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plans for war with the Soviets to be drawn up. During 1944 the W hitehall Cold War had focused on intelligence forecasts, but now the talk was o f action. Churchill’s stated objective was the ‘elimination o f Russia’. T his plan was codenamed O peration Unthinkable and was only declassified in 1999. It called for hundreds o f thousands o f British and American troops, supported by 100,000 rearm ed G erm an soldiers, to unleash a sur­ prise attack upon their war-weary Eastern ally. Meanwhile the RAF would attack Soviet cities from bases in N orthern Europe.47 Operation Unthinkable was an 'independent staff study’ conducted for Churchill under the direct control o f Pug Ismay, the Secretary to the Chiefs o f Staff. It was Ismay who had assured E den a few m onths before that and-Soviet thinking was a problem restricted to eccentric mediumlevel staff officers only. But, although Churchill’s requests were executed with thoroughness, there was no enthusiasm. T he military planners were not opdm isdc, noting Hitler’s failure to conquer the Soviet Union even with m ore than a hundred divisions. Rearmed G erm an forces, they argued, would be quickly demoralised, having been defeated once already and knowing full well the terrible nature o f war on the eastern front. T here was now plenty o f intelligence on the Red Army and knowledge o f its strengths and weaknesses. O n the one hand, T h e Army is exceedingly tough, lives and moves on a lighter scale o f maintenance than any Western Army and employs bold tactics based largely on disregard for losses in attaining a set objective. Security and deception are o f the highest quality at all levels. Equipm ent has improved throughout the war and is now g o o d .. .*O n the other hand, the Red Army was suffering from war-weariness and had taken heavy casualties. It was short o f staff officers and talented mid-level commanders. Above all discipline had collapsed with the end o f fighting and all across Eastern Europe there was now an orgy o f barely controlled 'looting and drunkenness’. Moscow might find such a rabble difficult to form up for another battle. Britain’s best option seemed to be a drive to the East for the line around D anzig-Breslau and then to try and hold it. But the planners were ‘extremely doubtful' that it could pulled off in the face o f ‘very heavy odds’.48 T he Chiefs o f Staff - Brooke, Cunningham and Tedder - were horrified by Churchill’s idea. They knew o f the scheme from the outset, b ut were invited to com m ent only once the study was completed. Although they shared Churchill’s distaste for the Soviets, they enjoyed a stronger sense o f reality and knew that this was a war the West could not win. O n 24 May they m et to talk about ‘the possibility o f taking on Russia should trouble arise in our future discussions’. Brooke believed that the whole idea was ‘fantastic’ and 'the chances o f success quite impossible’. They m et again to discuss it on 31 May, only to become even m ore certain that the whole thing was indeed ‘unthinkable’. A t very best they

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would get no further than the G erm ans had got, and then w hat would follow? T he Chiefs o f Staff acgued that instead they should turn attention to how Britain could be defended against a Soviet occupadon o f France and the Low Countries. Churchill agreed and ordered Ismay to set mili­ tary planners upon this new defensive study. All this only hints at w hat was really at the back o f Churchill’s mind. W hy did he think that the West m ight be able to take o n the Soviets in the sum m er o f 1945? T he answer was clearly the advent o f nuclear weapons. T h e im pending test o f the atom ic bom b —carried o u t on 16 July 1945 — m ight shift the balance o f power between E ast and West. T he possibility o f chemical and biological warfare m ight also have been in Churchill’s m ind. These sorts o f thoughts and discussions are n o t ordinarily recorded in form al minutes. But Brooke captured the reality o f these intensely secret and private conversadons in his diary. Churchill, he w rote, now saw ‘him self as the sole possessor o f the bom bs and capable o f dum ping them where he wished, thus all-powerful and capable o f dic­ tating to Stalin’.49 T h e possibility o f atom ic power may have prom pted Churchill to go beyond m ere staff studies. O n the ground in E urope secret plans had been drawn up as early as N ovem ber 1944 for the seizure o f Berlin using airborne ư o o p s in the event o f a G erm an capitulation in the west. A irborne forces had been practising for this eventuality for several m onths. Detailed logistical planning was undertaken by airborne com ­ m anders as late as M arch 1945. T hey were n o t told that it was effectively a contingency plan to thw art the Soviets. T here were parallel plans to seize the naval base at Kiel, while individual Allied com m anders also offered schemes for a dash to Berlin.50 Churchill only spoke o f these issues m uch later. ‘N othing’, he com ­ plained, Svould convince the Americans o f the Russian danger.' He had ^wanted [US General] Patton to take Prague’, followed by a battle confer­ ence between himself, Stalin and T rum an (who became president on Roosevelt’s death in April 1945) where the armies m e t Churchill also asserted that he ‘wanted G erm an arm s to be kept handy in case they were requứ ed’. B ut this proposal ‘was entirely unacceptable to the Am ericans’. In April Churchill had urged Roosevelt that W estern troops should stay p u t, up to 150 miles into Soviet-designated areas, and withdraw only w hen they were satisfied that M oscow was keeping its agreem ents on E astern Europe. But Roosevelt was close to death and in no condition to consider a resolute stand.51 In the spring and sum m er o f 1945 the Soviets settled a long debate. W estern intelligence estimates regarding the Soviet U nion’s ambitions becam e progressively grimm er, reflecting its real conduct in Eastern E urope and its dem eanour at the conference table. Ultimately, it was not

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the extent, but the nature, o f Soviet rule in Poland and Eastern G erm any that was decisive. Logically, this revealed litde about the long-term am bi­ tions o f Soviet foreign policy. But who would attem pt to argue that Moscow was benign in the face o f startling reports o f a tide o f bestial behaviour that was moving west? Reports o f Soviet brutality were n o t new, they were merely closer to home. As early as D ecem ber 1942 diplo­ mats had reluctantly conceded that it was ‘the universal opinion o f all countries bordering on Russia and having the experience o f Russian rule that the G erm an jackboot, however horrible, is the lesser evil com pared with the kindly dom inion o f M other Russia’.52 Poland was the raw issue for E den and Churchill. Churchill w ould often engage his circle in anxious conversations about w hat they could do to prevent m ore Poles being murdered by the Soviets. Although E den and Churchill were progressively infuriated by the excessive expectations o f the London Poles during the war, they were also alarmed by growing knowledge o f what awaited them. A t the Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow in O ctober 1943, Britain had originally intended to tell the Soviets in detail about the glorious campaign o f sabotage and guerrilla activity which the Polish resistance was waging, supported by SO E. But then the British changed their minds, realising that any resistance leaders identified would soon be liquidated. By the end o f 1944 it was quite clear that the rival Soviet-backed Polish governm ent in exile, the Lublin Poles, depended largely on the N K V D .53 T he Warsaw Rising o f August 1944, when the Soviets deliberately left the Polish resistance to be crushed at the hands o f the G erm ans before moving forward, was not, as some have suggested, the turning point for British perceptions. Cavendish-Bentinck o f the JIC insisted that in fact tough G erm an defences had ‘annihilated a Russian arm oured force which was advancing’ on Warsaw. T he Lord Privy Seal and p rom inent Labour M P A rthur G reenw ood went further, asserting that the Soviets were quite justified in holding back. H e told E den that ‘the present controversy would be paralleled if the G erm ans had occupied D ublin and an uprising by the I.R.A. interfering with our plans for recapturing the city became the subject for similar controversy with Moscow’. He w ent o n to complain about the Poles as a running sore in Anglo-Soviet relations, partly because they expressed ‘anti-Semitism in a virulent form ’.54 Instead, it was the nature o f everyday Soviet rule on the ground th a t incensed British officials. O n 22 May 1945 Sử Owen O ’Malley lam ented that ‘the Russians had been leading US up the garden path’ on Poland a n d had never had any intention o f delivering on their undertakings a b o u t political freedoms. Soviet policy was unfolding in Central and E a ste rn E urope with mechanical precision and consisted o f ‘purges, arrests a n d executions’ together w ith the progressive destruction o f tradition and o f

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educated classes. T he West had tolerated Soviet lies because o f the need for a united front against Germany, but O ’Malley now urged a reversal o f this line. H e warned that the policy o f trying to win the Soviets over by concessions was ‘quicksand’ and ‘will engulf us’. He wanted open confrontation. T he Soviets were now militarily exhausted and behind in ‘scientific sttength’. It was time ‘to take the gloves o ff. Britain should give a lead and make ‘plain to all the evidence that the Soviet system is utterly antagonistic to our way o f life, as cruel and ambitious as the Nazi system, and potentially m ore dangerous to the security o f the U nited K ingdom ’. O ’Malley wanted his exhortation to be handed to Churchill. It did n o t get that far and instead fell into the hands o f C hristopher Warner, w ho handled the response. W arner still clung uneasily to the old policies o f consensus, b u t could n o t challenge all the facts o f O ’Malley’s account. He therefore chose his line carefully, arguing that O'Malley’s message ‘contained nothing particularly new’ and that the British Em bassy in M oscow had already m oved independendy to a harder policy.55 It was ironic that O ’Malley's missive was sent o n 22 May 1945. O n the same day the Joint Planning Staff com pleted their unenthusiasdc survey o f Churchill’s O peration Unthinkable. B oth O ’Malley and W arner were m ost likely unaware o f these activities. Yet the diplom ats continued to try and use the JIC as a brake o n military thinking. E ven as Unthinkable was being drafted, the JIC explicidy cautioned that the G erm ans would exploit their value in the East—West Sttuggle to the maximum as a way o f ‘fooling the Allies’ into reconstructing G erm any as a m ajor power.56 W arner was quite wrong in asserting that O ’Malley’s warnings about Soviet behaviour contained nothing new. O ’Malley was the first British official to call for Cold War —a declaration o f ideological incompatibility, com bined with a considered program m e o f inform ation warfare directed at the systematic exposure o f nefarious com m unist deeds. T his was the position that the Foreign Office, and indeed W arner himself, would even­ tually convert to in twelve m onths’ time.57 T h e Potsdam Conference in Berlin during July 1945 provided many w ith their first physical encounter with the Soviets. A large British dele­ gation toured the obvious landmarks, including the Reichstag and H ider’s bunker. Churchill viewed the bunker by flashlight in the com pany o f Russian soldiers ‘but didn’t make much com m ent’. O utside he ịoked with the Soviet soldiers w hom he had considered taking on only two m onths before and sat o n H ider’s chair, which had been brought outside. Sir Alexander Cadogan, E den’s Perm anent Under-Secretary, also visited the Fiihrer’s ‘dugout’ and purchased an Iron Cross from a Soviet sentry for the price o f three cigarettes. But the m ost m em orable sight at Potsdam was the intense security

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that surrounded Stalin. All those w ho m et Stalin’s entourage regarded this as quite formidable. W hen he arrived at the conference on 16 July 1945, he was accom panied by thousands o f N K V D security troops. T heir sullen om nipresence was felt by all. Even Cadogan, a veteran o f such meedngs, was forcibly struck by this vast m anifestation o f Uncle Jo e’s paranoia. O n Sunday 22 July, when the British diplom at left an evening session o f the conference and was halfway out o f the park o f the Cecilien H o f Palace where the conference was taking place, he was held up by Russian sentries at a crossroads: From the road on the left emerged a platoon o f Russian tommy-gunners in skirmishing order, then a number of guards and units of the N.K.V.D. army. Finally appeared another screen of skirmishers. The enormous officer who always sits behind Uncle at meetings was apparendy in charge o f operations, and was running about, directing tommy-gunners to cover all the alleys in the Park giving access to the main toad. All this because Uncle wanted 5 minutes exercise and fresh air, and walked out to pick up his car 500 yards from the Palace! Cadogan noted sarcastically that this was all the m ore curious given that the whole park was already ringed with other sentries.58 T he experience was repeated endlessly. Two days later som e American staff officers were making their way to their car during a break in the con­ ference proceedings. T he facilities in the Palace were inadequate for the num bers there and a British officer came up behind them and, in obvious discom fort, said, ‘I’m looking for a bush to pee behind but I am afraid o f being shot.’ T he rubble-strew n area around the conference building was W a rm in g with Russian guards’ and there seemed literally to be a tommygunner behind every bush and rock. T he British officer proved to be none o ther than Brooke. Brooke returned after a long peram bulation and 'com plained bitterly to General Marshall that he had n o t been able to find a bush w ithout a Russian behind it'.59 Efforts to forecast Soviet policy were ultimately bound up with efforts to fathom the nature o f a single personality. In the sum m er o f 1945 public opinion still viewed Stalin as good old Uncle Joe, hero o f the eastern front, an image that all in W hitehall had effectively abandoned. Stalin clearly enjoyed attem pting to manipulate and distort the m anner in which he was perceived by the West, and in a climate where inform ation was scarce this was n o t difficult. Moreover, it was n o t clear how m uch he was in com plete control, n o r how much he was swayed by factionfighting in Moscow.60 H ow did Churchill, w ho was receiving a range of'S pecial Intelligence’ on the Soviet Union — including decrypted Com intern messages — to which few were privy, reconcile these diverse factors? H e had a personal

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in p u t which hardly anyone else could claim, namely som e experience o f dealing with Stalin direcdy. Although Stalin did n o t travel outside territo­ ries under Soviet com rol, he relished contact with foreign leaders. H e o ften charm ed them and surprised them w ith his w arm th, intelligence and rationality, albeit underpinned by a firm realism and a clear sense o f his ow n demands. E den explained the puzzling business o f dealing with the urbane Stalin w hen he recounted to H ugh D alton, the M inister o f E conom ic Warfare, his prolonged m eeting w ith the Soviet leader in early 1942. Stalin had sưuck him as surprisingly small, with physical move­ m ents ‘rather like those o f a cat’. E den confessed that he knew full well w hat horrors Stalin was guilty o f and so 'tried hard to think o f him as dripping with the blood o f his opponents and rivals, but som ehow the picture wouldn’t fit’.61 Benign and productive encounters between Churchill and Stalin were die m ost critical intelligence input. Churchill ưeasured the famous 'per­ centages deal’ o f O ctober 1944 in which they had divided South-eastern E urope o n the basis o f a crude b u t effective agreem ent, w ithout telling W ashington. Just like the intelligence officers below him, the Prim e M inister was inclined to generalise from his ow n personal experience, rather than reading the analysis o f others o r trying to attem pt rigorous analytical thought. Private meetings reinforced his view o f Stalin, which always had a tinge o f ‘G ood King —Evil Counsellors’ about it. Churchill often asserted to E den that the Marshal had to watch out for the hard line elem ent in the Politburo. W hen Churchill returned to office in N ovem ber 1951, he was adam ant that, if he could only make personal contact with Stalin, much o f the poison could be dispelled. Ultimately, Churchill, like E den, was perplexed by the dichotom y o f a charm ing and urbane figure w hom he knew to be a m onster. T hrough 1944 and 1945 his views about M oscow swung wildly, alternately buoyed up by good personal exchanges w ith Stalin and angered by Soviet behaviour over Warsaw.62 B ut Stalin's Svarmth’ was arguably a misleading im pression created by a rigid Soviet system. H e com pared well as a hum an figure w ith o ther prom inent Soviet personalities because he alone could make concessions. By contrast, his Foreign Minister, Molotov, was known to W estern diplom ats as ‘stone-bottom ’, because if you tried to kick him into compliance, all you g o t was a broken toe. T his reflected n o t only M olotov’s limited personality, but also the extent to which no individual dare make a concession w ithout the personal approval o f Stalin.63

3 Secret Service a t the W ar’s E nd: SIS and the C IA I am concerned at the general drift that the F.o. should take over these fan­ tastic things. We aren’t a Department Store. Sir Alexander Cadogan, 24 November 1944’

he bitter battles over intelligence assessment in Whitehall during 1944 and 1945 underlined the fact that the international landscape confronting Britain's secret services had been made anew. Germ any and Japan had vanished as military powers, while the United States and the Soviet Union —both military weaklings in 1939 —were now dom inant. T he war had accelerated the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in what would becom e the Third World from which dozens o f newly inde­ pendent states would emerge by the 1960s. N o less im portant were the radical scientific changes that brought forward new m ethods and weapons o f war. Atomic weapons, electronics, jet propulsion, radar, bio­ logical and chemical warfare, proximity fuses and a dozen other develop­ ments had prom pted a revolution in strategic affairs. Secret service was not immune from this revolution for the war had greatly changed the practice o f intelligence-gathering. T he traditional spy-craft o f hum an agents and double agents had played its role, espe­ cially in areas such as deception. But these hand-crafted operations had been overshadowed by the gathering and processing o f signals intelli­ gence on an industrial scale and by aerial photography. M onitoring o f m ore accessible sources, from the enemy press to civilian mail, provided a m ountain o f inform ation which initially no one knew how to control. Intelligence, therefore, was n o t only becoming industrial in scale, it was also becoming managerial, developing structures, boards and bureaucra­ cies to deal with enorm ous flows o f secret material. T he cottage-industty approach o f the inter-war years was finished. T here were also new activities, since special operations and subversion

T

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had benefited from new opportunities. T he Second World War had wit­ nessed the first large-scale efforts to create secret armies that were sup­ plied by air and co-ordinated by wireless. M ore importantly, radio propaganda had emerged, perm itting subversion to serve as a truly mass weapon. Radio was the critical elem ent linking all these developm ents in a broad inform ation revolution. Thus, in 1945, those in L ondon and W ashington w ho set out to redesign secret service for the future con­ fronted a form idable task.2 In July 1945, Britain’s new Prime Minister, Clem ent Attlee, elected with a landslide Labour majority, flew to join Churchill at the Potsdam C onference where the ‘Big T hree' —Britain, the U nited States and the Soviet Union - were arguing over a devastated Europe. Attlee, a radical in foreign affairs, was deeply com m itted to the United N ations and the idea o f international co-operation. He accepted that Stalin m ight feel the need for a security belt o f territories in E astern E urope and access to the M editerranean. But the abrasive style o f Soviet diplomacy, together w ith the brutal texture o f Soviet rule, was already rem oving any hope o f tru e co-operation. Attlee also saw Trum an as a problem . L ondon was beset by contradictory fears o f abandonm ent and entrapm ent. O n the one hand, som e feared that the U nited States was acquiring overseas bases, n o t to support its allies, but to create w hat Attlee called ‘a glacis plate’ behind which it could retreat into a renewed isolationism, aban­ doning its allies. O n the other hand, others feared America’s new inter­ ventionists. It was n o t the Soviets, they insisted, but the Americans, the ‘go-getters’ o f Wall Street, w ho prom ised to speed the end o f Britain’s place in the wider world. It was commercial rivalry that prom pted America abrupdy to end Lend-Lease support in August 1945, plunging Britain into econom ic crisis. Capitol Hill feared that L end-L ease would sm ooth Britain’s transition to peacetime m anufacture for export. T hose w ho saw the U nited States as dangerously expansionist also feared a col­ lision between the Americans and the Soviets, which m ight entrap Britain in war. As early as 12 February 1945, senior British diplom ats were complaining that ‘ham-fisted’ Americans m ight well find them ­ selves in a ‘head-on collision with Russia'. ‘We do not w ant to be dragged into a collision with Russia by the United States.’3 ‘Intelligence is regarded as a Cinderella service,’ rem arked one British intelligence chief. ‘War’, he added, is ‘the Fairy G odm other w ho changes Cinderella into the Princess'.4 T he Second World War im posed this trans­ form ation upon British intelligence. Between 1939 and 1945, W inston Churchill played a central role. Although his own activities as a consum er o f intelligence could be bum bling and erratic, he nevertheless gave intel­ ligence the highest priority, as he had done throughout his life. H e was also anxious to prom ote strong m echanisms for its superior direction

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and centralised control. But in the sum m er o f 1945, with the war almost over, Churchill had gone. Many presum ed British intelligence would revert from riches to rags and resum e a lowly inter-war status, character­ ised by neglect and chronic underfunding. Some prescient individuals even sought to plan theừ post-w ar future in 1944 with the declared objective o f getting proposals approved by Churchill, before the uncer­ tainty o f a general election interposed itself.5 T he feared deep cuts in intelligence never came. T he experience o f the over-hasty dismantling o f the intelligence services after the First World War was too fresh in the collective m em ory o f W hitehall and Westminster. Awkward post-war tasks, in Germany, Greece, Palestine and South-east Asia, ensured that even those w ho wished to dism ande m uch o f the secret service found they could not. By 1947 the onset o f a new war —the Cold War - was clear to all, marked by new propaganda agencies such as the Soviet C om inform , and new secret services such as the American CIA. Money in the British system was always excruciat­ ingly tight, b ut by 1948 British intelligence was slowly expanding once more. Wartime subversive organisations like SO E and the Political Warfare Executive found themselves being revived even before they finished disbanding. Some attem pts were made to preserve specialist knowledge —typically in deception w o rk —but elsewhere secret tradecraft survived in the reservoir o f individual m em ory alone. T he alarming nature o f future war was the m ain threat that British intelligence focused on after 1945. W hitehall feared that any future war would open with w hat officials term ed a devastating ‘nuclear Pearl H arbor’. In N ovem ber 1944 the British Chiefs o f Staff had instructed Sử H enry Tizard, President o f Magdalen College, O xford and a distin­ guished governm ent scientist, to look into the revolutionary scientific developm ents o f the last few years. His task was to forecast ‘future weapons and m ethods o f war’. Tizard’s report was an ‘exceptionally secret matter*, subm itted for the eyes o f the Chiefs o f Staff alone in the sum m er o f 1945, and revised again after the atomic attacks on Hiroshim a and Nagasaki. It made for hair-raising reading. Reviewing the extraordi­ nary progress made in dangerous technologies, from bacteriological warfare to guided missiles, it was evident that extreme vigilance by active intelligence was m ore im portant than ever. It was also evident that the key intelligence target would be strategic weapons and particularly V eapons o f mass destruction’.6 Air Marshal Sứ John Slessor, a senior RAF officer, was one o f the m ost forward thinking in this area. His lively m ind seized upon the key issue which would preoccupy the British military for the next ten years. O n 16 July 1945, well before the atom ic attack o n Hiroshim a and Nagasaki, he warned, ‘T he one thing —o r com bination o f things —that seems to m e

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likely really to revolutionise warfare and to render obsolete all hitherto know n m ethods o f waging i t ... is the rocket-propelled atomic bomb. W hether this will render warfare itself as obsolete as the duel w ithout first destroying civilisation, is clearly the m ost vital question in the world today and one which we in this country m ust solve satisfactorily o r perish/ This, in turn, led him to emphasise 'the vital importance o f our maintaining a really efficient Secret Intelligence Service and developing long-range stratospheric P hoto Recce aircraft’. In one bound, Slessor's aggressive and probing intelligence had already begun to anticipate the vexed terri­ tory o f the CIA’s high-flying U-2 spy-plane together with the ‘bom ber gap’ and 'missile gap’ issues that would arrive in the 1950s.7 Above all, the threat o f a 'nuclear Pearl H arbor’ ensured that there was n o possibility o f the rapid contraction o f intelligence services. As early as Septem ber 1945, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, Chairman o f the JIC, was able to extract a firm promise that a substantial intelligence structure would remain intact. He warned that, before the war, intelligence had been 'starved o f resources’ and 'lacked an adequate machine’ for collat­ ing and controlling. Rapid expansion after 1939 had led to an ‘im pro­ vised’ system that was too complicated. ‘We now have an opportunity to set o u r house in order.’ Although numbers would fall gradually with the end o f wartime tasks, the secret services suffered less under post-war aus­ terity than any other aspect o f defence. By May 1947, as Britain’s eco­ nom ic crisis began to bite, the special status o f intelligence was enshrined in the landmark statem ent on 'Future Defence Policy’ by the Cabinet D efence Committee. Cabinet recognised that within the Soviet Union: The high standard of security achieved renders our collection of intelligence difficult and makes it all the more likely that Russia will have the advantage of surprise at the outset... It is of the greatest importance that our intelligence organisation should be able to provide US with adequate and timely warning. The smaller the armed forces the greater the need for developing our intelligence services in peace to enable them to fulfil this responsibility. But, as we shall see, principle was one thing and practice quite another. T h e intelligence budget needed constant work to defend it and expand it.8 T hroughout the Second World War, Anthony E den had suffered bureaucratic torture at the hands o f the secret services. Alexander Cadogan, his senior official, struggled in vain to impose some order, but eventually found the numbers o f proliferating secret and semi-secret bodies beyond him. O ne o f the underlying sources o f trouble was SIS often known as MI6 - and its Chief, Sir Stewart Menzies. D eep uncer­ tainty about the effectiveness o f SIS ensured that new clandestine requirements in the area o f intelligence, deception, sabotage, subversion

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and propaganda were m et by form ing new bodies outside SIS. SO E , the wartime sabotage organisation, was an obvious example. This ensured that they were dynamic and vigorous, but it also resulted in myriad secret services fighting am ong themselves. SIS should have been the hub o f the wheel, but it was not judged strong o r effective enough. Cadogan had taken an instant dislike to Menzies even before his appointm ent in 1939. Menzies, he insisted, was putting up smokescreens to cover the deficiencies o f SIS, which had been underfunded for two decades. Ultimately, SIS was under Foreign Office control and this had allowed Cadogan in 1942 to post a diplom at, Patrick Reilly, ostensibly as personal assistant to Menzies but really to act as a minder. At the end o f 1943, Reilly was relieved by Robert Cecil. Reilly resum ed his awkward task in 1946 and was still there in 1950, by which rime SIS was often referred to in the Foreign Office as ‘M r Reilly’s friends’, a phrase that neatly captured the semi-detached status o f SIS. Brooke had also insisted on appointing his representatives to SIS in 1943 and, by the end o f war, SIS headquarters at Broadway Buildings was awash with senior representatives and co-ordi­ nators.9 T he continued survival o f Menzies, som eone w ho com bined m odest intellectual capabilities with arcane pre-war administrative prac­ tices, is one o f the mysteries o f this period. As late as 1951 he continued to conduct much o f his business over club lunches in Pall Mall. T hose w ho dealt with him learned w hether their stock was rising o r falling with SIS on the basis o f the venue. I f their standing was high, the lunchtime destina­ tion would be W hite’s; if it was low, it was lunch elsewhere.10 Patrick Reilly was horrified by what he saw in the SIS headquarters in Broadway Buildings. His first job was to try and do som ething about the ‘deplorable’ state o f relations between SIS and the new sabotage service, SO E, b ut this proved to be beyond salvation. N ext, he was ordered to ‘im pose som e sort o f order o n Menzies’ private office’. Reilly recalled that well into the war there were still ‘a lot o f old hands’ from the pre-war days, ‘a very varied body o f m en’ but broadly characterised by low intelli­ gence, reflecting the fact that M enzies’ predecessor had been ‘much against university graduates’. T he start o f the war was marked by a ‘great scram ble’ for people o f first-class ability, but SIS was n o t even in the race and so ‘was rather left behind’. T he level o f brainpower, and indeed intel­ lectual honesty, was ‘not very high'. Reilly was dismayed by SIS files com ing up to Menzies which contained ‘prejudices’, ‘m isrepresentations' and even ‘downright falsehoods’. E ven in the early 1950s, diplom ats and military staff officers, when m eeting together, enjoyed referring to SIS officers as ‘the failed BAs’. But the area in which intellectual capacity was m ost obviously lacking was at the top. Even the kindest described Menzies as som eone with experience and integrity ‘but n o t a m an o f great intellectual ability’.

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M enzies' private office was run by devoted staff, but the system oper­ ated on an amateur basis. During the war there was no regular system for presenting papers for Menzies, which were brought in by the officers handling cases —often in disorder. Everything had the feel o f a small family business rather than a governm ent departm ent. Reilly rem em ­ bered: There was a system whereby outside Menzies’ door there were two litde lights, red and green, and when he was busy the red light was on and when he was free the green light went on, and there would usually be a little queue in the corri­ dor of people waiting to see him. They would go in with their files and very often they were complicated files. Menzies would ask them to leave them and it might be a long time before he dealt with them. Reilly’s job was to try and reform the system, but reform w ent slowly. T h e flow o f paperwork gradually became a little m ore orderly, but the general pattern o f business was the same and the eccentric system o f lights remained outside Menzies’ door.11 D espite these obvious defects, SIS enjoyed a good war. Menzies controlled the flow o f Ultra material to Churchill and basked in its reflected glory. More importantly, signals intelligence had accelerated the work o f SIS against its Axis enemies such as H ider’s secret service, the Abwehr. It is often forgotten that SIS was also responsible for counter-espionage if it was outside British territory. Counter-espionage was now big business for SIS, and its specialist departm ent for this, Section V, under Colonel Felix Cowgill, expanded from a mere handful o f staff at the start o f the war to a com plem ent o f over 250 by 1945. This expansion, like all expansions o f secret service activity, resulted in friction, particularly with MI5. Kim Philby was the m ost energetic figure in Cowgill’s successful section.12 As we have seen, the volatile debate developing in Whitehall as to w hether the Soviet Union should be considered benign o r malignant had its im pact on SIS. Menzies had pulled in many military officers to fill the expanding ranks o f SIS during the war, some literally rounded up in the bars o f Pall Mall clubs. By 1943 the three service assistant directors im posed by the Chiefs o f Staff were firmly embedded. And in any case SIS had a strong pre-war tradition o f anti-Soviet and anti-Com intern activity. Unsurprisingly, then, long before the end o f the war with G erm any senior officers in SIS began to turn their thoughts towards the next enemy. T he first stage was the development o f Section IX, to study past records o f Soviet and comm unist activity. Sam Curries was im ported from MI5 to get the section going. But this appointm ent was ‘a stop-gap one*; as soon as the reduction o f wartime work allowed, he would be replaced by a regular SIS officer.13 Curries’ tem porary unit eventually became a post-war section called

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Requirements 5 - o r R5 - which boasted new staff, including R obert Carew H unt, w ho later became a renowned academic expert on the Soviet Union. Valentine Vivian, deputy head o f SIS, and Felix Cowgill were strongly interested in this section and it was Kim Philby w ho was designated to take com m and. R obert Cecil was the personal assistant to Menzies at the time. He recalled that in February o r early March 1944 there arrived on his desk the draft charter for the new anti-Soviet section. Its staffing scale was considerable, with a lot o f posts in overseas SIS sta­ tions. Cecil em bodied the optim ism o f the diplom ats and suggested that all this anti-Soviet provision was excessive. ‘W ithin hours Vivian and Philby had descended on me, upholding their requirem ents and insisting that these be transm itted to the Foreign Office . . . I gave way.’ In retro­ spect Cecil thought it amusing that Philby dem anded a large British Cold War apparatus, when he could have setded for a small one.14 T he final shape o f post-war SIS was determ ined by a Reorganisation Com m ittee set up on 19 Septem ber 1945. This consisted o f a senior SIS officer, Philby, and a representative from GC&CS, now renam ed G overnm ent Com m unications H eadquarters (G CH Q ). T he question was w hether SIS should be organised to deal with geographical regions like the Middle E ast o r them atic subjects such as scientific intelligence. T he outcom e was a comprom ise. T he ‘Production’ part o f SIS that ran agents was organised on geographical lines with regional controllers. T he ‘Requirements’ part responsible for collating and distributing intelligence was organised thematically. Philby’s section therefore ow ned n o t only the Soviet U nion, but also com m unism worldwide, the plum ịob in post-war SIS. O th er support sections dealt with the adm inistration, finance, train­ ing and development. F urther small units were concerned with war plan­ ning o r with ‘Special Political Action’, the SIS term for covert interventions and peacetime special operations.15 SIS was superficially rearranged rather than thoroughly reform ed at the end o f the war. Like so many wartime organisations, the young and talented could not wait to leave, while less promising, often superannu­ ated figures wished to cling on. Figures w ho had been a joke even in the 1930s, such as Harold Steptoe, the eccentric SIS m an in Shanghai, stayed on: Steptoe w ent out to run the im portant Teheran station after the war. In 1948, Malcolm Muggeridge, w ho had spent the war as an SIS officer in Algiers and Paris, was continuing to m eet up with old friends w ho were still in SIS to swap gossip about the ‘office’. H e was amazed to learn ‘that all the w orst dead-beats were still firmly entrenched’. Reviewing the line­ up o f the m ore senior figures, he despaired. ‘It would be difficult to find any organization, private o r public, directed by four so essentially incom ­ petent people.’ Given that SIS was bound to be the leading edge in the developing Cold War, he found it ‘grotesque’.16

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T he one area that received concerted attention was relations between SIS and its customers. T he British secret services have often been por­ trayed as working in obscure isolation, b u t by 1944 this was rarely the case. Wartime pressures had forced even backward organisations such as SIS to develop elaborate systems for liaising with their custom ers across W hitehall and for receiving feedback o n the value o f theừ efforts, and on changing reqwrem ents. SIS held routine m onthly meetings with the sub­ sections o f Military Intelligence which consum ed theừ product, each section having specific responsibilities. Some o f these sections were geo­ graphical —M I2b was China —while som e were them atic —M IlOb was radar technology. T here were conventions for tasking SIS with enquiries, through ‘Standing Q uestionnaires’, which defined subjects o f perm anent interest, and ‘M I6 special Q uestion’ form s, which were used by custom ­ ers for issues o f m ore transient interest. T he latter form s also had attached cancellation slips for use w hen a request had been met. SIS was continually coaching its custom ers to be better consumers. It pressed for specific questions and for som e background inform ation on why the question was being asked instead o f enquiries offered ‘point blank’. SIS was usually dealing with about 300 special Questions worldwide at any o n e time in the late 1940s. It also tried to educate its custom ers on how intelligence was graded, using the term s ‘Casual’, ‘Occasional’ and ‘Reliable’ to describe how it rated theừ inform ants.17 Inevitably G erm any was the source o f som e o f the best SIS dividends. In Septem ber 1947, M aịor Dixon, an Army technical intelligence officer, praised an unusual present, a ‘Russian anti-tank shell delivered to his office by M .I.6’. H e was keen to receive further surprises o f this sort.18 B ut SIS, M I5 and G C H Q all shared the problem o f surges in work which occurred whenever there was an international crisis. Things would be quiet for weeks and then they would be confronted by a wave o f requests. In July 1948 the Berlin blockade, Stalin’s attem pt to lay siege to the W estern sectors o f this city located deep within the Soviet Z one o f Germ any, began to bite. Dick W hite o f MI5 complained that ‘an enor­ m ous num ber o f appreciations were being urgently requested . . . the tu rn -o u t o f paper was going up by leaps and bounds’.19 Although the military had encouraged SIS to give early attention to th e Soviet U nion, it was never wholly focused upon the Cold War. A m ong its central duties was the support for British influence in farflung territories. For this reason the main SIS station in the Middle E ast was soon plucked from the General H eadquarters in Palestine and buried within the diplomatic accom m odation o f the British Middle E ast Office in the Shariah Talum bat C om pound. In South-east Asia, SIS shifted from Lord M ountbatten’s end-of-w ar headquarters at Singapore, w here he had accepted the surrender o f Japanese troops in Malaya, to

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the expanding offices o f Britain’s special Commissioner for South East Asia. SIS had a strong local identity in the regional Middle East. Indeed, on 19 August 1945, the regional Middle East Defence Com mittee called for the creation o f an entirely separate and specialist Middle East secret service. T he American OSS had recendy toyed with a similar super-secret intelligence service run under the cover o f archaeologists and anthropol­ ogists working out o f Harvard University and dealing with issues such as airbases, oil and markets in Islamic areas. It claimed to be inspired by a comparable scheme that was being developed by SIS at its wardme base in Palesdne. All this reflected the fact that SIS was laigely concerned with the polidcs o f Britain’s informal empire in the Middle East —a curious part o f the world where Britain appeared still to predom inate —yet only owned Cyprus and Kenya by 1948. Secret service was especially colonial in the Persian Gulf, a region which had been superintended from India. Each Brirish outpost enjoyed a ‘secret service grant’ to subsidise local clandestine activity. In the end no separate Middle Eastern service was created, but London recognised that out there SIS would be busy with ‘local intelligence requirements’.20 By contrast, Britain's tem porary wartime sabotage organisation, SO E, was everything that SIS was not. Churchill had decided that the task o f sabotage and subversion should be given to a new and vibrant organisa­ tion. Hence SO E had been created from embryonic sabotage units that were being set up by SIS and Military Intelligence in 1938-9. SIS and the military both resented losing control o f this area. Bitter wrangles fol­ lowed. T he first Minister to control SO E, Hugh D alton, scribbled despairingly in N ovem ber 1941: T h is is a slow war o f attrition, and slowest o f all in Whitehall.’21 SIS projected itself as run by established professionals, but it was in fact a bastion o f the British amateur tradition. By contrast SO E, dis­ dained by its sister organisation as ‘amateur’, drew in fresh and talented people from business, universities, indeed from every conceivable walk o f life. This produced some failures, but the broad outcom e was a m odern and effective service. More importantly, because o f its claims to be damaging the enemy, it had swelled to an enorm ous size. In Asia, where fighting against Japan did not cease until August 1945, SO E per­ sonnel outnum bered their SIS counterparts by m ore than ten to one. SIS chiefs were alarmed by the rise o f SO E and in private they fully con­ fessed its superiority. ‘Litde Bill’ Stephenson, the senior SIS officer in the United States who ran the vast British Security Co-ordination outfit in N ew York, predicted in 1944 that SIS would be rolled up at the end o f the war, while SO E would be allowed to continue. SO E, he insisted, was vigorous and innovative while SIS was past it. In fact, as we shall see,

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exactly the reverse occurred at the end o f the war. SIS continued in its dotage while SO E was broken up and subjected to a ‘hostile takeover* in which m ost S O E expertise and its m ore dynamic personnel were lost.22 T h e Second World War had unleashed SO E and m ore than a dozen similar parvenus into the world o f clandestine activity, ranging from the Special Air Service (SAS) to propaganda organisations like the Political W arfare Executive. But these newcom ers were as politically clumsy and naive as they were energetic. W hitehall had its fixed boundaries and SIS considered itself to own the world o f secret service, the Foreign Office saw itself as the centre o f British overseas policy, while the three services claimed all military activity. T he new clandestine services tram pled all these boundaries underfoot in a headlong rush to get going. T he result was a series o f bitter bureaucratic struggles, and by the end o f the war m any established Whitehall figures could n o t wait to rid themselves o f w hat they called the ‘funnies’. It was n o t only the W hitehall bureaucrats w ho hated SO E. Many regular service officers regarded all special forces as crooks and skivers. Early in the war, senior RAF staff officers told S O E they did n o t wish to associate their service with the dishonourable business o f parachuting agents in civilian clothes for the purpose o f attem pting to kill m em bers o f the opposing forces. Eventually the RAF was compelled to assist. O thers just regarded special operations units as a soft option for those w ho wished to slide away from the rigours o f front line infantry soldier­ ing. O ne general asserted that these special units ‘contributed nothing to Allied victory. All they did was to offer a too-easy, because rom anticised, fo rm o f gallantry to a few anti-social irresponsible individualists, w ho sought a m ore personal satisfaction from the war than o f standing their chance, like proper soldiers, o f being bayoneted in a slit trench o r burnt alive in a tank.’ This was a sentim ent expressed repeatedly by senior officers. Admiral Somerville found M ountbatten's wartime South East Asia Com m and teeming with curious irregular units ‘kicking their heels’, claiming special privileges, but obviously w ithout much to do.23 T h e diplom ats nursed an intense hatred o f SO E, and indeed o f its sister propaganda service, the PW E. In order to enthuse resistance m ovem ents, both organisations had found themselves compelled to make incursions into the realm o f politics, often addressing the sensitive issue o f post-war settlements. In Europe, the Middle E ast and as far as China, diplom ats continually accused S O E o f developing its own separ­ ate foreign policy. S O E and PW E were often found engaged in volatile activities in sensitive neutral countries such as Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. A nthony E den wanted to deal with SO E , PW E and areas like econom ic warfare by taking them over. But his experienced right-hand m an, Alexander Cadogan, hated them dearly, and wanted them banished

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far from his dom ain. Cadogan was horrified by Eden's suggestion that the Foreign Office should develop sections full o f these murky undiplo­ matic characters w ho spent their time undertaking ‘fantastic things'. ‘We aren't a D epartm ent Store,’ he complained in his diary, insisting that the diplomats should stick to their core business. But E den g o t his way. Cadogan was appalled: ‘We are taking over the rem nants o f M. o f I., M.E.W. [respectively Ministries o f Inform ation and o f Econom ic Warfare], S.O.E. Are we com petent to do it? We can’t do it.’24 Few things were m ore im portant for the long-term future o f British secret service than this argum ent between E den and Cadogan, for they represented the two alternate possible futures for British secret intelli­ gence and special operations. It was fortunate for Britain that E den even­ tually won the argument. In late 1945 the Foreign Office achieved a form al veto over any future special operations, while SIS, which was under Foreign Office control, absorbed SO E. Soon, propaganda also came within the bounds o f Cadogan's beloved Foreign Office, turning it into a ‘departm ent store’ whose business w ent far beyond straight diplo­ macy. T he post-war pattern o f British special operations and propaganda was tied directly into the core o f British foreign policy-making. In W ashington, as we shall see, these activities escaped diplomatic control and the CIA became a rival centre o f American foreign policy which even its own officers feared had becom e a state w ithin a state. E den had found wartime special operations annoying, but he also saw them as valuable. Indeed during 1944, w hen the control o f S O E contin­ ued to be a live issue, he seems to have used SO E operations m oving to and from Poland to influence the com position o f the unstable Polish governm ent in exile in London. His hope was to render it less viciously anti-Soviet and therefore to open the way to brokering som e sort o f deal with M oscow to secure its future. Eventually this proved to be an em pty hope.25 O n 23 N ovem ber 1944 E den saw an opportunity to extend diplomatic control. Lord Selborne, S O E ’s Minister, was about to resign and leave governm ent. E den immediately wrote to Churchill asking that SO E be placed under him as a tidy short-term measure. But it was clear that the Foreign Secretary was already looking ahead. H e argued that, in the future, ‘in liberated territories and in neutral countries there may from time to time be useful scope for a covert organisation to further [British] policy . . . and I should therefore be sorry to see the abandonm ent o f all the m achinery for ‘‘special operations” even when the war is over’. Although he couched this in gentle term s —it was only to be a tem porary arrangem ent - he also knew that possession would be nine-tenths o f the law when the war was over. It was ‘too soon’ to consider post-war m achin­ ery; however, he added, ‘o f one thing I am sure’: in the future SIS and

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special operations had to be under the same controlling chief. W ithout this rationalisation, which would prevent further feuding between special operations and secret intelligence, ‘nothing b u t chaos can ensue*. To pave the way for this proposed m erger o f SIS and SO E , E den argued, he should now take over as the M inister responsible for SO E. A fter all, as Foreign Secretary, he was already the responsible M inister for SIS and for the policy o f the Political Warfare Executive. H e w ent on, ‘I am also in my personal capacity the m inister for MI5.’ For E den to acquire S O E as well would simply be ‘a step in the right direction’.26 Churchill, like E den and Cadogan, was heartily sick o f the feuding betw een SO E and SIS and the endless struggles for conttol o f policy towards areas that had significant resistance movements. But equally he thought it too late in the war to attem pt a m ajor upheaval in the architecture o f secret service. T he Chiefs o f Staff were suspicious o f Eden, so instead Churchill pressed his close friend T o p ’ Selborne to stay o n until the end o f the war. Meanwhile, som e in S O E clearly had their eye on an emerging Cold W ar in E urope as a likely avenue for perpetuating their organisation’s existence as a separate entity. In January 1945, Colin G ubbins, the head o f SO E, wrote to Cadogan explaining that he wanted to drop one o f his officers, Captain John Coates, into Budapest. T he diplom ats gave G ubbins a firm no, citing the ‘unfortunate experiences’ with the Soviets that had resulted from recent S O E missions in Rumania and Bulgaria. S O E dropped a few agents into Prague in May 1945, but these were N K V D agents inserted o n M oscow’s behalf, the last rem nants o f the fairly solid co-operative relationship developed by G eorge Hill, the S O E m an in Moscow.27 By June 1945, V ictor Cavendish-Bentinck was less busy with the JIC and the bitter argum ents over post-hostilities planning. So he was free to chair a tem porary com m ittee on which parts o f S O E would be required in the near future and should be allowed to live on, and which parts should be scrapped. O ne o f the first areas to consider was the Middle E ast, where fighting had long since ended. H e was not looking forward to this job and expected to be faced with ‘all sorts o f suggestions from S O E for grandiose activities* accompanied by allegations that these schemes were 'absolutely necessary in those countries’. H e was extremely pleased to get a long letter from Lord Killearn, the British Am bassador in Cairo, that gave him the am m unition to deflate S O E post-w ar schemes. For Killearn, the critical m atter was not the emerging Cold War. H e conceded that the Soviets were ‘very active’ in the region, but he was n o t prepared 'to swallow the Bolshevist Bogie hook line and sinker*. Som e sleeper organisation m ight eventually be useful to counter Bolshevist propaganda, b u t in any case he did n o t think S O E was very good at this sort o f work.

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M uch m ore im portant were S O E ’s local functions. T hroughout th e war S O E had been preoccupied with ‘other activities’ in the Middle E a st, ‘in o th er words the paym ent o f baksheesh’ for the purpose o f sm o o th in g general British influence in the region. This had been crucial in an area where Arab nationalism was growing fast am ong intellectuals a n d m iddle-ranking Arm y officers, inclining them to side with anyone w h o would rid the Middle E ast o f the remains o f the E uropean colonial p res­ ence. T his was the tendency that needed to be countered with extensive bribery. S O E ’s political ‘baksheesh’ program m e had been operating in E gypt since early 1942, w hen it had been set up by M ajor Carver an d a M r M asterson from SO E , together with the Embassy. T hey h a d m anaged ‘the bribery o f certain officials, to enlist their sup p o rt in looking after British interests’. All were 'agreed that certain m onies w ould be paid m onthly to certain individuals’. In 1945 Killearn reviewed S O E ’s plan s for post-w ar Egypt: ‘I f I understand correctly S.O.E.’s sum m ary o f th e ir activities, they propose to spend approximately £10,000 a year o n o ral dissem ination o f pro-British views: £9,000 a year on the paying o f p a t­ ronage to selected politicians and G overnm ent officials; and a fu rth e r sum o f approxim ately £12,000 per annum on special secret paym ents in this country “at the request o f His Majesty’s Representatives” .’ K illearn w anted control o f this program m e and felt that all this could be d o n e by the SIS officers in Cairo. ‘As you know we already have o u r S.S. [Secret Service] arrangem ents here which work well.’ H e confessed, ‘I sh o u ld n ’t in the least break my heart if S.O.E. were totally w ound up in Egypt.* Few S O E staff stayed o n in the Middle East. O ne was D r Robin Z aehner, w h o rem ained at the Em bassy in Teheran until 1947 and ‘w hose ch ief fu n c ­ tion is that o f bribing the Persian press’. He returned in 1951 ahead o f th e Anglo-Am erican overthrow o f the Mossadegh governm ent in 1953. Against the wishes o f L ondon, M ountbatten retained over 500 S O E staff in South-east Asia to help deal with the difficult situations in In d o ch in a and Indonesia.28 S O E was also well established under the Twenty-first A rm y G ro u p in occupied G erm any and Austria. T he Chiefs o f Staff had m ore influence in areas o f occupation and had been persuaded by H arry s p o rb o rg G ubbins’ deputy, that w ith E urope in its present unsettled state it w ould be ‘unwise’ to lose ‘valuable SO E contacts’ in Austria, som e o f w h o m were high ranking. O n 24 Septem ber 1945, twenty-four S O E p e rso n n el were still at large in Austria working on their ‘long-term role*.29 T h e d ip ­ lom ats were soon on to this. Robin Hankey, a diplom at w ho was a b o u t to take over the N o rth ern D epartm ent from C hristopher W arner, claim ed th at SO E ‘were endeavouring to prolong their lives unnecessarily* H e continued, ‘I was assured that the Chiefs o f Staff attached im p o rtan ce to their duties, but what these duties were nobody knew.’ H e feared

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offending the Soviets with ‘activities o f the cloak and dagger variety’. H ankey was anxious to speak to Cadogan’s successor, O rm e Sargent, a b o u t the related issue o f SO E activities in Germany, ‘which seem to me to be o f a som ew hat dangerous political character’. But in the end the m ilitary insisted on retaining their services in Germany. By D ecem ber 1945 the SIS station in Austria had absorbed the eight rem aining SO E staff and their high-level contacts.30 S O E in G erm any was employed in an operation to acquire som e files from the E ast which were considered ‘m ost valuable’ by the D irector o f M ilitary Intelligence in London. This was an operation that involved the covert removal o f an entire archive, and the limited surviving record o f this episode speaks unambiguously o f ‘the “lifting” o f the material from th e Russian Z o n e’ o f Germany. This operation was successful and rem ained covert, b u t a no less successful American operation a few m o n th s later was blown and became embarrassingly public. This involved a similar ‘intelligence foray into Czechoslovakia’ and was selfconfessedly a ‘raid’ to secure intelligence materials, archives and other gem s including: a. German counter-intelligence correspondence relating to Bohemia-Moravia, papers belonging to Himmler, Von Ribbentrop, Frank and Funk... b. Gestapo and German intelligence papers relating to Bohemia-Moravia, c. President Benes files from 1918 to 1938, d. Locations of treasures spotted in caves in Czechoslovakia. A lthough the material was bagged, the operation was noisy and the H erald Tribune obtained ‘the com plete story’. Czech retaliation, including the closing o f borders to all American travellers, made conưol o f the press impossible. T he State D epartm ent had no choice but to adm it involvem ent and sent a message to the American Em bassy in Prague authorising the A m bassador to apologise for the affair. This sort o f event m ade diplom ats in L ondon and W ashington nervous. Elsewhere in Germany, the main SO E unit called M E 42 still had thirty-four staff in operation on 15 January 1946, w ho were gradually being m erged with SIS stations. T heir role was n o t only to retain agents as intelligence contacts but also to establish stay-behind parties for resis­ tance work. M E 42 was identifying agents in each m aịor tow n ‘selected from am ong the people now being used as inform ers for political intelli­ gence’ to undertake sabotage in the event o f a Soviet push westward. T he unit sought about ten stay-behind agents in each m ajor town chosen from categories such as the police, local governm ent, bankers, industrial­ ists, railways, trade unions, professions, teachers and clergy.31 S O E was clinging on successfully by making itself useful to regional com m ands facing awkward problem s, but its main obstacle to survival

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lay in London. Sir Colin G ubbins and his deputy H arry sp o rb o rg were painfully aware that S O E had m ade few allies in W hitehall during the war. A t the end o f April 1945, sp o rb o rg was probing figures like C hristopher W arner about the value o f som e sort o f S O E -N K V D treaty that would take co-operation into the post-war period. But, while the diplom ats allowed S O E to go on a ‘fishing expedition’ in Moscow, they saw this for w hat it was. sp o rb o rg was one o f a num ber trying every ruse to get som e high-level com m itm ent to a prolonged life for S O E .32 G ubbins knew he had m ore support am ong the military and in May he persuaded the Chiefs o f Staff to set up their own S O E Evaluation Com m ittee which would contact regional com m anders and obtain ‘an unbiased opinion o f the S O E organisation’. But although many regional com m anders had valued SO E, and produced long papers setting o u t their trium phs, like Cavendish-Bentinck’s tem porary com m ittee, every­ one called for tighter co-ordination and centralised control. This pointed fatefully towards one single secret service. Even with central control, n o t all were enthusiastic. T he com m anders in the Middle E ast were keen to point o u t that a lot o f SO E equipm ent delivered to the guerrillas in Greece had subsequendy been used against the British. ‘British casualties during the post-w ar occupadon troubles in that country am ounted to one thousand.’ Some were keen to lay these at S O E ’s door. M ore broadly they thought that S O E ’s forecasts o f its diversionary capability w ere ‘optim istic’: ‘W hilst subversive activities in Greece were a constant source o f irritation and hindrance to the enemy, yet he reacted m uch m ore to o u r overall deception plans and as far as can be seen the strate­ gic effect o f S O E operations was negligible.’33 Some reports were m ore upbeat, b ut all were mixed, and this was n o t the sort o f com m entary that G ubbins and Sporborg had hoped for. Senior com m anders from the m ajor theatres o f w ar were contacted and advice poured in from all sides. John Slessor, w ho had been D eputy C om m ander o f the Allied Air Forces in the M editerranean, was the first to reply. *The intelligence set-up in Cairo is a mess,’ he announced. Multiplicity was the ro o t o f the problem . T here were ‘far to o m any different agencies and organisations, all with direct access to the great, too often crossing each others wires and cutting each others throats . . . O f course, the real answer, I am sure to all this is drastic re-organisation at the top.’ H e wanted all the secret and semi-secret services, including propaganda and deception, rolled into one service 'under a single head’ w ho would be an associate m em ber o f the Chiefs o f Staff C om m ittee — alm ost a fourth arm ed service.34 M ountbatten also offered his views as a veteran o f secret service m an ­ agem ent and som eone w ho nurtured a boyish enthusiasm for special operations. In South East Asia Com m and he had presided over m o re

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than a dozen secret services which enjoyed internecine rivalry m ore than anything else. H e had developed a sophisticated system, called p Division, which accorded the different secret services priorities for their activities. But he found that they could work together only w hen SO E had battered the local SIS station into submission. In August 1945 M ountbatten told the Chiefs o f Staff that he preferred the American Office o f Strategic Services. Although OSS had n o t been joined ‘at the roots’ to the higher direction o f war in W ashington, nevertheless he insisted that it was very good because it covered the foil range o f secret intelligence, special operations and political warfare and other ‘nefarious objects’. H e felt that this holistic approach was the way ahead and had m ade OSS *a very good organisation’.35 T he outcom e was increasingly obvious. By 14 August 1945 Cavendish-Bentinck’s com m ittee had finished its work. T he Chiefs o f Staff postponed any form al decision because the whole question o f post­ war defence organisation was up in the air. T he only new factor was the arrival o f a L abour governm ent. Clem ent A tdee decided to send the question o n to the Cabinet D efence Com mittee. But his m ind was already made up. Selborne had w ritten to the new Prim e M inister adver­ tising S O E ’s special services and underlining their usefulness in the trou­ bled post-w ar era. But Attlee was hard to convince and associated these things with the underhand approach o f Bolsheviks. H e replied frankly that his governm ent would have no need o f a ‘C om intern’-type organisa­ tion.36 I f A tdee was going to perm it any post-w ar special operations capabil­ ity then it was going to be small. He therefore took the advice offered him by his new Foreign Secretary, E rnest Bevin. Devin followed E den’s line and urged Attlee to put the rem nants o f SO E within SIS and ‘definitely under “C”, as a section o f his organisation’. Cabinet Office officials around A tdee were m ore forthright, having been plagued, like Cadogan, with wartime S O E troubles. T. L. Rowan in the Prime M inister’s Office explained that his extrem e sufferings over the last few years had inclined him ‘very strongly to the view’ that SIS should take over everything All this nürrored E den’s vision set out in 1944. As M. R. D. Foot has recorded, E rnest Bevin ‘him self signed S O E ’s death w arrant on lines laid down by E den’.37 E den was thus the architect o f the post-war system for controlling special operations, and so the diplom ats came out o n top. T he two enquiries conducted by Cavendish-Bentinck and by the Chiefs o f Staff had litde material bearing on the outcom e. In mid-January, a series o f Chiefs o f Staff meetings confirm ed the SIS takeover.38 H arold Caccia, w ho was now Chairm an o f the JIC , took the opportunity to emphasise diplom atic control. He drew attention to the directive on the future o f

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special operations: T h a t directive gave the Foreign Office die right o f veto th ro u g h o u t. . . it would be seen that they wished to use that v e to rather drastically. . . ’ H e expanded on his own experience in Greece. T h e recruitm ent o f agents in any country for this kind o f thing in peacetim e, w hether they were conscious and unconscious agents, would be ‘politi­ cally dangerous’. Menzies told the Chiefs o f Staff* that SIS would concentrate on a special operations organisation ‘capable o f rapid expansion in an em er­ gency’. This would be a sleeper unit based in L ondon ‘trained in th e operational side’, for which he would need about twenty officers well versed in special operations m ethods, but nothing would be done abroad. Menzies argued that the fact that his secret intelligence officers, w ho were nevertheless given som e training in special operations, ‘were in foreign countries and employing agents, would considerably reduce the time required to build up a resistance m ovem ent if and when required’. An additional benefit was economy, for the com prom ise approach in which special operations were kept asleep would involve SIS in an extra expenditure o f only £40,000 a year.39 O n the ground the effect was quickly apparent. O ne senior S O E officer, w ho had com m anded the m ost effective sabotage netw ork in France, was one o f the few w ho transferred to the SIS sleeper unit at the end o f the war. Supervising six staff in the D epartm ent o f Training and D evelopm ent, his task was to pool and protect SO E expertise. T he expe­ rience was dispiriting. After enduring years o f sneering by SIS about the 'am ateurs o f S O E ’ he found the true situation to be exacdy the reverse. W hen he asked about the SIS photography departm ent he discovered that, unlike SO E , SIS had no such facility, b ut he was reassured that a few SIS officers dabbled in photography as a hobby. This experience was repeated all along the line.40 By 1948, on paper at least, the Foreign Office —working together with the Colonial Office - had authority over all the activities o f SIS, and indeed M I5 overseas. W hen L ondon drafted an intelligence charter gov­ erning the Far E ast it set o u t these rights and perm issions explicidy. ‘Before any intelligence o r counter-intelligence activities are carried o n in any territory o f any foreign governm ent o r in British or British protected territory, the Senior British Diplom atic representative, o r the principal British Authority m ust be inform ed and his approval assured.’ This exhortation about approval for operations was som etim es observed in the breach, b u t it showed how em bedded the E den legacy had becom e. E den him self rem ained a lifelong adherent o f tight political control o f secret service, and would reaffirm this when he returned as Prim e M inister in the 1950s.4! O n e o f the best-kept secrets o f m ost intelligence services is that

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about half the material they circulate to their m asters is not their own. Liaison with friends and allies was a critical consideration for SIS. Relations with American secret services, notably William J. D onovan’s OSS, were complex and som etim es difficult. By 1945 open rivalry had developed in the rem oter areas o f the world w here L ondon and W ashington had considered themselves to be in com petition. T he deci­ sion to keep this relationship going was based on carefully calculated realism rather than mawkish sentim ent. T he history o f the AngloAmerican special intelligence relationship abounds with hagiography. But the real relationship between the British and American secret ser­ vices in 1945 was often prickly, as can be seen from the m em oirs and private diaries o f the time. G raham G reene served under Kim Philby in the SIS counter-intelli­ gence wing, Section V. G reene recalled that his wartim e unit had occu­ pied one floor o f a large Edwardian house in Ryder Street, close to St Jam es’s. (These premises were later sold and taken over, not inappropri­ ately, by the Economist, which boasted its own Intelligence Unit.) T he floor above the SIS Section V at Ryder Street was given over to the counter-intelligence departm ent o f the OSS station in L ondon, known as X-2. G reene recalled, ‘Security was a game we played less against the enemy than against the allies o n the floor above,’ and he described the m utual torm ents they inflicted on one another in the name o f fun. But this curious patchwork o f rivalry and co-operation was nevertheless reg­ ulated. OSS, SIS and S O E had been busy signing treaties with each other since 1942 and all were anxious to preserve this treaty system beyond the end o f the war. T his was m ade difficult by H arry Trum an’s decision to abolish OSS. O n 20 Septem ber 1945 the President had passed Executive O rd er 9621 ensuring that OSS was disbanded with alm ost immediate effect, from 1 O ctober. H e was influenced by the Park Report, a collected survey o f OSS m isdem eanours during the war. H e was also confronted w ith an econom ising Republican Congress that required deep cuts in defence budgets. Wisely, he gave top priority to signals intelligence and was determ ined to keep that going above all else.42 American special operations, o r ‘covert action’ as it was becom ing know n in W ashington, launched its own determ ined publicity campaign. A bitter batde over the fate o f OSS in 1945 had prom pted D onovan and his enemies to engage in a public quarrel in which each side leaked exten­ sive details o f OSS wartime exploits. This gathered m om entum in 1946 and 1947 with a wave o f memoirs, sensational magazine articles and films. Although OSS was abolished, its adherents replied with a barrage o f Hollywood films. O ne, simply entided OSS, starred Alan Ladd, Param ount Studios’ resident tough guy, ham m ering the G erm ans in France before D-Day. O th er Hollywood OSS epics starred G ary C ooper

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and Jam es Cagney and offered a remorselessly upbeat version o f secret service. T he message was that an America w ho engaged in the w ider world needed these things; but the message had n o t convinced Trum an.43 American OSS, like SO E, was a new organisation which had grow n quickly and which had made too many enemies. Instead o f being pre­ served, elements o f OSS were broken up and then secreted away, under Army o r Foreign Service cover, to await w hat the m ore astute knew would be the rapid post-w ar revival o f American agent-based secret service. T he wait was longer than many had expected. H arry T rum an did n ot create the Central Intelligence Agency until July 1947, and a sem i­ detached unit for covert action only came along a year later in 1948. American secret service did not com e to a halt during this interregnum , but the tem porary conduits through which it was carried out led to p ro b ­ lems, n o t least in term s o f co-operation with London. In the professional world o f intelligence there was an abiding recogni­ tion that the United States would not return to pre-w ar isolationism and that an organisation like OSS would soon be essential. Pressure for revival was apparent even before OSS had been abolished. O n 29 August 1945, J. E dgar Hoover, D irector o f the FBI - no friend o f William D onovan o r the OSS - nevertheless w rote to the US A ttorney G eneral declaring that ‘the future welfare o f the United States necessitates and dem ands the operation o f an efficient, world-wide intelligence service*. H oover then added a warning note: ‘It is well-known that the British and Russian G overnm ents, while ostensibly discontinuing their intelli­ gence services o r even denying the existence o f such organisations in individual countries, are actually intensifying their coverage.’ B ut die British m odel - which had helped OSS get going in 1940 and 1941 —was now a source o f negative feelings. Although som e in OSS and in the Army were urging the British model upon the W hite H ouse, others regarded OSS as a victim o f its over-close relations with L ondon during the early years o f the war. T he FBI observed sourly that the British m odel had been touted by those w ho had ‘som ething to sell*. H oover wanted a post-w ar Am erican overseas secret service that ran agents —som e so rt o f a CIA - b ut did n o t w ant it m odelled on London. T he British system, he observed shrewdly, had spent the war ‘basking in the self-generated light o f its own brilliance’.44 By O ctober 1945, the emerging Cold War was focusing m inds in W ashington. Jim my Byrnes, the new American Secretary o f State, go t together to discuss the issue with the Secretaries o f the Army and Navy. They all agreed there was a crying need for a centralised intelligence service, and indeed all liked William D onovan’s plan for American post­ war intelligence. T he main problem s were the ‘G estapo’ tag given to it by

s.

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the wartime enemies o f OSS, together with the awkward issue o f w ho should ow n it. T he British m odel continued to ride high. Byrnes was influenced by his recent visit to see Eisenhow er’s headquarters in Paris. Eisenhow er had lavished praise upon his British intelligence chief, General K enneth Strong, and the ƯS Army Air C orps had held forth on the superior quality o f the British intelligence system over its American counterpart. All those at the m eeting ‘felt that the British Intelligence Service was the best in the business’. They were ưoubled that Congress had refused to fund American expansion because American intelligence was thought to be poor, for this would only guarantee that it would rem ain poor.45 Despite the persecution o f its enemies, and a parsim onious Congress, small pieces o f OSS had survived. In L ondon, elements o f the service were discreetly preserved and liaison with the British continued. L ondon had been a large wartime OSS station, acting as a stepping stone for the continent and offering connections with the many European govern­ m ents in exile dotted around the second-class hotels o f Kensington. L ondon would soon becom e host to a large CIA station. Although the OSS Secret Intelligence branch was winding dow n, its core activities were protected. In N ovem ber 1945 American intelligence officers in L ondon noted the ‘establishm ent o f a perm anent unit . . . separated organizationally and geographically from the liquidating unit’. T his new elem ent, com m anded by John A. Bross, now called the Strategic Services U nit —London, o r London, and sheltering under Arm y cover, kept links going with SIS in the nearby Broadway Buildings. ‘Intelligence reports from Broadway increased alm ost 100% in volume, particularly reports on Russian activities,’ ssu reported in N ovem ber 1945. ssu undertook to supply Jim my Byrnes with reports o f special interest during his visit to the L ondon Conference o f Foreign Ministers in the same m onth. M ost intelligence exchanged with SIS con­ cerned the developing Cold War in G erm any and Austria together with Soviet Army order o f battle material, which detailed the size and location o f its units, ssu in L ondon boasted seventy-three personnel o n 7 D ecem ber 1945, including ten local British employees. This was an em bryonic CIA station in waiting, com m anded by som eone w ho would becom e one o f the CIA’s leading lights in the post-war era.46 In D ecem ber the overall head o f in W ashington, G eneral Q uinn, was still a m ajor point o f contact for the SIS station in W ashington. As attem pted to prolong its limited existence, access to SIS material allowed Q uinn to increase the unit’s im portance. Typically, he was able to write to the US Air Force Intelligence Chief, G eneral Quesada, presenting him self as the gatekeeper o f British SIS material:

ssu

1945, ssu

ssu

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Certain British Intelligence Service reports of special interest are currently received by US. In general, these reports deal with political problems of impor­ tance in Europe. Those of recent date have been of immediate interest in report­ ing on Germany and Austria; they discuss the political forces current in that area. Reports on that area as well as on others seem to me to be of considerable importance, not only because of their content but because of their source.

SIS material, he wrote, was received by ssu ‘under special conditions’, b ut he was willing to supply som e ‘significant reports' to the US Air Force ‘by som e special arrangem ent’ from the British for highly restricted use.47 Liaison with the secret service o f a friendly state is always ambiguous. Both parties view the process as a form o f legitimised spying upon each other, as much as upon com m on enemies. T hus the SIS intelligence given to Jo h n Bross and SSƯ in 1945-6 was pardy valuable for w hat it told W ashington about the views o f London. SIS was producing a lot o f good intelligence on Spain in a series o f reports codenam ed ‘Coventry'’ which also w ent to Bross. noted that the British Foreign Office was guided ‘to a considerable extent' by these reports in making policy, espe­ cially on Gibraltar. T hus SIS material aided W ashington in dealing with its British counterparts over Spain. ‘We are thus afforded an opportunity o f making it possible for the two key American agencies in the U.K. engaged in Anglo-American discussions on Spain to read the m ind as it were o f their British opposites before sitting dow n at the Conference table.*48 SSƯ also boasted an X-2 unit which dealt with counter-intelli­ gence under Lieutenant-Com m ander W inston M. Scott. Scott had worked closely during the war with SIS Section V and with MI5. In 1946 it was still the familiar figures from form er Section V, including K im Philby, w ho were his regular contacts, freely exchanging m aterial on British and American persons w ho were thought to be suspicious.49 Initially the flow o f traffic was uneven. Exchange between o n the one hand and SIS and MI5 on the other continued w ithout interruption. But this was n o t true o f the higher-level material produced by the JIC . This reflected uncertainty about continued intelligence exchange am ong som e service intelligence chiefs in W ashington. Admiral Inglis, the American D irector o f Naval Intelligence, was opposed to further w ork with the British. L ondon intelligence chiefs played the game skilfully. T hey continued to send large num bers o f JIC reports to the A m ericans via Britain’s JIC W ashington, located at the Embassy, hinting m eanwhile at British hopes o f reciprocation. By contrast the flow o f A m erican JIC reports to Britain had ceased abruptly in August 1945. But the British tactic o f sustained generosity, continuing to bom bard W ashington w ith JIC material, eventually paid dividends. O n 25 Septem ber 1946 the American JIC concluded:

ssu

ssu

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If it is desừed to condnue to receive the British JIC intelligence estimates it is submitted that it must be done on an exchange basis, otherwise the source will dry up. Since there are many areas, particularly in parts of Europe, the Near East and the Middle East, where the British sources of information are super­ ior to those of the United States, it is believed desirable that the United States J.I.C. continue to receive such estimates. This view is reinforced when the world situation is considered. W hat the com m ittee wanted was a continued supply o f British JIC papers and it suggested that exchange now proceed on a ‘quid pro quo basis*. L ondon delegates to m ajor post-w ar Anglo-American confer­ ences always departed for W ashington arm ed with plenty o f new JIC material.50 This revived exchange o f top-level JIC material was n o t always w hat it seemed. Many o f the m ore substantial JIC reports —typically London's large annual survey o f Soviet intentions and capabilities, running to seventy pages — were sent verbatim to W ashington.51 However, the Americans were often given modified material produced by the ‘British Jo in t Intelligence Com m ittee in W ashington’. O n 12 July 1946 the Americans received twenty-two copies o f such a paper on Soviet inter­ ests and intentions in the Middle East. Recipients were also carefully selected, and these w ent to the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff and their subor­ dinates, including their JIC , to American service intelligence chiefs, to the head o f but n o t always to the State D epartm ent. T he same was true o f British JIC material on Palestine sent to W ashington in 1948 which played up the dangers o f Soviet interest in the area.52 Similarly, W ashington produced dry-cleaned versions o f American papers for London. In 1949 US officials discussed ‘a sanitized version o f J.I.C. 2 8 6 /2 for processing and release to the British’, a paper which dealt with ‘Com m unist penetration in the United States’.53 D espite this mild ‘doctoring’ o f material by both sides, W ashington service intelligence chiefs remained uncom fortable about the JIC exchange. T he American JIC was very different to its British counterpart, being m ore subordinated to the military. Some in W ashington felt the gentle but unrem itting British pressure to exchange papers and for com ­ m ents on British papers exposed an institutional inadequacy in the American system. T he bottom line was that W ashington still did n o t have p ro p er centralised intelligence. In 1949 General Charles Cabell, the head o f USAF intelligence, warned that the British request for com m ents on their papers was ‘merely a device to increase the flow o f U.S. intelligence material to the British’ and provided L ondon with a window o n its policy which it would n o t otherwise have.54 Anglo-American intelligence co-operation should have been sm oothed by the creation o f the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.

ssu,

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Certainly one o f the first British priorities was to conclude a CIA -SIS treaty, n ot dissimilar to the agreem ents that had defined relations between OSS, SIS and S O E during the war. But the CIA that Trum an approved in 1947 was an odd creature, very different from the CIA that its principal founder, William J. D onovan, had envisaged. D onovan had recom m ended an all-embracing organisation that com bined secret intel­ ligence, special operations, counter-intelligence and substantial propa­ ganda activities. W hen L ondon decided in the autum n o f 1945 to roll up S O E and place it under SIS, this move not only reflected a desire to restore central direction, it was also the result o f seeing Donovan's super­ ior wartime system at close hand.55 Ironically, ịust as L ondon moved towards the D onovan approach, putting everything into one organisation, W ashington abandoned it. T he new CIA handled only intelligence; meanwhile W ashington developed a different organisation for ‘covert action’. This was the Office o f Policy Co-ordination (O P Q under Frank W isner, a seasoned form er OSS officer w ho had waited o u t the interregnum in Germany. O P C took its orders from G eorge K ennan at the State D epartm ent and from the National Security Council, which was created in 1947 to co-ordinate high-level military and diplomatic policy, and it was connected to the CIA only for purposes o f administtative support and ‘rations’. Designed for ‘stirring up trouble’ in E astern Europe, it was intensely disliked by those in the new CIA responsible for quietly collecting intelligence. This was the old S O E -S IS dichotomy, but with a difference. In the post-w ar W ashington system, it was special operations that had the upper hand. Many key figures in the post-war W ashington elite, including Allen Welsh Dulles, G eorge Kennan, Paul Hoffman, John McCloy and Paul Nitze, were adherents and urged W isner on to yet grander schemes. T he unhappy place o f W isner’s O P C in the American chain o f secret service com m and was recognised from the start. In 1947 the US National Security Council had appointed a Survey G roup o f high-level consultants, including Allen Dulles, to look at the CIA. O ne o f the m ost awkward problem s they wrestled with was the relationship between intel­ ligence and covert action. In May 1948, in an interim verdict, they stressed that the two were interdependent, with resistance groups pro­ viding a highly im portant source o f inform ation and timely intelligence being critical in guiding covert action. T he two, they thought, should be brought together. Dulles and his group had been watching opposite developm ents in L ondon and the irony was not lost on them: T h e Allied experience in the carrying out o f secret operations and secret intelligence during the last war has pointed up the close relationship o f the two activ­ ities. T he British, for example, w ho had separate systems during the war, have now com e round to the view that secret intelligence and secret

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operations should be carried o u t under a single operational head and have reorganized th eừ services accordingly’.56 But G eorge K ennan resisted the integration o f O P C into the CỈA. W hile accepting that Allen D ulles’ Survey G roup ‘hits the organisational problem head on’, K ennan insisted that the m erger ‘should not be done at this time’. Covert action was simply too critical to his emerging vision o f containm ent to allow the C IA greater control. T he current pattern in which his Policy Planning Staff were writing many o f W isner’s briefs suited him best.57 Exacdy twenty years later, in January 1968, senior CLA officers such as Richard Bissell and R obert Am ory would look back at this experimental period o f O P C separation from CIA and condem n it as organisationally disastrous w ith a legacy that Sttetched out over decades.58 In the late 1940s, W isner, K ennan and the Navy Secretary Jam es Forrestal, backed by the National Security Council, com prised a form id­ able axis and expanded covert action at an astonishing pace. T he D irector o f the CIA, Admiral Hillenkoetter, disliked this but was pain­ fully aware that if he interfered ‘there would have been a call from the State D epartm ent’. Forrestal and K ennan in particular would n o t tolerate C IA interference ỉn O PC ; and, in the words o f a CIA officer w ho observed their relations closely at the time, with this high-powered backing W isner could ‘have run right over H illenkoetter’. By the time O P C was finally m erged with CIA in 1950, W isner presided over a staff o f close to 2,000 personnel with forty-seven stations around the world and a budget approaching $200 million.59 T h e N ational Security Council approved the Dulles R eport in August 1949 and moves were supposed to be set in train for the m erger o f O PC and the secret intelligence wing o f the CIA. But m atters were compli­ cated by personalities. Hillenkoetter wanted Colonel R obert Schow, a senior CIA intelligence m an with experience in Germany, to take over the new com bined office. But Hillenkoetter did n o t know how to push. Meanwhile K ennan and the State D epartm ent backed W isner and told him to stay in place for the duration o f the tussle. T he State D epartm ent conceded, T h e situation has the makings o f a jumble, because it is obvi­ ously impossible to get a m an big enough to be over W isner and small enough to be under Hilly.’60 Early 1950 brought som e so rt o f solution. A fiery new figure, General W alter Bedell Smith, accepted the D irectorship o f the CIA and im m edi­ ately insisted that he enịoy com plete direction over all these activities. W ashington had finally found a m an ‘big enough’ to com m and Frank W isner, although it took Bedell Smith years to integrate the intelligence and covert action wings o f the CIA. Thereafter, the culture o f covert action developed a firm grip on the American system and continued to dom inate the CIA into the 1960s. M oreover, while the CIA now looked

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outwardly m ore like SIS, being an integrated package handling all secret service activities with hum an agents, it had escaped from higher control. T he trajectory o f American developm ents thus remained very different from those in Britain. T he State D epartm ent, the Joint Chiefs o f Staff and the N ational Security Council had com peted for ow nership o f the CIA, b u t now it was slipping away from all o f them , to becom e a rival policy-maker in its own right. This would have a profound effect, not only on the nature o f the Cold War, but also on the conduct o f AngloAmerican relations.

PART II

The C o ld W ar G ets G oin g

1945-1949

4 M IS: Defectors, Spy-trials and Subversion This issue of Australian security is a real teaser. Since we spoke of the matter last Tuesday morning, I have heard of still a further incident which reveals a pretty serious state of affairs. It looks as if they have been penetrated at all possible levels. Genera] Leslie Hollis to Sir Henry' Tizard, 19 February 19481 ntelligence in the early Cold War contains num erous paradoxes. SIS, despite its lacklustre perform ance in the conflict with the Axis, had had a ‘good war’. Basking in the reflected glory o f Bletchley Park, it em etged to seize conư ol o f its m ost dangerous rival, SO E. Britain’s Security Service, MI5, despite remarkable trium phs such as the D oublecross System that turned H ider’s agents for deception purposes, did n o t have a ‘good war’. M I5 was associated with the tem porary surren­ d er o f civil liberties and with clausưophobic security measures such as mail censorship, things that all now wanted swept away. For political reasons, the new Prime Minister, Clem ent Atdee, was especially anxious to keep security on a tight leash. Yet m ajor challenges confronted Britain in the realm o f subversion and counter-espionage during the Atdee years. An under-resourced M I5, together with other security elements, strug­ gled to handle a deluge o f unpopular security work that few wished to adm it was in progress. A t the top the severity o f the security problem was understood from the outset. Cadogan, Menzies, M ontgom ery and others were aware o f the penetration o f W hitehall by Soviet agents and remarked on it during the war and soon after. As early as 1943, Menzies warned Cadogan about the penetration o f SIS, telling him frankly that he had ‘com m unists in his organization’. W hat action they took, if any, remains unknown. But on 14 April 1944 Churchill recorded, *We are purging all our secret establish­ m ents o f com m unists because we know they owe no allegiance to US or our cause and will always betray our secrets to the Soviets even while we

I

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are working together . . In Britain, Canada and Australia examples o f Soviet espionage and subversion came to light in the period before the onset o f the Berlin Crisis in 1948. T he story o f work against Soviet espi­ onage in the West is now dom inated by som ething called Venona, W estern efforts to break into the enciphered wireless traffic o f Soviet intelligence, which began to produce dividends in early 1948. But, as we shall see, this effort to read Soviet com m unications has tended to distract from an intriguing story that precedes it.2 MỈ5 had m aintained strong surveillance o f the Com m unist Part}' o f G reat Britain - known as the CPG B - throughout the war. T he Cabinet, including Labour's H erbert M orrison, the H om e Secretary, encouraged this and ensured that resulting MỈ5 reports were dissem inated at a high level. E rnest Bevin, Minister o f Labour and a powerful figure in the Cabinet, was also intensely suspicious o f CPGB. In M arch 1943 M orrison circulated a detailed MI5 briefing on C PG B to Cabinet, explaining that he was doing so because it was 'reliable and o f such inter­ est’. H e thought it essential to circulate it to the War Cabinet because it showed that, despite the wartime united front against Hider, the higher echelons o f CPG B had abandoned none o f their long-term revolutionary objectives. MI5 and the Special Branch were also keeping a close eye o n the Trotskyist m ovem ent in Britain led by Jam es H eston. But M orrison asserted that there was ‘no evidence o f external funding’ from the Soviet Union. W ith a total m em bership below 1,000 and an im pact upon indus­ try that was at best ‘slight’, they were n o t considered a threat.3 D espite a consensus in the wartime coalition governm ent about the need for surveillance o f CPGB, MỈ5 emerged from the war under a polit­ ical cloud. Clem ent Atdee decided o n a new director o f M I5 from outside the service w ho had strong democratic values. N o serious reorganisation o f MI5 was undertaken until the 1950s and the substantial section responsible for Soviet acdvities was being run dow n even in D ecem ber 1945. A tdee resisted pressure, from those m ore conscious o f Soviet activities, to introduce active security investigations into the back­ ground o f those with access to governm ent secrets, known as positive vetting. MI5 was n o t only a demoralised service, it was also oversttetched by twin dem ands made on it by the sưuggỉe against com m unist infiltration o f areas such as defence science and by a vast pattern o f unrest spreading across the Em pire in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. MI5, overworked but unloved, could n o t keep up with its routine duties and had little incentive to carry through innovative searches for highlevel Soviet penetration in the inner cừcỉes o f the British establishm ent. T he private diaries o f Britain’s elite betray a surprising disquiet regard­ ing the future o f M Ỉ5 at the end o f the war. A t its broadest, this was no m ore than an understandable reaction to the suffocating blanket o f secur­

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ity that been throw n over southern England in preparations for D-Day. B ut there were also m ore precise concerns. T here were several incidents in which MPs in W estminster appear to have been kept under surveil­ lance with m icrophones o r phone taps in pursuit o f possible security leaks about operational plans. Inform ation gained from postal censor­ ship had been used for overt political purposes. All were thoroughly con­ scious o f the potential abuses to which surveillance could be put.4 Part o f the disquiet arose not from M I5 but from the work o f Allies. E uropean governm ents in exile were billeted across London, and some, like the Polish and the French, had large security elements which seemed to operate freely. In the sum m er o f 1944, the M P Tom D riberg was pur­ suing the issue o f the m istreatm ent o f Jewish soldiers within the Polish H om e Army. He complained to E den that he had learned ‘from an exttemely reliable source’ that the Polish secret service ‘have my phone tapped’. T h is ’, he conceded, ‘seems quite fantastic, but my inform ant is, as I say, a reliable one.’ E den agreed to look into It.5 T he Allied secret ser­ vices o f the E uropean continent were em bedded in the wartim e govern­ m ents in exile, which had been billeted in an odd assortm ent o f buildings in west London. T he Free French secret service in L ondon, to name but one, had behaved in a vicious and arbitrary way. French nationals in L ondon were often picked up and taken to its Duke Street H Q for inter­ rogation. As a result there were cases before the courts. In February 1944, E den had warned Churchill that m em bers o f the French secret service were *behaving as if they were beyond the law’. E den had insisted on a new agreem ent between the French and MI5, whereby the British would carry out any arrests and M I5 would be present at subsequent interrogations.6 But there were also anxieties about MIS itself. Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the C hief o f the Imperial General Staff, was clearly worried. O n 19 N ovem ber 1944, he noted: Long talk with P J Grigg [Minister for War] on future of MỈ5 and the dangers attending the future should it fall into the wrong hands ... Finally Lennox who controls [War Office liaison with] MI5 to discuss the future of this organisadon and the grave danger of it falling into the clutches of unscrupulous polidcal hands o f which there are too many at present Alexander Cadogan was aware that som e sort o f subterranean enquiry was being conducted into MỈ5 in 1944. MI5 was anxious to stay away from Churchill’s immediate political entourage during this process. W hatever the nature o f these m anoeuvrings, the general disquiet about security activities throughout the country was detected even by ịunior officers. They recall ‘a strong current o f prejudice against M I5 in many prom inent d rcles’ at the end o f the war.7

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D uring the general election campaign o f June 1945 these private co n ­ cerns erupted into remarkable public controversy. Churchill chose a m ajor election broadcast o n the BBC to warn the public o f w hat a future L abour governm ent m ight have in store in the held o f public security. In a wild m om ent, he claimed that in order to enforce its will L abour would: have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely adminis­ tered in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders... and where would the ordinary simple folk - the common people as they like to call them in America —where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in their grip? In case anyone had failed to get the message about the dangers o f this fo rm id ab le m achine’, Churchill added, 'Socialism is inseparately inter­ woven w ith Totalitarianism.’ Clem ent Attlee was incensed and vigorous protests ensured that the offending remarks were eventually withdrawn. This ill-advised intervention by a war-weary Churchill was wide o f the mark. Labour harboured long-standing suspicions o f the secret services, dating back to the Zinoviev letter which had been unearthed by the secret services and which had contributed to the collapse o f the L abour govern­ m ent in the 1920s. But Churchill’s claims redoubled Attlee’s pre-existing determ ination to keep M I5 small and under firm ministerial control.8 In this highly charged political atm osphere there was never any p ro s­ pect o f an internal candidate taking the vacant po st o f director o f M I5. Instead a wide variety o f ư usted wartim e figures were considered. T h e shortlist included Pug Ismay, w ho ran the Chiefs o f Staff Secretariat; K enneth Strong, Eisenhower's popular intelligence chief, and M ountbatten’s intelligence chief, William Penney. O n the day, Percy Sillitoe, C hief Constable o f K ent, was appointed director o f M Ỉ5 o n a salary o f £3,000 a year.9 But this was n o t only a political decision by Attlee that reflected general consensus in Whitehall. Sillitoe simply o u t­ perform ed the other candidates. O n the night o f 19 N ovem ber 1945 Cadogan helped to interview Penney and Strong *but didn’t m uch plum p fo r either o f them ’. A week later the same group m et in the C abinet Secretary’s Office: ‘we were unanim ous in choosing Sillitoe, C h ief Constable. I thought he certainly seemed good.’ G uy Liddell, M I5 ’s inside candidate, had to content him self with being deputy, while th e appointm ent o f an outsider was regarded within the service as a vote o f n o confidence.10 Many individuals in governm ent have recalled with approval Sillitoe’s 'trenchant views o n the dangers o f police states and the im portance o f restrictions on police pow er’. However, Sillitoe perform ed b etter at in ter­ view than on the job. T h e lack o f long-term professional experience in

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die area o f security intelligence soon showed and he him self recorded, T h e prospect suddenly before m e caused m e qualms that would no t have been occasioned by the offer o f any straightforward police work.’ H e continued, *1 had n o way o f gauging my potential ability to cUrect the Security Service, ỉn com m on with the vast maịority o f the public, Ỉ knew very litde about the work o f MI5, and virtually nothing about the duties o f its chief.’11 H e exaggerated his ignorance o f security matters. As C hief C onstable o f K ent during the D-D ay preparations, security had preoccu­ pied him considerably and required him to work closely with the author­ ities in London. T he main problem was that, with the general trend towards university-educated officers in the higher echelons o f the secret services, som e regarded Sillitoe with a com bination o f professional and intellectual contem pt. Even his sympathetic biographer could n o t bring him self to describe the appointm ent as a success.12 M I5 was n ot reorganised or reinvigorated. U nder Sillitoe it retained its old pattern o f organisation with six divisions mostly based at its Curzon Stteet headquarters in Mayfair. T he cream o f MI5 was widely regarded to be B Division, which until recently had been headed by G uy Liddell, w hose B l(b) section had been involved in the D oublecross deception effort against Germany. It also contained a small but elite and highly secretive B5(b) section under Maxwell Knight, which kept a wartime watch o n CPGB. Sillitoe reportedly disliked the extreme secrecy and rel­ ative autonom y o f K night’s small crack unit based in D olphin Square. It was soon broken up and transferred back to Curzon Street. Accordingly, Yves Tangye recalled, ‘there were only two o r three people in the Russian section o f MI5 by the end o f the war’. This was in sharp contrast to SIS, which, as we have seen, had begun to create a new Soviet section in 1944. T h e shift to peacetime also brought the loss o f M I5’s valuable wartime powers, including blanket postal censorship and the ability to intern people alm ost at will.13 By contrast M I5’s responsibilities in 1945 were uniquely vast. Although it was responsible for security and counter-intelligence only in British territory, British territory had expanded remarkably in the last days o f the war. British occupation ư oops were spread all over E urope and Asia. O n 9 June 1945, one o f the last acts o f Sillitoe’s predecessor as director o f M I5, Sir David Petrie, was to set out o n an expedition across E urope to speak to his officers in Eisenhow er’s SH A EF H Q in G erm any and ‘elsewhere on the C ontinent’ for he knew that MI5 was stretched to the limit.14 Although security in G erm any and Austria was, in theory, the responsibility o f the British Military G overnm ent, MI5 was asked to advise on the growing security problems. By 19 July 1946 one British official lam ented that T h e num ber o f low grade agents o f Russian alle­ giance w ho have recendy arrived in o u r Z one [of Germany] is so large as

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to make it burdensom e to keep a tally o f them .’ Soviet efforts to recruit any G erm ans working for the British C ontrol Com m ission had 'increased markedly’. But as yet there was no attem pt to repeat the spec­ tacular success o f the wartime Doublecross operations by recruiting Soviet agents.15 H ow did Britain and the United States respond to would-be Soviet defectors in the awkward period between 1944 and 1946? In this twilight period between world war and Cold War, many had identified the Soviet Union as the 'next target’, but active intelligence-gathering activities were risky and the façade o f the wartime G rand Alliance remained im portant. T he story o f the first defectors indicates that, while the antennae o f the secret services were being retuned, this was an uneven process and was certainly n ot yet publicly admissible. Some elements, typically in SIS o r in US Army Intelligence in Europe, had begun to refocus on the Soviets in 1944. But diplom ats in L ondon and W ashington regarded defectors as an unwelcome em barrassm ent and wished to return them to their hom e country, regardless o f their fate. In April 1944, Victor Kravchenko, a Soviet diplom at stationed in W ashington, decided to defect. British and American officials regarded this as horribly embarrassing and a threat to good relations with the Soviets. Charles Bohlen, a rising star in the State D epartm ent, confessed that he ‘attached no great im portance to the incident’ but hoped Kravchenko could be persuaded to return to the Soviet Union. L ondon diplom ats expressed regret that the Russian could not be expelled and indeed was legally perm itted to apply for residency. They added hope­ fully: 'I t is o f course quite possible that the G PU may solve the difficulty for the im m igration authorities by bum ping him off themselves.’ (T he G PU had in fact becom e the N K V D in 1934, but many still used the oldfashioned term.) Victor Kravchenko’s case prom pted L ondon to review its general line on Soviet defectors at this late stage in the war, taking into account w hat it knew o f other cases, including those o f Walter Krivitsky and Grigory Bessedovsky, two other high-profile wartime defectors. It did n ot believe Kravchenko’s assertions o f political dissidence and took a cynical view o f all Soviet officials trying to jump ship: The alternatives are (1) that he really believes what he said in his statement: (it seems a bit odd however that it should take him 22 years to come to this con­ clusion, the last seven months of which he spent in the United States); (2) he may have been recalled and just decided it was nicer here; (3) the hostages held against his name back home (the GPU usually keeps an eye on the relatives of Soviet officials abroad) may have died, or he may have just decided that he does not really care what happens to them; (4) he may have been caught with his wrists in the dll and decided to take the breeze; (5) he may have a girlfriend here of whom his superiors disapprove.

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T h e general consensus was to hope that the whole business would ‘soon be forgotten’.16 Miraculously, Kravchenko managed to avoid repatriation and by the late 194ỠS was being treated as a valuable exhibit by the State D epartm ent. Disdain was a fairly uniform wartime attitude and saved diplomatic em barrassm ent, but it entailed a high cost. In Istanbul in 1944, the US Military Attaché was approached by M ajor Akhm ed, the Assistant Military Attaché in the Soviet Embassy. Akhm ed faced a dilemma. H e had been recalled to M oscow and did n o t know the reason. T he purpose m ight be quite innocent, a routine reassignm ent perhaps. But he feared that he had been implicated in some ongoing purge trials and recognised that his fate was at least uncertain. H e contacted the US Military Attaché and explained that he wished to defect, bringing with him im portant inform ation o n Soviet intelligence operations within the U nited States, including espionage within the atom ic program m e. But the US Military Attaché considered this behaviour im proper and followed correct proce­ dure. H e inform ed A khm ed’s superior, the Soviet Military Attaché. Sensing that som ething was w rong Akhmed fled just in time and success­ fully turned him self over to the Turkish Security Service, which was less well disposed to the Soviets, offering it w hat he knew o f Soviet opera­ tions inside Turkey. Only in 1947, with the advent o f the Trum an D octrine, the form al proclam ation o f American containm ent, did the Turkish Security Service feel the climate had changed sufliciendy for it to offer Akhmed safely to the American authorities for debriefing. But by then m uch o f w hat he had to tell was o u t o f date.17 Alexander Rado, the fam ous chief o f the Soviet GRU military intelli­ gence network in wartime Switzerland —the linchpin o f the so-called Red O rchestra, the large GRU spy network in Nazi-occupied E urope —pre­ sents an especially fascinating case. Rado had run a large and successful intelligence netw ork operating into Switzerland which had been broken up by the Swiss police in 1943. A t this point Rado had asked M oscow about the possibility o f taking refuge at the British Em bassy by approaching the British intelligence service, SIS, but perm ission was denied. Instead Rado made his way to Paris. T here he linked up with his radio operator, a British com m unist called Alexander Foote. While in lib­ erated Paris, Rado, Foote and their distinguished colleague Leopold Trepper, w ho ran other Red O rchestra networks in wartime E urope, were all persuaded to return voluntarily to M oscow in January 1945 to subm it a final report on their wartime activities. T he offer had been m ade by the Soviet Military Mission which had arrived in Paris in N ovem ber 1944 to ịoin the growing army o f intelligence outfits that were establish­ ing themselves in the newly liberated capital. But Rado’s journey was erratic. His colleague Leopold T repper

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recalled that, while travelling to M oscow via the Middle East, Rado attem pted to defect to M Ỉ5 in Cairo. T repper noted that at the tim e ‘Rado’s disappearance obsessed m e’, and he praised Rado’s ‘realism as a m an o f learning' w ho had the sense to realise that ‘nothing had changed in the K ingdom o f the G P U ’. But, T repper added, Rado's flight was to no avail. MI5 at Cairo returned him to the Soviets in the interests o f ‘good Anglo-Soviet relations’. Why was Rado, a significant intelligence catch by any standards, deliberately handed back to the Soviets in July 1945 at a tim e when the British secret services were already refocusing o n their new target? T repper blames Rado's fate on the malignant influence o f Kim Philby, while others have suggested that this bizarre episode was the result o f unholy collaboration between three o f Stalin’s E nglishm en, Philby, D onald Maclean and Jam es K lugm ann.18 T h e real story is quite different. MỈ5 docum ents reveal a great deal about the oudying stations o f British intelligence and about defection during the early Cold War. In fact, Rado did n o t ư u st British intelligence and chose n o t to attem pt a full defecdon. Instead o f ưading o n his high status to obtain sanctuary from the G ulag that he felt increasingly sure awaited him, he played an independent game and presented him self as a lower-grade Soviet agent o f Hungarian origin w ho had worked fo r the Soviets and wished to return to France. N either the local M Ỉ5 organisa­ tion in Cairo nor Alex Kellar, a senior MI5 officer in L ondon w ho saw his case, recognised his im portance. However, once he had been discarded by MI5 as a lowly Soviet agent he was designated a m ere D isplaced Person (DP), swept into the repatriation program m e and forced to return to the Soviet Union. M onths later Rado’s true espionage status, and his surprisingly high-level personal contacts in L ondon w ith socialist figures such as H arold Laski, became clear. A t this p oint the Foreign Office, which had helped to determ ine his fate, decided it was b e st to keep silent about his six-m onth stay with the authorities in Cairo an d th e m anner o f his forcible ư ansfer into Soviet custody. Alexander Rado, Leopold T repper and Alexander Foote, the three R ed O rchestra veterans, left Paris o n a Russian aircraft o n 8 January 1945 w ith five o th er passengers bound for Moscow. Heavy fighting was still in progress in N o rth ern and Central Europe. T heir short-range aircraft w as forced to take a long detour, stopping at Marseilles, Tripolitania, C airo, Palestine and Teheran. T he flight was supposedly for ‘Russian P o W s' and they all travelled under false names, but in reality it was a V IP flight, including leading Soviet political exiles from the 1920s invited to re tu rn to M oscow by Molotov. Rado fell into conversation w ith th em a n d explained that his netw ork had been uncovered and rolled u p by th e Swiss counter-espionage service. O n e o f the passengers expressed su r­ prise that Rado was com ing hom e o f his own accord, explaining to h im

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‘th a t failures were harshly dealt with in Russia and that once there he was n o t likely to be able to return to Paris'. Rado had agreed to travel because h e was a professional geographer and thought the trip would be interest­ ing. B ut at this point ‘Rado’s fears were aroused'. O nce they arrived in E gypt, further conversations with Foote and T repper increased his anxiety. H e suspected that he would n o t be able to return to his wife H elen and his young family, still in Paris. T he travellers were n o t under any restraint in Cairo and o n 11 January he fled from the hotel where he was staying and presented him self at the British Embassy. T h ere Rado appealed for asylum. H e gave officials his real name and explained that he was really a Hungarian w ho had worked as an agent for th e Soviets in Paris and G eneva and that he was travelling under a false identity. H e played up his background as an academic geographer with an em inent academic reputation but said nothing o f the Red O rchestra. H e explained that he now believed ‘that he would be shot on arrival in the Soviet U nion' and claimed British protection, asking to be sent to Paris o r L ondon. But he was told that as a non-British national he could not be assisted by the Embassy. This m ight have been the end o f the m atter, but his presence had been routinely reported to Britain’s Security Intelligence M iddle E ast o r SỈM E, which took an interest in his case. D avid Muire, a talented officer working on deception in the Middle E ast, once offered an irreverent definition o f SIM E as ‘M I5 behaving rather like M I6 [SIS] but doing it rather better'. SIM E was the Middle E astern m anifestation o f M I5 and worked with a num ber o f local bodies including the counter-espionage wing o f SIS, Section V. Since the sum m er o f 1944, it had been ru n by Brigadier Douglas Roberts and was still based in the G rey Pillars building o f the military H Q in Cairo. Rado was interrogated by two M I5 officers, Captains Bidmead and Dunkerly, o n 12 January 1945. T he N K V D was now com bing Cairo looking for him and Rado was dependent on SIM E for protection. Yet he was terse and disingenuous w ith his captors. T hey noted that for ‘a m an o f such training and education he is extremely vague when telling his story and gives the briefest details o n each point o f it’. Instead o f attem pting to sell him self to M I5 as a Soviet intelligence chief, he behaved like any C om intern agent o f the 1930s, pretending to be inconsequential and ho p in g to slip through the net o f British imperial security. He presented him self as a lowly sub-agent o f his ow n Swiss network and instead chose to play up his tim e in the resistance in France in 1944. He explained that he had held the rank o f lieutenant with the Maquis in Villiers for a year from late 1943 to late 1944 and had interrogated G erm an prisoners. He said nothing about his C om intern background, or indeed about his pre­ vious tim e in Moscow, w here he had married Lenin's secretary, then H elen Jansen, in 1931.

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Two hours after his interrogation Rado made a suicide attem pt. By 17 January, after a further attem pt on his own life, he was in a Cairo h o sp i­ tal. T he Soviets had now tracked him dow n and were requesting his return. Successful in slipping through his MI5 interrogation as a lowlevel agent, his case would now be treated as one o f a m ere D isplaced Person. But Killearn, the British Am bassador in Cairo, seem ed to sense that he was m ore than just a faceless refugee and asked L ondon w hat should be done with him. L ondon was surprised that Killearn should take an interest when E urope was awash with refugees. It suggested that he be handed over to the Cairo police, who, as it knew, would hand him over to the Russians unless the British told them to do otherwise. In 1945, local security in Cairo was still largely in the hands o f the British. Although nominally independent, King Farouk o f E gypt had agreed that, for the duration o f the war, m atters such as policing w ould be run by London. T he Cairo police were thus still a force under British control and the many British officers in the Egyptian police fell into three categories: the ‘N ine’, the com m andants and senior officers retained by the Egyptians at London’s request; the ‘Indispensables’, the officers retained at the Egyptians’ own request; and the E uropean Liaison Officers, paid for by the British authorities. O n 5 February Rado was handed over to the Egyptian police and kept in Z eitoun detention cam p. O n 30 July he was surrendered to the Soviets and left in an aircraft for Moscow. Killearn noted that his departure was watched by the Cairo police and that Rado ‘showed considerable reluctance to board the air­ craft but was eventually persuaded to do so’. British officials were free o f the Rado case for only a few weeks. T h e Em bassy in Cairo soon received a letter from Rado’s sister-in-law, M rs Jansen, writing on behalf o f his wife Helen, w ho was ill, enquiring about his whereabouts. T he Red Cross had inform ed R ado’s family, tactfully, th at he had been injured in an ‘air accident’ but had n o t m entioned his repeated suicide attem pts, adding that he was interned in Z eitoun cam p at Cairo. British officials were alarmed by the high-level contacts in L ondon that the Rado family now conịured up. As a renow ned geogra­ p h er and well-connected E uropean socialist, Rado had im p o rtan t friends, including the M inister o f Education, Ellen W ilkinson, and the publisher Victor Gollancz. T hey all wanted to know w hat they had to d o to secure R ado’s release from the Zeitoun camp in Cairo. British officials in Cairo said as little as possible. They explained th at Rado had left by air for M oscow ‘under escort’. A further letter was so o n received at the British Em bassy in Cairo asking ‘by w hat authority was he handed over?’ Killearn was disturbed. But, since Rado had been han d ed over to the Cairo police and thence to the Soviets on instructions from i>ondon, he considered it a L ondon problem. O n 15 N ovem ber 1945 he

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w rote to E rnest Bevin ‘regarding the disposal o f Alexander Rado’, explaining that SỈM E had handed him over to the Egyptian police, ‘in accordance with the instructions in your telegram’. Killearn added tartly, ‘In the drcum stances Ỉ have the honour to request that you will reply direct to Mrs Jansen.’ T he Foreign Office knew it was in a tight com er. Initially, Rado had appeared to be a lowly D P and Soviet agent to w hom Killearn had shown to o much solicitude. Inundated w ith D P s in E urope its approach was to send them eastward with all despatch. But now it was uncertain how to respond. Thom as Brimelow, a senior official in the Foreign Office N o rth ern D epartm ent w ho had special responsibility for D P issues, noted that m ore inform ation could be obtained by making further enquiries o f the Embassy in Cairo. T hen he added, ‘but 1 do not w ant to ask, as my chief anxiety is to steer clear o f this case’. W ith the approval o f E rn est Bevin and the Legal D epartm ent, an evasive reply was despatched to Mrs Jansen suggesting that ‘you address your enquiries to the Soviet Em bassy in Cairo’. Rado’s family knew that the Foreign Office was hiding som ething and were persistent. F urther letters followed and by the autum n o f 1947 they had persuaded Professor H arold Laski o f the L ondon School o f Econom ics, w ho had just been elected chairman o f the Labour Party, to write to Devin on their behalf. Laski asked Bevin if ‘as an act o f great hum anity’ he could give Mrs Helen Rado any further inform ation about her husband’s disappearance, particularly, ‘if he is dead, the grounds o n which he was executed’. Laski’s intervention only m ade the diplom ats m ore reticent. T hom as Brimelow reflected that, although it had given Rado to the Egyptians in February 1945, the British Embassy had also seen him three days before his departure in July. It had decided to grant a transit visa for his unwill­ ing excursion via Palestine and Teheran to Moscow. By now Rado’s full background was becom ing clearer. By 1946, the Foreign Office had identified him as the ‘H ead o f Soviet Espionage in Switzerland’: ‘H e appears to have worked, n o t too successfully, as a Soviet a g e n t. . . To judge by the story he told the Embassy in Cairo, and by his attem pted suicide there, he was in terror o f the Russians, and it is quite possible that he was shot on arrival in the U.S.S.R. But we do not really know w hat the Russians had against him, n o t do we know w hat happened to him after he left E gypt’. Brimelow urged his colleagues to ‘keep silent o n this score’. Bevin’s reply to Laski was polite but brief and uninformative. In com m on w ith previous missives, it failed to m ention that Rado had been in the hands o f SIM E, the local M Ỉ5, o r that L ondon had decided to pass him on to the British-run Egyptian police in the sure knowledge that he would then be handed into Soviet custody for despatch to Moscow. Alexander Rado is probably the m ost famous Soviet agent o f the

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Second World War. But his intriguing soịourn in the hands o f British security has been m isunderstood. Some have claimed that he tried to defect but was rejected by the British, while others have even suggested that he was hunted down on the streets o f Cairo by British security and handed over to the Soviets. Instead, Rado, caught in the hiatus between conflicts, played an independent, and ultimately unsuccessful, game hoping to make his ow n way back to Paris o r London. He sought to make him self sufficiently interesting to the British at Cairo to avoid being handed over to the Soviets, w ho he believed would kill him, but sufliciendy dull to avoid the prolonged attention o f the MỈ5 officers at SIME. But he was unaware o f the prevailing British policy towards D P s and POW s sought by the Soviets, the final details o f which were being agreed at the Yalta Conference even while he was in Cairo. H ow SIM E would have treated him had he announced him self to be the GRU C hief in Switzerland, on the run from his masters, is a question that m ust remain unanswered. Instead he passed virtually unnoticed through one o f the largest MI5 stations outside London. British security did not know w ho Rado was in early 1945 and his fate was determ ined by mischance and ignorance. Amusingly, if we are to believe the autobiographies o f Rado’s col­ leagues in the Red O rchestra, T repper and Foote, both the British and the Soviets mistakenly came to suspect each other o f ‘liquidating’ Rado in 1945. Alexander Foote, w ho stayed with the main N K V D party flying from Paris to Cairo in January 1945 and arrived in Moscow, knew that Rado’s disappearance in Cairo would place him under extreme suspicion. As a British national and a senior m em ber o f the same GRU network in Switzerland, on his arrival in M oscow he was accused o f working for the British as a double agent. He simply presum ed that Rado had defected to the British in Cairo. But M oscow placed a m ore arcane interpretation on Rado’s disappearance, suggesting that MI5 had ‘liquidated’ him in Cairo to prevent him from travelling to M oscow and revealing Foote’s position as a double agent working for British intelligence. Foote was n o t in fact a double agent but a loyal wartime servant o f Moscow. Accordingly, although Foote loathed Rado, it was nevertheless fortunate for him that the Soviets reclaimed Rado in the sum m er o f 1945. O nce Rado had been transported to Moscow, it was the turn o f L ondon to conclude that Rado had probably been shot by the Soviet authorities for failing in his mission for the GRU. In fact Rado endured ten years o f prison, before being released at the same tim e as Leopold Trepper, following the death o f Stalin.19 Igor G ouzenkou began his hazardous journey from hum ble Soviet Embassy cipher clerk to Cold War icon in Septem ber 1945. Enjoying the genuine obscurity that Rado had feigned in Cairo, his fate was very nearly

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th e same. W hen he attem pted to defect to the authorities in Canada, w here he was stationed, the first instinct o f many in authority was to retu rn him to the Soviets like an inconvenient piece o f lost property. But crucially his efforts to evade return to the Soviet U nion occurred just a litde later than the endgam e o f the Rado case. T he period between his defection in Septem ber 1945 and the public disclosure o f his decision in M arch 1946 reveals a great deal about the changing W estern attitudes tow ards the Soviet U nion and Soviet defectors. Although Igor G ouzenkou initially found his reception no m ore enthusiastic than that afforded to Rado, his defection had a transform a­ tive effect o n the landscape for others. In the six m onths between his uneasy defection and public revelations about his case, defectors m oved from being an unwelcome burden to being a desirable commodity. Com m onw ealth security then emerged as a m ajor issue am ong W estern states, with elaborate investigations being launched in Canberra and O ttaw a as a direct result. Meanwhile, defectors and the espionage threat becam e indelibly associated with atom ic weapons and strategic technol­ ogy. T h e United States Congress had already im plem ented the M cM ahon A ct in early 1946, making the passing o f atom ic inform ation to any other pow er a criminal offence, w hen the G ouzenkou story broke. Unaware o f wartim e Anglo-American—Canadian co-operation in this field, Congress sought only to secure national control over the valuable commercial applications o f atom ic energy. But, once the act was passed, the G ouzenkou case ensured that the American resum ption o f atom ic co­ operation with Britain and the Com m onw ealth would be withheld pending the construction o f a suitably heavyweight security apparatus. Ig o r G ouzenkou was a lieutenant in the Soviet Arm y posted as a cipher clerk to the Soviet Em bassy in O ttaw a in 1943. In the autum n o f 1945, w hen his tour was over, he concluded that life was better in the West. Unlike Rado, he did n o t expect a free passage. To secure his future he seized a bundle o f files on Soviet espionage in N o rth America in the hope o f trading this for secure asylum. This included som e o f the m ost sensitive recent atom ic intelligence traffic to and from Moscow. G ouzenkou fled the Soviet Embassy, with his wife and child in tow, on the evening o f 5 Septem ber 1945. His first p o rt o f call was the offices o f the OttawaJournal, but an editor turned him away, unable to com prehend his story. H e was directed to the Royal Canadian M ounted Police (RCMP), which had M I5-type responsibilities, b u t instead he decided to head for the D epartm ent o f Justice. It was evening however, and this was closed. T h e next m orning, after further fruidess visits to the D epartm ent o f Justice and the press, where he showed off his collection o f purloined espionage docum ents, he headed hom e w ith threats o f com m itting suicide. T h e Soviets were already looking for him.

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U nknow n to G ouzenkou, his activities were already causing panic in high places. O n the same m orning, 6 Septem ber, his wish to defect w ith a cargo o f espionage materials was m ade known to Canada’s Premier, Mackenzie King, and his immediate circle. King was loath to risk an in c i­ dent’ with the Soviets on the eve o f a m ajor three-power Conference o f Foreign Ministers in London, which he hoped would calm worsening relations betw een E ast and West. H e was briefed by N orm an Robertson, the senior diplom at in charge o f Canadian intelligence, including its signals intelligence effort. Reportedly the G ouzenko material showed clearly that Soviet intelligence was busy in the United States and Canada and had penetrated the State D epartm ent and the M anhattan Project that had built the atomic bom b. G ouzenkou also offered im portant Soviet intelligence cable traffic, which W estern cryptanalysts had so far found quite unbreakable. To N orm an R obertson, w ho was attem pting to secure Canada’s place in an expanding netw ork o f post-war W estern intelligence alliances, the would-be defector’s material looked like valuable collateral and so he urged his chief to seize the opportunity. Robertson knew that the evidence was priceless and they contacted ‘Little Bill* Stephenson, a prom inent Canadian who, as we have seen, had headed the wartim e SIS station in N ew York, British Security Co-ordination. Stephenson, like R obertson, advised giving G ouzenkou asylum, but they were overruled by King. Mackenzie King saw things quite differendy. ‘It was like a bom b o n top o f everything,’ he lam ented to his diary, and it seemingly threatened all sorts o f dangerous o r damaging possibilities. H e was n o t prepared to upset the Soviets just because an eccentric individual was trying to improve his own circumstances. T hus G ouzenkou was refused asylum and returned to his apartm ent; like Rado, he threatened suicide to avoid the fate awaiting him on return to the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, K ing ordered that a watch be kept o n his premises to see if the Soviets col­ lected him. I f he did com m it suicide, his cache o f docum ents could then be quickly seized with less chance o f an incident. R obertson was dis­ mayed and argued that this m eant that the governm ent would be a party either to suicide o r murder. But King, w ho was prone to remarkable o u t­ bursts o f sentimentality when the m ood took him, remained unm oved.20 By the evening o f the same day, 6 Septem ber, the Soviets had settled the issue. A tough four-m an Soviet security unit arrived at the G ouzenkous’ flat, broke dow n the d o o r and began to turn it upside down. T he RCMP surveillance team then arrived and the Soviets retreated into the night, refusing to be held and claiming diplom atic immunity. Wisely, G ouzenkou and his family had been hiding w ith a neighbour. Only at this point, after dangling in the wind for som e thirty hours, were they taken into protective custody and given asylum. T hey

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were whisked away to Cam p X, a large wartim e secret service facility in Canada superintended by Stephenson. A joint team provided by the RCMP, the American FBI and British intelligence now began to pick over the treasure trove o f materials that G ouzenkou had brought from th e Soviet Embassy. This team included Peter Dwyer, the SIS head o f station in W ashington, and Roger Hollis from M I5 in London. Sir Stewart Menzies later arrived on the scene in person. Immediately it was clear that they were looking at an elaborate network o f espionage which included Canadian civil servants, scientists and politicians together with British citizens and the likely com prom ise o f im portant cipher systems.2' G ouzenkou’s revelations about the scale o f Soviet espionage in N o rth America were inseparable from atom ic issues. First, his material revealed the espionage o f Allan N unn May, a British atom ic scientist working on the M anhattan Project w ho returned to L ondon in O ctober 1945. Secondly, it Sttongly influenced the thinking o f Atdee, King and Trum an as they considered the possibility o f international control for the atomic bom b. Even as the L ondon Conference o f Foreign Ministers broke up in disagreement, M Ỉ5 was preparing to arrest N unn May while Trum an, Byrnes, A tdee and King were in constant com m unication over w hat they considered to be a dangerous issue. King and Robertson had abandoned their routine business and travelled to L ondon for extended discussions with officials and Ministers. MI5 and SIS wanted to arrest N unn May at once, and even the usually cautious Attlee acceded, calling for a ‘show -down’. Trum an and King were m ore wary, anxious that public opinion m ight be affected and that the possibilities o f agreem ent o n troublesom e atomic issues might thereby be impeded. Attlee was willing to accom m odate T rum an and King, b ut E rnest Bevin, w ho had been briefed by King over dinner on 10 Septem ber and was keen to see action, weighed in with the words ‘I think we are being too tender.’ So N unn May was arrested. By this stage D r Jo h n C ockroft from the British atom ic program m e had reviewed the exact nature o f N unn May’s espionage. H e guessed, correctly, that although he could have handed over som e samples o f uranium, he knew little real detail about the technical process o f making the bom b, which was the m ost dem anding aspect o f attaining such a capability.22 O n 19 February 1946 the G ouzenkou story burst on an unsuspecting public. T he United States was rocked by press revelations which focused o n Soviet espionage within the M anhattan program m e undertaken by N u n n May. A garbled version o f the story was leaked in W ashington to the remorseless political colum nist D rew Pearson. Pearson presented these events as clear evidence o f the Soviet U nion’s plans for world dom ­ ination, well outside its current probings into areas such as Turkey and Iran. King was horrified, but now the material was out he chose to ride

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the wave and announced a Canadian Royal Com mission to investigate Soviet espionage in Canada and produce a public re p o rt T h ữ te en persons identified by G ouzenko’s docum ents were already being held by the RCM P w ithout access to lawyers and were threatened with punish­ m ent if they did n o t speak. M ost chose to co-operate and the result was an increasingly detailed picture o f Soviet clandestine activities.23 G eneral Leslie R. Groves, head o f the American atom ic program m e, was a key figure in prom pting the G ouzenkou enquiry. Since 1944, G roves had becom e increasingly aware o f widespread Soviet espionage in the Anglo-American—Canadian atomic program m e, but had been reluctant to be the first to lift the lid. Some o f the sources o f his inform a­ tion rem ain mysterious. But now the G ouzenkou case conveniently allowed L ondon and O ttaw a to take the heat, while providing a w elcom e counter to State D epartm ent officials w ho still favoured seeking im proved relations with the Soviets. D rew Pearson now penned fu rth er press stories suggesting that G ouzenkou had revealed netw orks o f 1,700 spies across the U nited States and Canada. A nti-com m unist activists o n Capitol Hill, w ho had hitherto been obscure figures running a small preM cCarthyite H ouse Un-American Activities C om m ittee, now announced that they were chasing these Soviet spies. A n em bryonic China Lobby was already emerging. G eneral Patrick Hurley, W ashington’s form er A m bassador in China, returned from his w artim e confrontations with the Chinese com m unists to confirm th at W ashington had already know n that the Soviets had been busy stealing atom ic secrets. By M arch 1946 the G ouzenkou episode was indelibly associated in the public m ind with the problem o f m anaging atom ic pow er and retaining the American nuclear monopoly. In m id-1946, som e 11,900 copies o f the G ouzenkou Report, known as the Blue B ook, w ere issued and the US Arm y bought a further 13,000 copies o f a sh o rten ed version com m issioned from an American journalist Sir A lexander Clutterbuck, the British High Com m issioner in Ottaw a, offered L o n d o n som e wise observations. T he report, he conceded, was a brilliant w ork o f investigation and, m oreover, unlike m ost governm ent reports, was a racy read. B ut he was disturbed by the disregard for civil liberties displayed by th e Com m ission in obtaining evidence and saw this as p o in tin g to future trouble.24 Bevin was quick to recognise the value o f the G ouzenkou case. H e gave discreet instructions to his private secretary, Pierson D ixon, th a t it was to be plugged for all it was w orth, but w ithout the Foreign O ffice being seen to take a hand. Bevin wanted 4,000 copies o f the re p o rt ordered from Canada and persuaded Mackenzie King to prom ise th a t they would be printed quickly. He also wanted the Blue B ook circulated to various trade unions in Britain and had got King to prom ise to supply

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sufficient numbers. T he addresses o f the union secretaries were to be obtained from L abour Party headquarters at T ransport H ouse, and officials would then ‘send the books o u t in “a plain sealed w rapper” from the Foreign Office. i.e. there should be no indication that they have com e from the Foreign Office’. Devin also wanted to see Kravchenko's book I Chose Freedom circulated. R obert Hale had bought the U K rights bu t were slow in publishing it. T he Foreign Office, which wished to buy 200 copies for discreet distribution, persuaded a num ber o f people, including R obert Bruce Lockhart, the wartime propaganda co-ordinator, to push Hale privately to publish faster.25 T he Soviets felt compelled to respond to this level o f publicity. They insisted that the Com m ission had propa­ gated Vulgar slander, stupid invention, unpardonable lies, the exposition o f the bubbling slanderous fabrications and generally unpardonable ravings o f Igor G ouzenkou, a traitor to his M otherland'.26 In Britain, the trial o f Allan N unn May provoked diverse reactions. Som e scientists considered N unn May to be the ‘first m artyr o f the atomic age’. Popular opinion was less sympathetic and the News Chronicle carried letters that suggested such an individual should be ‘shot as a traitor o r shut up as a dangerous lunatic’. Scientific comm unities everywhere, bastions o f liberal and free thought, were now under extreme scrutiny for political loyalty. T he Canadian High Com m issioner in Canberra presciently fore­ cast that this would soon reverberate in Australia, where com m unist influence in scientific and intellectual circles was considerable. A t the University o f Sydney, 300 scientific workers had held a m eeting on the issue and the gathering, he insisted, had been ‘stiff with Com m unists’. Liberal-m inded scientists concerned about the im pact o f new weapons and m ethods o f warfare were now routinely suspect.27 By mid-1946 the G ouzenkou and N unn May revelations were a cause célèbre. T hey had arrived during critical discussions in Britain about the possibility o f a m ore offensive policy towards the Soviet Union. Action now seem ed imperative. T he Foreign Office concluded that it was essen­ tial to deal with ‘infiltration o f crypto-com m unists’ into W estern organ­ isations, societies and overseas delegations; ‘this means using Special Branch, C ỈD a n d /o r MI5,’ it asserted. But it was also in the public realm that measures were required. Robin Hankey, the new head o f the N o rth ern D epartm ent, argued that the real lesson o f the G ouzenkou affair was the dangerous distance between benign public impressions o f the Soviets and the nasty reality that had been revealed in Canada: T h is makes it m ore than ever necessary to quish our own public opinion into a correct view o f Russian aims and activities.’28 Events in Canada also dom inated the view o f Soviet intelligence services taken by SIS, for so m uch o f its other inform ation was, by its own admission, o f wartim e or pre-w ar vintage.29

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G ouzenkou also had an im pact at the top. A fter reading the Canadian Blue Book, H erbert M orrison, w ho had been the wartime H om e Secretary and was now Lord President o f the Council, wrote to Attlee urging the im portance o f the case as showing the vast extent o f the com ­ m unist fifth colum n in the West. He was anxious that the Soviet Union had discouraged 'certain selected sympathizers’ from openly joining the Com m unist Party so that they could do clandestine work and seemingly ‘was secredy preparing for a T hird World War*. It was he said, 'quite a thriller with plenty o f hum an interest’. T he revelations were also a turning point for opinion in the Foreign Office, which itself bought 400 copies o f the report for distribution to officials in governm ent in order to ‘alert’ them to the extent o f Soviet spy activities. By the end o f 1946, the JIC had turned its attention to the role o f com m unists in Whitehall, espe­ cially in the key area o f atom ic power and defence science. Positive vetting and the first British Cold War security purge were n o t far off.30 W hitehall and W ashington were now very jumpy about Soviet espion­ age. In the sum m er o f 1946 the British Chiefs o f Staff set up a ‘special’ contingency war plans body called the Future Planning Section, staffed with the brightest officers. Shortly afterwards they were approached by the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff, w ho asked if they wished to get together for joint emergency war planning on w hat they thought would soon be a war against the Soviets in Germany. This was just w hat the British wanted —a chance to sustain the Anglo-American military alliance —and to tie it into the defence o f a weak and vulnerable Europe. Yet as M ontgomery, the new C hief o f the Imperial General Staff, recorded, he vetoed any such discussions as too dangerous. 'It was a sure bet’, he noted, ‘that the Russians would hear about it within a m atter o f days if n ot hours.' H e was sensitive to the extent o f Soviet penetration o f W hitehall and W ashington, even o f very sensitive military planning bodies. T he US Joint Chiefs o f Staff made another approach on 1 August 1946 and again M ontgom ery was very anxious that this over­ ture ‘o f the greatest im portance’ should not leak. H e now decided that the talks should go ahead, but only amid the tightest security. They were kept extremely secret and were conducted on a need-to-know basis. T he US Joint Chiefs o f Staff were equally anxious about penetration and had ‘so far kept the whole m atter secret from the State D epartm ent and the President’.31 L ondon also knew that W ashington now took a dim view o f security throughout the British Com monwealth. Severe measures were ordered by the Royal Com mission in Ottawa. T here was close co­ operation between the RCMP, MI5 and the FBI, which led to the form a­ tion o f the Canadian Internal Security Panel. Vigorous vetting o f governm ent employees was carried out by the RCMP from 1946, which had ‘recendy re-organised its Special Branch’. This restored American

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confidence in the Canadians. But W ashington’s suspicions now turned from Canada to Australia.32 Soviet espionage in Australia had been known to an inner core o f W estern officials since 1944. It became clear from decrypted Japanese codes that Tokyo was som ehow obtaining very sensitive American docu­ m ents about the war effort in General M acA rthur’s South-W est Pacific Area com m and by tapping into a Soviet espionage net, and it appeared that they were being obtained at source by Soviet agents in Canberra. Exactly how the Japanese were raking off the proceeds o f this Soviet espionage is still not clear, but the facts were unmistakable.33 In 1946 inform ation from G ouzenkou also pointed to espionage in Australia. Again espionage was focusing on m ajor strategic develop­ m ents relating to science and future warfare, n o t least in atom ic weapons, biological and chemical weapons, guided missiles and counter-m easures such as radar. Vast uninhabited spaces were required to develop som e o f the m ore noxious weapons on this list and so in July 1946 the British had held the Inform al Com m onwealth Conference on D efence Science in L ondon to agree a global program m e for weapons developm ent with their Com m onwealth affiliates. Australia’s wide open spaces seemed crit­ ical to British plans to develop guided missiles, pilodess aircraft and atom ic weapons. Meanwhile Suffield in Canada and Proserpine in Australia became main sites for developing biological and chemical weapons.34 Percy Sillitoe, the D irector o f MI5, saw the connection immediately and intervened in Com m onwealth discussions on defence science as early as the end o f 1946. If these plans were to go ahead, he argued, ‘it is o f vital im portance that Australian security arrangem ents. . . should be o f the highest order’. M Ỉ5 had already been to Australia to look over the secret policing arrangem ents provided by C anberra’s Com m onwealth Investigation Service. MI5 had found that this local organism was ‘neither organised at H .Q , no r adequately staffed, n o r has it sufficient powers . . . n o r is it capable o f conducting adequate vetting enquiries’. In o th er words Australia was a security intelligence weakling. O n 11 January 1947, Sillitoe warned the JIC bluntly that ‘serious leakages m ight take place’. N ow was the time for action and a beefed-up Australian organisa­ tion was required. W ith a proper security service capable o f conducting organised vetting o f staff, good security on the testing ranges would be easy to achieve, although security for longer-term basic research in labor­ atories, where com m unism was rife, looked m ore difficult. Silỉỉtoe had already identified the nub o f the m atter, the dire threat to military scientific co-operation with the United States. H e warned, ‘I f there were to be leakages o f inform ation in Australia the responsibility will no d o u b t be brought hom e to the U.K.’35

u.s.

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In July 1947 M ontgom ery had a m eeting with General J. E Evetts, Senior Military Adviser to the British Ministry o f Supply, about joint weapons developm ent in Australia. T he Com m onwealth Investigation Service had been strengthened, but was not yet working in an integrated way with MI5 on the security o f the new missile projects. M ontgom ery was anxious that if equipm ent w ent missing MI5 would be thought responsible. H e noted that ‘good security precautions are very necessary* because o f the ‘rapid appearance in Australia o f a spy w ho is known to have been connected with the Canadian espionage trials last year*. But Sillitoe and M ontgom ery were now moving to lock an open stable door after the horse had bolted. At the end o f the same year, in N ovem ber and D ecem ber 1947, new signals intelligence showed the British and the Americans that sensitive docum ents had in fact been leaking from C anberra to Soviet intelligence since 1943.36 T h e Americans had first inform ed the British about the efforts o f American Army codebreakers to decipher Soviet communications, including intelligence traffic, in 1945. Soviet cryptographic systems were o f high quality, but weaknesses had been introduced by po o r procedure, notably using so-called ‘one-time* cipher pads for processing messages m ore than once. This provided the W estern cryptanalysts with a way in. Limited progress had been made by the end o f 1946, and in early 1947 a British cryptanalyst joined the American team based at Arlington Hall, Virginia, just outside Washington. A t the end o f 1947, breaks into Soviet secret service traffic showed the presence o f an active Soviet agent inside the Australian governm ent. This Com m onwealth dim ension prom pted G C H Q to devote m ore effort to this program m e, which was given the American codenam e Venona and the British codenam e Bride. Venona eventually pointed to the presence o f im portant Soviet spies such as the atom ic scientist Klaus Fuchs, in 1950, and the diplom at D onald Maclean, in 1951. Although Venona was betrayed to the Soviets by an American defector in 1948, Moscow could d o nothing about the masses o f previ­ ously recorded Soviet radio traffic. Patient work on this material contin­ ued and provided clues about Soviet espionage as late as 1980.37 Venona revelations about Australia soon resonated at the highest level. O n 27 January 1948, Admiral Hillenkoetter, D irector o f the CIA, warned President Trum an, ‘Indications have appeared that there is a leak in high governm ent circles in Australia, to Russia. This may, in magni­ tude, approach that o f the Canadian spy case exposé o f last year insofar as high Australian governm ent officials are concerned. T he British governm ent is now engaged in expensive undercover investigations to determ ine just where, in Australian governm ent, the leak is.’ Venona revealed that, since 1943, highly sensitive material had been passed to Soviet intelligence from the Canberra D epartm ent o f External Affairs.

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Australian officials had handed over w hat the Soviets considered to be spectacular stuff, including copies o f the ‘explosive* work o f the British P o st Hostilities Planners. This was the volatile material that had caused a ru p tu re between the military and the diplom ats in W hitehall in 1944. E d e n had secured an end to its circulation abroad in late 1944, but by d ie n it was too late. P H P had m ade its way via Canberra to Moscow.38 L o n d o n did n o t regard the Australians as com petent enough to handle th is crisis. In April 1946, Lord Alanbrooke (as Sir Alan Brooke had becom e) had endured prolonged defence discussions at the D om inions P rim e Ministers* Conference. H e confided in his diary that the D o m in io n Premiers were equipped *with mentalities limited to the n o rm al hori 2 o n o f a Whitehall charwoman*. H e reserved special derision fo r Australia’s M inister for External Affairs, D r Evatt, from whose d ep artm en t the material proved to be leaking. T his posed a direct threat to Anglo-Am erican relations. Until the security crisis was resolved, Britain and its Com m onwealth partners were likely to be regarded as insanitary and the flow o f inform ation from W ashington would probably b e m eagre.39 A to p team was reqw red for this task and in February 1948 Sir Percy Sillitoe was dispatched to Australia. W ith him came Roger Hollis, head o f MỈ5*S c Division, concerned with protective security and background checks (later him self to be wrongly accused o f working for the Soviets), an d Roger Hemblys-Scales. T hey joined Courtney Young, M I5’s resident Security Liaison Officer in Australia. Venona inform ation about leaks had persuaded the Australian Prime Minister, Joseph Chifley, and D efence Minister, Sir Frederick Shedden, to perm it their investigations. In July 1948, following discussions in L ondon between Attlee, Sillitoe an d Chifley, C anberra accepted British proposals for the establishm ent o f a new and com prehensive Australian Security Intelligence O rganisation (ASIO). This would be designed by L ondon and its staff given British guidance. In addition, large num bers o f scientific and tech­ nical secret projects were transferred into governm ent departm ents to bring them under ‘full security control’.40 Sillitoe returned to L ondon, but Hollis and Hemblys-Scales remained in Australia to set up A SIO and work on the list o f Venona suspects. A S IO was alm ost entirely focused on this task, which was known as the ‘Case*. Tracing contact with sensitive British PH P docum ents pointed to likely suspects, including a typist, Frances Bernie, w ho helped to run a com m unist youth league and w ho worked personally for D r Evatt, the M inister for E xternal Affairs. It also pointed to two Australian diplomats w ith com m unist leanings, Ian M ilner and Jim Hill. O n 8 February 1949, Chifley, E vatt, Shedden and the Australian Solicitor General had a tense m eeting w ith the three M I5 officers, Hollis, Hemblys-Scales and Young.

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They reviewed plans for the developm ent o f ASIO. C ourtney Young was the m ore influential as M15’s long-standing representative in Australia and had endeared him self to his Australian hosts by his hard drinking, som ething which helped to offset his preference for wearing a m onocle. Young also knew a great deal about Soviet espionage tradecraft, having distinguished him self in his previous posting by ghost-writing the sem i­ confessional autobiography o f Rado’s radio operator Alexander Foote, Handbook fo r Spies. Foote had Anally tired o f working for the Soviets and took the opportunity to jump ship w hen visiting Berlin in M arch 1947. T here he presented him self to British intelligence and offered to tell all he knew in return for a safe passage home. By M arch 1947 such defectors were no longer turned away and instead welcom ed with open arms.41 Venona had provided MỈ5 with a list o f twelve names o f possible Soviet agents operating in Australia. Hollis and Courtney Young did n o t tell the Australians that the names came from intercepts, but the nature o f the material led som e o f the m ore experienced ASIO hands to suspect this. Twelve names seemed a short list and was much the same num ber o f people identified by the G ouzenkou defection in Canada. But the Venona material was tricky because many o f these were codenam es rather than real names and their identities could be deduced only by careful circumstantial guesswork; so the trail was long. Even with unen­ ciphered material from G ouzenkou, mistakes had been m ade and clumsy translation had led to the dogged pursuit o f harmless individuals w ho had never been near Soviet intelligence. By 1950, Ian Milner and Jim Hill, the two External Affairs officers, had been identified positively, but they had refused to ‘com e over’. Jim Skardon, M I5’s m ost experienced inter­ rogator, had m ade a soft approach to Hill when he visited L ondon in 1950, trying to persuade him to ‘be sensible’ and ‘make a clean breast o f it’. This was a confidence trick designed to extract a confession. MỈ5 and A SIO did n o t have evidence that they were willing to present in court. But the recent sentencing o f the atom bom b spy Klaus Fuchs to fourteen years in a British jail was not an incentive. Hill faced M15’s best interro­ gator dow n and stolidly denied everything. This was the great weakness o f Venona material, since —even w hen the messages pointed unam bigu­ ously to the identity o f a Soviet ag en t—additional evidence such as a con­ fession was required, and w ithout this the agent could n o t be convicted. T he exhausting investigation o f the Venona-derived list kept A SIO ’s staff o f som ewhere under 200 busy well into the 1950s. Each new suspect opened a world o f further associates and contacts w ho required separate examination. T he task was difficult, since the Com m unist Party o f Australia had long expected to be banned and had built up a substantial underground organisation. N o t unlike the Com m unist Party o f India, seasoned by years o f close attention from colonial security, it had

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achieved som e infiltration o f the police, and even the penetration o f A SIO seemed a possibility. In 1949, one operation alone, the bugging and surveillance o f a suspect Soviet diplom at’s flat in Canberra, kept large num bers o f A SỈO staff busy round the clock. Each visitor to the flat was suspicious and had to be tailed and investigated. A SIO staff were learning the hardest lesson o f counter-subversion. A ttending to security cases diligently only m anufactured m ore leads and opened m ore cases.42 Despite this hard work, the United States remained sceptical. O n 19 April 1949, a m onth after the form ation o f ASIO, Sir Frederick Shedden, the Australian D efence Minister, visited W ashington to assert that Australia was now secure. Attlee was no less concerned to secure Australia’s rehabilitation and w rote a supporting letter to Trum an plead­ ing the Austtalian case. ‘I am m ost anxious for you to know ’, he began, ‘that I have received m ost reassuring reports o f the creation o f ASIO.’ H e continued, ‘It will henceforth be possible for highly confidential and del­ icate investigations to be undertaken . . . throughout the past four m onths officers o f the British Security Service have been aiding and advising the Australians towards this end and it is from these reports to m e that I have felt able to send you this encouraging account’.43 But Trum an chose to reserve judgem ent and did n o t move to re-establish defence science links with Australia. Britain continued to chip away at the problem . In Septem ber 1949 Shedden sat dow n in L ondon with the Chiefs o f Staff to review progress after a recent visit to W ashington. H e had been forced to ‘devote much tim e' there to the question o f classified inform ation and he had ‘done his best to impress the Americans by sending them a considerable am ount o f paper indicating the present position in Australia o f Com m unism , the Trade Unions etc.’, but he was n o t sure how much good this had done. For the time being the Americans had decided to maintain their embargo. T he issue o f the em bargo bothered Shedden because he believed that in a future war Australia would be in an American com m and area and this would raise all sorts o f awkward problems. W hat the British Chiefs o f Staff wanted to know was how to play the awkward triangular relationship between London, W ashington and Canberra. T hey asked, ‘did the Australian G overnm ent wish His Majesty’s G overnm ent to continue to act rather as “agents” in this m atter o r would they prefer to deal direct with the Am ericans’? Shedden responded that he wanted the British as ‘support’ rather than ‘agents’.44 Australia was only part o f the problem . T he whole Com m onwealth, bo th old and new, presented L ondon with a range o f security headaches. O n e official wrote in late 1948, *Whatever the position may be in theory, there are, in practice, two categories o f American inform ation. O ne cat­ egory consists o f w hat may be term ed “super-secret” inform ation which

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is only disclosed to a very few people in the U K and the USA. T h e second category is o f a top secret nature, but has a wider distribution.’ But to talk o f two categories o f top secret was an understatem ent. T o deal with security headaches, W hitehall had gradually been introducing a bewildering range o f additional security levels that were effectively above m ere top secret. A key purpose was sleight o f hand. T hose w ho were n o t getting the very to p stuff were n o t to be told that they were n o t ‘in the know’. T he P H P fiasco had seen the arrival o f 'limited circulation’ and ‘specially restricted circulation’, which were in practice higher levels o f top secret. T he growing use o f the ‘confidential annexe’ to a m ain paper could hide the existence o f these appendices from the uninitiated. Som e very secret military docum ents had only a few copies typed up and w ere kept in the Standard File, an impressive bright-red binder belonging to the Secretary o f the Chiefs o f Staff.45 T he transfer o f power in South Asia and new states entering the C om m onw ealth in 1947 and 1948 had required further refinem ents. In India a great deal o f material was destroyed before governm ent was handed over in 1947. By Septem ber o f that year security conditions in Indian governm ent offices had deteriorated to the p oint w here L o n d o n was passing the ‘lowest m inim um ’ o f secret and top-secret m aterial to Delhi, and British officials were told that if any questions were asked they should ‘feign ignorance’. L ondon noted that, to avoid disclosing this policy, ‘steps are being taken to see that [the Indians] receive intelligence summaries which are, apparently, Top Secret, and similar to those w hich g o to o th er Com m onw ealth countries’.46 O n 14 July 1949, Colonel Martin Furnival-Jones o f M I5 explained to the JIC why caution was necessary. His main w orry was ‘the situation in the Office o f the High Com m issioner for India, in L ondon. K rishna M enon, the Indian High Com missioner, ‘had tendencies towards th e extrem e left’ and there was ‘no question whatever that there were six m em bers o f the Com m unist Party on his staff. T hey were co nsorting with others in Britain with similar views and had access in W hitehall, although they were n o t receiving secret material. MI5 was busy and its liaison officers had held bilateral discussions with Delhi. As a result ‘purge measures were being taken’, but there was no know ing how far this situation was replicated in India. These were n o t m atters th at L ondon wished W ashington to hear of, and the scale o f th e Com m onw ealth security headache was only too dear.47 By 1949 L ondon was faced with an awkward dilemma. T h e JIC saw the retention o f the confidence and co-operation o f b o th Com m onw ealth countries and the United States as vital. B ut to ‘retain b o th will n o t be easy in view o f known American opinion o n certain m em bers o f the C om m onw ealth’. Reluctantly MI5 was asked to rank th e

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security o f the Com m onw ealth countries based partly on inform ation th at had emerged at a recent Com m onwealth Security Conference it had hosted in London. Only Canada m ade the top category. Australia, N ew Zealand and South Africa were in a medium-security category, while India, Pakistan and Ceylon form ed a lowly underclass.48 Clem ent Attlee was a tough-m inded individual. D espite the scares provided by these cases he was determ ined to avoid an American-style ‘security purge*. H e was repelled by the so rt o f inquisition that had already begun under the notorious H ouse Un-American Activities Com m ittee in W ashington. Indeed, he instinctively set his face against all clandestine activities and ignored calls from right-wing M Ps for som e so rt o f British version o f the enquiries gathering pace in W ashington in th e late 1940s. H e had also been sensitised to potential controversy over dom estic security by Churchill’s ill-advised G estapo speech o f 1945. But by the end o f 1946 G ouzenkou and N unn May, together with hints o f w hat was to com e in Australia, were reverberating around W hitehall and Westminster. T he loom ing threat to Anglo-American defence co-opera­ tion fed into discussions on every subject. Bevin was particularly anxious to reverse the M cM ahon A ct which had cut Britain off from atom ic co­ operation with W ashington. T his showed itself during Anglo-American discussions on developing American airbases on British territory. Attlee was uncom fortable with the possibility o f hosting American aircraft. H e w arned Bevin that US bases did n o t necessarily increase security and that, once these were established, Britain ‘would find it difficult n o t . . . to follow the US lead in any further crisis with the Soviet U nion’. H e added that ‘in return for this little real protection would have been afforded'. Bevin’s underlying rationale was revealing, for he hoped that an offer o f British bases m ight facilitate ‘our getting much desired assistance from the Americans in atom ic and other fields’, although he conceded that this argum ent ‘m ight com e as som ething o f a shock to public opinion’.49 By January 1947 action could n o t be delayed. T he JIC had com pleted a long investigation into the acquisition o f secret technical inform ation by Soviet agents in Britain. This was presented to a surprised Cabinet D efence Com mittee. While L ondon worried about Canberra and Ottaw a, vast num bers o f Soviet diplom ats were in Britain hoovering up inform ation. T he Soviet Embassy had 126 staff, including the Military A ttaché with a staff o f no fewer than twenty-three and the Naval Attaché w ith a staff o f sixteen. T here were a further 124 individuals under the Soviet Trade Delegation. Although Bevin had decided that the attaché staff would have to live under the same draconian travel restrictions as their British equivalents in Moscow, all this was circumvented by the Trade D elegation staff, w ho were n o t restricted. By using ‘sem i-overt m ethods’ in an open country they could obtain much o f w hat they

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wanted. Meanwhile, British exports to the Soviet U nion remained suspi­ ciously small. T he Soviets simply bought samples o f the m ost up-to-date equipm ent they could obtain, and then reverse-engineered the product to manufacture it themselves. This was the case with the latest jet engines recendy procured from Rolls-Royce. T he many British com m unists employed in U K arm am ents firms only increased the wider problem o f ‘legitimate espionage* by Soviet trade officials in Britain.50 Atdee chaired a special m eeting in March 1947 o f the Cabinet Defence Com m ittee on Soviet scientific espionage. T here was talk o f cutting the . ‘inflated’ staffs o f Soviet trade delegations which provided a happy hom e for num erous intelligence officers. But Atdee warned that this, together with the removal o f known com m unists from secret work, would no t itself be effective ‘since som e o f those w ho were or m ight becom e im por­ tant Soviet agents were probably not open m em bers o f the Com m unist Party’. Regrettably, m ore intrusive investigations would be required.51 A tdee’s response was very traditional —a new Cabinet com m ittee was created. This was the highly secret Cabinet Com m ittee on Subversive Activities, known as G E N 183. Its working party began its investigations in May 1947 and within a year had produced recom m endations for a lowkey approach to the problem o f Soviet espionage in governm ent. This m eant checking names against existing M I5 files and was known as ‘neg­ ative vetting’, which was welcomed by Atdee as suitably restrained and inoffensive. T he working party consisted o f Sillitoe, Sir Edward Bridges, Perm anent Secretary at the Treasury, and A. J. D. W innifrith from the Treasury establishm ents section. Roger Hollis, w ho ran M15’s c Division, responsible for personnel security, also assisted in the m onths before he was despatched to Australia. T he presence o f Hollis reflected the fact that a small-scale purge was already under way. A t the end o f the war, MI5 had been working to arrange the discreet transfer o f key civil servants suspected o f com m unism away from secret work. But this was a small program m e and the working party realised that it faced a challenge o f a different order. Moreover, anything on a scale sufficient to m eet the new challenge would have to be a publicly avowed procedure, which would probably provoke an outcry. G roups o f the extreme right and left ‘which might provide breeding grounds for subversive activity’ were reviewed by this working party. Its m em bers decided that fascists and revolutionary com m unists could be excluded as ‘intolerable to public opinion and com m on sense’. B ut the ‘principal danger’ was seen as the Com m unist Party o f G reat Britain, identified as the only group working for a foreign power. Reviewing com m unist espionage in Britain over two decades, including the infa­ m ous John H erbert King and Springhalt cases, they also found som e alarming loose ends. Moscow, they noted, had enjoyed access to im por-

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tant classified docum ents from a British Em bassy for 'a considerable period before the last war’ b u t its channels had never been uncovered. T h e G ouzenkou case was upperm ost in their minds. All were sưuck by the way in which the Com m unist Party had been the key organisational framework for Soviet intelligence officers in Canada. By the technique o f encouraging secret membership, selected sympathisers had risen un­ noticed to positions in governm ent. T he working party was astounded at the num bers o f people w ho had been recruited over the years, w ithout any individual revealing this network to the authorities. T he conviction o f Allan N unn May, it insisted, pointed strongly to the likelihood that the sam e system was operating in Britain.52 Attlee's working party observed uncom fortably that a series o f tele­ gram s between Soviet intelligence in Ottaw a and M oscow made ‘elab­ orate arrangem ents for a further m eeting with “our m an in L ondon”' ready for w hen N unn May returned from Canada to Britain. All fields o f governm ent were clearly vulnerable, but first and forem ost were military secrets: atom ic research, radar and industrial intelligence. Checking employees engaged on work o f ‘a particularly secret character' against existing Security Service records would not pick up secret m em bers o f the C om m unist Party, o r indeed those w ho had been m em bers o f juve­ nile groups such as the Young Com m unist League. T he system, the working party concluded, had to be ‘tightened up’. H enceforth, W hitehall would be divided into ‘safe' and ‘unsafe’ departm ents. T he latter would include all those regularly engaged on secret work such as the Cabinet Office and the Ministry o f Defence. Anyone to w hom suspicions were attached would be quietly m oved out o f these places and ‘offered safe alternative em ploym ent'. But the working party was the first to concede that this system was defective. Many scientific specialists were fit only for a narrow spectrum o f work, while crypto-com m unists thronged the corridors o f universities and scientific research institutes. MI5 would have to vet non-governm ent employees engaged on secret contract work by specialised firms. MI5, small and overburdened, was very reluctant to expand into this potentially limitless field o f enquiry. It feared that it m ight ‘swamp the m ore positive security work o f the Service’, namely following up real leads o n real spies. T here were also political problem s. Even this low-key system was bound to be exposed sooner o r later. Civil service represen­ tatives had already sm elt a rat and were pressing for assurances that em ploym ent would not be refused on grounds o f m em bership o f a polit­ ical party. So far W hitehall had artfully evaded offering any reply to such enquiries. In March 1948 Attlee decided to face the music and described the system in outline to the H ouse o f Com m ons. T he far left gave him a h o t reception, accusing him o f ‘grovelling to the Tories and the big dollar

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boys o f America*. Although he gave robust replies he was also m islead­ ing. W hen asked about the BBC he insisted this was a m atter for the G overnors o f the BBC and not for the state. But in reality the state was pushing a clandestine purge o f the BBC, especially the overseas services, to the dismay o f the D ứector-G eneraỉ, w ho then had to placate the angry unions.53 T he G ouzenkou case was therefore a mixed blessing. It turned atten ­ tion back to Soviet espionage and accelerated the Venona program m e. For M I5 and for stalwart anti-com m unists such as E rn est Bevin and H erbert M orrison, all this was a bonus. But it was also distorting. It p ro ­ duced a picture o f Soviet espionage that seemed largely focused o n national com m unist parties and espionage directed narrowly at S ecret weapons*. T h e arrest o f Douglas springhall, N ational O rganiser o f the C om m unist Party, and his sentencing to seven years* im prisonm ent seem ed to confirm this. T he spotlight was now upon C PG B and its m em bership; those w ithout obvious links to C PG B were unintended beneficiaries o f this approach and remained hidden.54 In May 1948, M I5 subm itted a m ajor report to A tdee on the extent to which C PG B had penetrated British society. MI5 considered the civil service to be relatively risk-free. T here were perhaps no m ore than twenty persons at the policy-making administrative grade w ho w ere m em bers o f C PG B o r w ho could ‘be regarded as virtually com m itted to it*. N one was higher than assistant secretary. T here were perhaps 200 such persons am ong the clerical and secretarial grades. But w hat w orried M Ỉ5 was the 'zeal, pertinacity and cohesion* o f C PG B w hen it cam e to seizing control o f trade unions, ‘powerfully assisted by the apathy o f its opponents*. T h e Security Service observed that, although m e num ber o f com m unists in the civil service was minute, they were ‘at present in control o f the Civil Service Clerical Association, the m ost im portant Civil Service Trade U nion’.55 T he W hitehall purge had to be small scale because the security appa­ ratus could n ot cope with anything else. Sillitoe was especially concerned that the num ber o f nam es subm itted to MI5 should be kept to ‘an abso­ lute minimum*. T here were over 1,000,000 civil service posts and the negative vetting o f even those engaged on ‘secret duties’ in ‘unsafe departm ents’ was a m am m oth task. In early 1949 A tdee revealed to the C om m ons that fewer than twenty people had been identified by the neg­ ative vetting procedure. To the delight o f the authorities, o n e o f those uncovered was n o t a com m unist, but instead a fascist found lurking in the War Office. T his lent the whole process a welcome air o f evenhandedness.56 A lm ost certainly one o f those gently sidelined from sensitive g overn­ m ent work at an early stage was P. M. s. Blackett, Professor o f Physics at

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M anchester University and the wartim e Naval Scientific Adviser w ho had draw n up the blueprint for Britain’s post-w ar scientific intelligence system in mid-1945 on behalf o f the J IG Am erican officials were quick to finger him as a risk. US Naval Intelligence warned in Septem ber 1949 th at com m unist parties around the world had ‘spark-plugged a vast num ber o f new associations o f “atom ic” and other scientists’. It insisted th at ‘the Internadonal Com m unists have also achieved an International Subversion N etw ork, the com ponents o f which interlock through such well-known figures as Harlow SH APLEY o f H arvard, French atomic sci­ entists JO L IO T -C U R IE and British Professor PMS BLA CK ETT’. T here was no evidence against Blackett, but in the prevailing climate he was bound to be purged.57 Ironically, freeing Blackett from official duties had unpredictable consequences. His overseas links were n o t to M oscow b u t to Delhi, w here he adntired N ehru’s vibrant post-colonial state. Blackett became a military scientific adviser to India, visiting a dozen times up to 1971. Knowledgeable and well connected in the world o f defence science he was now a free agent. O ne o f the fields to which he m ade a substantial contribution was the Indian atom ic bom b p ro ­ gram m e.58 T h e m onths o f January and February 1947 had been a turning point, n o t just in the Cold War but also in dom estic affairs. A very bad winter, replete with labour troubles, p u t new doubts in Attlee’s mind. He became m ore certain about the need to resist the Soviets, while the Czech coup which brought the com m unists to pow er in Prague in the spring o f 1948 followed by the Berlin blockade in the following autum n had a profound effect on public opinion. A t this point the Labour leadership chose to expel several MPs for continually supporting the com m unist position against Devin’s foreign policy. A ttlee’s suspicions o f com m unists at hom e and abroad were growing. By 1950, against the background o f a long and acrimonious dock strike, Attlee, Bevin and the Cabinet were content to blame a growing proportion o f the widespread dom estic unrest on the hidden hand o f com m unism and subversion.59 Security, in the decade following the war, was a miserable business for the denizens o f Whitehall, but there remained one crum b o f com fort. I f Britain was regarded as som ew hat insecure, and the Com m onw ealth states as rather worse, then —in the eyes o f W ashington —the continental E uropean was regarded as beyond the pale. W hitehall did everything possible to increase the suspicions o f continentals during this period, in the hope o f benefiting by com parison, and its prize exhibit was the French. As late as 1945, Roosevelt had regarded de Gaulle and his governm ent in exile as closet fascists bent on establishing a right-wing police state after the war. Considerable work had to be undertaken, notably by OSS,

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to disabuse him o f this notion. By 1946, the wheel had turned full circle and W ashington considered Paris to be riddled with comm unists. T h e British Chiefs o f Staff deployed this stereotype to reinforce L ondon’s position as W ashington’s ‘special’ partner. In March 1948, as negotiations began to shape w hat would becom e the N A T O treaty, the British expressly warned the Americans off any substantial security talks with the French. This was because o f ‘extensive penetration o f the political system by Com m unists, a natural garrulous tendency in the French char­ acter, a certain decline o f m oral standards in Europe, a French lack o f security consciousness, and the possibility that present ministers may be replaced by less reliable persons . . . ’. Staff talks with the French, they insisted, could be considered secure only if inform ation was issued for the personal use o f each French officer concerned. This in turn, they sug­ gested, should be delivered orally by them only to their imm ediate super­ iors, and ‘provided it can be guaranteed those superiors are n o t C om m unist o r fellow travellers’. L ondon had effectively gazetted the French a nation o f traitors. It enjoyed ranking the three French services in order o f dubiousness: *1116 Navy is estimated m ost secure, the Arm y less secure, and the Air Force, being m ost heavily infiltrated, least secure.’ L ondon took a m ore benign view o f the Low Countries, w hose military were, in any case, m ore inclined to follow a British lead. ‘C om m unist penetration in Holland, Belgium and Luxem bourg is negligible,’ it noted, and ‘security arrangem ents within those G overnm ents and A rm ed Forces are reasonably satisfactory’. Accordingly, early N A T O talks were held in W ashington between Britain, Canada and the U nited States only.60 American officials m ade no effort to hide their own suspicions. In August 1948, the US Military Attaché in Paris, General Taite, decided to let his feelings be known. France, he insisted, had received billions in aid from the Marshall Plan and from military program m es such as the M utual Security Program m e, but the results seemed to him disappoint­ ing. Rounding on the French General Staff he lectured them firmly, *We are n o t going to re-arm you, for you are unwilling to fight. You will never be a great military nation again. We will not rearm you, but we will rearm the Germ ans.’ This prom pted ‘discussions’ in W ashington. French military leaders adm itted that the outburst was n o t altogether unjustified. They accepted the presence o f substantial ‘corrupt elem ents’ that had ‘penetrated French public life since liberation’. T he French General Staff conceded that 1,000 billion francs had been spent on the reconstruction o f the arm ed forces, but as yet there was no Air Force, while the Arm y had innumerable bands and musicians to parade on 14 July on the C ham ps Elysées. M uch o f this was m ere incom petence, but they chose to ascribe

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it to ‘a deliberate Com m unist plan to spread confusion* and to ‘dem oral­ ise the spirit o f the Army*. T hey called for the oudawing o f the C om m unist Party in France ‘and the elimination o f Com m unist agents and fellow travellers from the arm ed force and from the adm inistration’. Security agencies in L ondon and W ashington were already preparing to assist, and were about to move from passive security to active counter­ subversion, and from the defensive to the offensive.61

5 The Counter-Offensive: From C R D to I R D The m ote I study this the less I like i t ... Ernest Bevin commenting on the counter-offensive, May 1946'

o t all the wartime diplom ats in the Foreign Office were determ ined to tu rn a blind eye to the activities o f the Soviets in pursuit o f ‘c o ­ operation’. In 1943 the Foreign Office had created an obscure o utfit called the Cultural Relations D epartm ent o r CRD, to m anage the growing business o f intellectual, cultural, societal and artistic contacts, o ften o f an organised sort, with a view to prom oting Allied goodwill. Very quickly this new departm ent realised that this was a huge area o f Soviet m anipulation and many seemingly ‘international* organisations, which claimed to be representative o f world opinion, were in fact fro n ts that took their orders from Moscow. E ven as the war was ending, C R D had becom e the front-line unit in a clandestine struggle to p revent M oscow’s dom ination o f the world o f international m ovem ents, federa­ tions and festivals. By N ovem ber 1945, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, th e British Am bassador in Moscow, was urging L ondon to take m ore action to stem the Soviet practice o f obtaining control o f international labour, youth, wom en’s and other organisations ‘for the purpose o f using th em as instrum ents o f Soviet foreign policy’. He expected ‘similar attacks’ o n students’ organisations, as well as on those with hum anitarian and cultu­ ral objectives, and wanted counter-measures stepped up. C lark-K err w rote again o n 15 D ecem ber warning about the Soviet search fo r an ‘instrum ent for influencing international youth*. C RD in L on d o n w as already hard at w ork o n this problem .2 T he principal battleground was the sưuggle for the m ind o f E u ro p ea n youth. C R D was particularly irked by the fact that the new P rim e M inister, Clem ent Attlee, had perm itted a com m unist-organised W orld Youth Congress to take place in L ondon in N ovem ber 1945. T his had

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concluded its business by setting up the World Federation o f D em ocratic Y outh (WFDY), one o f the leading Soviet-owned international organisa­ tions o f the post-war period. CRD and the H om e Office had com e round to the view that it was a com m unist front and wanted a general ban, but found that the State D epartm ent was ‘actively supporting the prepara­ to ry work’ for the Congress, partly because W FDY had the blessing o f an unsuspecting E leanor Roosevelt. E rnest Bevin smelt a rat and although invited to address the main rally at the Albert Hall thought it safer to decline.3 T h e Cabinet had decided to allow the Congress to go ahead despite warnings about the strong com m unist elements behind it. Cabinet argued that ‘the m ore foreigners were allowed to visit this country and breathe the air o f intellectual freedom in which we live the better’ and th at this would contrast well with the Soviet policy o f ‘black o u t' already visible in E astern Europe. But this proved to be naive. Instead, the con­ siderable facilities afforded them allowed the Congress to give the im pression it had received official British blessing, and many British organisations attended and only discovered later on that ‘effective control o f the proceedings was already in Com m unist hands’. A ‘vast’ delegation o f Soviet youth, with an average age o f forty, had arrived a m onth before the conference to make preparations. By controlling the agendas, framing the m otions and ‘shouting the others dow n' they had ‘sw ept the board'. M otions had been passed asserting that conditions in Belsen were nothing com pared to those in colonial West Africa and that m onstrous British colonialists ‘cut off the thum bs o f Bombay cottonworkers to avoid Indian com petition’ with British hom e cotton produc­ tion. To add insult to injury, two o f the three Balkan delegations proved to be arm ed with briefcases full o f counterfeit sterling currency. Needless to say CRD knew it had been outsm arted and was angry. It was deter­ m ined to prevent a repetition and if possible pay the Soviets back in the same coin. N on-com m unist youth organisations in Britain were now keen to resist obvious com m unist encroachm ent, and CRD was eager to give them every encouragem ent.4 William Montagu-Pollock, head o f CRD, was the leading figure in this counter-campaign. Shocked by the reverse represented by the L ondon Congress in N ovem ber 1945 he was determ ined to fight back. In March 1946 he warned that the com m unist grip on the British section o f the W FDY was ‘so strong’ that it was past saving. W hat CR D needed to do was ‘to set up a rival political organisation’ so that it could intervene sub­ stantially in this im portant field.5 CRD teamed up with incensed m em bers o f non-com m unist British youth groups. T he key figure was Elizabeth Welton, the Secretary o f the

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offered to help set up a secret group that would work against the com m u­ nists. She was also in close touch with similar-minded groups in Belgium, France, the N etherlands and the USA, and reported that other private anti-com m unist groups were being set up in Denm ark, Sweden and Switzerland. In the late spring o f 1946 she prepared to depart o n a to u r o f Holland, Belgium and France to cem ent relations with these groups, especially the U nion Patriotique des Organisations de la Jeunnesse in Paris. But she confessed to being filled with trepidation. H er E uropean collaborators had warned her that life was dangerous for the opponents o f organised com m unism on the continent. Recendy there had been ‘two cases o f sudden death by poisoning and a mysterious disappearance o f anti-com m unist organisers' in Europe, and everyone was o n their guard. Welton was n ot exaggerating, for by 1948 fifteen individuals involved in youth work in D enm ark had been ‘liquidated' by their com m unist o p p o ­ nents.6 C R D noted that Welton’s connection with the authorities was to be ‘kept dark’, but she would be given som e training and preparation before departing. ‘M r Hollis o f M.I.5. is expected to brief her,' it recorded, in order to give her the benefit o f W hitehall’s intelligence on E uropean youth m ovem ents and the issue o f ‘w ho is a Com m unist and w ho is n o t’.7 W hitehall was interested in student politics as well as youth affairs and was especially anxious about com m unist inroads into the N ational U nion o f Students in Britain. CR D team ed up with M Ỉ5 and SIS to observe these activities. A t a remarkably early stage in the Cold War it decided to take measures, again by creating its own counter-groups. T he N ational U nion o f Students played into the hands o f CRD because it was sh o rt o f money. H oping to attend a student festival in Prague in August in 1946 the N U S approached the Foreign Office in May to request a governm ent grant to cover the costs o f travel. Privately, CRD was incensed and stated that it was n ot going to ‘finance this clandestine agency o f com m unism ’, b u t it encouraged further meetings with student leaders to track their activities.8 CRD was w orried that this student festival would result in the setting up o f an International Students Federation ‘in which the com m unists will hold all the strings’, a repeat o f w hat had happened with youth organisa­ tions and the W FDY in L ondon the previous year. So its first aim was to ‘discourage the N U S’ from taking part, but it knew this would be difficult as the students’ union had ‘three near-Com m unists’ o n its Executive Com m ittee and had been effectively com m unist controlled since 1940. T h e decision was m ade to w arn the N U S off, but if the ‘w orst com es to the w orst’ and the N U S attended the conference, CRD resolved to ‘take fairly rigorous action’. It would have to get clearance at a high level from Ministers, b ut in the worsening international climate o f May 1946 it had ‘n o doubt that it would be forthcom ing’.9

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Together with MI5, CR D busied itself checking the background o f the N U S delegation members. M15 alleged that a num ber o f them , including Carmel Brickman, were m em bers o f the Com m unist Party and that A. T. James, the President o f the NUS, ‘had a record o f close association with C om m unist activities’.10 By July 1946 CR D had built up w hat it saw as a detailed profile o f the links between the NUS and other political groups. Founded in 1922, the NU S had w hat CRD called ‘an innocent record’ up to 1940, w hen it had com e under growing com m unist influence. CRD claimed that lurking beneath the N U S was in fact another body — the University Labour Federation — an organisation that seemed to be confirm ed in its crypto-com m unism by the fact that it had been forcibly disaffiliated from the L abour Party on the ground o f com m unist infiltration in 1940. It was also com m unists on the NU S Executive w ho had set up the World Youth Congress in L ondon in N ovem ber 1945, leading to the creation o f WFDY.11 SIS took over from MỈ5 the business o f m onitoring youthful British com m unists once they reached the continent. In the sum m er o f 1946, the new R5 Requirements section o f SIS, which dealt with world com m u­ nism , tracked the efforts o f British com m unists w ho had been denied visas by the Foreign Office to reach a m eeting o f the W FDY in Vienna. Special attention was paid to K utty H ookham , Joint Secretary o f the W orld Youth Federation, and one o f the few British nationals to elude Foreign Office restrictions. SIS explained that she had achieved this by first visiting the headquarters o f the new W FDY in Paris, then going on to Moscow, and then travelling from M oscow to Vienna. She was due back in Paris for another W FDY meeting. T he Soviets were able to watch British efforts to im pede the progress o f British delegates w ith som e clarity, for the SIS officer liaising with CR D was none other than Kim Philby, head o f R5.12 By July 1946, CRD was ready for action on three fronts. First, to try and create an elem ent m ore resistant to com m unism within the NUS; second, to try and prevent a British delegation going to the International Student Congress in Prague; and third, to try and set up rival confer­ ences, even rival non-com m unist youth and student organisations. T hese C R D -sponsored groups would constitute ‘a standing perpetual challenge to gang-rule wherever it becom es manifest —w hether by Nazi parties o r Soviet parties, o r by Zionist m ovem ents’. CRD urged that if it mobilised properly it could arrange a great deal o f open criticism in the m eeting and *we should show these Com m unist tricksters w hat world opinion . . . thinks o f them ’. But there was much secret work to be done. In the sum m er o f 1946 th e developed political warfare apparatus that CRD needed for counter­ ing organised com m unism at the international level was n o t there. This

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was the fault o f those w ho had hastily dism antled Britain’s propaganda m achinery after the war. Rather unfairly CRD rounded o n the overt inform ation services that remained, namely the British Council: ‘W hat has it ever done to vindicate the true principles anim ating the political organisation o f this country and to proclaim them to the w orld?. . . H ow m uch m ore w orth doing at this critical epoch than so many o f the Council’s current frivolities with ballet girls and second-rate painters.* In July 1946, C R D was the loudest voice in W hitehall urging action ‘at a high level’ o n political warfare against Moscow. Propaganda had to be ‘overhauled* and ‘strengthened’.13 In tackling the NUS, CRD was initially baffled by the lack o f a way in. Its objective was ‘the creation o f a body o f opinion to balance the extrem ists’ within the NƯS. It hoped to find a sympathetic individual o n the Executive w ho disliked the com m unist element. O nce this person had been identified, ‘could we n o t work o n him to make his opinions known?* But in reality CRD did n o t know where to begin. Eventually, contacts were developed w ith the Secretary o f the NƯS, M argaret Richards, through a form er m em ber o f the NUS office w ho now worked in the British Council.14 A t the end o f July 1946 CRD reported, ‘Enquiries are on foot about the m anagem ent o f the N.Ư.S.: w h e th e r. . . there exists a governing body, and w hether any o f this personnel m ight be induced to work for the creation o f a body o f opinion within the U nion o f the delegation to balance the exưem ists.’15 Sir Patrick Nichols, the British A m bassador in Prague, was watching preparations for the Student Congress there. Nichols thought it would be difficult to block com m unist students attending, so instead the tactic should be som ehow to get m ore non-com m unist students o n to the British delegation. ‘In other words,’ he said, ‘we have to choose between infiltration and boycott.’ H e favoured infiltration. Nichols also warned that the British delegates selected for Prague included the familiar K utty H ookham , ‘an ardent com m unist’.16 By January 1947, C R D ’s longer-term project, a rival youth conference, was under way. G eorge Haynes, Secretary o f the N ational Council o f Social Service, an umbrella organisation o f British youth groups, was leading the effort. CRD had held inform al discussion with similar ele­ m ents in the USA, France, Belgium and Holland w ho 'very much hoped’ that Britain would take the lead in this struggle. But these individuals needed a ‘special’ grant to help finance the operation. CRD took the point b u t was worried that Labour backbenchers would be suspicious and realise that it was ‘an open attack o n W.F.D.Y.*. It was im portant to disguise the ‘international aspect o f British youth work’ and it w arned that the grant application would have to be ‘m ore carefully w rapped up » 17

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A t this pointy H ector McNeil, a Foreign Office Minister, thought it m ight be wise to seek greater support am ong senior Cabinet Ministers for the growing campaign against WFDY. O n 19 February 1947 he m et w ith C huter Ede, the H om e Secretary, and Stafford Cripps, the Chancellor. 'I had a very bad time,’ he reported; ‘neither o f them are pre­ pared to accept the evidence o f MI5.' Cripps was especially hostile as he was closely involved in the activities o f both W FDY and the NƯS. Gladwyn Jebb, w ho was now responsible for the large-scale negotiations ongoing in Europe, was outraged at the treatm ent m eted out to his own Minister: T o anyone w ho does n o t wilfully blind himself, it m ust be obvious that W FDY is inspired and conttolled by M oscow . . . It seems to m e grotesque that this bogus body, whose meetings appear to be dom i­ nated by elderly Russian M aịor-Generals, should pose as the only repre­ sentative o f “dem ocratic youth” everywhere.’18 Cripps was still adam ant th at these organisations were free and independent. In July 1948 the redoubtable Kutty H ookham w rote to thank him for intervening to secure visas for the latest travels o f the International Youth T rust.19 By January 1948, C R D ’s project for an International Youth Congress was tottering forward, b u t it was a sickly patient com pared to the wellresourced and well-organised events supported by Moscow. C RD staff attended the meetings o f the Congress’s parent body, the N ational Council o f Social Service, which was being funded with small grants from the Ministry o f Education, but they were dismayed by the indeci­ siveness o f the worthy individuals w ho staffed it. They came away ‘depressed and despairing’, for these figures were ‘so afraid’ o f doing any­ thing that m ight provoke an attack by the better-organised WFDY. It was clear that genuinely independent bodies were not going to lead the way o f th eữ ow n accord, so CRD would have to step in and get things going. ‘It is essential that we act quickly and boldly now,’ it urged. T here were further meetings between M ontagu-Pollock and Elizabeth Welton, the m ost reliable individual o n the inside. Officials now began to approach youth organisations privately and ‘indirecdy’ to persuade them to quit W FDY and to join the CR D -sponsored rival.20 W hen it finally took place, the International Youth Congress proved a trium ph. CRD m easured its success by the extent to which it was attacked in the Soviet press. T he experience also confirm ed CRD in its tactics o f creating new rival bodies rather than attem pting to steer exist­ ing groups away from WFDY. Recent confrontations between various youth organisations in E urope seemed to show that ‘any kind o f ‘T ro jan H orse” tactics are useless’ and that com peting bodies built afresh were m ore promising. Although the N U S had broken away from com m unist control by m id-1948 and left the W FDY later that year, nevertheless the approach o f building anew was C R D ’s chosen forward path. T he

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International Youth Congress, held at L ondon University in January 1948, gave birth to the World Assembly o f Youth o r WAY, Britain’s first coverdy orchestrated internadonal organisation. By January 1948 Britain could also boast a proper covert political warfare section, the Inform ation Research D epartm ent o r IRD, founded at the same time. But for the last two critical years it had been CRD and Montagu-Pollock — one o f Britain’s least-known but m ost effective Cold War warriors - w ho filled the gap.21 SO E and its sister wartime propaganda service, the Political Warfare Executive or PW E, had been reduced to alm ost nothing in 1945. It was only in May the following year that senior British diplom ats began to think about reviving shadow warfare. Indeed it was only in early January o f that year that the JIC felt safe to return to the vexed issue o f forecast­ ing Soviet intentions. Its m am m oth report now landed on the desk o f several individuals including Frank Roberts, an influential British diplo­ m at serving in Moscow. Roberts was a dear-m inded individual w ho punched above his weight and, like G eorge K ennan in the US context, his despatches from M oscow were im portant in form ing British policy in the first year after the war. Roberts stressed the global nature o f Soviet policy, connected by the ubiquitous activities o f the com m unist parties 'directed, if not controlled in detail from M oscow’. This, Roberts remarked, required an equally co-ordinated response. T he result was the creation o f the Foreign Office Russia Com mittee, which then oversaw the gradual revival o f a departm ent o f British covert political warfare.22 But the creation o f the Russia Com m ittee was also a sym ptom o f the continuing Cold War within Whitehall. D uring bitter argum ents about future Soviet intentions, diplom ats had used the JIC as a brake o n the work o f the military planners. But diplomatic control over the JIC could n ot be guaranteed. Creating the Russia Com m ittee provided a key co­ ordinating centre that was controlled by diplom ats rather than the Cabinet Office o r the Chiefs o f Staff. This explains its strange remit, which included the work o f high-level intelligence appreciation.23 T he Russia Com m ittee also marked a new style o f British foreign policy. Cadogan had nurtured an extreme aversion to planning, but the new Perm anent Under-Secretary, O rm e Sargent, felt that in the current climate 'it would be valuable to have a joint planning com m ittee o f this kind’. T he model was clearly borrow ed from the Chiefs o f Staff. William Hayter, w ho now chaired the JIC , also pressed for a planning comm ittee, precisely because he was impressed by the military system. It was im per­ ative to get organised since the military were now the Foreign Office’s rivals for control o f Britain’s Cold War.24 By 1946 there were no m ore argum ents about ‘co-operation’ with the Soviets. T he argum ents were now about how far to go in responding to

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Soviet hostility and a m ore militant tendency was emerging in the Foreign Office. Ironically, these militants included C hristopher Warner, still head o f the N o rth ern D epartm ent. T hroughout the war, W arner had stuck doggedly to ‘co-operation’, but now, like a lover scorned, he was full o f bitterness and had come to hate the Soviets. O n 2 April 1946, he chaired the first m eeting o f the Russia Com mittee, which looked at the Soviet ‘offensive against G reat Britain as leader o f social democracy in the* world’. W arner offered an unabashed com parison with H itler’s Germany, arguing, *We should be very unwise not to take the Russians at their w ord just as we should have taken Mein K am pf at its face value.’ A week later Bevin w rote to Attlee employing exactly those words.25 W arner was joined on the Russia Com m ittee by Ivone Kirkpatrick, a peppery Ulsterman. Kirkpatrick was ordered to draw up a detailed pro­ gram m e for a covert propaganda offensive that would involve the BBC, the Royal Institute for International Affairs and the press. Bringing in the BBC increased the im portance o f having its workers vetted by MI5. Kirkpatrick w ent to his task with a will, drawing on his own wartime experience o f working with SO E and PW E, w hen he had looked after the propaganda beam ed o u t over Europe. H e was not only convinced o f the suprem e value o f subversive activities, he was certain that properly organised it could be done even better. H e enthused, *The V sign was em blazoned all over the world. But at the same time we acted. We para­ chuted m en, m oney and arm s into occupied territory. We were not inhib­ ited by fear that the G erm ans would find out w hat we were doing, o r that they m ight react o r that we m ight be criticised. Propaganda on a larger scale was co-ordinated with our policy. T he result was a success.’ Britain’s response to the Soviet occupation o f E astern Europe, and to the appar­ en t threat to W estern Europe, was to be the same as that to H itler’s occu­ pation o f France. Kirkpatrick offered the first glimmerings o f an offensive strategy that would, by 1948, be term ed ‘liberation’. O rm e Sargent liked these ideas, but Bevin m ost definitely did n o t and was per­ suaded to approve this policy only in Iran, where the confrontation with the Soviets was becom ing intense. Instead Devin, the Foreign Secretary, called for som ething that would ‘put over the positive results o f British attitudes’, rather than negative attacks o n Moscow.26 Between mid-1946, w hen officials decided that covert propaganda was required, and m id-1947, when Bevin gave his final approval, a great deal o f slippage took place. Sargent, together with junior Ministers H ector McNeil and C hristopher Mayhew, had clearly decided just to carry on with w hat they could get away with, but this m eant things were done on an am ateur basis. By the end o f 1946, D enis Healey, in charge o f the International D epartm ent o f the Labour Party, was working with figures such as Mayhew in the Foreign Office against the Soviet policy in E astern

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E urope and in aiding persecuted social dem ocrat parties in countries like Rumania.27 Bevin’s change o f policy on British use o f the hidden hand was justified by the setting up o f the Soviet C om inform , a propaganda organ­ isation and the successor to the inter-war Com intern, in 1947. Bevin was a m an w ho thought about things in deeply personal term s — Britain’s foreign policy was term ed ‘my foreign policy’ —and the creation o f IRD was triggered by his extreme haưed o f his Soviet opposite num ber, Molotov. M olotov was an impassive follower o f Stalin’s insttucdons at the wearisome post-war Foreign Ministers Conferences. Argum ent was useless and Bevin found him an increasingly frustrating opponent. Bevin enjoyed contrasting his own proletarian origins and workman's hands with M olotov’s very diiferent background. But the Briton’s tem per could get the better o f him and, according to one account, he had to be resttained from physically attacking M olotov at one session o f the Paris

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Peace Conference in 1946. D espite his slavish devotion to Stalin, M olotov was eventually sacked and his Jewish wife arrested during the purges o f 1949. Continuing to slide into disfavour in the early 1950s, he was probably saved from execution only by Stalin’s own death ỉn 1953.28 So bitter personal exchanges between Bevin and M olotov speeded the revival o f a British covert political warfare departm ent. In 1947 Bevin was publicly taunted by M olotov at the United N ations in N ew York. T h e Soviet propaganda material was well prepared and Bevin got the w orst o f it. H e sm arted at the public em barrassm ent and regretted Britain’s lack o f negative material on the Soviets with which to reply. C hristopher Mayhew, w ho favoured the reinvigoration o f wartime covert propaganda, seized the opportunity. Returning with Bevin on the JQueen M aryy he advocated a new Foreign Office departm ent to conduct covert o r ‘black’ propaganda. W ithin m onths this would emerge as the Inform ation Research D epartm ent. Mayhew was the ideal advocate for this in W estminster for he was close to Attlee, sharing his Haileybury background and love o f cricket. But the Soviets were also useful allies. T h e form ation o f the Soviet C om inform in late 1947 helped underline die case that there were no fewer than three m em bers o f the Politburo assigned to aggressive propaganda.29 In 1948 Bevin warned a m eeting o f the Com m onw ealth Prim e M inisters that the Soviets had hitherto employed the U N as ‘a sort o f Trojan H orse by means o f which they could smuggle in their propaganda to the em barrassm ent o f freedom-loving nations’. But now IR D was ready for them and so the Soviets were currently ‘being defeated’ in the present Foreign M inisters' m eeting in Paris. ‘It was now the turn o f the Soviet G overnm ent to be publicly arraigned, and doubdess they would soon learn that their misuse o f the organisarions would n o t pay.’ Bevin could n o t hide his sadsfacdon at having paid M olotov back by resorting to similar tactics.30 ỈR D differed from the diverse bodies dealing with wartime propa­ ganda in that it was entirely under Foreign Office control. T he im por­ tance o f 1RD is difficult to overestimate. Before 1950, w hen defence program m es were being cut and the secret services were pleased to hold their program m es steady, it was expanding rapidly. By the early 1950s, IRD, working closely with SIS, constituted the largest departm ent o f the Foreign Office. It received £150,000 a year from the Foreign Office budget, boosted by a further £100,000 from the secret service vote, the budget for clandestine activities.31 British diplom ats were itching to respond to nasty activities by the Soviets and their proxies in E astern Europe. In 1945 and 1946 wide­ spread arrests and dirty tricks during so-called ‘elections’ had becom e so blatant that many called for a tough response. In Rumania in 1946 both

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the British and the Americans had uncovered clear evidence o f a bungled Soviet plot to assassinate the King. But the Soviet Colonel in charge o f the plot had been too talkative and had blabbed details to his Rumanian girlfriend; as a result, the King had narrowly escaped death. T he Soviets then thought it expedient to eliminate the incautious Soviet Colonel, and his car was mysteriously showered with hand-grenades in January 1947. N o attem pt was m ade to catch the perpetrators. Events in Rumania paled beside w hat British diplom ats described as the ‘bestial’ goings-on in Bulgaria. Here the leading non-com m unist, Petkov, was arrested and sentenced to death on charges o f w orking for Anglo-American imperialism. W estern protests o n his behalf w ere useless and he was executed in Septem ber 1947. T he Bulgarian com m u­ nist leader seemed to enjoy telling W estern diplom ats that Petkov w ould have been spared but for their protests, which, he insisted, constituted an intolerable interference in Bulgaria’s internal affairs. Such provocations were hard to take and com m unist behaviour in Eastern E urope seem ed actively to invite a propaganda campaign. A fter all, the real details were so lurid that they required no embellishment. IR D ’s favourite subject was the Stalinist forced labour cam ps such as the terrible Arctic m ining outpost at Kolyma. This allowed IR D to reply in kind to the accusations o f forced labour in the British colonies and also suggested com parison betw een Nazi G erm any and Stalin’s Soviet U nion.32 IR D ’s w ork was m ade easier by natural contact with the press through those w ho had worked in SO E, SIS o r PW E during the war and had now m oved into journalism. Malcolm Muggeridge was one example. H aving served with SIS in Africa early in the war he ended up as SIS liaison to French military security in liberated Paris in 1944. H e found post-w ar em ploym ent with the D aily Telegraph and was soon writing leaders o n th e international situation. His social contacts with the secret w orld rem ained strong and Included figures such as R obert Bruce L ockhart and Dick W hite. Initially he was visited by old acquaintances, but later o n SIS officers w hom he had not previously m et drifted in w hen they w anted him to ‘do a job’ for them . Although personally unknow n to him , they were, he claimed, instantly recognisable by their manner. Muggeridge found this work at once troubling and tedious. T hough the tasks were undem anding, he feared that his secret links m ight be exposed. ‘But it is easy money,’ he reflected, ‘and the great thing is n o t to w orry about it.’ Periodically, he came back to work for SIS full tim e o n Inform ation work. In July 1949 he noted in his diary, ‘Final discussion o n M I6 project. Practically decided to take it on . . . Usual set-up —im p ro ­ vised office, gang o f uniform ed porters downstairs self-consciouslv doing nothing, pass to get in which had to be counter-signed.’ M anv operations to influence the press run by SIS and 1RD required arm ies o f

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tem porary staff contracted for such specific projects. M uggeridge was so o n back in regular journalism and by the outbreak o f the K orean War he was Acting E ditor o f the Daily Telegraph. In the 1950s he would help to ru n on e o f the larger CIA-backed efforts to influence intellectual opinion in Britain.33 Muggeridge usefully spanned the worlds o f intelligence and the intel­ ligentsia, with constant contact in the fields o f journalism, literature, culture and religion. H e m oved in a circle o f writers, including G eorge O rw ell, w ho had been involved in wartime propaganda work, and were now being used by IRD. Muggeridge and Orwell were both fierce anti­ com m unists, though for markedly different reasons, and Muggeridge found it ‘interesting how we disagreed about our agreem ent’. Orwell, like G raham G reene, J. B. Priesdey and many other luminaries o f the literary scene, had spent the war engaged in propaganda activities, so work for ỈR D was only a continuation o f past practice.34 However, to the surprise o f many, Orwell n o t only offered his literary services b ut also handed his contacts a blacklist o f thirty-five com m unists and fellow travellers. W hen this inform ation was released in 1998 it was greeted with surprise by the British left. But they had forgotten that Orw ell had spent a long time in the Burm ese police before becom ing a w artim e propaganda broadcaster. T he go-betw een for ỈR D and Orwell was Celia Kirwan, a pre-war debutante w ho w ent to work for IR D in 1949. She had been close to Orwell since 1946 and was also the sister-in-law o f A rth u r Koesder, another acdvc left-wing anti-com m unist w ho had w ritten the influential Darkness at Noon. Kirwan repeatedly visited Orwell at his sanatorium when his health was failing in 1949. Orwell’s books, especially A nim al Farm and 1984, were far m ore valuable than the work o f intellectuals like Koesder. First, the books were m ore accessible. Secondly, they were strongly anti-totalitarian but no m ore anti-com m unist than they were anti-fascist. Thirdly, Orwell had fine left-wing credentials including service during the Spanish civil war in the International Brigades.35 IR D were soon busy propagating Orwell’s work with vigour. Foreign rights were bought up and then offered to foreign publishers free o f charge and som e o f the expensive work o f translation was also under­ taken on their behalf. By 1955 rights to Orwell’s 1984 had been bought in B urm ese, Chinese, Italian, Finnish, French, Swedish, D utch, Danish, G erm an, Spanish, Norwegian, Latvian, Indonesian, Polish, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Persian, Telegu, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Bengali and G ujarati. IR D ’s John Rayner in Singapore was working on a special illus­ trated version in Chinese. A t the request o f the Colonial Office, IR D pur­ chased the right to rirculate a strip cartoon o f A nim al Farm in Cyprus, Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, N o rth and South Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Sierra Leone, the G old Coast, Nigeria, Trinidad, Jamaica, Fiji, British

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Guiana and British Honduras. John Rennie, w ho had becom e head o f IRD, identified Indochina as the top-priority location to which to send prints o f the film o f A nim al Farm which they had just acquired.36 Orwell was also o f great interest to the Americans. By June 1951 D ean Acheson, the Secretary o f State, had ordered the US Embassy in London ‘to assist foreign publishers’ in bringing out further translations o f A nim al Farm. Acheson urged, ‘Offer $100 PORT[uguese] book and serial rights; $50 VlETỊnamese] book rights. Publication R IO and Saigon. Use contingency funds, Reply soonest.’37 Orwell would doubdess have made an international im pact o f his own accord, but it is hard to escape the conclusion that the work o f IR D and its American partners did much to lift his profile. T he rise o f IR D denoted a British acceptance that struggles between states were becom ing struggles to the death between societies, involving new areas o f propaganda such as religion, another subject in which Muggeridge took an interest. O n both sides o f the Atlantic no stone was being left unturned in the new propaganda war. H arry Trum an attem pted to construct a remarkable religious anti-com m unist front against an atheistic Kremlin. But although he established close bilateral co-operation with specific religious leaders, such as Pope Pius XU, his efforts to form a broad religious united front, including the Dalai Lama in Tibet, came to naught.38 Religious propaganda found favour with London, where E rnest Bevin was anxious to give IR D ’s propaganda a positive spin, emphasising W estern civilisation, rather than engaging in a slanging m atch about the evils o f com m unism . T he Archbishop o f Canterbury was invited to join the Russia Com mittee. In 1946, K enneth G rubb, wartime Controller o f Overseas Propaganda at the British Ministry o f Inform ation, became chairm an o f the World Council o f C hurches’ influential Com mission o f the Churches on International Affairs and continued to work closely with W hitehall.39 IR D received formal approval in late 1947 and came on stream in 1948. Soon the new departm ent discovered that it was playing catch-up with obscure sections o f W hitehall that were ahead in authorising counter-m easures against the Soviets, as were som e British regional administrators in the Empire. T he Americans too had been busy, often using the substantial num ber o f wartime secret services officers w ho had ostensibly returned to their pre-war occupations. Iran, a cause o f imm e­ diate post-war abrasion between L ondon and Moscow, was a natural setting for the rapid and extem porised revival o f British secret activities. Lord Killearn in Cairo, w ho had been hostile to the survival o f SO E, was nevertheless willing to countenance the continued presence o f a few SO E and PW E staff in this critical area. Wartime Iran had been jointly occupied by Britain and the Soviet U nion to keep the G erm ans away

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from the oil and to ensure a free flow o f Lend-Lease supplies to the Soviets. B ut in 1945 the Soviets revealed a marked reluctance to w ith­ draw from the country, which then became the scene o f the Azerbaijan Crisis o f late 1945 and early 1946. A radical pro-Soviet element, the T udeh Party, seized power in Iran's northern province and set up an autonom ous governm ent. U nder these diverse pressures, the weak central governm ent in Teheran appeared to be on the brink o f perm itting this large region to break away to join the Soviet Union. Iran was critical for the balance o f payments o f the ailing post-war British economy. Iran’s southern oilfields, owned by the Anglo-Iranian O il Com pany o r A lO C , in which Britain had a controlling interest, rep­ resented the m ost im portant o f Britain’s many areas o f inform al em pừe; indeed they were its biggest external asset. T he Soviets were aware o f this and since 1944 had directed a relentless stream o f propaganda against the exploitative British imperial presence. Soviet propaganda attacks upon th e British were, in a way, ironic. Moscow perceived Britain as being the architect behind Iranian resistance to its dem ands for territorial conces­ sions in n orthern Iran. In fact Britain initially chose n o t to encourage Iranian resistance to the Soviets for fear o f prejudicing its ow n claims in th e south where the oilfields lay. Instead it was the United States which sought to block the Soviets, with Britain only joining wholeheartedly as strikes spread to the southern oilfields in 1946.40 D uring the struggle for the control o f Iran in 1946, Britain was unable to resist using the rem nants o f its subversive apparatus to defend its vast interests. C onfronted with the possibility o f Soviet-backed secession in the n o rth , o r even the possibility o f the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party com ing to power, British officials together with key figures in A IO C began to develop th eứ own plans. T heir answer was to develop a counter-secession by encouraging rebellion by the pro-British tribes in south-w est Iran, cen­ tring on the friendly Khuzistan Arabs and the Bakhtiari and Qashqai tribes. I f the worst came to the worst, a pro-British south-west Iran, together with its invaluable oil reserves, could break away and declare for London. In London, O rm e Sargent, a quiet enthusiast for covert schemes, directed that it was desirable to investigate the possibility o f encouraging any dem and from the people o f South West Persia for provincial auton­ omy'. Bevin, w ho was o f an opposite persuasion when it came to the use o f the hidden hand, was horrified. He counterm anded Sargent’s insưuctions and insisted that Britain should not develop the secessionist m ove­ m ent, adding that this would be ‘doing w hat the Russians d o ’. But the stakes were too high and Bevin’s orders were simply ignored by officials below him and by the inform al netw ork o f British influence in the region.41

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Colonel U nderw ood was the key to the British scheme. Underwood was a strange figure w ho had been at Abadan throughout the war, ‘paid by S O E \ He was one o f a handful o f SO E staff that London was anxious to keep in place in the region at the end o f the war, beyond the time when SO E itself was rolled up. D uring the war he had been S O E ’s Field C om m ander in Persia ‘with cover as Political Adviser in Khuzistan area (S. Persia)’. SO E noted that this was ‘an extremely im portant area. T he work being done there has been undertaken at the request o f the Minister and A IO C ’. U nderwood stayed on after 1945 in the dual guise o f British military attaché and ‘political adviser’ to the AIOC. His role was ambig­ uous, since he was both the employee o f a private com pany and a British official with diplomatic immunity.42 Local Americans captured the nature o f his role m ore precisely, describing him as the ‘godfather’ o f the local tribal union. This latterday Lawrence o f Arabia had already organised the K huzistan Arabs to strike a blow at Tudeh-based com m unist power in the region. It was no coinci­ dence that U nderw ood was in Cairo when the tribal union decided to appeal to the Arab League in that city. T he Bridsh Embassy denied that it was involved in the uprisings o f the southern tribes, but there were clearly secret meetings between the tribal leaders and British consuls in the area. Bevin righdy suspected that ‘our people right dow n there’ were n ot taking any notice o f his directives. Although the uprising was not o f long duration, it achieved its objec­ tives. It was a shot across the bows that threatened the break-up o f Iran and brought the volatile Quvam governm ent in Teheran back on to a middle course. As the British Embassy reported, ‘strong pressure has been maintained on the [Iranian] Prime M inister to suppress subversive activities’. T h e tribal uprising, although now quiescent, underlined w hat would happen if he did n o t take a hard line with the Tudeh Party. Meanwhile, with an election approaching, British propaganda officials had been active with the press. They reported that their ‘publicity has aimed at influencing Persian public opinion in such a way that the full support o f the Prime Minister could not be given to the Tudeh party’. In the short term , British interests in southern Iran had been secured. L ondon was getting itself into gear. Iranians w ho were receiving spon­ sored training were to ‘go on the air with the BBC*. T here was also a scheme m ooted for ‘providing receiving sets for the tribes in Persia to enable them to hear BBC broadcasts.*43 T he ensuing propaganda battle with the Soviets in Iran was crucial. It constituted an early lesson in the critical role o f this activity in the com ing struggle with the Soviet Union, not only in areas like Germany, but throughout the T hird World. M ore significantly it underlined the im por­ tance o f such propaganda alongside growing inform ation activity by the

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U nited States. T he Soviet threat was the m ore immediate, b u t in the long term the Americans would prove the m ore form idable rival in the lucra­ tive G u lf region.44 In D ecem ber 1948, W ashington considered its contin­ gency plans for a Soviet invasion o f Iran. Again the Qashqai tribes to the south, in the Shiraz-Bushire area, were immediately identified as the m o st likely prospects for long-term resistance: ‘they would fight any invader —especially the Russians’ and offered an ideal base for ‘clandes­ tine operations’. T he tribes were mercurial and, while they would fight against anyone, w ho they would fight fo r was ‘debatable’ —their decision would probably be ‘influenced by gold and other material things’. W hat they really needed was their ow n version o f U nderwood. T he US Military M ission called for people ‘w ho speak the language fluendy and w ho know the country and the tribes —i.e., Lawrence o f Arabia type’. O ne possibility they identified was ‘Young Archie Roosevelt (nephew o f young Teddy)’; they also wanted ‘qualified CIA radio operators*.45 Surviving oddm ents o f SO E and PW E undertook many strange duties in the transitional period between the end o f the war and the arrival o f IRD. In rem ote regions, where commercial interests were strong and govern­ m ents were weak, the needs o f local ambassadors were often unusual. As early as 1947, personnel from OSS and its sister wartime propa­ ganda service, the Office o f War Inform ation, were also finding new roles within a new inform al American program m e o f covert action designed to support the Marshall Plan in W estern Europe. T he initial aim o f early Am erican covert action was underm ining com m unism in Greece, Italy, Germany, and, especially France. Like British efforts in Iran, this first wave o f American covert actions was often launched alongside the corporatist framework o f labour organisations like the American Federation o f L abor (AFL), o r through Marshall Plan agencies like the Econom ic C o-operation A dm inistration that were close to industry and labour. France and Italy were also o f great interest to London. In 1946, British diplom ats at the Paris Embassy had suggested covertly supplying arm s to bolster the right against the growing strength o f the communists. But after reflection L ondon and W ashington chose less direct m ethods, including the provision o f large sums o f m oney to buy off com m unist strikers and to subsidise non-com m unist newspapers. British and American secret service intervention in Italy and France followed in the wake o f American private networks. T he lead elements here were the links between American, British, French and Italian labour organisations. In 1945 and 1946, AFL was already giving $200,000 to anti-com m unist groups in Italy and indeed, rather than being encouraged, was urged by W ashington n ot to go too far.46 T he main weapon against com m unism in France and Italy was an overt one, the Marshall Plan. But, as com m unist

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fortunes began to decline under its impact, attem pted leftist coups were expected by both British and American officials. By the end o f 1947 the American Am bassador in Italy, Jam es D unn, predicted that an elecdon early in 1948 would result in a com m unist defeat. He continued, ‘It is the belief o f the Italian intelligence services that as a result o f this ư end the Com m unists have abandoned hope o f a legitimate electoral victory and are now preparing for action by force. T he series o f strategically planned strikes and civil disturbances which they have already carried out and are expected to continue are the preliminary skirmishes leading to the attem pt to overthrow the governm ent.’ T he 1600 million o f aid author­ ised by the Marshall Plan to Italy and France was supplem ented by $10 million o f ‘unvouchered funds’ fed by the CIA and other covert m ethods to pay for anti-com m unist propaganda and for bribes to aid the Christian D em ocrats and other non-com m unist parties. This program m e was suc­ cessful, b ut was seen as the beginning rather than the end o f a broad anti­ com m unist program m e in Europe.47 France was viewed as a critical battleground where even the arm ed forces were considered to be riddled with secret communists. Again, ini­ tially the lead elem ent in American intervention in France, as in Italy, was the labour leader Irving Brown and the AFL. As early as May 1947 Pierre Le Brun, the leader o f the French Trade Union Council, the CGT, com ­ plained to American diplom ats o f American private influence in France and the extension to E urope o f the M onroe D octrine, which declared South America the backyard to the US. D uring a wave o f strikes Brown urged that the governm ent should n o t on any account m eet the strikers’ dem ands for fear o f lending greater authority to the com m unistcontrolled CGT. He was also adam ant that there should be concerted action to break up the pro-Soviet organisation, the World Federation o f Trade Unions, which was based in Paris, in order to reduce the com m u­ nist hold on French and Italian unions. Brown was clearly driving American policy on organised labour in Europe. In N ovem ber 1947, when he left Paris for a conference with the British TU C and E rnest Bevin in London, American diplom ats there were ordered to give him all possible assistance.48 In May 1948, Paul Devinât, a French official, w rote to William D onovan, the form er OSS chief, urging American subsidies for the French non-com m unist press. ‘N ow that the Italian elections are over and that we can concern ourselves about the situation in other European countries’, Devinât suggested, the ‘m ost urgent task’ was to ‘fight the influence o f the com m unist party in France through the press’. Thanks to the cost o f scarce newsprint, independent newspaper publishers could n ot make ends m eet and, in the resulting vacuum, subsidised com m unist material was making real headway. This, he said, could be dealt with by

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discreetly supplying new printing machinery, new sprint and even indirect subsidy: It is easy to imagine that an agency could be set up in France for the distribu­ tion o f the advertising o f a certain number o f American firms who are direcdy or indirectly interested in the products or manufactured articles imported under the Marshall Plan. Such advertising could be given to a certain number o f judiciously selected newspapers. The income which these papers would thus receive would allow them to balance their budget, which usually shows a deficit. D onovan was im pressed and passed D evinat’s letter o n to the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff in W ashington. H e added that D evinât had been talking to G eneral Revers about the possibility o f reassembling parts o f ‘the under­ g ro u n d organization’ to fight the comm unists.49 Encouraged by the French themselves, Paris became a testing ground for all sorts o f Anglo-American psychological operations, including ‘blip-verts’, sh o rt subliminal messages inserted into film material sup­ plied under the auspices o f the Marshall Plan. It was also a testing ground for som e o f the first C IA -sponsored defector literature. In 1949 L ondon secured a success with Alexander Foote’s Handbook fo r Spies, written (as we have seen) largely by his M I5 debriefer Courtney Young. T he CIA and the State D epartm ent also had a huge success w hen they sponsored a translated version o f the m em oirs o f V ictor Kravchenko, the Soviet official w ho defected in W ashington in 1944. W hen Kravchenko had first defected, the authorities had reacted with indifference o r even active hostility. But by 1949 such figures were prized assets. I Chose Freedom, Kravchenko’s extensively rewritten account, sold 400,000 copies worldwide and caused a storm am ong E uropean com m u­ nists. It was highly effective in France where com m unists were an influential part o f m ainstream intellectual and political life. It reinforced the im pact o f Darkness at Noon, written by A rthur Koestler, w ho was now w orking with the C IA -sponsored Congress for Cultural Freedom , and o f G eorge Orwell’s 1984. Kravchenko made high-profile public appear­ ances in France and a bitter legal batde broke o u t when the com m unists claimed that the book was a fabrication. D uring the subsequent court case the American authorities trawled France and G erm any to find sup­ p orting witnesses and funded his legal representation.50 By 1949 L ondon had found that IR D propaganda had proved ‘sur­ prisingly popular’ am ong W estern E uropean governm ents as anti-com ­ m unist source material. T hus the French governm ent, though no t actively involved, ‘tacidy perm its quiet circulation o f material to French G overnm ent officials and key individuals in France'.51 British and American support galvanised the French authorities. In the autum n o f 1950 a fresh wave o f and-com m unist activity was carried out, much o f it

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petty harassment. Between 7 and 9 Septem ber the French arrested and expelled 288 foreign com m unists, m ost o f w hom form ed part o f the 'para-military apparatus’ o f the French Com m unist Party. They expelled the exile base o f the Spanish Com m unist Party from France and its journal Mundo Obrere. They set up an anti-com m unist propaganda organ­ isation Paix et Liberté, with semi-official sponsorship, and considerable assistance from IR D and the CIA. M ost importandy, in Septem ber 1950 there was a m ajor reorganisation o f the French internal security system with a view to providing 'a means for dealing with the Com m unist fifth colum n in the event o f an emergency’. Especially satisfactory was a decree banning the Paris-based headquarters o f various Soviet front organisations including the World Federation o f Trade Unions, the International Dem ocratic Federation o f W omen and the World Federation o f Dem ocratic Youth.52 As Soviet front organisations were evicted from Paris, ỈR D and the CIA m oved quickly to fill the vacuum. Britain’s m ost successful front organisation, the rival non-com m unist youth m ovem ent, World Assembly o f Youth, now set up its Paris headquarters. In N ovem ber 1950 the CIA’s Frank W isner helped to create the International Federation o f War Veterans’ Organisations, representing ten million non­ com m unist veterans across W estern E urope and N o rth America, with headquarters at 16 Rue des Apennines. T he them e o f its founding con­ ference was ‘peace with freedom ’, and resolutions passed by the confer­ ence ‘nam ed the USSR as an aggressor, endorsed E uropean collective security, asked the USSR to take a lead in disarm am ent’ and also approved American econom ic assistance to Europe. ‘Pope Pius X II gave us his blessing,’ enthused W isner, and ‘good wishes were also received from Trygvie Lie’, the U N Secretary General.53 By the early 1950s W estern covert propaganda was taking on m ore diverse qualities. N o longer purely anti-com m unist, it had broadened out to becom e an instrum ent that could be deployed against anything hostile to British o r American policy. In Septem ber 1952 Walter Bedell Smith, D irector o f the CIA, w rote to General G ruenther at SH A PE, the Suprem e Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, asking for his help in a campaign to ‘hit hard’ at figures and publications that had been running damaging and misleading ‘intelligence item s' on the United States in papers such as France’s L e Monde. Bedell Smith considered that som e o f these items had used docum ents which were forgeries and he was clearly angry. ‘We have asked both the French and British to assist in sustaining an increasing campaign o f attack, exposure and ridicule against “Le M onde” and Beuve-Méry.’ Beuve-Méry was the editor o f Ije Monde, and Bedell Smith was determ ined to ensure that he was sacked, stressing that he hoped that ‘a perm anent sawing off job can be done’. Achieving this,

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he thought, would require ‘additional p ressu re . . . beyond that which has already taken place’. A campaign against a leading French newspaper and its editor was a sensitive m atter and these messages between Bedell Sm ith and G ruenther were carried between W ashington and SH A PE by safe hand o f trusted officers rather than being sent by cable.54 In February 1947, Iceland — because o f its strategic value in the N o rth Adantic - was one o f the first targets for British anti-com m unist propaganda. T he British Ambassador, Sir G. Shepherd, asked for ‘anti­ com m unist material which could be passed to newspapers which are in sympathy with our views’. By O ctober 1949, IR D was supplying the Icelandic governm ent with quantities o f anti-com m unist material to be used in ‘the forthcom ing election campaign’.55 In mid-1949, contin­ gency planning was developed for a possible counter-coup in Iceland, w here the C om m unist Party was electorally strong, holding up to a third o f the seats in parliament. By 1950 the Com m ander-in-Chief Atlantic had developed four separate plans ‘to land forces in Iceland against pos­ sible opposition in order to restore the dem ocratic governm ent o f Iceland’.56 In June 1949 G eorge Kennan, the main architect o f the Am erican containm ent doctrine, and the NSC staif also gave m ore attention to ‘the preventative aspects o f the problem ’ in Iceland. N evertheless, plans for the w orst eventuality were drawn up. By August 1949, W estern planning envisaged a counter-coup using a rapid reaction force. Plan Torchwood would use a select airborne unit from Fort Bragg, N o rth Carolina, hom e o f the developing American special Forces, to be flown to Iceland via G oose Bay and G reenland and sup­ p o rted by a Marine fighter squadron and a fast carrier group. T he problem was that the forces from Fort Bragg would not arrive until four days after the com m unists had seized pow er and the carrier group six days. T h e answer was that ‘this operation should became a British com ­ m itm ent’, given that the distance from the U K was only 800 miles instead o f 2,400. But at present there were ‘no British airborne forces available in the U.K. which could undertake operations to insure the security o f Iceland'. L ondon had decided to pull the 16th Parachute Brigade G ro u p back from G erm any by Septem ber 1949, thus providing ‘adequate forces in the U.K. to undertake the contem plated operation’.57 All this denoted a hardening o f attitudes and a shift from propaganda towards special operations.

6 The F ifth Column o f Freedom: B ritain Em braces L iberation We are already at war with Russia, but the Kremlin is using a weapon - the religion o f Communism - that we are doing nothing to counter, as we could, and should, with our corresponding weapon, the religion o f Freedom - a fifth column based on the Atlantic Charter. Air Marshal John Slcssor, 6 September 1947*

il 30 D ecem ber 1946 die American Naval Attaché at Odessa, the principal Soviet naval base o n the Black Sea, reported som e rem ark­ able events to W ashington. They did not concern the Red Fleet, the ostensible reason for his presence there, but instead som ething m uch m ore sensitive: an extraordinary guerrilla war raging in the Soviet hinter­ land. O dessa was situated in the Ukraine, a region which had fought on H ider’s side during the Second World War. Here Germ any had been able to raise the m ost form idable o f several Waffen SS units com posed o f Soviet citizens: the Galicia Division. Although the war was now over, ele­ m ents o f the Ukrainian Galicia Division were still fighting on against M oscow in the name o f Ukrainian independence. Similar guerrilla conflicts flickered on inside the Soviet em pire into the early 1950s, in Poland and the Baltic states, but the struggle in the Ukraine, situated within the Soviet Union itself, was especially fascinating to W estern intel­ ligence. Unsurprisingly, the key opponent for the 25,000 Ukrainian guerrillas operating in this area was the Soviet secret service, now called the MGB. Although the damage that the guerrillas inflicted on the locality was con­ siderable - they had recendy attacked a train near T arnopol killing over 180 people —it was their anti-M GB operations that m ust have reverber­ ated m ost strongly at the centre in Moscow. O n 8 D ecem ber 1946 they had assassinated the M GB chief in Odessa, G eneral G orodevich, in a brazen attack on one o f the city’s main streets. T he perpetrators fired a

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deadly volley from a second-floor window near the G eneral’s headquar­ ters and then m ade a clean escape. M G B officers were a favourite target fo r the guerrillas. T hey would vanish by night and their bodies would be found the next m orning in a prom inent public place. In accordance with local custom they were despatched and had their eyes cut out. These corpses were often decorated with provocative placards declaring ‘Long Live America and England’.2 W estern secret service operations linked to the myriad Ukrainian exile groups were well under way by 1946. In O ctober o f that year, the succes­ so r to the wartime OSS, known as ssu, looked carefully at these groups. W hat officials called the ‘developm ent o f operations involving the use o f Ukrainian Nationalist organisations for the purpose o f collecting secret inform ation o n E astern E urope and the USSR’ had prom pted a thor­ ough investigation. T he scene was confused. Many W estern secret ser­ vices were making use o f a bewildering range o f groups and individuals, ssu conceded that it was going to be hard to avoid ‘duplication o f effort’ and that 'security hazards’ were inevitable. These shadowy émigré and guerrilla groups were difficult to assess. T he Ukrainians, it complained, were g ood at pretending that 'their past record is a clean one’ and that they have 'excellent intelligence services leading directly into the USSR', b u t many o f these factions were com plete unknowns. Experience had taught that the only certainty was these outfits were full o f conartists and were ‘the m ost highly opportunistic groups in E urope .. . adroit political intriguers and past masters in the art o f propaganda’. T he C ounter Intelligence C orps o r CIC had been running som e hairraising operations with them in Germany. T hey reported that som e exile groups in that country, including the Ukrainian Student O rganisation, had been 'set up to present a fly trap for RỈS [Russian Intelligence Service] penetration', while others were genuinely penetrated by the Soviets. T here were rum ours o f brusque treatm ent m eted o u t to Soviet agents identified by this means in Germany. T he intelligence war in G erm any was already well advanced. As a result o f this wave o f counter­ operations, reported that ‘ABN is expected to be liquidated by C IC ’ w ith the consent o f the Ukrainians and, having been cleansed, its m ore valuable intelligence activities were to be transferred and 'resum ed under a different cover'.3 But in the afterm ath o f the Second World War it was Britain’s SIS that had prim ary responsibility for managing Ukrainian exile groups in W estern Europe. SIS looked after them until 1953 when, deciding they were a busted flush, it handed them over, with som e relief, to the large C IA station outside Munich. As late as 1957, a still unspecified num ber o f operations were conducted by the CIA, with arms, m oney and agents being air-droDDed close to Ukrainian cities such as Lvov. M oscow could

ssu

us

ssu

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n ot allow these activities to go unpunished. In 1959, w hen Soviet agents m urdered Stephan Bandera, the leader o f the Ukrainian nationalists in exile based in Germany, SIS took extraordinary steps to publicise this atrocity, even to the extent o f having its sister organisation, IRD, produce a ghost-w ritten book on the subject. T he guerrilla war had petered o u t by 1953, and terrorist attacks had ceased by the late 1950s. But subsequent events show that this campaign was n o t forgotten by the Ukrainian nationalists o r by the KGB. W ith the final achievement o f Ukrainian independence in 1991, a vast stone memorial to the Galicia Division was erected. I f this was a calculated affront to M oscow then it was suc­ cessful, for in 1993 the m onum ent was completely desưoyed by a huge bom b.4 H ow did this extraordinary situation - London's clandestine sponsor­ ship o f a rem ote war in the Soviet hinterland —com e about? A fter all, as we have seen, in 1945, E den, the Foreign Office and SIS had co-operated to term inate Britain's special operations tradition with unseemly haste. E rnest Bevin, the new Foreign Secretary, was a confirm ed opponent o f special activities, as was Clem ent Atdee.5 If Whitehall had set its face so decisively against post-war special operations and secret armies in 1945, how did Britain’s SIS find itself embroiled in a clandestine war in the Ukraine, and indeed elsewhere on the periphery o f the Soviet empire? A glorious m ultitude o f special operations units —often referred to as ‘private arm ies’ o r ‘funnies’ - had been form ed on an ad hoc basis during the Second World War. Some, like the SAS and SO E , scored notable vic­ tories. However, as we have seen, while they surprised their enem ies in the field, they lost the batde against a m ore dangerous foe, Ministers and civil servants in Whitehall, special units had becom e a byword for dis­ tasteful ministerial squabbling and administrative mayhem. By early 1946, SAS, S O E and PW E had been dissolved and their expertise largely dispersed. O n 10 N ovem ber 1945, the Foreign Office w on a right o f veto over all future British special operations.6 Yet by May 1946, with L ondon infuriated by Soviet activities in Canada, Australia and, especially, Germany, underground warfare was being revived. ‘Black propaganda’, the specialism o f PW E, was the vanguard. Several diplomats, including Ivone Kirkpattick, w ho had worked with SO E and PW E during the war, were increasingly convinced that these were the weapons o f choice in prosecuting the Cold War. T he new Perm anent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir O rm e Sargent, agreed that limited covert propaganda activities should be revived in 1946, paving the way for the creation o f IRD.7 T he struggle to revive British special operations was m ore acrim oni­ ous, and here the balance was tipped decisively by Britain’s military leaders. Senior special operations chiefs, including Sir Colin G ubbins and

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Fitzroy Maclean, were pressing for revival even at the end o f the war. In retirem ent they took theừ ow n private steps to ensure that those with ‘special skills’ could be recalled at short nonce. T he form ation o f the Special Forces Club, a few stteets away from H arrods in Knightsbridge, was no m ere social exercise. Its m em bership was a roster o f available figures with unique skills and experience. By 1946, som e o f its m em bers had already found themselves recalled to fight in unpleasant insurgencies in the colonies. Small-scale units, often created unofficially, carried out reprisals and other unattributable activities. B ut placing a revived S O E at the centre o f Britain’s new Cold War strategy was a different matter. Decisive action by the military in 1947 turned the tables. Pressed by energetic figures such as M ontgom ery and Tedder, Britain m oved on from the idea o f m odest propaganda counteroffensive and cultural warfare against com m unist student groups to com m it itself to an aggressive campaign o f special operations which aim ed to liberate satellites in the E astern b lo c T he central figure was Air Marshal Jo h n Slessor, Tedder's irascible understudy as Assistant C hief o f the Air Staff. His experience as a senior RAF com m ander in the wartime Middle East had convinced him o f the enorm ous potential o f secret service, if organised properly. For Slessor, Soviet Cold War tactics, such as subversion and espionage, were quite simply a direct act o f war against the West, albeit at the clandestine level. They were a sneak attack and deserved a reply in kind. Slessor, a volatile and outspoken figure w ho did n ot believe in half-measures, in 1947 outlined a plan for special opera­ tions to achieve victory for the West in the Cold War. Senior figures wishing to pursue radical strategic schemes faced an obvious first step. This was to thrash out the new ideas with Britain’s remarkable one-m an military think-tank, Basil Liddell H art. W riting to him in Septem ber 1947, Slessor argued that Britain needed to respond to the Soviets with ‘a fifth colum n o f freedom ’, controlled by a centralised C old War planning staff. He called for a revival o f S O E and also for ‘a first-class Political Warfare Service to get busy within Russia and all her satellite states at once in peacetim e'. Liddell H art replied giving his approval. ‘You go to the root o f the m atter in emphasising the vital necessity o f the psychological counter-offensive, based on a “religion o f freedom ”.’8 Less than three years later, Liddell H art had a change o f heart and turned decisively against SO E-type operations and the prom otion o f resistance movements. But in 1947 there was n o inkling o f these future doubts.9 Slessor also w rote to William J. D onovan on the same them e o f how to counter the ‘dangerous fifth colum n’. Slessor, now encouraged by b o th Liddell H art and D onovan, elaborated on his ideas: T h e way to avert a h ot war is to win the cold one. We should have a first class PW E

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working full o u t in conjunction with the Americans and using every known w eapon from bribery to kidnapping —anything sh o rt o f assassi­ n atio n / H e confessed that he had been ‘dismayed* by the speed w ith which S O E and PW E networks had been dism anded at the end o f the war.10 Slessor had been busy selling these ideas to his imm ediate superiors, the Chiefs o f Staff. Convinced o f the wisdom o f reviving special operadons, at the end o f 1947 they opened discussions with Sargent at th e Foreign Office. But Slessor could n o t wait. Anxious to press ahead, he w ent straight to *C’, Sir Stewart Menzies. M eeting over a clubland lunch — M enzies’ favourite vehicle for W hitehall business —Slessor was disheart­ ened by the limited scale o f psychological warfare and SO E-type operadons that Menzies thought they m ight undertake against the Soviets. Menzies was defensive and emphasised that everything depended o n cash, since special operations were expensive. T he issue, he said, was w hether the governm ent *would cough up the m oney required to enable him to operate effectively — it m ight be a form idable addition to the Secret Service vote*. T h e secret service vote was the sum that Parliament allocated annually for clandestine activities, and traditionally n o questions were asked about its purpose. Slessor was thinking o f an allocation in ‘the order o f at least £10 million a year’ for the new wave o f clandestine warfare, which seem ed to him ‘the m inim um sort o f scale on which o u r secret opera­ tions to win the Cold War should be considered’. B ut he was appalled to find that ‘C ’ was thinking in term s o f £ V i million, which seem ed to him pathetically inadequate. ‘Ỉ w onder w hat the enemy are spending!’ he exclaimed. H e w ent on to argue that although there would have to be ‘a very substantial covert expenditure’ it would be w orth it. Parliament should be asked for £10 million for the secret service vote and SIS should n o t hesitate to say ‘frankly w hat it was for’.11 By 1948, Slessor had becom e the C om m andant o f the Im perial D efence College, where Britain’s m ost senior officers from the three ser­ vices came together to be given advanced training. T here were no prizes for guessing w hat form ed the centrepiece o f the curriculum during 1948 and 1949 —the Cold War, and how to win it. H olding private seminars with wartime experts on subversion, including R obert Bruce Lockhart o f PW E, Slessor was now developing the them e o f winning the Cold War as an explicit critique o f E rnest Bevin and current British foreign policy, for in his view, Bevin and the diplom ats were losing the Cold War. Slessor, M ontgom ery and Tedder changed the whole direction o f the clandestine offensive. Prior to 1947, young energetic m iddle-ranking officials such as Ivone Kirkpatrick had accepted the need for renewed propaganda. But now paramilitary operations were in the ascendant. T h e

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Com m form , the Czech coup in M arch 1948 and then the Berlin Crisis through the sum m er o f 1948 convinced M ontgom ery that Bevin’s approach to the Cold War lacked teeth. M ontgom ery was, if possible, m ore outspoken than Slessor. H e was also hugely self-im portant. Having won a confrontation with Attlee over Middle E ast strategy in the sum m er o f 1947 by threatening the mass resignation o f the three Chiefs o f Staff, he had no fear o f Cabinet Ministers. T he key issue was speed and intensity. Although Bevin had moved som e way along the road towards a counter-offensive near the end o f 1947, the military deem ed it too little too late, and extreme tensions developed. In Septem ber 1948 the Chiefs o f Staff told Cabinet Ministers that Britain should seek ‘to weaken the Russian hold* over the areas the Soviet U nion dom inated and that ‘all possible means short o f war m ust be taken’.12 In W ashington, similar fears about ‘losing the Cold War* stirred the same sort o f response. American inform al covert actions were under way even before the creation o f the CIA in the sum m er o f 1947, but as yet there seemed to be no organised focus. Again the im petus was military. O n 12 February 1948, shordy after the com m unist coup in Czechoslovakia, Jam es Forrestal, Secretary o f D efense at the newly form ed Pentagon, held a m eeting with Admiral Hillenkoetter, D irector o f the CIA, about stem m ing the flooddde o f com m unism in Europe. T h e CIA’s mandate contained no direct reference to covert actions, only som e deliberately vague ‘catch-all’ clauses. But Forrestal and Hillenkoetter, with legal advice from the CIA’s General Counsel, Larry H ouston, decided that as long as the President o r the National Security Council approved and Congress kept giving funds ‘you’ve g o t no problem ’: *Who is there left to object?’ T here followed a vast and rapid expansion o f American covert activity whose cost grew from $2 million in 1948 to nearly $200 million by 1952.13 O n 2 March 1948, Hillenkoetter created the special Procedures G ro u p within the CIA. This burgeoned quickly into Frank W isner’s semi-detached Office o f Policy Co-ordination o r O PC. O P C reflected a w elter o f conflicting claims and tensions over covert action. NSC direc­ tion was essential to give its covert actions som e so rt o f authorisation. D irection by Policy Planning Staff figures in the State D epartm ent reflected their chief G eorge K ennan’s intense interest in this area and his determ ination to tie these activities into his core strategy. But K ennan knew that the State D epartm ent, like the British Foreign Office, har­ boured a deep aversion to such matters. G eorge Marshall, Secretary o f State, was adam andy opposed to anything that m ight sully the State D epartm ent’s reputation.14 All this was em bodied in the infamously vague N ational Security Council directive 10/2. T he question o f where ultimate responsibility lay

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for covert action and psychological warfare remained open for two and a half years. Allen Dulles, then acting as a high-level outside consultant o n United States intelligence organisations, and privately hoping to succeed Hillenkoetter as D C I, identified this problem as early as 1 January 1949. Dulles wanted O PC fully em bedded in the CIA. But this happened only when Walter Bedell Smith took over as D C I in O ctober 1950.15 T he American impetus for covert action was driven, above all, by a belief that war in Europe was very near. In March 1948, General Lucius Clay, the US Military G overnor in Germany, notified W ashington o f a changing Soviet attitude and warned that war m ight com e suddenly. In the first week o f April, M ontgom ery visited Clay in G erm any and imm e­ diately realised that the Americans were on a hair trigger: ‘In this electri­ cal atm osphere o f suspicion and m istrust there are many varying opinions. General Clay considers that World War III will begin in six m onths time: indeed he m ight well bring it on him self by shooting his way up the autobahn if the Russians becom e difficult about things, he is a real “H e-m an” .. .* British forces were alm ost as twitchy, with several alerts and semi-mobilisations during early 1948. T he French seemed m ore relaxed. M ontgom ery noted that the French Military G overnor in Germany, General Koenig, ‘thinks World War III will begin in about two years time o r perhaps a little so o n e r. . . and spends a good deal o f tim e on the Riviera’.16 By August 1948, with the onset o f the Berlin Crisis, Forrestal called for an overall policy towards the Soviets. Kennan’s Policy Planning Staff were ready with a roster o f new covert actions and psychological warfare, which was endorsed by the National Security Council on 18 August as directive 2 0 /1 . T he satellite states were to split away from the Soviet Union. This reflected the optim ism that flowed from the recent Tito—Stalin split (Yugoslavia had with impunity broken away from the Eastern bloc that June). But K ennan had already moved beyond this concept o f liberating the satellites, advocating not only the gradual rescue o f Eastern Europe but also attem pts to split away minority national groups within the Soviet Union itself. T he United States would strive to ‘modify’ Soviet borders, especially in the Baltic area.17 Like M ontgom ery and Slessor, K ennan sought to win the Cold War by all means short o f war. It was, he stressed, ‘not our primary aim in time o f peace to set the stage for a war regarded as inevitable’. But equally this was a deliberate and dangerous policy o f brinkmanship: ‘Admittedly we are aiming at the creation o f circumstances and situations which would be difficult for the present Soviet leaders to stom ach, and which they would n ot like. It is p ossible. . . that they would n o t be able to retain their power in Russia.’ War, especially a limited conventional war, was a real possibility and, accordingly, his detailed plans ran sm oothly from crisis

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assessm ent to a lengthy final com ponent entitled ‘Basic Objectives in T im e o f War’. This included sections o n the ‘Choice o f a N ew Ruling G ro u p ’ in the Soviet U nion and o n T h e Problem o f D eC om m unization’. These remarkable docum ents were breathtaking in th eir am bition; it was n o t for nothing that K ennan had been p u t in charge o f long-range planning.18 K ennan and the CỈA were careful to co-ordinate som e o f these ideas w ith L ondon, especially with the British Chiefs o f Staff. In the middle o f th e busy sum m er o f 1948, Hillenkoetter took the tim e to visit London. H e was especially impressed by Britain’s efforts with IR D and, although h e took hom e with him only one copy o f the outline British plan for covert operations, this outline m ade the rounds and was examined with g reat interest by G eorge K ennan and others on his return to Washington. British thinking am ong the military at least was proceeding along alm ost identical lines.19 T he creation o f IRD, and its precursors like CRD, had given L ondon a tem porary edge in dealing with W ashington. In 1949 and even 1950, American officials still considered the British to be ahead in aspects o f black propaganda.20 In L ondon the showdown over special operations came in August and Septem ber 1948. Tensions were building over the Berlin Crisis and Am erican B-29 bom bers had already arrived in Britain from the United States o n 15 July. By Septem ber many observers had resigned themselves to war. O n the 22nd o f that m onth, Malcolm Muggeridge was rung up by an SIS contact w ho asked if he could lecture on com m unism on a crash intelligence course the service had put on for intelligence officers at W orcester College, O xford. Conversing with various Whitehall denizens, including D onald Maclean, he gained the sense ‘that an atom ic war with Russia is alm ost a certainty’. Amid an air o f general mobilisation, he drove dow n to O xford with Dick W hite o f M I5, w ho ‘also seemed certain war could m ore o r less be taken for granted'.21 T h e military were in a combative m ood. In August the British Chiefs asked Bevin for a high-level forecast o f Russian moves as an essential precursor to planning ‘a proper “cold war” organisation’. But this fore­ cast was n o t to their liking and instead they gave preference to their own ‘in-house’ study by the three directors o f service intelligence. T he direc­ tors set about the task ‘in no uncertain way’. T he keystone o f Soviet policy, they argued, was the ‘inevitability o f a struggle in order to estab­ lish Com m unism throughout the earth’. M oscow was, in their view, no t defensively m inded but b ent on a program m e designed for world dom i­ nation. T h eir response was no less radical: ‘the only m ethod o f prevent­ ing the Russian threat is by utterly defeating Russian directed C om m unism ’. T he new doctrine o f ‘winning the Cold War’ was being b o rn .

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T h e idea o f a ‘Cold War* was relatively new, but it was ừresistibỉe, and an ideal m etaphor. For the first tim e in history, the directors argued, a totalitarian organisation o f states was attem pting to im pose its will o n the rest o f the world by means other than arm ed conflict, which could be ‘conveniently’ described as Cold War. M ontgom ery noted approvingly, *We couldn’t win the “cold war” unless we carried ou r oifensive inside Russia and the satellite states. In fact w hat was required was a world-wide offensive by every available agency. To date we had failed to unify o u r forces to oppose the Soviet “cold war” aggression. At present we are in danger o f losing the “cold war”.' M ontgom ery and the directors o f intel­ ligence o f the three services were dissatisfied n o t just with the lack o f a British response to the Soviet clandestine program m e, but with the w hole British approach to the Cold War. ‘We have not integrated with our Allies, we have not selected ou r strategic aim, we have not g o t a high-level inte­ grated plan, we have not allocated our world resources, and we have not designated our “cold war” forces.' N ow they dem anded an organisation that could exercise the higher direction o f this all-out Cold War offensive and control all executive action under som eone o f ministerial rank. This was political dynamite and M ontgom ery knew it. It was m ore than a deliberate and personal attack on the Foreign Secretary, E rnest Bevin. T he military were proposing nothing less than the removal o f the direction o f the Cold War, by now the central concern o f British foreign policy, from Bevin’s grasp. T heir alternative concept o f a new ministerial suprem o in charge o f fighting the Cold War was left deliberately vague. But it could n ot help but recall the early days o f SO E and its ministerial chief, the forceful and ữascibỉe H ugh D alton, w ho inflicted so m uch misery and alarm upon Eden. O n 9 Septem ber 1948, M ontgom ery led the Chiefs o f Staff into a staff conference with the M inister o f Defence, the m ild-m annered A. V. Alexander. A rthur Tedder, the m ost articulate and intellectual o f the three Chiefs, put their case, stating plainly that the present efforts to prevent the spread o f com m unist dom ination were completely inade­ quate. T he Cold War, he argued, now required the em ploym ent o f ‘all o u r resources, short o f actual shooting’. He tried to reassure Alexander that this was n o t an attem pt to underm ine Bevin, but the facts were inesca­ pable. M ontgom ery enịoyed watching Alexander in an undisguised state o f panic, recording that the M inister o f D efence ‘again lost his nerve' and wished to water down their recom m endations. But the Chiefs were adam ant that their volatile proposal should go to Bevin ‘in its original state’ so that their views should be ‘absolutely clear'. T he next day their démarche was handed to Bevin. Bevin responded on 29 Septem ber by sending Ivone Kirkpatrick to discuss the Cold War.22 This was a clever move. Kirkpatrick was probably

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closer to the views o f the military than any other senior diplom at, and was keen to disabuse them o f the view that the Foreign Office had been doing nothing. H e conceded that it was time to improve the Cold War ‘m achinery’, but insisted that the Chiefs were ‘incorrect’ when they claimed that the newly form ed ỈR D was the only body prosecuting the C old War. H e explained that the task o f planning ‘all the other m easures’ was the responsibility o f the weekly Russia Com m ittee, which brought together all the senior policy-makers o f the Foreign Office concerned w ith Russia and called o n experts as required. This was, in fact, ‘the Cold W ar Planning Staff. T his was a remarkable revelation. T he Russia Com m ittee, the central brain set up to manage Cold War issues in May 1946, was still completely unknow n to the Chiefs o f Staff m ore than two years later. As Kirkpatrick him self confessed, Sừ Ian Jacob, the head o f the E uropean Service o f the BBC, was a regular member. But all this time later the Chiefs were n o t only uninvited, they were unaware o f its existence. Although at first sight this seem s bizarre, the explanation was quite straightforward. T here had been rising tensions between the diplom ats and the military over how to handle th e Soviet U nion since 1942. O ne o f the central purposes o f the Russia C om m ittee was to reassert Foreign Office control. Nevertheless, as Kirkpatrick now agreed, it was high time one o f the three Chiefs joined it. Kirkpatrick had som e good defensive points to make. It was difficult, h e said, for the W est to wage an all-out subversive Cold War since ‘som e o f the tactics open to the Russians were not open to ourselves’. N o r was it easy to co-ordinate measures ‘with our Allies’, som e o f w hom were no t yet up to speed o r were thoroughly disorganised. But he then blurted out th e m ain issue that had retarded Britain’s ow n Cold War counter­ offensive: T h e Foreign Secretary was inclined to the view that covert activities would n o t pay a dividend.’23 Bevin’s approach was anti-com m unist, but in a different style. He had eventually backed the creation o f IR D and half a dozen associated bodies —funded through the secret service vote in the same m anner as SIS — in early January 1948. H e urged his Cabinet colleagues to take a firm er approach to ideological com petition with the Soviet Union, by pushing British social democracy and the values o f W estern civilisation. C abinet gave its approval for a small ỈR D organisation, but under Bevin it becam e big, expanding faster than any other section o f Britain’s over­ seas policy machine. Bevin wanted IR D ’s work to be largely ‘positive’, projecting British achievements instead o f turning the Soviets into bogeym en. In his view this approach ‘could be expected to relax rather th an raise international tension’. M ore importandy, as som eone who to o k all criticism personally, he resented the encroachm ent o f the mili­ tary in to ‘his’ foreign policy.24

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Bevin dealt with the military skilfully. Kirkpatrick played a sympathetic tune for them , but gave litde away. T he C hief o f the Air Staff, A rthur Tedder, now joined the Russia Com mittee, but Britain’s ‘Cold War Planning StafP remained under Bevin’s control. T he Foreign Office also agreed to a ‘review’ o f intelligence on Russia, involving the Chiefs o f Staff, the JIC and ‘C’, but this seems to have produced no real results.25 Instead, the scene now shifted to the new-style Foreign Office Russia Com mittee, which was briefed to examine M ontgom ery’s desire for an ‘all o u t offensive' by every available agency, with Tedder in attendance. Before the com m ittee m et the military were offered a Whitehall-wide platform to vent their views about the ‘present so-called peace’ at the m eeting o f Com m onwealth Prime Ministers in London. T he Chiefs attended for security discussions on 20 O ctober 1948 and Tedder was, if anything, in a fiercer m ood than Monty. H e atgued that the present situ­ ation was n o t open war in the military sense but equally it ‘is not peace’: ‘we do m ost earnesdy urge that it be fully recognised that we, the whole democratic world, are faced now by the stark reality o f a cold-blooded, utterly unprincipled, ruthless and world-wide war, directed from, and closely controlled by, the Kremlin. A war which is waged like a hum an disease which searches out the weak spot in every individual.’ Tedder w ent on: *You may say this is politics. W hat has this to do with the mili­ tary?’ He countered by arguing that in France the Cold War had under­ mined the governm ent to the point where the defence o f E urope was imperilled and by asserting that attem pts to sabotage the Marshall Plan had potential econom ic consequences.26 A m onth later, on 25 Novem ber, Tedder finally had his chance w hen the newly expanded Russia Com m ittee met. Maịor figures from Britain’s Cold War were there to offer their opinion on the value o f ‘special oper­ ations’. Kirkpatrick introduced the central question: should they begin stirring up trouble in the Eastern bloc? He stressed that the idea was to emulate the sort o f cosdy civil war that the West had confronted in Greece. Equally prom inent in everyone’s m ind was the ongoing Berlin Crisis and the surprise breakaway o f T ito’s Yugoslavia from the Eastern bloc the previous June. Both events strongly influenced the discussion. Kirkpatrick was cautious, proposing that Britain should ‘start any kind o f offensive operations in a small area’, pardy for reasons o f financial strin­ gency, and he suggested Albania. Albania was vulnerable by reason o f being physically cut off from the Eastern bloc by Yugoslavia and Greece. O verturning Enver Hoxha’s com m unist governm ent would be a boost to those fighdng the civil war in Greece, where the com m unist guerrillas were receiving aid and sanctu­ ary from across the border. M ost o f the Foreign Office officials were neg­ ative. Gladwyn Jebb, senior wartime SO E official, pointed out that

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U nited N ations observers in Greece would get to hear o f any British operation, with ‘unpleasant consequences’. Frank Roberts noted that it w as easy for the Russians to do such things unattributably, since they w orked through the local com m unist parties, but for Britain it would be m o re difficult. Esler D ening, formerly M ountbatten’s wartime political adviser in South-east Asia, and a m an with great experience o f wartime S O E troubles, stressed the dangers o f using part o f the Albanian popula­ tio n against the rest: ‘It m eant that you became beholden to the people o n w hom you depended.’ Roger Makins, w ho had been serving in the W ashington Embassy, argued that the value o f underground m ovem ents was doubtful, insisting that, in the last war, ‘if the effort expended on underground operations had been put into straight military operations th e results would have paid US better’. In short, the diplom ats moved in the shadow o f theữ own painful w artim e SO E experiences, and few were uncritical. Even Tedder, repre­ senting the military’s new hard line, had well-grounded reservations. A lthough anxious to set up a specialist planning staff to look at the various instrum ents available, he stated clearly that he was ‘sceptical o f th e value o f SO E unless followed up by military action. H e likened these operations to a barrage laid down before an attack by troops; if it was laid d o w n to o far ahead your friends were simply annihilated.’ In other words, it was all quite pointless unless Britain intended, at som e future point, to su p p o rt these groups with overt military force and to risk open war. T here could be no m ore prescient forecast o f the fate o f those who were to rise against the Soviets in E ast Berlin in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956. Yet, despite this scepticism, the Russia Com mittee sanctioned the operation against Albania. Albania was probably the price that Bevin had to pay to p rev en t a full showdown with the Chiefs o f Staff. T he Russia Com mittee was required only to work o u t the framework. It declared ‘that our aim should certainly be to liberate the countries within the Soviet orbit by any m eans sh o rt o f war’. Certain essentials were agreed: the im portance o f w orking w ith the Americans; o f getting clear Cabinet approval; and o f having the requisite planning organisation. All were agreed to move forw ard w ith special operations and a degree o f Cold War fighting using a revived SO E. W hy had this decision been taken, w hen the practical problems o f encouraging resistance inside the secret police states o f the Eastern bloc h a d been so clearly identified at the outset? T he answer was the pressure exerted by the recent Czech coup and the continuing Berlin Crisis, to g eth er with worries about France, Italy and Greece, resulting in a fear o f b ein g nibbled to death. T he Chiefs o f Staff warned that the West was being gradually pushed into a corner by Soviet Cold War m ethods and that by th e tim e a h o t war erupted it would be too weak to resist. Tedder spoke

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frankly, stating ‘that unless we reform ed o u r present machinery for con­ ducting the “cold war”, we m ight lose it in which case the Services would have to conduct a hot war, which was the last thing they wanted to do*. D uring these crucial discussions o n 25 N ovem ber, the familiar mili­ tary-diplom atic division re-emerged. Tedder declared that ‘we should aim at winning the “cold war” (by which he m eant the overthrow o f the Soviet regime) in five years time*. Frank Roberts, recently returned from Britain’s M oscow Embassy, was amazed and shot back that this was 'an impossible task*. However, the course was now set and ‘a small perm a­ nent team ’ was set up to look at Albania and to 'consider plans which would subsequendy be executed by ourselves and the Americans*.27 In 1948 and 1949, officials in W ashington, also heartened by events in T ito’s Yugoslavia, adopted a similar, but wider-ranging, program m e o f covert action, designed to hasten w hat they presum ed to be the gradual disinte­ gration o f the E astern bloc, and qualified enthusiasm for this idea was incorporated in m ainstream policy towards the Soviet Union.28 A t the end o f 1948 the Chiefs o f Staff seemed to have won. T he Russia Com m ittee confirm ed a sea-change in Britain’s Cold War tactics that embraced liberation and all m ethods short o f war. B ut in fact they had lost, for they were now confronted by two immovable obstacles. T he first was that o f resource. Britain had broken up its special operations assets in 1945 to the point where they could not quickly be reassembled. T he limited capabilities o f the small num bers o f special operations personnel in SIS were now subject to conflicting demands. Required to begin liber­ ation, they were also busy w ith contingency preparations for a hot war which som e thought m ight be only m onths away and which m ost believed would begin in the Middle East. T he SIS cupboard for either contingency was alm ost bare. Planning for a h o t war had been under way for a while. In 1947 and early 1948, Kim Philby found him self SIS station com m ander in Turkey. O ne o f his principal duties was to roam about in a Land Rover conduct­ ing detailed survey work for SIS wartime contingency plans, involving for example the dem olition o f roads and railways in case the Soviets advanced. By m id-1948 these plans were beginning to take shape and L ondon staffs were prepared to set o u t ‘the scale o f M.I.6 effort that can be made available in the event o f war breaking o u t with RUSSIA with little warning’. O n the face o f it an impressive m enu o f SIS activities was set out: (a) The supply of information - tactical and strategical, military, political, eco­ nomic and scientific. (b) Covert Propaganda (spreading rumours, false information, ‘black broad­ casts’, etc). (c) The organisation of bases, areas and Safe Houses.

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(d) The marking o f targets. (e) The organisation of escape routes. (f) The infiltration and exfiltration o f personnel and stores to and from enemy occupied countries by air and sea. (g) Industrial and other sabotage, including organising strikes, etc. (h) The stimulation of indigenous resistance. (i) Cooperation with S.A.S. and L.R.D.G. [Long Range Desert Group] type units. 0 ‘Coup de main* operations to attack special targets or carry out demolitions. B ut the devil was in the detail. SIS conceded that in the first three months o f such a war it could do litde o f this. This was primarily because hitherto there had been plans but no physical preparation. ‘At present there is a Foreign Office ban on carrying out any preparatory measures for special O perations. This is unlikely to be lifted, unless war appears inevitable.* T h e Foreign Office had imposed its veto, insisting that any preparations m eant inform ing other governm ents that war m ight be im m inent, creat­ ing ‘alarm and despondency’; there would ‘probably be a leakage o f plans*. It added that special personnel would have to be infiltrated ahead o f tim e and if left in countries for a long time would becom e suspect. All these arguments had force, but the end result was that SIS was left w orking up wartime operations from scratch. SIS accepted that in the first three m onths it could only conduct intel­ ligence work, broadcast some propaganda and offer Very limited assis­ tance in marking o f vital targets*. It m ight be able to conduct som e ‘coup de main’ operations, but only if these were planned and if the necessary personnel, equipm ent and so on were provided well ahead o f time by the military. This was a tacit admission that SIS had alm ost no in-house special operations capacity o f its own. Arguments flared am ong the SIS War Plans section as to w hether it should draft in ex-SOE o r alternatively ex-SAS personnel and which were likely to be the m ost manageable and the m ost security-minded. Moreover, SIS feared that the populations o f many countries o f the Middle East ‘may be actively hostile to US, in which case Special O perations would not succeed in the early stages o f the war*. Activities m ight have to be restricted to Greece and Turkey only. This was the natural consequence o f the diplomatic emasculation o f Britain’s special operations capabilities in 1945, but in 1948 it was n o t w hat the Chiefs wished to hear.29 Even at the end o f 1949 there was little m ore capacity. T he Turks were also setting a great deal o f store by special operations and had developed three large units whose sole purpose was to prepare for wartime guerrilla operations. British plans were not to offer support via the secret services b u t instead to para-drop two battalions o f sappers into strategic areas to demolish roads, com m unications and anything else o f value. Britain’s

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Middle E ast Land Forces H Q was reorganising an Engineer Regiment ‘to carry out special dem olition tasks in Persia and Iraq’. It had considered the introduction o f sleeper agents in peacetime but concluded that this was ‘n o t practicable’. Targets included the Iranian railways and the oilproduction facilities at Iran, Iraq and Qatar.30 Although the diplomats had the strongest objections to sleeper agents in foreign countries, they were willing to work with overseas officials w hom they trusted. With regard to Austria, the Perm anent U nder­ secretary’s D epartm ent agreed to ‘send an MI6 technical adviser to advise the Austrian authorities’ on how to conduct strategic dem olitions in the event o f a Soviet attack.31 Special operations enthusiasts existed within SIS, b ut Menzies knew his limitations and joined with the Foreign Office in attem pting to block military pressure for anything ambitious. A further obstacle obstructing the paths o f the Chiefs o f Staff was the con­ siderable ligure o f E rnest Bevin himself. Although plagued by increasing ill-health, Bevin was a robust individual schooled by a decade o f tough inter-war trade union politics. H e was not about to surrender the higher direction o f the Cold War to the military, o r indeed to com prom ise the role o f the Foreign Office as the key co-ordinator for Britain’s overseas policy. N o r was the démarche by the Chiefs o f Staff in the autum n o f 1948 an isolated incident. It was the culmination o f five years o f diplo­ m atic-m ilitary wrangling over the Soviet Union. M ontgom ery had forced concessions from Bevin by bullying —ironically much the same m ethod that Bevin and the military had used together to extract conces­ sions from Atdee on the Middle East a year before. Bevin’s concessions were only tactical. W ithin the Foreign Office the message had gone out that references to Cold War fighting, and even the use o f the term ‘Cold War’, were to be discouraged. This m et with o p p o ­ sition. W hatever the internal wrangling within Whitehall, many senior diplomats now believed that a twilight struggle was under way, and ‘Cold War’ captured its essence. T he diplomats thus reconciled themselves to some ‘planning’ and to some ‘Cold War fighting’. Sterndale Bennett, w ho superintended Far Eastern m atters at the Foreign Office, was attending the course run by Slessor at the Imperial Defence College, where predict­ ably ‘Cold War’ was flavour o f the m onth. Returning from one o f these sessions he explained his ambivalence to a colleague in March 1949: ‘I know that the term “Cold War” is much disliked in the Foreign Office as tending to misleading analogies, in the m atter o f m ethods and machinery, with a military war. But it is so com m only used nowadays, even officially . . . and in any case it is very expressive o f a state o f affairs which undoubt­ edly exists.’ Indeed, as Slessor had pointed out to senior officers, the term was being used by Ministers all the time, not only by E rnest Bevin bu t also by left-wing m em bers o f the Cabinet. Bevin had used the term

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repeatedly in his exchanges with the Soviets at the Paris Conference in Septem ber 1948. O n 1 N ovem ber that year even Stafford Cripps accused the Soviets o f practising Cold War by use o f ‘fifth colum n agents’ and covert aggression. Like it o r not, the idea o f fighting a Cold War had com e to stay. T he outcom e o f the ID C discussions was that a reluctant A. V. Alexander was compelled by the Chiefs o f Staff to write to Atdee stressing ‘the need for further developing the U nited Kingdom organisa­ tion for conducting the Cold War’, adding that ‘som ething should be done to soffen the Russia Com m ittee’. Alexander asked for a ‘Staff C onference’ with Atdee, Bevin and the Chiefs o f Staff, but there is no indication that Atdee o r Bevin complied.32 Bevin beat M ontgom ery and the Chiefs o f Staff by sleight o f hand. In early 1949, after the military ultimatum, there followed a com plete re­ ordering o f the central machine o f British foreign policy. Bevin created the Perm anent Under-Secretary’s D epartm ent (PUSD) with its own com m ittee (PU SQ and an elaborate system o f sub-committees. This secretive super-departm ent absorbed all the m ost sensitive elements o f the Foreign Office, including the Services Liaison D epartm ent, whose head controlled the Joint Intelligence Committee. PU SD was given extensive responsibility for intelligence and special operations. T he term PU SD itself was considered secret and was often used as a cover-name for SIS. Accordingly, alm ost as soon as the Chiefs o f Staff had placed A rthur Tedder on the Russia Com m ittee, its much vaunted role as the key ‘Cold War Planning Staff began to be sidelined. T he small sub-com m ittee that it set up to look at special operations against Albania was quiedy moved to PUSD, and eventually became the Overseas Planning Section (OPS). Here, the military were allowed very limited representation within PUSD, at the lowly rank o f colonel. This was no threat to the authority o f the Foreign Office. PU SD was an effective block o n the ambitions o f the mil­ itary to run Britain’s clandestine operations. PUSD also handled ‘planning’. This represented a deliberate emula­ tion o f the American State D epartm ent, where G eorge K ennan and R obert Joyce presided over the Policy Planning Staff. C om m on machin­ ery at the top seemed essential if policies in L ondon and W ashington were going to be properly co-ordinated. Moreover, planning and special operations always seemed to be connected in som e indefinable way. Certainly, those w ho had always hated special operations, like Cadogan, also hated ‘planning’. T hose m ore sympathetic to special operations, such as Kirkpatrick, once nicknamed ‘King Planner’, were keen. But there was also a general agreem ent that, while the Chiefs o f Staff m ight be a menace, their planning machinery, with its neady num bered papers, gave a splendid outward impression o f efficiency and orderliness.

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Preparations for PUSC and PU SD began in late 1948 and these bodies formally began operations on 1 February the following year. William Hayter, Secretary o f the J IQ was initially responsible for the operations o f the Secretariat. In April, he told the Americans that this PUSD had arisen partly in emulation o f ‘G eorge K ennan’s outfit in the State D epartm ent’ and he expressed ‘a lively interest* in the workings o f the Policy Planning Staff. H e added that Gladwyn Jebb was touring the States and was ‘looking forward to an opportunity to com pare notes with M r Kennan’ with a view to improving the workings o f PUSD. As with oth er mechanisms, the British hoped that a m irror would becom e a window if they copied the American system they would achieve closer consulta­ tion on its activities.33 PUSD certainly defeated M ontgom ery and the Chiefs o f Staff. As early as March 1949 C hristopher W arner admitted that ‘special liaison arrangem ents’ between the military and IR D were ‘a com plete failure’. O n 17 June diplomats m et with the Chiefs o f Staff to discuss co-opera­ tion on Cold War propaganda. T hey all agreed that the present set-up was n o t working well, but they could not agree why. They decided to seek ‘an individual w ho understood the mysteries o f propaganda’ on an *ad hoc basis’ but no one seemed sure where to look.34 Malcolm Muggeridge w ent to see M ontgom ery that m onth as the Field Marshal relinquished his role as C hief o f the Imperial General Staff and m oved to SH A PE in Paris. Muggeridge found him ‘got up in his usual fancy dress . . . eyes are glazed over and mad-looking’. He worried that the strain o f his imm ense fame ‘m ight have cracked his wits a bit’. M ontgom ery spent m ost o f the hour expounding his own view, which his listener considered to be a 'clear case o f advanced megalomania*. M ontgom ery was still completely preoccupied with the Cold War fighting them e that had gripped him a year before, asserting loudly to Muggeridge that they were now ‘at war with Communism*. Although he felt that they could win a shooting war, he said this would be no use unless they 'defeated Communism*. He then gave Muggeridge the line about the urgent need for ‘a co-ordinated com m and in the cold war, som eone responsible for conducting it*. A t present there was ‘N o plan, no plan at all’. W ith M ontgom ery’s departure for Paris, Bevin’s m ost dangerous and irascible enemy was gone from Whitehall.35 By Septem ber 1949, a year after gaining access to the Russia Com mittee, the Chiefs o f Staff realised they had been completely side­ tracked. Bevin had agreed to liberation, but the only significant outcom e was a small unsuccessful operation by SIS and the CIA against Albania. Everything else was effectively snarled up in sub-com m ittees and red tape. T he Chiefs’ frustrations were gauged by Captain Hillgarth, the gobetween for Churchill (then in opposition) and the military. Hillgarth

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told Churchill that the Chiefs o f Staff were angry and bitterly disap­ pointed. A special com m ittee, which included the Vice C hief o f the Imperial General Staff, had been appointed by Bevin to look at all aspects o f fighting the Cold War. Although ‘it started off energetically enough and took a lot o f evidence’, n o recom m endations had appeared and the rep o rt was m onths overdue. A nother com m ittee, set up by Bevin to look at the interface between intelligence and propaganda, had reported two m onths before that a specialist should be appointed to carry out ‘a definite plan’. Although it had settled on D onald Maclachlan, Foreign E d ito r o f the Economist; as the ideal person, he had n o t yet been approached: ‘Meanwhile the Russia Com m ittee o f the Foreign Office (with one representadve o f the Chiefs o f Staff present at its meetings) remains the only body concerned with the Cold War. It meets once a fortnight b u t does nothing, and the Service m em ber can’t get it to do anything.’36 Skilful Foreign Office heel-dragging had taken effect by the sum m er o f 1949. Events over the next twelve m onths, the explosion o f a Soviet atom ic bom b and the outbreak o f the Korean War, would serve only to increase its determ ination to apply the diplomatic brakes. But the British military, and m ore im portantly the Americans, had secured the green light to conduct operations in Albania, Poland and even within the Soviet U nion itself in the volatile Ukraine. For the British military their best hope o f escaping diplomatic encirclem ent was to join up with the Americans in an all-out effort to win the Cold War.

7 Liberation or Provocation? Special Operations in the E astern Bloc The propensity o f the revolution to devour its own, the suspicions o f the Kremlin regarding its agents and the institutions o f denunciation, purge and liquidation are grave defects in the Soviet system which have never been ade­ quately exploited. NSC 58, ‘US Policy towards the Soviet Satellite States in Eastern Europe’, 14 September 1949'

ore than any other aspect o f liberation in the late 1940s, Operation Valuable, the SIS and CIA attem pt to liberate Albania, was British owned. This was rooted in complex wartime struggles between OSS and SO E in the Balkans. SO E belligerently insisted on dominance in the Balkans, provoking William J. Donovan to launch his own independent activities in the region. SO E had the dubious honour o f arming and training Enver Hoxha, a wartime communist resistance leader and by far the m ost effective killer o f Germans. By 1946 he had secured power in Albania, dec­ laring himself the new president and establishing close links with Moscow. L ondon had reasons to hate the post-war H oxha regime in Albania. Britain was embroiled in a vicious civil war in neighbouring Greece, sup­ porting the governm ent against the communists. Stalin largely respected the Balkan ‘percentages deal’ which he had concluded in M oscow with Churchill in O ctober 1944, and so did n o t send aid to the com m unist guerrillas in Greece. Instead they received it from the Albanian com m u­ nists and, prior to 1948, from the bellicose Tito. British com m itm ents in the M editerranean, from Greece through to Palestine, were placing L ondon under unbearable strain, eventually prom pting American mili­ tary aid in the form o f the Trum an D octrine in March 1947. M ore point­ edly, in 1946, the H oxha regime, which was paranoid about its security, had begun tiring on British warships sailing in the Adriatic. Two British destroyers sank in the three-mile-wide C orfu Channel after hitting

M

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Albanian mines. T he International C ourt o f Justice found H oxha guilty, b ut he had refused to accept responsibility.2 Aside from the ‘grudge factor’, Albania was an attractive target because o f its geographical seclusion from the Eastern bloc. After the Tito-Stalin split in the sum m er o f 1948 there was simply no land-route that would allow Soviet forces to intervene to help Hoxha suppress a rebellion. Tito, w ho counted him self lucky to have drifted away from Soviet conưol w ithout suffering intervention himself, could not be persuaded to inter­ vene in Albania, for fear o f Soviet reprisals. Nevertheless, his benign neu­ trality consigned Albania to vulnerable isolation. This was a key factor for SIS, whose resources for this sort o f operation were self-confessedly limited. T he uprising in Albania was the work o f the Special Political Action section o f SIS. This was very small, no m ore than a few officers staffing a planning unit. Menzies deliberately avoided creating a real special operations section, instead requiring all new SIS officers to do a little basic training in special operations. T he main ‘outdoor’ training centre for SIS was at G osport in a curious and rem ote fort dating back to the Napoleonic era. Here operational exercises included covert landings on the D orset coast, but these amateur affairs had a supreme air o f unreality.3 O peration Valuable was therefore ru n by form er SO E personnel recalled specifically for the purpose. Leadership fell to Colonel David Smiley, a tough and highly experienced SO E officer. Smiley had spent a long period in wartime Albania training guerrillas together with Julian Amery, w ho was also recalled for the operation. Striding about with a tom m y gun and his ‘favourite corduroy trousers’ Smiley had been a dis­ tinctive figure and survived for two years in wartim e Albania close to the neighbouring G erm an garrison. H e had then joined SO E in the Far East. Em broiled in the struggle for control over Indochina in late 1945 he had survived a shoot-out with OSS-backed guerrillas in Laos. B ut his closest call had been at the hands o f an SO E device. A therm ite briefcase, designed to incinerate its top-secret contents in an emergency, had acci­ dentally detonated prematurely, inflicting severe burns. By 1947, Smiley was serving as part o f the British occupation in G erm any when he was recalled to secret service by SIS for the operation against Albania.4 T he limited nature o f SIS resources prom pted early discussions with Frank W isner and his deputy Franklin Lindsay in 1948. T he American case officer at the planning stage was Jam es Macarger. But the m ost active supporter o f the proposal in W ashington was R obert Joyce o f the Policy Planning Staff, w ho hoped that the successful liberation o f Albania would send shock waves right across the E astern bloc. Albania also seemed an ideal laboratory in which to refine and develop tech­ niques, and the first wave o f activities in 1948-9 constituted a probing operation, rather than an all-out attem pt to unseat Hoxha.5

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N ineteen-forty-eight was a year o f preparations. SIS provided m ost o f the Albanian operatives, known to their training officers as 'Pixies'. It ransacked the Displaced Persons camps o f G erm any and Italy for likely agents. T he result was a motley crew o f over 200 volunteers, mostly in a p o o r state o f health, a proportion o f w hom were alm ost certainly working for Albanian state security. Smiley trained his Pixie teams on Malta during the sum m er o f 1949 and planned to deliver them to the Albanian coast by boat. Meanwhile the Americans trained their Albanians in southern G erm any and prepared them to be dropped by parachute from C-47 D akota aircraft. Political preparations for a new regime had also begun. An Albanian National Com m ittee was created to provide a semblance o f governm ent in exile. As W ashington noted politely, the Albanian émigrés 'are to o heterogeneous to be placed in any definite political and social classification’. Predictably, no single figure could be found w ho would com m and universal support inside and outside Albania. T he com m ittee was an uneasy coalition between the supporters o f tribal warlord King Zog, w ho had reigned in the late 1920s, and the Balli K om betar group, which had run a National F ront in Athens and Rome, and several smaller groups. King Z og had been exceedingly unpopular outside his own tribal district before the war. Only now that the H oxha governm ent 'requisi­ tions everything’ did he glow by comparison. Everyone from peasants to traders to shopkeepers supported him over Hoxha, with the exception o f the young progressive intellectuals w ho did n o t like the idea o f a return to stultifying monarchism. Above politics and unsullied by personal col­ laboration with the Axis, Z og was 'the only Albanian w ho could unify m ost o f the elements in exile’. T he Americans preferred the intellectual group Balli Kom betar, led by form er judge Hasan D osti, which had begun as an anti-Axis resistance m ovem ent and had 'organised a plot to assassinate leading Italian and Albanian fascists’ in the late 1930s. But it was weak and had ignominiously collaborated for a while to shelter from attacks by the vigorous comm unists before fleeing to Italy in 1943. T he British preferred the Legalität! group, form ed in 1943 by M ajor Abas Kupi, w ho sought to restore the Z og monarchy. But, like D osti’s intellectuals, he had resorted to collaborating with the Axis regime in Tirana to protect him self from the communists. In O ctober 1944, S O E evacuated him together with his two sons and close followers. T here were at least four other groups with adherents in Italy, Egypt, Greece, the United States and even Australia. T he C IA -sponsored Free E urope Com mittee, the umbrella organisation co-ordinating the radio warfare against the E astern bloc and the exile group activities, did w hat it could to lend this uneasy federation o f groups som e political respectability.6

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T he first move in O peration Valuable took place in O ctober 1949. A flotilla o f SỈS-chartered boats ferried a group o f twenty-six Pixies to the Albanian coast. They were am bushed soon after landing and suffered four casualties. T he rem ainder fled. M ost were fortunate to escape over the m ountains into neighbouring Greece, where the local authorities took them to be com m unist guerrillas. SIS had to undertake tactful work to persuade the G reeks to release them . Although there was clearly a sub­ stantial potential partisan m ovem ent on the ground in Albania it could n o t be eneigised. Each attem pt to insert agents was m et by the Albanian security forces. H o t receptions were a constant factor w hether the Pixies were inserted by sea o r by parachute.7 Anglo-American frictions plagued operations at all levels. Things had got off to a bad start in early 1949 w hen the British and French had uncovered an am ateur and undeclared US operation to overthrow T ito in neighbouring Yugoslavia, o f which they knew nothing. W isner’s O PC had begun to infiltrate right-wing exiles into Yugoslavia, m osdy Serb Chetniks. Bizarrely they were clothed in US Air Force uniform s and they were quickly rounded up by the secur­ ity police. For a while they were herded about on Belgrade's main railway station. Charles Bateman, the senior British diplom at overseeing policy in this part o f the world, exclaimed that this was ‘inconceivably stupid* and dem anded action against ‘this idiotic American behaviour’. Bevin teamed up with the US A m bassador to London, Cavendish Cannon, to convince W ashington that there was no alternative to T ito and that to try and unseat him was unrealistic and ‘would be playing straight into the Soviet hand’.8 Bevin also argued over Albania. American planners favoured youthful Albanian nationalists w ho sought to develop a non-com m unist republic and leaned towards the United States. Bevin explained that ‘the British had followed a policy o f unrelenting hostility to the Hoxha G overnm ent', but he was openly scathing o f the CLA-funded Free Albania Committee. At a m eeting with Acheson he asked, ‘Are there any Kings around that could be put in? . . . a person we could handle was needed.' H e captured much o f the essence o f the British approach to per­ petuating influence in dependent areas in the m id-twentieth century. D uring the w ar similar tensions had arisen between OSS, which favoured young nationalists, often middle-ranking officers in the arm ed forces, and the British, w ho had preferred to sponsor the traditional, golf­ playing sultans and raịahs.9 Bevin him self had com e to the Foreign Office in 1945 determ ined to change this aspect o f British policy, convinced that it was storing up teouble. In N ovem ber that year, he lectured Lord Halifax, Britain’s Am bassador in W ashington, on the subject, insisting that this was why Britain had never achieved a genuine partnership with the peoples o f the M editerranean and the Middle East. Instead, ‘our

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foreign policy has rested on too narrow a footing mainly on the person­ alities o f kings, princes o r pashas’. But in no time at all Bevin fell back on traditional policies, typified by his support for King Abdullah in Jordan, unkindly referred to in the Foreign Office as ‘M r Bevin’s Little King’.10 SIS backed away from liberation after similar disappointm ents during the 1950 operational ‘season’. Indeed, although Bevin had agreed to O peration Valuable, it was against his better judgem ent and was forced on him by pressure from Tedder and Montgomery. Away from W hitehall, Bevin now worked secredy to oppose it. In m id-Septem ber 1949 he had m et his opposite num bers Acheson and Schuman for talks in W ashington. T he Americans had wanted ‘to make m ore trouble for the Albanian regime’. But Bevin had asserted that ‘there is no subsdtute for the present Hoxha regime and that the Free Albania Com m ittee is n o t a hopeful prospect’. H e was already backing away from O peradon Valuable only m onths after Smiley’s first wave o f Pixies had landed on Albania’s hostile shores.11 By 1951 Albania was a purely CIA operadon. T he CIA persevered and changed tacdcs. T he situadon in Greece had now stabilised, so attem pts were made to infiltrate groups by land over the border, but the result was depressingly familiar. T he CIA was encouraged by a single surviving group equipped with a W /T transm itter that seemed to be well estab­ lished. But the balance o f opinion is that this one operational station set up inside Albania had been ‘turned’ by state security and was being used to lure in m ore unsuspecdng groups.12 Public knowledge o f O peration Valuable was initiated by the appear­ ance o f Kim Philby’s provocative but stylish m em oirs in 1968. This led many dow n the years to leap to the conclusion that his role in its planning resulted in its demise. But this is improbable. In Septem ber 1949, as the first waves w ent ashore, Philby had only just arrived in W ashington and was still waiting to take over from Peter Dwyer as head o f station desig­ nate. Day-to-day planning was in the hands o f working groups attended by Earl Jellicoe, a wartime SAS officer. Landings and drops were decided m ore locally. Instead O peration Valuable fell foul o f the danger that awaits all large-scale covert paramilitary operations, namely that they require forces o n a scale that makes them impossible to screen. Penetration by low-level agents o f Hoxha’s security forces was inevitable. Moreover, the degree o f fear achieved by Hoxha’s regime was extremely effective, since few villagers would risk retribution by n o t denouncing agents landing in their locality.13 T he operation against isolated and vulnerable Albania was an obvious move, so much so that the Soviets had been expecting it for three years. Britain already had form er SO E officers in the area, advising the Greek forces against com m unist guerrillas. O n 20 D ecem ber 1946 Moscow

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Radio accused the Tsaldaris governm ent in Greece o f ‘form ing in secrecy a corps o f Hitlerite mercenaries and traitors’. These bands were n o t just for counter-insurgency, they were also intended for ‘sabotage in Yugoslavia and Albania with a view to destroying the peaceful work o f th e peoples o f those countries’. M oscow insisted that T h is criminal acdvity is being carried out under the guidance o f British officers. Experienced collaborators o f British espionage, o f the Intelligence Service, are working at various points in Greece with groups o f traitors w ho sought shelter in G reece from the neighbouring c o u n tries. . . These are facts that Tsaldaris and his kind prefer to keep hidden.’14 Philby was not inactive, but he was engaged at a higher level o f activity —dealing with strategic questions —rather than the grubby business o f held officers. As the Pixies were lighting their way ashore in the autum n o f 1949, he was attending meetings that were concerned with m ore ele­ vated matters. O n 16 N ovem ber he and Peter Dwyer m et w ith the Am ericans to discuss the establishm ent o f a new comm unications centre for the CIA in Britain carrying much o f the US traffic from Europe. T he C IA group was led by the Director, Admiral Hillenkoetter, together with his intelligence operations chief, Colonel Robert Schow, and Franklin Lindsay, D eputy C hief o f OPC. Com m ander Johnson, a senior CIA com m unications officer, accompanied them to offer technical advice. T h e US A ừ Force was represented by Major-General A nderson and the R A F by its C hief Signals Officer, A k Vice Marshal Edward Barker A ddison. A ddison was present because o f the nature o f the radio com ­ m unications centre proposed by the CIA. T he US party explained that th e ‘station is to be established, operated, financed, and m anned by CIA personnel, logged as an RAF radio station, and the U.S. Air Force in the U nited K ingdom to be used as security cover for this operation’. All parties proved to be in agreem ent and the plan w ent forward. By 1954 this British-based channel was carrying m ore CIA radio traffic than any o th e r in the w orld.15 T he Soviets were not about to risk the cover o f an agent at this level in order to catch a few ragged groups o f Albanian émigrés. W estern operations against the Soviets in Poland seemed better con­ ceived than those into Albania. T he Second World War had shown that there were two routes to effective covert paramilitary operations. First, sh ort-term raids, often conducted by groups like the SAS, which caused m ayhem behind enemy lines in wartime and required little in the way o f indigenous networks on the ground. Secondly, long-term complex ‘secret arm y’ type operations that attem pted to harness the local populations into extensive guerrilla forces. In Poland, the Baltic states and the Ukraine, extensive anti-Soviet resistance groups had certainly been present on the ground in 1945. O n the face o f it the prospects for resistance in these

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countries seemed good. But the timing was bad. By 1948, when SIS and O P C /C IA began to make serious efforts to exploit them , they had been badly depleted o r penetrated. In 1944, the Soviets decided to halt their advance on Warsaw to allow the G erm ans space to crush the main non-com m unist resistance forces, the Polish H om e Army, before continuing their advance. This was one o f the m ost controversial episodes o f the war. Thereafter, as we have seen, Poland was brutally but effectively run by Soviet security. W hat remained o f the H om e Army went to ground and dared n o t resurface. T he elements that did so were those which were controlled by the Soviets. Why then did both SIS and the CIA choose to encourage resis­ tance here, in an area where Soviet rule was at its m ost brutal, in the late 1940s? Poland held out to SIS and the CIA the possibility o f higher risks b ut also larger rewards. Unlike Albania, Poland was one o f the Red Army’s strategic highroads to W estern Europe in any future war. T he recruitm ent o f resistance networks here, even if they remained ‘asleep’ in peacetime, was potentially valuable. T he US Army was pressing Frank W isner’s O PC hard to proceed with this sort o f work, believing that hot war m ight be no m ore than six m onths away. Moreover, there were vast num bers o f Polish exiles in the West, especially in Britain, the Com monwealth and the Empire. These were n o t the starving and the ragged o f the Displaced Persons camps, like those Albanians w ho had thronged to O peration Valuable, but regular military units that had proved themselves in main-force engagements during the last war. Indeed some were still serving within the British Army’s Pioneer Corps. T he central figure was G eneral Wladyslaw Anders, wartime C om m ander o f the Polish Forces. Unsullied by factional political alle­ giance he was probably the m ost prestigious East European exiled in the West in the late 1940s. T hroughout those years SIS attem pted to per­ suade him to stay in L ondon and to run operations into Poland for intel­ ligence-gathering purposes. But Anders became increasingly disillusioned with the small scale o f the British operations and increas­ ingly enam oured o f American plans for a Volunteer Freedom Corps, a sort o f foreign legion made up o f Eastern bloc exiles. In June 1950 he left L ondon for W ashington to discuss plans for the emigration o f 38,000 Polish Army veterans from the U K to the US to join the planned C orps.16 However, W estern intelligence services were not the only ones to rec­ ognise the potential o f this immense reservoir o f effective Polish military personnel outside Poland. T he Soviet M GB made active and effective efforts to control it. It is likely that the M GB itself was responsible for the initiation o f liberation operations targeted on Poland. In 1947 Joseph Sienko, a m em ber o f the H om e Army, which had now renam ed itself the Freedom and Independence M ovement, with the acronym W IN ,

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‘escaped* from Poland and travelled to London. Here Sienko convinced the rem nants o f the wartime Polish governm ent in exile that a substantial resistance m ovem ent remained, with perhaps as many as 20,000 members. General Anders was persuaded to contact SIS and the CIA to seek support. However, in reality, Sienko and all that remained o f W IN were conưolỉed by the UB, the Polish com m unist security police operat­ ing u n d er the tutelage o f the M GB.17 By 1950 a huge program m e o f material support, consisting largely o f airdrops o f arms, m oney (in gold bullion) and radios was in progress, supervised from the CIA’s large stations in southern Germany. W IN , with its headquarters in London, claimed 500 active members, 20,000 parttim ers and 100,000 resistance fighters o n call awaiting the rising against the communists. But the UB collected this material because many o f the W IN operatives were unaware that at a higher level they were controlled by the security police, which lent their activities greater credibility. M ost o f the effort was put in by the CIA. T he leading CIA officers were veterans o f the OSS wartime Yugoslavia campaign, Franklin Lindsay and John Bross. T hey had entertained som e doubts in 1951 when W IN had requested that the CIA parachute in experienced American military officers to supervise training. Bross recalled that the idea o f ‘an American general, hanging from a parachute, descending into a Com m unist country, gave US some pause for thought*. Although there had been concerns about the security o f W IN , reality only dawned in D ecem ber 1952 when Polish official media chose to reveal the nature and extent o f the operation.18 D epressing experiences across E astern Europe, capped by Poland, triggered Lindsay’s decision to quit the CIA at the end o f 1952. He had com e to the conclusion that the chances o f such networks being pene­ trated were very high. Allen Dulles asked Lindsay, a very experienced officer, to prepare a retiring report. W hen the first draft was uncom pro­ misingly negative he called Lindsay to a private m eeting at his hom e and pressed him to rewrite it. However, events elsewhere in E astern E urope were confirm ing the accuracy o f all that Lindsay had said.19 M atters were different again in the Baltic states and the Ukraine. Here both the CIA and SIS were active, but with different objectives. As in Poland, these areas were n o t sympathetic to Soviet rule and they had enjoyed greater success in impeding the Red Army during and after the war. Resistance groups managed to perpetuate insurgencies in the Baltic states and the Ukraine into the 1950s. But they had achieved this rem ark­ able longevity in the face o f M GB security operations only by limiting their activities. Beyond 1948 these insurgencies were in a downward spiral and had lost the initiative. N either the CIA n o r SIS in G erm any had any serious intention o f attem pting to reverse this spiral. Certainly the idea o f detaching these

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areas from Soviet rule was recognised by m ost field officers as ludicrous. As early as 1945, L ondon had taken a long look at Stephan Bandera’s O U N Ukrainian nationalist organisation and concluded that they would never be m ore than a ‘nuisance’ to the Soviets. However, a nucleus o f potential resistance continued to hold o u t attractive prospects in the event o f a future war, especially as its locations were so deep inside the Soviet Union. Moreover, there was the prospect o f intelligence, always a scarce com m odity within the borders o f the Soviet Union, and experi­ ence during the last war had shown that resistance networks were an excellent means o f collecting it. However, utilising these groups required som ething o f a double game on the part o f the CIA and SIS. N o Ukrainian guerrilla would be anxious to risk his neck in order to provide better-quality intelligence for m onthly bulletins to be circulated around the desks o f London o r W ashington. In order to gain co-operation from resistance networks in the Bälde states and the Ukraine, the West had at least to talk the language o f liberadon. However, the num ber o f missions and quanddes o f supplies sent to these areas were paltry com pared to the secret army efforts o f the Second World War. In the Bälde states, SIS had been working to establish links with guerrilla groups since 1944. Contrary to some suggestions, it had never entertained serious hopes o f prising away those countries from Soviet control. Although smaller, and thus theoretically less vulnerable than CIA operations into Poland, these m et the same fate and found themselves controlled by the MGB.20 Only the guerrilla war in the Ukraine appears to have resisted the insidious penetration o f security forces. Perhaps m ore than anywhere, w hat remained o f the population o f the Ukraine had to develop an extraordinarily tough mentality merely to survive. Anxiety to escape Soviet rule here was deep rooted. Having endured massive executions during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, the region suffered further persecu­ tions designed to eliminate traitors as the G erm ans had advanced on it in 1941. T he N K V D was reliably reported to have executed m ore than 10,000 political prisoners and suspects in Lvov alone, rather than trans­ p o rt them east in the muddy autum n o f that year. By N ovem ber it was busy killing industrial workers w ho had protested against the starvation rations, soldiers w ho had complained about the lack o f munitions, G erm an POW s and even Red Army w ounded w ho could not be evacu­ ated. Many had little to lose by welcoming the invading enemy, hoping that under the G erm ans they m ight live a little longer. T he G erm ans set about removing the ethnic Russians and the Jews, actively assisted by the Ukrainians. Many w ent to terrible deaths, som e processed in mobile gas vans, others poisoned, before being disposed o f down mine-shafts. T housands were shot, som e not fatally, only to be buried alive in the mile upon mile o f defensive ditches that stretched

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around each town. G erm an rule over the much depleted population was no m ore benign, with many despatched to G erm any as forced labour. E ven those w ho had found a place in the new G erm an structure o f authority, for example as ancillary police, were unsafe, because the N K V D had left behind substantial num bers o f agents. Com m unist infiltrators had orders to seek to provoke the G erm ans into unpleasant reprisals against the population, thus generating m ore support for proSoviet partisans.21 Ukrainian nationalism, and the Utopian vision o f independent Ukraine free from Soviet o r G erm an rule, became a sort o f m ental refuge. Fragmented guerrilla groups, including the O U N Ukrainian nationalist organisations that followed Stephan Bandera, and the UPA the so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army - emerged amid the chaos. Initially, as we have seen, the Ukrainian nationalists had attem pted to collaborate with the G erm ans, w ho recruited a division o f the Waffen SS, the Galicia Division, in the Ukraine. But by 1943 the nationalist guerrillas were fighting a tw o-front war against all foreign occupiers. T h eir main obstacle was the diversity o f the vast Ukrainian territory. Bandera's followers, speaking the Galician dialect, could barely make themselves understood in areas like the D onbas, which were m ore heavily Russified.22 Nevertheless there were plenty o f recruits in 1945 and 1946. T he war had transform ed the Ukraine and utterly changed people’s outlook. Few choices were m ade freely and all o f them had involved extreme danger. It created a vast outlaw class o f those w ho had been tainted by som e contact with the G erm ans, for initially the return­ ing Soviet authorities perm itted no middle ground. Even those w ho had been forcibly taken off to labour camps in G erm any often found them ­ selves incarcerated for decades. Better to join O U N o r UPA and enjoy a free life in the mountains.23 Only in the Ukraine were the tables turned on Soviet security. Elsewhere, the M GB infiltrated guerrilla groups and their émigré sup­ porters in the West. But in the Ukraine the guerrilla effort was run by an M GB officer —Babenko - w ho had defected to the nationalists. M GB security troops wore the Ukrainians down only gradually, forcing the guerrillas into a marginal existence in m ountainous areas o f the Carpathians. It was ironic that the toughest guerrilla elements to be backed by SIS and the CIA were situated in areas extremely unsuited to detachm ent from Soviet control. As an MGB officer Babenko had been serving against Germany. For an unknown reason he had been sentenced to ten years’ im prisonm ent but had soon escaped. He came to Odessa and led a group o f UPA underground fighters from ‘the many catacombs that underlie the city’. His raids on M GB and military officials were ‘quite frequent’ and the population in O dessa regarded him as a ‘local Robin

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Hood*. N o Soviet officer could feel safe while this figure was at large. O n 12 July 1946 one o f the MGĐ majors stationed in O dessa was swimming at the local Arcadia beach when a team o f guerrillas ‘poured five shots into his body and escaped*. U nder a ‘great cloud o f secrecy’ a wide search was m ounted for the assassins while the newspapers reported that he had died due to a ‘tragic accident*. Later that year a large industrial plant near K harkov was blown up and there was a revolt o f m aịor proportions in the D onbas coalmine area. Many governm ent officials were killed but the revolt was gradually suppressed.24 A t one time the num bers o f guerrillas were estim ated to be 10,000 around Lvov and 15,000 in the Carpathian M ountains. But at the end o f 1946 American officers reported that ‘many have been killed o r hanged’ in continual raids by M GB troops, and for every fifteen people w ho w ent to serve with the guerrillas ‘only one remains alive today’.25 W estern efforts to employ the Ukrainians faced another type o f problem . ‘Ukrainian’ operations by SIS and CIA increasingly focused on the support o f exile groups in the West. In a dozen W estern capitals the Ukrainian émigrés revealed their fragm ented nature. O bscure sưuggles developed within the various groups for control that were no less bitter than those against the Soviets. These problem s were multiplied for the CLA-supported free radio stations, with their troupes o f conspiratorially m inded exiles from several dozen ‘captive nations’ safely billeted in W ashington, L ondon and Munich. T he scope for vicious infighting was limidess. T he Ukrainians fought on into the mid-1950s and were clearly regarded by M oscow as the m ost dangerous o f the nationalist opponents. It was for this reason that they singled out W estern-based Ukrainian exile leaders for special treatm ent, sending an unsuccessful assassin to elimi­ nate Ukrainian émigré leaders in Berlin in 1950 and a m ore successful agent, Karl Anders, to m urder Stephan Bandera in 1959. Several groups o f SIS agents had been dropped into the Ukraine by mid-1951. Insertion was achieved by RAF aircraft from airfields in the M editerranean, usually Malta o r Crete. T he RAF were confident that these ‘special duties’ flights would go undetected by Soviet air defences, because RAF and USAF electronic intelligence flights had found large holes in the Soviet air defence system and radar networks. T he first SIS effort to drop in Ukrainians was O peration Proịect 1, under Colonel Harold G ibson, an old hand in SIS w ho had been in charge o f the station in Prague in 1939. A nthony Cavendish, an SIS officer w ho worked on these operations, recalled their despatch: At suitable phases of the moon, teams of two or three highly trained agents were dropped into the Ukraine or Byelorussia. 1 knew that PROJECTS II, III, and IV went ahead and after arrival the dropped agents made radio contact

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with their base station in Western Germany. However, several o f the agents were captured, tried —some in show trials —and then shot. Today 1 still wonder whether those who did continue in radio contact did so under KGB control. SIS was using the Ukrainians m ostly for intelligence by this stage and held o u t little hope o f liberation. Yet m ost o f the intelligence com ing out o f the Soviet Union via émigré organisations was considered suspect for two basic reasons, and all reports from émigré sources were labelled ‘M auve’. T h e main reason for suspicion was that the émigré organisa­ tions were political bodies for lobbying on behalf o f their countries in the West, and were n o t primarily set up as intelligence-gathering units. Always anxious to recruit m ore m em bers, they were insecure and often penetrated by the Soviets. SIS also complained that the Ukrainians w ho worked for it were over-anxious to please and could never resist exagger­ ating th eừ achievements and embellishing the intelligence they had obtained.26 It seems pu 2 zling that these operations continued for som e years in the face o f obvious failure. But we should not be surprised. These activ­ ities were m ounted using doctrines and personnel developed during the Second World War. T he success o f OSS, SO E and SAS against occupa­ tion by a G erm an totalitarian regime that was outwardly similar to Soviet occupation in the E astern bloc encouraged many to think that success was only just around the corner. Moreover, the clandestine war against the G erm ans in E urope had suffered its reverses. In any large-scale war o f resistance, som e penetration was inevitable and seemed only to be a test o f resolve. But this idea o f resolve was exacerbated by the American ‘project’-based system for evaluating its officers. By 1949 Frank W isner’s O P C was under trem endous pressure to expand its activities. Prom otion was expansion driven, depending upon the num ber o f ‘projects’ initiated and continuing, n o t on any deeper criteria o f success o r failure. This ensured an in-built bias against closing operations even if they were stall­ ing and their dividends were small. In the 1970s when Congress began to probe covert operations, it identified this kind o f benchm ark for special operations as a m ajor deficiency.27 H ow far the CIA was com m itted to physical assistance to the Ukrainians is clouded by the problem o f simultaneous planning for both a cold war and a h o t war. Although many exotic plans for the use o f Ukrainian resistance groups were developed by the West, including attacks on divisional M GB headquarters, m ost o f these related to military planning for a future war. W ashington was hugely enam oured o f H itler’s successful attem pts to recruit Soviet citizens into the G erm an W ehrmacht. As early as 1948 the US Air Force had decided to remove all Ukrainian cities from their priority target list and instead ‘request

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Psychological Warfare Division to take the necessary action t o . . . capital­ ize on this'. In other words the Ukraine areas would be relied upon to rebel and would not need to bom bed in a future war. But this was n o t a Cold War liberation program m e; instead it was a contingency plan for guerrilla warfare in a possible T hird World War.28 W hat was the value o f liberation as practised by SIS and the CIA? Form er operatives have been markedly unenthusiastic. Harry Rositzke, a senior reared CIA officer with responsibilities for the E astern bloc, con­ dem ned the record as ‘one o f alm ost uniform failure’.29 O thers have shared this view. But few have appreciated the full complexities and it is probable that not all those working in the field were aware o f the arcane strategic discussion about the multiple possibilities that liberation offered. W estern efforts in this area, at first glance, appear strategically illconceived, and operationally shoddy. T he concept, as Tedder had identified during discussion in the Russia Com m ittee as early as N ovem ber 1948, was flawed, unless one intended to follow up a rising o f resistance forces with a full invasion. T here were also operational weak­ nesses. SIS had retained little special operations capability and the D P camps where it sought its material were swarming with low-grade agents o f every hue. O PC operations reflected a hastily expanded American apparatus asked to do too much too quickly. G eorge K ennan has som e­ thing to answer for, dem anding that his Policy Planning Staff and the N ational Security Council should retain control o f O PC, while the CIA remained m ere functionaries for W isner’s semi-detached organisation. T hat control was used to urge upon O P C an even greater scale o f activ­ ity than the eager W isner was contemplating. In early January 1949 he sent K ennan an outline o f O P C operational and budgetary plans for the year 1949-50. K ennan wanted more: ‘In my opinion, this presentation contains the minimum o f w hat is required from the foreign policy stand­ point in the way o f covert operations during the com ing y e a r. . . As the international situation develops, every day makes m ore evident the im portance o f the role which will have to be played by covert operations if our national interests are to be adequately protected.’ In all o f the State D epartm ent, those having ‘full knowledge’ o f O PC operations were restricted to just three: Kennan, Maynard Barnes and John Davies. These three were later joined by R obert Joyce. K ennan wanted a special team o f four o r five within PPS ‘designated to guide W isner’s operations’. H e was clear that ‘while this D epartm ent should take no responsibility for his operations, we should nevertheless maintain a firm guiding hand’. But he could n ot get m ore staff for the co-ordination o f O PC operations, because the ‘stubborn’ personnel section o f the State D epartm ent was n ot cleared to know, so O P C needs could n o t be explained to them!30 Extrem e secrecy would later allow Kennan to deny everything. He

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argued there had been no attem pt at the construction o f a vast edifice o f Cold War fighting. Testifying before the Church Com m ittee which inves­ tigated the CỈA in 1975, he insisted that when recom m ending the devel­ op m en t o f a covert action capability in 1948 the State D epartm ent had w anted only ‘a small contingency force’ that could operate ‘on a limited basis’. D iplom ats did not ‘plan to develop large scale continuing opera­ tions. Instead, they hoped to establish a small capability that could be activated at their discretion.’ N othing could have been further from the tru th .31 Yet an underlying logic underpinned K ennan’s desire to expand covert operations. Liberation had little chance o f liberating the ‘captive nations’ o f the East. But for many in W ashington this was not the central goal. For Kennan, the individual success o f particular covert actions was relatively unim portant and w hat m attered was to maintain the pressure o n the communists. This ensured that the Soviets would be kept off balance, and so less likely to pursue probing activities in the West’s own ‘sore spots’: Italy, France, Greece, the Middle East. It also placed the Soviets under the kind o f psychological strain that was likely to aggravate th e fundam ental contradictions that he frequently pointed to in the com ­ m unist system. These contradictions, K ennan hoped, would eventually cause the com m unist m onolith to shake itself to pieces. K ennan’s dem and for expanded covert action was pardy a reaction to attacks on him by the American right in 1947 following the publication o f his infam ous ‘M r X ’ article in the journal Foreign A ffairs. After outlining the essentials o f containm ent, in rather loose and journalistic language, K ennan was charged by his critics with allocating a burdensom e role to American forces, m ore precisely the United States Treasury, imposing the weight o f global militarised containm ent though it seemed to offer only stalemate. T he right-wing econom ising Congress, seeking post-war draw­ dow n, was n o t in the m ood for new burdens. Stung by this criticism, K ennan p ut forward O PC , with its radio stations and its covert paramili­ tary operations, as the answer to the problem o f eternal stalemate. M oreover, as he realised, for purposes o f morale and self-credibility, the W est had to seen to be doing som ething to respond to w hat was undoubt­ edly a m ajor Soviet campaign o f subversion and espionage in the West.32 For others in W ashington, especially the military, liberation was not only a way o f keeping the Soviets oif balance, it was also a pathfinding activity for the larger-scale covert action that would be carried o u t during a conventional war with the Soviet Union, which many believed firmly was at best only a few years away. T he outbreak o f the Korean War in the sum m er o f 1950 only increased the pressure for such preparations. As C hristopher Sim pson has shown, large num bers o f East Europeans were held in various obscure ‘holding tanks’ by the military, often Labour Service battalions, with a view to using them in the East in a future

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conflict. Lending a sense o f urgency to all these activities was a general view that, however flawed, the concept o f liberation allowed the West to ‘do som ething’. Liberation, which had a strong radio-warfare content alongside its paramilitary aspects, provided the ultimate vehicle for an ideological expression o f the American position on the Cold War.33 Did the liberation activities o f the West achieve K ennan’s strategic objective o f increasing general pressure on Stalin? T he answer is inesca­ pably yes. Stalin's paranoid vision quickly multiplied the limited range o f W estern activities into som ething much larger. M oscow saw these covert operations as merely the tip o f a vast subversive icebetg. It is clear that the Soviets were from the outset aware o f many Western contacts with dissident national groups inside and outside the Eastern bloc. It is equally clear that it would n o t have taken much clandestine activity o f this sort to ring alarm bells for Stalin, whose paranoia had assumed fantastic proportions. His daughter recalled her shock at learning that he no longer trusted his own M GB chief, Lavrenti Beria, while later K hrushchev famously claimed to have overheard him muttering, ‘Finished. I trust no one, not even myself.’ Stalin’s agents in the West were well enough placed to know about the broad scale o f W estern liber­ ation activities and it was n o t in his nature to rest until all the networks had been discovered. W estern efforts at subversion prom pted him to take a harder line in his external policy and indeed helped to propel him towards participation in the Korean War.34 But the m ost im portant question regarding liberation centres upon the remarkable and bloody wave o f purges that swept E astern bloc com m u­ nist parties between late 1948 and 1953. T he T ito heresy o f 1948 —with Yugoslavia splitting from the Soviet bloc to confront Stalin with antiSoviet com m unism —triggered a wave o f bloody repression across that bloc that surprised everyone. Senior Com m unist Party leaders, seemingly hitherto faithful adherents to Moscow, were accused o f treacherous deal­ ings with agents o f the British, the Americans and the Yugoslavs. T he first m ajor trials began in Albania on 12 May 1949. László Rajk, the Hungarian Foreign Secretary, was arrested and tried in the autum n o f 1949, quickly followed by Traicho Kostov, the Bulgarian D eputy Premier. B oth were quickly executed, and many others followed. Curiously, the linking elem ent in many o f the trials in E astern E urope was contact between the accused and N oel Field. Field was an American w ho had taken a P hD in political science at Harvard, joined the State D epartm ent and then worked with relief organisations in E urope since the Spanish civil war. Field was also a friend o f Allen Dulles.35 T he Czech purges were complex but offer a good example o f the m anner in which external contacts served as a trigger. T he Czech author­ ities had begun by targeting intellectuals w ho had spent the war in Britain

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and w ho were ‘suspected o f involvement with W estern intelligence ser­ vices’, together with Slovak nationalists. These episodes w ent through transform ations as each wave o f victims denounced others, and by 1952 the purges had changed direction and developed an increasingly antiSemitic quality,, although this them e was always present. By the m ajor trials o f late 1952, eleven o f the fourteen defendants were Jews, and ‘Zionism ’ had been added to the usual standard heresies. This also repre­ sented a search for scapegoats for Czechoslovakia’s econom ic difficulties o f the early 1950s, brought on by stiff increases in production dem ands by the Soviets. But fear o f foreign influence also played its part. In 1949, w hen the Czech purges got going, the main victims were hun­ dreds o f officials from the Ministries o f Foreign Trade, Foreign Affairs and Inform ation. ‘It was significant that these were the ministries that m aintained contact with foreigners and foreign states as part o f their norm al duties.’ Five o f the six m ost prom inent figures arrested in Czechoslovakia in 1949 had spent some o f the war in L ondon and three had enịoyed contact with a relief organisation run by H erm an Field - the b ro th er o f N oel —which was based in Krackow in 1939. H erm an Field was still visiting som e o f these figures in Czechoslovakia as late as 1947, and this form ed the basis o f the charge o f working ‘as an agent o f the W estern imperialists* and their ‘espionage services’. N oel Field him self had ‘disappeared’ in Prague in May 1949, and was followed by his brother H erm an, w ho vanished in Warsaw in August the same year. D uring sub­ sequent trials references to theừ statem ents showed that they had been arrested and interrogated. A further wave o f arrests followed across E astern E urope in 1950, and these included O tto Sling o f the Central Com m ittee o f the Com m unist Party in Czechoslovakia. A fter his trial the Czech authorities explained, ‘O tto Sling received instructions from his Anglo-American imperialist m asters to develop in Czechoslovakia a subversive action similar to that o f Rajk’s gang in Hungary and Traicho K ostov’s gang in B ulgaria. . . W ithin the framework o f their dark plans, they had considered rem oving K lem ent Gottw ald, the President o f the Republic, by assassination.’ W ashington noted that the ‘charges against Sling o f involvement with N oel Field are identical with those made against Laszlo Raịk during his trial in Budapest in Septem ber 1949*. T he other issue was internm ent in French camps after service in the International Brigades in Spain. Because N oel Field had been secretary o f a League o f N ations com m ittee form ed to extend assistance to foreign volunteers w ho had fought for the Spanish Republic, all this was suspect. T he Czech governm ent announced that its detainees had been recruited as spies while in the French camps. T hey were ‘the object o f blackmail first o f the French and American and then o f G erm an and other intelligence services’. For good m easure the

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Czechs added that the archives had now fallen into the hands o f the British and American secret services, so they were making use o f all the agents the Nazis had infiltrated into the com m unist parties o f Europe. This latter charge, at least, was not entirely w ithout foundation. By 1951 the purges in Czechoslovakia were turning upon the purgers. In February 1951 there was ‘a m ajor blow’ against intelligence and secur­ ity officials when the two D eputy Ministers o f National Security were arrested, including Karel Svab w ho headed the Secret Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence Division o f the Security Ministry. In his wake w ent his two lieutenants, the head o f counter-espionage and the head o f foreign (offensive) intelligence. By 1953 when the purges ended, thirty o f the ninety-seven party m em bers elected in May 1949 were either arrested, executed o r in disgrace.36 T he purges in Eastern E urope were vigorous and far-reaching, so much so that they even damaged the G erm an Com m unist Party —the K PD —in the W estern Zones. In 1949, General Serov, the MGB chief in the Soviet Zone, required the East G erm an security elements known as the Stasi to investigate all G erm an com m unists w ho m ight have had con­ tacts with N oel Field. Thereafter K PD officials from the West were often arrested while visiting the Soviet Z one and then subjected to torture. Remarkably this included K urt Miiller, the deputy head o f the KPD, who was arrested by Stasi officers pretending to be Soviet security. Miiller’s treatm ent was supervised throughout by the Soviets and the evidence collected included forced confessions o f collaboration with the usual W estern intelligence agencies. He endured three years o f interrogation before being sent to Siberia, initially for twenty-five years. However, in 1955 he and several other K PD officials were set free with one o f the last batches o f G erm an POW s released from Siberia and allowed to return to the West. T he purges were relentless. Muller’s successor as deputy chair­ man, Fritz Sperling, visited the E ast in February 1951 and endured a similar fate. T he hanging o f Slansky, form er Secretary General o f the Czech Com m unist Party, and his ten ‘accomplices’ in Prague was greeted enthusiastically in East Germ any in 1953 and a similar show trial there was probably halted only by the E ast Berlin rising and the fall from power o f Beria, Stalin’s M GB chief, in June 1953.37 T here is no doubt that CIA and SIS operations added to Stalin’s para­ noia and encouraged, if they needed encouragem ent, his fears o f a vast conspiracy. But the question that remains unanswered is the extent to which the West deliberately attempted to encourage the purges to bring down m ore destruction upon the com m unist cadres o f the E astern bloc. Were the purges free-standing extensions o f Stalin’s paranoia over events in Yugoslavia, o r was there some deliberate external provocation? In 1972 a book entitled splinter Factor by Stuart Steven argued that the purges were

1. Berlin, June 1945: Winston Churchill sits in Hitler's chair and jests with Soviet soldiers a month after he has ordered a feasibility study of a war with Moscow codenamed Operation Unthinkable 2. Anthony Eden and Alexander Cadogan together in the garden of the British Embassy in Teheran. They had different answers to the problem of secret service control. Eden won the argument

3. Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service or 'C , 1939-52

4. On the right Major-General Sir John Sinclair with General Mark Clark. Sinclair was wartime Director of Military Intelligence, then deputy to Menzies, and became 'C' in the sum m er of 1952

5. A cap tu red soldier of the W e h rm a c h t, but not German. By 1 9 4 5 , one in eight of H itler's s o l d i e r s was a citizen of the USSR. S o m e of these units were retained b y t h e West after the war

6. A ir Marshal Sir John Slessor (left) a n d M arshal of the RAF Sir Arthur T e d d e r (right) were architects of B ritish plans for the liberation of th e Eastern bloc through spedal o p eratio n s in 1948

7.

Major-General John s. Lethbridge, the first head of Britain's Intelligence Division in Germany, 1945-7

8. Former German POWs and captured German scientists who had worked inside the Soviet Union were a key intelligence source. Pictured here is the last major Soviet release of German POWs to the West in 1955

9. A rare photograph of the inside of Britain's early electronic intelligence 'ferret' aircraft in 1945

10. Commander Edward Travis, Director of Government Communications Headquarters, 1944-52

11. Intelligence failure in Palestine - the bombing of the King David Hotel, 1946

12. 'Boy Scout' - the Shah of Iran - with his family. He was restored to power by means of a joint CIA-SIS coup d'état in 1953. The CIA reported that the shah was petrified by the 'hidden hand' of British secret service

13. Forw ard posts in Korea often had therm ite incendiary grenades handy to destroy sensitive signals intelligence m aterial if they were in danger of being overrun

14. B ritish C om m andos attach ed to CCRAK plant dem olition charges on a railw ay behind e n em y lines eight m iles south of Songjun in Korea in A p n l 1951

15. Political prisoners suffered terribly on both sides during the Korean War. These civilians were forced into caves and deliberately killed by suffocation in October 1950

16. Training Korean internal security personnel in interrogation

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m ade far worse because o f a deliberate and successful attem pt by the W estern secret services to encourage a self-inflicted injury - to persuade th e Soviets to attack theứ own creatures, the E astern bloc com m unist parties. Inevitably, the key figure in this story is N oel Field. Some have claimed that Field was used to place individuals sympathetic to the West in Central E uropean com m unist parties. H e was certainly still in Prague in the spring o f 1949, w hen he was seized by the Hungarian security police, held and interrogated repeatedly until 1954. His brother was held in Poland. Were Field and his contacts part o f a deliberate plot to sm ear th e com m unist parties o f E astern E urope with a suspicious taint o f W estern contact?38 Allen Dulles reportedly claimed that provoking the purges was his ‘biggest ever success’. Dulles had been one o f the forerunners o f Am erican post-war covert operations in W estern Europe, and had helped to run SSƯ in G erm any in 1946, taking an interest in anti-com m unist operations in Italy from 1947. He was the main consultant to the CIA on covert operations in 1949 and joined the agency in a form al role to super­ intend all covert action in 1951. H e served as D C I from February 1953 to N ovem ber 1961. Allen Dulles was perhaps in a better position than anyone else to fathom the extent o f connections betw een liberation and the purges.39 But expert com m entators on the history o f the Eastern bloc rem ain perplexed and divided by Steven's idea o f a ‘Splinter Factor’. Dennett Kovrig regards the book as quite persuasive and asserts that the argum ents rest on ‘corroborated evidence’. Votjech M astny considers the same book to be ‘scurrilous’ and based o n ‘hearsay’ but nevertheless thinks the ‘basic idea is credible’. M ost writers o n SIS are unconvinced, for the claims o f Allen Dulles are easily dismissed as an attem pt to take credit for an unexpected windfall, offsetting an otherwise lamentable episode o f reverses and failures.40 New material lends support to the claims o f Dulles, suggesting that at the very least, as the purges developed, the CIA and SIS sought to increase their ferocity as an additional objective for liberation. Sceptics have pointed out that the purges began before the West gave the official green light for liberation in late 1948. But new accounts reveal American liberation efforts as being stronger and beginning sooner than previously thought. SIS was running exploratory operations in the Baltic as early as 1944. Support for anti-com m unist groups was ongoing in Rumania and Bulgaria through the rem nants o f OSS and American Army Intelligence as early as 1946. In O ctober o f that year ssu was having to exfiltrate resis­ tance leaders from Rumania with whom it had maintained contact as the security police closed in on them. British diplomats complained about this vigorously. Bits and pieces o f Western destabilisation had begun as early as 1946. Therefore, while the first wave o f purges in Eastern Europe

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occurred even before the Stalin—T ito split, they coincided with these initial post-war secret service excursions into the Eastern bloc.41 Provoking purges and other internal trouble was very m uch in the spirit o f the later conclusions o f the Russia Com m ittee in N ovem ber and D ecem ber 1948. T he military and diplom ats like Ivone Kirkpatrick were in a minority in thinking that substantial headway could be made with w hat they called loosening the Soviet hold on the orbit countries and ultimately enabling them to regain their independence’. But the majority o f the Russia Com m ittee thought it was quite unrealistic and instead wished to proceed with a m ore limited short-term policy o f just stirring up trouble inside the E astern bloc to keep the Soviets on the defensive. Stirring up trouble m eant ‘prom oting civil discontent, internal confusion and possibly strife in the satellite countries’. This was known as ‘O ption B’ and its intendon was to make the Eastern bloc ‘not a source o f strength b ut a source o f weakness’ and to ensure that if there was a war it would need 'arm ies o f occupation to hold it dow n’. Gladwyn Jebb dis­ liked even this and warned that if the West intensified the Cold War it m ight bring real war nearer, and in any case he did n o t think the West had the resources for widespread special operations and wanted to ‘postpone any m ore olfensive action’. But at the other extreme the Chiefs o f Staff wished to press on and were ‘anxious to see the m atter taken in hand’. O ption B —just stirring up trouble w ithout trying to liberate —offered a convenient middle way on which m ost could agree.42 K ennan certainly intended to turn the gigantic E astern bloc security apparatus in on itself and explicitly said so in the plans he helped to draft. By Septem ber 1949 the N ational Security Council was approving papers that set o u t a policy to ‘attack the weaknesses in the Stalinist penetration o f satellite governm ents and mass organisations’ and by this means to ‘reduce and eventually eliminate their power’. These docum ents remain heavily sanitised m ore than half a century after they were approved. However, their m eaning is unambiguous: T h e propensity o f the revolu­ tion to devour its own, the suspicions o f the Kremlin regarding its agents and the institutions o f denunciation, purge and liquidation are grave defects in the Soviet system which have never been adequately exploited.’ This was going to be taken up and it was now American policy to ‘exploit M oscow’s tendency to purge its own amid the Soviet Satellite States in Eastern E urope’.43 D eception planners in L ondon actively pressed the same ideas. In 1949 they argued that senior Soviet officials under Stalin and indeed throughout the E astern bloc were highly susceptible to this so rt o f disin­ form ation and a small am ount o f resistance m ight cause a great deal o f destabilisation. T h e ir mutual m istrusts, their anxiety for personal survi­ val and their cynical disloyalty towards their colleagues make them VUỈ-

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nerable to “planted” as well as real suspicions concerning each o th e r/ the planners argued. T hey advocated special operations that were specifically designed to link top com m unist officials with opposition m ovem ents ‘and thereby provoke in due course such purges and oppressive measures in the Soviet U nion as m ight lead to the com plete disruption o f the Soviet governm ent and system*. Some even hoped that the resulting stresses and strains m ight eventually instigate ‘an and-Stalinist counter­ revolution*. By July 1950 John D rew was advocating ‘framing* o r ‘sm ear­ ing* operations that would be ‘directed against individuals in positions o f authority*. T he following m onth, after talks with the Americans, opera­ tions to ‘plant’ material on M oscow began.44 T h e British deliberately sought to push the CIA towards m ore o f these kinds o f activities. By 1950, as we shall see, L ondon was becom ing con­ vinced that CIA paramilitary efforts to prise away another country from th e Eastern bloc were over-ambitious and bound to fail. Britain’s Perm anent Under-Secretary’s Com m ittee set to work on a counter-plan fo r future special operations against the E astern bloc for subm ission to W ashington. As an alternative L ondon set o u t areas in which special operations against the Eastern bloc were likely to be m ore productive, and one o f these target areas was quite explicitly identified as ‘specialist operations designed . . . to poison relations between the satellite G overnm ents and the Soviet Union*.45 Stalin’s fantastic paranoia was the central factor in the extraordinary wave o f arrests and executions that sw ept over the E astern bloc between 1948 and 1953. But the purges had m ore than one cause and W estern intelligence played its part - after 1949 quite intentionally - sanctioned by both the National Security Council and the Perm anent U nder­ secretary’s D epartm ent. Finding even a few deviationists with links to the W estern secret services was bound to accelerate powerfully the search for others. A num ber o f the show trials were ludicrous, b u t som e o f the W estern equipm ent produced as evidence had m ore than a hint o f authenticity. In 1955, when N oel Field was finally released from prison along with dozens o f other prisoners w ho found their freedom after the death o f Stalin, IR D took the opportunity to play up the them e o f his w ork in the East. However, his personal role is still a mystery. G eorge H odos, one o f the victims o f the show trials, asked, W h a t role did N oel Field play —he whose ghostlike figure propelled the wave o f purges from Budapest through Prague and Warsaw to E ast Berlin?’ T he question remains unanswered. W hat is now clear is that the purges, far from resulting in weakness and disorder, resulted in a consolidation o f the E astern bloc.46 T he front line in the conflict with this increasingly resil­ ient Soviet empire was G erm any and Austria.

8 The F ront L ine: Intelligence in Germany and A .ustria [V]cry good intelligence was coming from places where it was easy to get and none at all from the places where it was difficult to get. Dick White, 18 July 1948'

n the ground in Europe, the nasty business o f Cold War lighting began before the G erm an surrender on Lüneburg H eath in May 1945. Many units seemed to march out o f the Second World War into the Cold War w ithout breaking step. O ne such was the Nazi W erwolf m ove­ m ent, which organised stay-behind forces designed to slow the Allied advance. M ost were quickly exterminated. But in the ethnic G erm an regions o f Poland and Czechoslovakia som e survived, and here M GB detachm ents initially found themselves outgunned by large elements o f the Polish and G erm an counter-revolutionary undeigrounds. T hrough the autum n o f 1945 M GB troops launched raids against W erwolf strong­ holds and the core was soon eradicated, but some cells survived until early 1947. O ther G erm ans surrendering in both the E ast and the West were busy trading in w hat assets they had. By 1946, the M GB was claiming that W erwolf units were being employed by the West, not only to gather intelligence in the E astern Z one, b u t also to terrorise Soviet troops. British intelligence officers in G erm any were certainly thinking along these lines. W hen an anti-Soviet resistance leader came their way offering his services in late 1947, they debated his usefulness against the Soviets. In the event they sidestepped the issue and handed him over to the Americans, whose work in this area they thought m ore aggressive and advanced. T he M GB was n o t tardy in this area itself and had already recruited ss m en as spies and saboteurs. T he question o f which side first recruited form er Nazis is largely aca­ demic. This was n o t the first o r the last conflict in which secret service personnel quickly found re-employment. However, the scale on which

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this was done, and the assets which form er Nazis had at their disposal, m ade this factor very significant.2 N o one’s hands were clean when it came to ex-SS personnel. T he French would later complain bitterly about the American failure to hand over the notorious ‘Butcher o f Lyon’ — Klaus Barbie — w ho was wanted for war crimes against the resistance. Instead he was spirited away by American counter-intelligence to be deployed against the G erm an C om m unist Party in Bavaria. Yet the French were also active in recruiting into the French Foreign Legion to serve in Indochina entire units o f spe­ cialist SS Partisanjägers trained to hunt guerrillas. O n 14 March 1946, Admiral Lord Louis M ountbatten, Supreme Allied C om m ander South E ast Asia, arrived in Saigon on a tour o f inspection. T he French m ounted an honour guard o f their Foreign Legion ‘consisting entirely o f G erm an ex-SS guards’. W hen M ountbatten’s officers protested, the French replied that they were proud o f their m en, w ho ‘were by far their sm artest legionaries’.3 A t the end o f the war many British SO E officers looked forward to speedy demobilisation. But, for those w ho wished to prolong their careers in secret service, new opportunities were opening. O n 15 Septem ber 1944, the JIC began to consider an intelligence organisation for the British occupation o f Germany. T he JIC Chairm an, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, identified watching clandestine Nazi networks such as the Werwolf and ‘an underground nucleus o f the Army’ as a vast req u irem en t Menzies, Chief o f SIS, declared that there were at least 275,000 G erm ans to be arrested, som e o f whom would be tough cus­ tom ers. H e pointed out the need for som e ‘Executive A rm ’ to do this w ork, adding that elements o f SO E, Com m ando battalions and other special forces would be ideal. T he JIC considered whether they should be pooled 'to form a “Black and Tan” Force’, but decided that this would give too high a profile to 'repression'. Nevertheless, many ‘suitable per­ sonnel’ from SO E were kept busy in G erm any beyond 1945. Skilled specialists were essential to the creation o f w hat became the Intelligence Division o f the British Control Commission Germany, know n simply as ID. Even in 1944 the JIC envisaged a staff o f no fewer than 1,200 British intelligence officers for ID. T here were only 240 intel­ ligence officers to be found in all o f the British forces currendy in France, b u t by the end o f 1945 ID had outgrow n this projection and was larger than either SIS o r MI5. Because o f the paramilitary nature o f much o f its w ork Menzies asserted that ‘there could be no question o f a civilian at the head, at least at first’, and wanted one clear leader in absolute conưol w hen dealing with the G erm ans, the Americans and the Russians. T he redoubtable Major-General John ‘Tubby’ Lethbridge was placed in direct com m and o f the huge ID organisation, which included substantial

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num bers ‘attached’ from MI5 and SIS. But the main body o f ID files has been completely destroyed and the files o f its main American collabora­ tor, the D eputy D irector o f Intelligence at EU CO M H Q , the com m and centre for US forces in Europe, are ‘missing’. Piecing together the history o f this large organisation is not easy and what follows can only be a partial glimpse.4 ID began as a military' organisation because o f the W erwolf m ove­ m ent. W erwolf was a guerrilla organisation which aimed to create staybehind forces to plague the Allies as they moved in o n H ider’s Germany, and to keep the ideological torch o f Nazism burning. British and American military chiefs came to expect an enorm ous Nazi resistance m ovem ent, n ot dissimilar to the Allied effort in France. T he idea o f a for­ midable m ountain citadel in which H ider would make his last stand had assumed legendary propordons in Allied intelligence circles by the spring o f 1945. Eisenhower and M ontgom ery believed in its existence and on 21 April 1945 General Walter Bedell Smith, Eisenhow er’s C hief o f Stair, explained to the press that the reason that Allied forces were not advanc­ ing on Berlin quickly was because o f expectations o f a Nazi last stand am ong the crags o f Bavaria.5 T he W erwolf organisadon did not live up to expectadons for it inher­ ited all the personal feuds and rivalries o f the Reich’s multiple party and secret police systems. Moreover, to recruit, arm and train properly implied an admission o f com ing defeat which, although obvious to mili­ tary minds, was still inadmissible. Created in 1944 by the and led by police chief H ans Prützm ann, the m ovem ent drew som e inspiration from Allied resistance efforts. A special study unit was form ed and its staff, accompanied by Abwehr and G estapo experts, were sent to observe the Warsaw Rising in 1944. But only in February 1945 did M artin Borm ann and Joseph G oebbels offer serious support to Werwolf. Goebbels was the m ost fanatical, employing radio propaganda to draw recruits from the and the Hitler Youth. Radio Werwolf, which began broadcasting on 1 April, urged the G erm an population to resist to the last. W erwolf was a significant short-term problem . Its forces attacked supply lines, inflicted casualties by terrorist m ethods including poison, and assassinated those w ho collaborated with the new occupying powers, including Allied-appointed mayors in Westphalia. Perhaps the m ost im portant operation, orchestrated by Prützm ann, was a volunteer special unit that dropped into the N etherlands and then m oved across the border into Western G erm any to assassinate Franz O ppenhoff, Oberbürgermeister o f the ancient imperial capital o f Aachen. Disguised as downed Luftwaffe pilots, the m em bers o f the unit entered his hom e bu t discovered he was at a neighbour’s house. O ppenhoff was sum m oned to

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assist the ‘G erm an fliers*, but w hen he arrived he was immediately shot at close range through the tem ple with a pistol. General N. E. Brazzin, the first Soviet com m andant o f Berlin, died in an am bush o n 16 June attributed to a W erwolf unit. But w ithout external support the Nazi underground was no m ore than an escape route o u t o f Germany, and never offered real resistance. T he fading struggle by the W erwolf was a pathetic episode. M ost o f its hum an material was drawn from m em bers o f the H ider Youth and were teenag­ ers, even children, and on both the eastern and western fronts they could face speedy execudon. Moreover, its leader, Priitzm ann, did not die glo­ riously in a final Alpine struggle. Instead he was incarcerated by the Bridsh, along w ith 80,000 other polidcal prisoners, and com m itted suicide by drowning him self in a latrine. D uring the w inter o f 1945-6, Bridsh and American intelligence organisadons ran a large-scale counter­ insurgency operation called O peration Nursery. T he name o f the opera­ tion reflected that the knowledge that m ost o f its targets were form er H ider Youth. In a series o f raids and sporadic gun-batdes the main leaders and som e 800 adherents were netted, along with supplies and large quantities o f currency still w rapped in Reichsbank cellophane. O peration N ursery effectively destroyed W erwolf as a coherent organisa­ tion in the British Zone. W erwolf had two im portant legacies. First, it lent a military com plex­ ion to Allied intelligence in post-war G erm any and delayed an initial impulse to focus on the Soviets from the outset. Secondly, as the occupa­ tion g o t into its stride, W erwolf changed from being a real problem to being a subject o f political convenience. T he high level o f publicity given to work against Nazi stay-behind groups raises som e interesting ques­ tions. O peration Selection Board, which was accom panied by lurid press stories, seems to carry the stam p o f deliberate exaggeration. British intel­ ligence gave a great deal o f publicity to the operation. T he British press responded enthusiastically with elaborate and som ew hat far-fetched stories. M ost prom inent was the them e o f a new biological w eapon being developed by underground Nazi groups which the ss guerrillas were planning to unleash against the Allies, if their term s and conditions were n o t met. O n 24 February 1947 the Daily M ail announced the existence o f a ‘Nazi G erm Warfare Threat*. T here were also assertions about the plot possibly being directed by M artin B orm ann, w ho was suspected o f being alive and in hiding in the vicinity. T here is no evidence o f a real biological warfare threat and it is quite possible that the W estern Allies were playing up Selection Board to counter extensive claims by the Soviets that exNazis were being harboured by British and American intelligence.6 H ow far did ID recruit form er Nazis in Germany? D espite great attention to this subịect the answers remain unclear. Specific examples

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have been identified and well docum ented, but w hether these were aber­ rations o r part o f a wider pattern is unknown. T he m ost spectacular episode is probably the absorption o f an enure Division o f Ukrainians w ho temporarily retained their weapons and were hidden by the British Army. They were obviously m eant for som e special forces purpose in the event that hostilities with the Soviets erupted at an early date. Eventually 10,000 o f these Ukrainians were brought to Britain on the grounds that they were from an area under Polish rather than Soviet authority and were joined by a similar num ber o f Balts with military backgrounds.7 For the m ost part the British approach to war criminals was unenthusiasdc, incom petent and lacklustre rather than conspiratorial. Discussing the m atter in the sum m er o f 1944, Cavendish-Bentinck, Britain's to p intelligence co-ordinator, said he thought that the Allies were unlikely to catch m ore than a proportion o f people on their blacklist and that key figures like Him m ler would get away. O thers in the Foreign Office felt that the whole business was an em barrassing nuisance and, perhaps inspired by the fate o f Mussolini, counselled ‘we should do better to give the G erm an people time to bum p them off themselves’.8 T hus by 1947 con­ siderable num bers with an unpleasant past were at large and available for hire, instead o f facing im prisonm ent o r worse, which was surely their due. Even am ong the forty-four defendants tried at the Belsen concentration cam p in N ovem ber 1945, only eleven received the death penalty, prom pt­ ing an outcry in both E ast and W est T he French were incensed that none o f their witnesses had even been allowed to give evidence and as a result guilty individuals had been acquitted. In May 1946 form er s s m en found guilty o f m urdering eight SAS soldiers captured in uniform were given sentences as short as two years, prom pting outrage in Britain. In som e cases where witnesses had alm ost all perished p ro o f was thin. Meanwhile the British Judge Advocate General's departm ent confessed to being short o f experienced lawyers and in som e cases to be operating w ithout experience o r guidelines. Patrick D ean, a diplom at with G erm an respon­ sibilities, was especially indignant: ‘num bers o f concentration cam p guards and others w ho m ust have known and taken part in the horrible crimes com m itted in these camps escape justice in consequence . . . It is quite fantastic to go to all the trouble to try and to convict these G erm ans (many o f w hom are the worst form o f thug) and then to im pose sen­ tences o f im prisonm ent which in som e cases run dow n to periods o f a few m onths only.’ D ean warned starkly that ‘these terrible m urderers’ would soon be released into the new G erm any at a time when Allied control had begun to relax. T here were certainly those ready to offer them new em ploym ent as they emerged from prison in 1947 and 1948.9 It is ironic that, while laxity was the order o f the day with the prosecu­ tion o f G erm an war criminals, punctiliousness extended to the vexed

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question o f repatriating Cossacks and other Soviet citizens from the British Zone. In early July, Ivone Kirpatrick inform ed L ondon that British authorities were now holding senior officers o f the Vlasov Army, Hitler's corps o f Anti-Soviet Russian Fascists. T hey had also senior m em bers o f General Schilenkov’s Free Russia Com m ittee ‘under house arrest in Tyrol', although the whereabouts o f Vlasov and Schilenkov themselves was not known. They asked for guidance. They were told that the Secretary o f State had ruled that they ‘m ust be repatriated to the USSR regardless o f their own wishes in the m atter’.10 L ondon regarded all these Soviet citizens, prom inent o r otherwise, as an expensive nuisance and was anxious to see them repatriated as soon as possible. T he alternative —resettling over two million people at a time w hen E urope was destitute - was n o t welcomed by E den o r by his suc­ cessor Bevin. They were despatched eastwards as fast as hard-pressed transport would allow, and by N ovem ber 1945 m ore than half o f the 19,500 Soviet nationals in Britain had been repatriated. However, the issues were complex and L ondon aroused M oscow’s fury by insisting that persons from the Baltic states and Poland were n o t Soviet citizens. L ondon officials were quite aware that the many Soviets w ho had fought for the G erm ans would receive harsh treatm ent if returned home. Remarkably, at the end o f the war, one in eight soldiers serving in the G erm an Army was a Soviet citizen. U nder one reading o f the G eneva Convention, a reading employed by the Americans, these ư oops were entided to be treated as G erm an POW s and could not be forcibly repatriated. But L ondon read G eneva diiferendy, and in any case the Soviet Union had n o t bothered to sign the G eneva Convention. W hat m attered to the British was the Yalta Agreem ent, in which Britain had agreed to return these people to the Soviet Union. L ondon saw Yalta as a goo d deal, with Stalin prom ising to keep out o f France and Italy and allowing com m unism to be crushed in G reece.11 It is quite clear that the British governm ent at the time was uncom fortable about the whole business and took steps to keep the program m e o f forcible return secret. In many ways it represented the last hurrah o f the diplomatic policy o f co-operation with the Soviets. T he Soviets were given som ething they wanted badly, which did n o t impinge in any way upon British interests. Perhaps for this reason, L ondon continually pressed the Americans not to backslide in the work o f repatriation.12 F urther muddying the waters was the problem o f bandits. In Austria, the British Army’s Field Security units found their greatest challenge was the banditry practised by gangs o f refugees w ho had previously been m em bers o f non-G erm an units o f the ss o r w ho had been in Yugoslav partisan organisations, and w ho had cut loose as freebooters at the end o f the war. These were large well-armed groups that raided both sides o f

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the Austrian and Yugoslav border at will. For fear o f these roving bands, H Q s were forced to m ount a level o f security guard that was unheard o f during the war. O ne group was rounded up in late 1947 after prolonged surveillance in a joint Anglo-Yugoslav security operation.13 G erm any and Austria form ed the front line in the emerging Cold War with the E astern bloc. But the front line was complex and riven with con­ fusions and multiple animosities. W estern intelligence was simultane­ ously seeking several objectives. First, it was preparing itself for an arduous struggle against w hat it presum ed to be a vast and fanatical N azi resistance m ovem ent, linked to H itler’s expected last stand in som e Wagnerian ‘Alpine redoubt’. But the W erwolf threat, consisting m osdy o f hastily recruited children and teenagers, proved to be shadow rather than substance. Secondly, intelligence was also centrally involved in the busi­ ness o f processing prisoners and inform ation for war crimes. T his was soon overshadowed by a third task, finding intelligence and security per­ sonnel, together with their archives and agents, w ho would be o f use against the Soviets. T he detailed military intelligence that the G erm ans had gathered against the Soviets in batde was invaluable. T he shift from adversary to ally was accelerated by the sheer impossibility o f screening the very large num bers o f POW s and Displaced Persons, m ost o f w hom were w ithout papers. All but the m ost extensive war crimes tended to be overlooked. While the Allies com peted for G erm an intelligence assets, th eừ attitudes were different. By late 1945 the British had developed cold feet about som e o f the nasty characters they had encountered, regarding them as either too alarming o r too expensive to look after. Some o f these were handed to W ashington as an act o f ‘goodwill’. T he search for 'intelligence assets’ overlapped with a fourth, m uch wider activity which was only intelligence in its widest sense—the quest for booty. As early as 1943, British military chiefs had begun to recognise the massive revolution in the nature o f warfare brought about by science and technology. G erm any was patendy ahead in many fields such as rocket technology and chemical warfare. T he race was o n to acquừe this material. By 1944 this com peddon had broadened to encom pass commercial, tech­ nological and scientific ‘booty’ o f every sort. M oscow was accused by the West o f sweeping the Soviet Z one o f G erm any clean o f every transport­ able item o f worth. But this was a widespread practice resisted vainly by Allied personnel tasked with ‘G erm an reconstruction’. G eneral Lucius D. Clay, the American Military G overnor in Germany, com m ented that m uch o f this activity was ‘squarely in the commercial field’ and that ‘we are perhaps doing the same thing that Russia is doing’. G overnm ent and private organisations alike from British, France, U nited States and the Soviet Union descended on G erm any rem oving w hat som e estim ated to be $5 billion o f material in patents and other industrial secrets alone.14

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O nly in the 1990s has the scale o f these 'hidden reparations’ - mostly scientific and technological booty — becom e clear. T he need to begin physical reconstruction, together with fears o f a propaganda own-goal, eventually brought the locust-like activities to a halt. But the unseen exploitation o f G erm an science and technology was colossal. Intelligence agencies were responsible for a vast cataloguing o f technical and scientific docum ents, ideas and patents by means o f systematic microfilming. T hey were transferred to businesses and academic institu­ tions in Britain, France and the United States. T here was also a huge pro­ gram m e o f on-site inspection o f plants and research facilities, and prototypes were swiftly removed for ‘evaluation’. T he scale remains hard to quantify but som e historians have described this as the 'biggest trans­ fer o f mass intelligence ever made from one country to another’. T h e struggle for G erm an assets was complex. Allied officials con­ cerned with reconstruction wished to create a prosperous environm ent u p o n which to build democratic foundations. They were determ ined to resist ‘piracy’ by those working for British ministries ranging from the A ir Ministry to the Board o f Trade. T he ‘pirates’ were anxious to remove th e best material unofficially before it became entangled in the vexed inter-Allied politics o f formal reparations. In this sense, all four adminis­ trating powers were com peting against themselves and against each other. T he Americans hesitated over full civilian exploitation until inform ed by the British that w ithout agreem ent from W ashington they would ‘go ahead unilaterally'. Meanwhile the powers com bined to resist parity for m inor Allies, w ho sensed - correctly - that they would receive no m ore than the crum bs from under the intelligence table.IS In 1944, Eisenhower’s SH A EF headquarters set up a joint Allied group to exploit captured material in the ongoing war against Germany, called the Com bined Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee. At an early stage one o f its units captured D r W erner O senberg, the head o f the planning office o f the National Research Council, together with his records o f the nam es and specialisms o f 15,000 o f the top G erm an scientists. But once G erm any had been occupied SH A EF ceased to exist. CIOS was replaced by com peting agencies in each zone. T he British developed the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-committee, with its field collectors known as T-Force. T he American boasted their equivalent Field Intelligence Agency, Technical. Even m ore valuable than scientific artefacts were the G erm an scientists themselves. In the Soviet-occupied areas everything moveable seemed to be placed on railway cars and shipped east, including machinery, cattle and even bathtubs and radiators.16 By 1946 the accelerating Cold War introduced a new m otivation, the cause o f ‘denial’. Stern efforts were made to prevent the key scientists from migrating to the Soviet Z one even if they were n o t o f value to the

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West. This widened the field o f intelligence interest to lesser figures w ho were initially to o num erous to track, ỉn M arch that year, when asked about a range o f mid-level G erm an scientists from laboratories at Pelzerhaken, som e o f w hom had knowledge o f signals intelligence, the British D irector o f Naval Intelligence was resigned to losing them. It was thought that there was ‘no practicable possibility o f stopping their migra­ tion’. But there was also the possibility o f eventual recom pense. T hese second-order G erm an scientists, if ưeated well, m ight return to ‘provide useful inform ation later about Russian activities’. T hus the names and destinations o f scientists m oving into the Soviet Z one were all recorded.17 However, in August 1946 the JIC reviewed policy on the Soviet recruitm ent o f G erm an scientists. H itherto it had interested itself only in those ‘required by us’. Many w ho had been released by British intelli­ gence were being swept up by the Soviets. T here was growing pressure to shift attention to those w ho would be ‘a potential source o f sưength to the Russians’, a policy o f denial. But in practice only the Americans had the resource to do this on a large scale. T he Americans had just decided to move 1,000 G erm an experts and their families to the USA ‘expressly to deny them to a potentially hostile pow er’.18 T he Joint Scientific and Technical Intelligence Com m ittees in L ondon ran a joint working party on w hat they called the problem o f the ‘enticem ent’ o f G erm an scien­ tists. In Septem ber 1946 they heard, ‘O ne recently engaged scientist is said to have been offered a villa, com plete with dom estic staff, a very liberal allowance o f food and cigarettes, a car, and even clothing and footwear.’ T hose w ho had services to sell could com m and a good price.19 T he new ‘denial’ program m e, which eventually encom passed over 3,000 scientists and technicians, was codenam ed O peration Matchbox. O ver 18,000 people were being tracked by the same program m e. In prac­ tice it focused on scientists in the ‘specially dangerous’ areas known as ‘Category A’. These included nuclear physics, radar, guided missiles, hom ing torpedoes, codes, ciphers, deception, radio direction-finding, biological warfare, chemical warfare including the new Sarin nerve gas and the rather grisly details o f ‘G erm an physiological trials’ with these gases. T here was also intense interest in one o r two fantastic proịects such as ‘m ethods o f causing tem porary blindness by using ultra-violet rays’. Individuals w ho worked in these areas found themselves ưaded like com m odities and m oved from one holding-tank to another. Key G erm an scientists ended up in a com pound with the appropriate codename D ustbin. This was the main interrogation centte which, from June 1945, was located at Schloss Kransberg, close to Frankfurt. Trading in exotic species o f G erm an scientist was one o f the main pas­ times for the intelligence services o f all four occupying powers. T he

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French were often catalysts for such exchanges, enjoying reasonable rela­ tions with all parties, but ư usted by none. Colonel R M. Wilson, a British intelligence officer with the Enem y Personnel Exploitation Section, explained, ‘W e . . . require the French to d o a great deal for US in regard to finding Germans* and also giving ‘clearances for their evacuation from the French zone to U.K.\ T hus if any obvious restrictions were placed on French intelligence officers entering his H Q this would have ‘unfavour­ able effects on our relations with them ’. T he upshot was that Colonel W ilson had to maintain a front office, which looked like his main centre o f activities, and meanwhile create a ‘special office* in the rear o f which the French were unaware, and to which he transferred his own T o p Secret activities*. He was also worried that others, including the Americans, m ight obtain ‘inform ation o f a highly secret nature regarding French activities, and theừ connection with similar Russian activities’.20 Generally, E rnest Bevin took a dim view o f secret service activities. But, since he was a form er stevedore, these reservations were out­ weighed by the very high priority he gave to com m erce and trade. Alm ost from the m om ent he assumed office in the sum m er o f 1945 he was calling for detailed intelligence on the fate o f G erm an aviation science. H e was n o t disappointed. By the end o f that year O peration Medico had secured large quantities o f equipm ent for the new RAF College at Cranwell and O peration Surgeon had acquired the entire Focke-Wolfe experimental laboratory at D etm old. Advanced wind-tunnel designs were o f particular interest. T-Force was also busy acquiring civilian machine prototypes, which it described as com ing ‘under the heading o f booty*. It m et with increasing opposition from those in the Conteol Com m ission w ho were now trying to re-establish som e sort o f G erm an industrial base. Nevertheless, in Septem ber 1947, the British Rayon Federation w rote to thank the Board o f Trade for the valuable materials acquired from the giant chemical com bine ỈG Farben Industrie at D orm agen, and other textile m anufacturers benefited widely.21 Defence-related intelligence was the hottest property in post-war Germany. Technical intelligence teams from the Royal Navy were keen to acquire the latest G erm an U-boats, and even m ore anxious to deny them to the Soviets. Fortunately for the British the surviving examples were located at a p o rt under British control. T he Royal Navy repeatedly assured the Soviets that three extant submarines o f the newest class had been badly damaged and then sunk in deep water by the Germ ans. In fact they were undergoing detailed examination by the Admiralty, and the Soviets failed to press their claim for a sizeable portion o f the U-boat fleet.22 T h e intelligence-exploitation program m e did not go unnoticed by the British public. In the sum m er o f 1947 there was public outcry in London

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when the V-2 rocket experts, General Walter D ornberger and D r W ernher von Braun were transferred to the U nited States with the agree­ m ent o f British intelligence. Braun’s program m e had made extensive use o f slave labour drawn from the Soviet Union and he had hidden his Nazi Party membership. Lowrie, the American correspondent o f the D aily Express, suspected that their backgrounds were less than clean and was an active cam paigner on the recycling o f those he regarded as Nazis. American intelligence officers in W ashington regarded such journalists as a problem : ‘Lt Col. M onde F. Cone, Intelligence Division, E xploitadon Section says that Lowrie is a Com m unist and that he was responsible for the stories that appeared in the L ondon press a m onth ago to the effect that the United States Army had brought outstanding G erm an criminals to this country - specifically m entioning W ernher von Braun at Fort Bliss - and mollycoddling them .' This had resulted in a wave o f letter-writing to the newspapers in L ondon ’by the sort o f person w ho was glad o f an opportunity o f criticising the United States', and the US intelligence officers feared ’another Lowrie campaign against the exploitation program '. T he issue o f the extent to which denazification program m es were evaded and war criminals provided with safe havens is too broad to be dealt with in this book. However, persistent researchers have dem on­ strated that it was substantial.23 Exploitation o f G erm an weaponry seems to have helped Britain to fill the m ass-destruction weapons gap in the period before the production o f its first successful atom ic bom b in 1952. T he British took a particular interest in G erm an chemical warfare specialists and chemical weapons stocks. In D ecem ber 1949 the CIA produced a highly detailed report on British m ass-destruction capabilities that was sent to the W hite House. T h e U K possesses the capability o f conducting large-scale, sustained chemical warfare, employing standard World War II equipm ent with im provem ent. . . including the use o f captured G erm an “G ” nerve gases.' In part this reflected the view o f som e senior British officers, including M ontgomery, that gas was a m ore hum ane weapon insofar as it did not leave the problem o f a devastated country once a war was term inated.24 Scientific and technical intelligence was the m ost prized item o f mili­ tary value in post-war Germany. But L ondon and W ashington were also aware that the G erm ans had been fighting the Soviets for four long years, so opportunities to collect military intelligence on the Soviet arm ed forces abounded. In late May 1945 British security captured ’a group o f 30 G erm an Air Force Officers w ho are intelligence experts on the Russian Air Force'. General K enneth Strong, Eisenhower's British Intelligence Chief, asked the JIC in L ondon w hat to do with them , adding that they were likely to be the first batch o f many similar groups. Strong had no hesitation in suggesting that they should be sent to Britain

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and p u t through detailed interrogation to be squeezed o f every drop o f inform ation. T hen, he w ent on, they should be sent 'to Post Office Box 1142 at Alexander, Virginia, USA for final disposal*. T his was a discreet reference to a secret American program m e set up for the same purpose. In L ondon there was m uch sucking o f teeth for fear that the G erm ans would enjoy using an opportunity o f 'm aking m ischief between L ondon and Moscow*. But the JIC conceded that the Soviets would already be interrogating G erm an prisoners in the E ast about the capabilities o f the RAF and so perm ission was given to proceed. As a result Britain and the United States produced extremely detailed intelligence on the Soviet Air Force in 1945 and 1946.25 W hat was the fate o f individuals arriving at 'P ost Office Box 1142’ in Alexander, Virginia? Many G erm ans w ent quickly to work for intelligence in W ashington and soon acquired US citizenship. O ne example was General E rn st Shultes, w ho had been C hief o f Staff o f an army corps on the Elbe in 1945. In 1948 he was com m issioned by Lieutenant-General AỈ W edemeyer o f the US Army to write 'an extensive study* concerning the re-establishm ent o f the G erm an arm ed forces for the defence o f W estern E urope against Soviet attack, ỉn 1952 he was given US citizenship and was employed by the Eurasian Branch o f US Arm y Intelligence (G-2) in W ashington. In 1955, General Trudeau, the head o f US Army Intelligence in W ashington, asserted that since 1950 Shultes had m ade a ‘m ajor contri­ bution’ by heading up the effort to exploit captured G erm an G eneral Staff records. Trudeau conceded that, even ten years after the war, the 'material pertaining to G erm an com bat experience in E astern E urope and the Soviet Union is the basis for much o f o u r current thinking o n the present tactics, organization and logistics o f the Soviet ground forces*.26 G erm any was the critical intelligence window upon the Soviet U nion, and this window was opened m uch wider by the sưeam o f defectors and refugees from the East. O th er sources tended to be barren, for signals intelligence now made little headway against largely secure Soviet com ­ m unications, hum an agents enjoyed only a short life in Stalin’s secure state, and risky aerial spy-flights were only rarely attem pted. By contrast the vast num bers o f people exiting the Soviet bloc were an inexhaustible supply o f material. M oreover, theừ inform ation allowed m ore secret instrum ents - such as spy-flights - to be targeted on the top Soviet instal­ lations. In many areas, such as subm arines and rocket engines, the G erm ans were the world leaders in 1945. W hat G erm an material and sci­ entists the Soviets had captured offered a benchm ark o f Soviet capacity in these areas about which litde was otherwise known. But in other areas where the G erm ans were n o t ahead this inform ation could also be mis­ leading27 T he sense o f urgency that underpinned this search for intelligence is

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often overlooked. In 1948 many in SIS and MI5 believed that a war, focused on G erm any and the Middle East, was perhaps only weeks away. D uring the many m om ents o f tension, dem ands for intelligence w ent u p exponentially. T he pressure to locate these useful G erm ans was intense. Officials in L ondon were anxious that som e m ight get the im pression that in G erm any ‘the British condone unlimited non-selective and com ­ petitive body snatching’.28 G erm any was an ideal window on the Soviets for several reasons. First, the Soviets had attem pted to suck G erm any dry o f scientists and technicians. By the late 1940s they had finished w ith many o f these individuals, w ho were returning from the Soviet U nion to the Soviet Z one o f G erm any with rich tales o f places that were otherwise impenetrable to W estern intelligence. Secondly, moving agents from the West into the E ast was easier in G erm any than anywhere else. Thirdly, the cost o f the British intelligence effort against the Soviets launched from G erm any was borne by the G erm ans and n o t by Britain. A t a tim e o f econom ic stringency in L ondon this was immensely im portant. T hus recovered statehood in Germany, Austria and Japan, which ended these occupation subsidies in the 1950s, was especially problem atic for Britain. All four powers bem oaned the loss o f theừ elaborate administrations, which helped to hide bloated intelligence staffs. O peration D ragon Return, under way by 1949, underlines the valuable technical intelligence that Britain was obtaining on the Soviet military machine through Germany. This involved re-recruiting G erm an scien­ tists form erly employed inside the Soviet Union. T he key to recruiting these individuals was the offer o f scientific em ploym ent away from the drab conditions o f Germany. British intelligence efforts were thus depen­ dent on o ther W hitehall departm ents, such as the Ministry o f Labour, which were exhorted to find attractive destinations for them. D ragon R eturn was controlled by the D irector o f the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Bureau (STIB), a key section o f Britain’s ID, which employed many G erm an, as well as British, personnel. M ost o f these operations were straightforward defections. M ore rarely, individuals were persuaded to stay ‘in place’ for som e time, o n the prom ise o f future scientific work in the West. This work was painstaking and dangerous. By Septem ber 1950, D ragon Return had expanded to focus o n a large group o f G erm an scientists and technicians w ho had been working in three main locations deep inside the Soviet Union: (i) (ii) (Ui)

CHIMKỈ - Guided missile research and development KUIBYCHEV —Aircraft research and development PODBERESJE —Aircraft research and development

C ontact had been made, under carefully controlled conditions, with a cross-section o f G erm an scientists and technicians w ho had returned to

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Germany. British intelligence dared n o t show its hand by letting the Russians realise just how valuable to the West this security leak was. D ragon Return provided superb intelligence on guided-missile research an d development. All this fed direcdy into the J lC ’s Inter-Services G uided Missile Intelligence Working Party in L ondon and an AngloAm erican W orking Party on G uided Missiles. O n e o f D ragon Return's greatest feats occurred over the weekend 2 /3 D ecem ber 1950. After preparations ‘over several years’, technicians were bro u g h t o u t o f Berlin, debriefed and sent back to their Soviet pro­ gram m es using RAF transport. This exploited high-grade G erm ans w ho ‘are n o t allowed to move o u t o f the Russian Z one where they have their jobs and accom m odation found for them ’. British intelligence was in touch with the circle o f friends o f one o f the returnees over a period and was able to arrange for him to be contacted by a friend from his hom e city w ho worked for the British STIB. Offers o f an academic post in W estern G erm any were discussed and a plan was conceived to enable him, w ithout com prom ising himself, to visit the West and discuss his aca­ demic future with an officer o f STIB w ho also knew his form er univer­ sity professor. Legitimate business was arranged for him in the Russian Sector o f Berlin over the weekend, and the RAF sent a special aircraft to pick him up. T he returnee then spent the night in the British Z one in company with a form er colleague and STIB officers, returning to Berlin by an RAF aircraft the following day so that he was able to resume his work w ithout disclosing his connection with British intelligence. T he idea was to extri­ cate him and return him repeatedly.29 O ne Soviet defector alone, D r Tokaev, a Soviet aerospace engineer, provided remarkable details on avi­ ation research and guided-missile developm ents inside the Soviet bloc.30 Money was always a problem for the British, despite the subsidy o f occupation costs. This caused bitter argum ents over the handling o f Soviet defectors and refugees. D efectors represented one o f the best sources o f intelligence on Soviet-controlled areas, but they also posed an alarming security problem . They m ight be kidnapped by Soviet teams o r m ight themselves have been planted by Soviet intelligence, and could then reveal much about W estern defector handling. It had taken London until the end o f 1949 for the JIC to set o u t a general policy on this matter, which was still being refined in 1950. T he m ost difficult issue was the cost o f the defectors’ disposal (or resettlement) after interrogation, which no intelligence service wished to bear. American efforts were dogged n o t by m oney but by inter-service rivalry and by the slow hand­ over o f defector activities from American service intelligence to an expanding CIA. ƯS intelligence in Vienna was no less busy than in Berlin o r Munich. Here, in 1950, an American Foreign Service officer called

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Horace G. T orbert found him self appointed co-ordinator o f intelligence for the American Z one o f occupation in Austria. A co-ordinator was increasingly essential because there were so many intelligence activities in Vienna. ‘I worked very hard at trying to get a handle on this w hole p ro b lem / he recalled. ‘I identified about thirty m ore o r less autonom ous u.s. intelligence units operating in o r through Austria.’ W orking together with the local CIA chief, John Richardson, and later Laughlin Campbell, he discovered that American psychological warfare was alm ost as large and diverse as intelligence.31 In 1950 General S horn, the British D irector o f Military Intelligence, decided to try and get a grip o n the defector problem . H e com plained that many defectors and deserters were just being dum ped in D P cam ps, which were obvious targets and far from secure. They were in danger o f being kidnapped, or even o f being bam boozled by the visiting Russian Repatriation Com m ission to return to Soviet-held territory. This held two further dangers. Lengthy Soviet interrogation and the circum stances o f detention in the W estern Z ones would provide the Russians w ith intel­ ligence about British m ethods. Any such returning deserter m ight be ‘persuaded’ to make wild allegations about his treatm ent to discourage others from deserting to the British o r Americans. T here was pressure for m oney to be earmarked for defectors from the secret service vote, as British Military Intelligence could not find the £100 to £200 a head needed for ‘disposal o f an individual’. W hat British intelligence in G erm any and Austria wanted was m oney for the paym ent o f fares, ‘e.g. to Ausưalỉa’, which it regarded as small beer com pared w ith the p ropa­ ganda value o f dem onstrating the benefits o f defecting. But argum ents over the funding o f defector program m es dragged on into the 1950s, and in the meantim e many deserters and defectors received a raw deal w hen they arrived in the British Z one o f Germany.32 T he Americans encountered different problem s developing a coherent defector policy. In 1949 W ashington was pleased to secure two defecting non-com m issioned officers from the Red Army in Vienna. T hey w ere hurriedly flown over to the United States and, as one official recalled, ‘treated just the w rong way’: *They were given a sort o f hero’s welcom e and taken, as I rem ember, on guided tours o f Skyline Drive and all sorts o f things. T he next thing som ebody knew, they said they wanted to go back. So they were taken back to Vienna and ceremoniously handed back to the Russian com m ander there. It was then decided that we had b etter have a better m ethod o f dealing with defectors.’ But the developm ent o f better m ethods was im peded by the continuing struggle for control between the intelligence sections o f the three arm ed services and the CIA. Eventually an Inter-Agency D efector Com m ittee was established in W ashington together with elaborate CIA field facilities at W iesbaden, b u t

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this did n o t prevent ‘many strong disputes’ over access to key defectors, and the many American intelligence services continued to play 'catch as catch can’.33 A lthough Robert Schow, w ho ran the CIA’s secret intelligence arm , identified a string o f 'unfortunate incidents involving the handling o f d efecto rs' as early as August 1949, prom pting a National Security C ouncil Intelligence Dừective on the subject, m atters did not improve quickly.34 Poor handling continued to lead to casualties. Left to their own devices and disorientated by the experience o f living in the West, a sub­ stantial num ber decided to redefect. Typical was the case o f a Soviet A rm y colonel codenam ed Icarus w ho had been in charge o f uranium shipm ents from the Soviet Z one o f G erm any to the Soviet Union. In Ju n e 1950 he defected, leaving behind his G erm an mistress. H e was extensively debriefed but then became increasingly depressed. He even­ tually opted to return to the Soviet Z one with predictable results. He was speedily executed and his mistress was incarcerated.35 D espite these mishaps, defectors and returnees were the key currency in a E urope with large num bers o f persons on the move. In Berlin the SIS station spent eight m onths on an elaborate double operation designed to recruit an im portant KGB source. D espite 'great skill and persistence' the end result o f that operation was inform ation that filled only half a page. By contrast, routine low-level work proved much m ore productive. In the meantim e through a series o f carefully encouraged low-level defections (interpreters and secretaries) the same officer who was running the double operation had paved the way for ‘interrogations covering in great detail all the principal Russian Intelligence headquarters in Berlin and the Soviet sector, with names and descriptions o f hundreds o f staff and agent personnel'. For SIS, CIA and every other intelligence outfit, interrogating defectors, returnees and refugees proved m ore pro­ ductive than the high-wire business o f recruiting double agents.36 A great deal o f the W estern intelligence activity based in Germ any was cUrected at G erm any and G erm ans, rather than at the Soviet threat. This was accom panied by considerable com petition between the Western pow ers for influence, especially with the nascent G erm an secret services. T h ese issues remain m ore obscure. D onald Cam eron Watt, w ho served in a Field Security section with British Military Intelligence in Austria, vividly recalled his time there. Although a military unit, by 1947 about 95 p e r cent o f its energies were devoted to civilian security intelligence m atters. A nd a substantial part o f those energies were absorbed with w atching political activities am ong the tens o f thousands o f Yugoslav and H ungarian refugees, w ho included people ‘from every range o f pre-war and war-tim e political organisations in those two countries’. N o less active were smaller num bers o f refugees from Rumania, Greece, Bulgaria

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and Poland. T h e re was even a single Chinese, w ho m ust have kept every intelligence agency in Austria, official o r unofficial, busy trying to dis­ cover exacdy w hat he was doing as he travelled around the western zones o f Austria.*37 In Germany, ID gathered material on alm ost every aspect o f life in post-war Germany. This inter-service organisation, which also hid SIS and MỈ5 personnel, employed thousands o f staff. It began life, as we have noted, under M ajor-General John s. T u b b y ’ Lethbridge, but was gradu­ ally civilianised, n o t least through the recruitm ent o f many G erm ans. Initially, it was preoccupied with post-war Nazi underground organisa­ tions which were targeted in O peration N ursery and later O peration Selection Board. By 1950 it had developed a wider remit.38 ID always maintained a large section which was tasked with specifically G erm an matters. This was: responsible for political, social and industrial Intelligence. It deals with politi­ cal trends, the study of political parties, and the chief personalities of each party. It evaluates reactions of the German populadon to the correct [current?] situation and the effect on general morale of measures taken by the occupying powers. It is also responsible for the vetting of important industrialists, and aspirants for high level posts in the German administradon. It follows the course of German Youth Movements, Universities, Churches and Trade Unions, always with the intention of discovering or counteracting undesirable trends... Further sections were responsible for ‘com bating and studying all sub­ versive activities o f m ovem ents’. T he m ost valuable instrum ent was a vast card system known as the Central Personality Index which contained the records o f thousands o f ‘subversive elements*. T he British intelli­ gence apparatus had considerable powers, not only o f arrest but also o f interception. A key branch o f ID was the sem i-independent C ensorship Branch. T his had a separate headquarters in H erford and had three cen­ sorship stations, at Ham burg, Peine and Bonn. It censored a proportion o f civilian, PO W and D P inter-zonal and international mail, and a small percentage o f intra-zonal mail. ‘In addition m onitoring o f telecom m uni­ cations is done at static units and by mobile vans spread throughout the zone.’39 O ne o f the targets o f this apparatus was the G erm an C om m unist Party o r KPD. T he British and the Americans were intensely interested in all political developm ents within their respective areas and the K P D m ost o f all. T he United States took a harder line on this party than the British. As early as 1948, G eneral Clay sternly warned W ashington th at he had evidence o f com m unist sympathisers ‘infecting’ his H Q and had begun to call for the elimination o f com m unism from W estern Germ any, starting with the barring o f com m unists from public office. Am erican

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personnel denounced as fellow travellers were personally investigated by the FBI on their return to the U nited States.40 This bears a remarkable similarity to M acA rthur’s regime in Japan, where over 60 per cent o f the intelligence effort by the US military was directed against internal subver­ sion and dom estic com m unism .41 By 1948 US Army C ounter Intelligence Corps (C IQ units were clearly using ex-G estapo personnel to investigate comm unism . Britain’s ID worked with the Americans on O peration Apple Pie to recruit m em bers o f Section VI o f the Reichssicherheitshauptam t o r Chief Reich Security Office, including Walter Schellenberg. Eugene Fischer, the head o f M unich’s G estapo section tasked with wartim e anti-com m unism, was quickly employed by the local CIC to work against the Bavarian KPD. Because the best G erm an anti-com m unist experts had been recruited by the Americans, and also because L ondon regarded som e o f these exNazis as too hot to handle, when the British came to set up the new G erm an security service it was dom inated by security amateurs. Konrad Adenauer, the first West G erm an post-war Chancellor, considered it to be penetrated by the K P D and refused to use it.42 American fears about K P D activity were probably exaggerated and the propaganda war unleashed upon it from 1948 unjustified. D uring the late 1940s both the CỈC and Britain's ID continued to search for a K P D paramilitary shadow organisation, but no evidence o f it was found. Some radical m em bers advocated direct action, but the K P D suspected that many o f its radical m em bers were p la n ts' by the American CỈC. London authorised a m ore limited anti-com m unism , including the quiet purging o f local police forces. In February 1948, ID together with the Public Safety Division o f the British Control Com mission was busy scrutinising the H am burg police and then m oved on from force to force trying to prevent K P D penetration. Inevitably, the Korean War accelerated the pace. O n 19 Septem ber 1950, Britain’s Public Safety Division searched the recently com pleted K P D national Party headquarters in D üsseldorf and a week later decided to requisition the building for use as a British barracks. This was transparent harassment, and im plem entation o f this decision m eant overcom ing a cordon o f 2,000 dem onstrators.43 By the early 1950s the British and American security agencies had parted company on how to deal with the KPD. British intelligence feared that excessive suppression would drive it completely underground and make it hard to maintain surveillance. It accused G erm an police organ­ isations o f acting with excessive zeal and employing barely legal meas­ ures, and later they conceded that they had indeed adopted a heavy-handed approach. O n 10 August 1954 the American High Com m issioner’s Office reported to the State D epartm ent that the K P D was ‘riddled with agents’ o f W estern security:

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The KPD is under the observation of more hostile agencies probably than any other political party in the world. Much of the mail of its members is surreptiriously examined by Western officials, and many of their home calls are tapped. Although it has not gone underground, the repeated harassments by the governments in the form of arrests and long detendons of important leaders . . . confiscations and attacks by anti-communist refugees, etc on communist meetings have brought the party to a position where to all intents and purposes it is operating as an underground party. T h e civil rights o f K P D m em bers were seriously infringed, n o t least their being denied com pensation open to other citizens for persecution under the Nazis. Remarkably, K P D officials from the West were also being arrested by the security authorities when they visited the Soviet Z one, thereby extending the anti-Tito purges which had begun in the E astern bloc in late 1948. T he life o f senior K P D m em bers was extremely uncom fortable by 1950. In 1956, the Party was finally banned by the West G erm an courts as unconstitutional, but the ban did not make m uch difference because it had been harassed, its papers closed down and its vehicles im pounded, often through the abuse o f petty legislation, for m ore than five years.44 T he best-know n example o f a Nazi security chief w ho escaped justice and found com fortable re-em ploym ent in Allied secret service was the G estapo officer Klaus Barbie. Barbie com m itted terrible crimes against the civilians o f Lyon, including wom en and children. H e was also crushingly effective against the resistance, capturing key figures such as General Delestraint, com m ander o f the Arm ée Secrète, and Jean Moulin, head o f the resistance. A fter an attack by the resistance in which five G erm an soldiers died he descended on the small villages o f St Claude and Larrivoire in the Jura M ountains. Many o f the inhabitants were killed on the spot, the villages systematically burned and 300 m en deported to the concentration cam p o f Buchenwald. A fter the liberation o f France he was actively sought by the French governm ent for his crimes. US Army intelligence, which had recruited him, actively protected him for som e thirty years before French persistence brought him to trial in the 1980s. This frustration o f justice was an organised campaign by elements in the US Army. Allan R. Ryan, w ho conducted a belated enquiry for the US Attorney G eneral’s Office, concluded that it could not be dismissed as ‘merely the unfortunate action o f renegade officers’. He added that ‘the United States G overnm ent cannot disclaim responsibility for their actions’.45 But Barbie’s post-w ar career began not with the Americans but with the British and owed much to im perfect liaison between the Allies. Early British attem pts to penetrate Nazi groups often involved G erm an deserters w ho had worked for Britain's PW E, broadcasting to Germ any at the end o f the war. T hey were given positions o n local town

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councils b ut asked privately to collect intelligence on ‘the activities o f Com m unists and subversive personalities' and also to ‘recruit subagents’. In 1946 another form er broadcaster w ho was being cultivated by British intelligence was C hristof Hoffman, a wartime G erm an diplom at w ho had been in charge o f the British propaganda station Radio Bratislava at the end o f the war. H e was soon working for a ‘M ajor K ruk’ in British intelligence at Bad G odesberg near Bonn, and it was through Hoffm an that the British seemed to have tried to recruit Klaus Barbie in late 1946 and early 1947. Hoffman’s net was n o t producing enough intelligence, and the British cam e to believe that Barbie, w ho was active in Nazi self-help and escape groups, was the answer: *Ma)[or] K ruk was very interested in obtaining Barbie’s services.’ But Barbie, w ho was still roam ing free, was suspicious and would m eet K ruk only in the American Zone. His anxiety that this was som e sort o f setpiece trap was increased when Hoffm an was him self arrested in April 1947. Although initially Barbie had been ‘very eager to contact the British Intelligence Service’, he now sm elt a rat. He was no t convinced that the British wished to re-employ him, rather than to place him on trial, and concluded that he was safer approaching the Americans.46 T here were several British near-misses. From late 1945, British and Am erican intelligence were watching a group o f form er officers w ho had form ed a sophisticated resistance organisation in occupied Germany. These m en hoped to achieve som e rapprochem ent w ith the Allies and offer a cadre o f experienced post-w ar leaders while G erm any was rebuilt as a bulwark against comm unism . T heir ideas were based on the example o f the Freikorps groups that had appeared at the end o f the First World War. T he security elements o f both the British ID and Am erican CIC were aware that one o f the leading figures was Klaus Barbie, and watched this group for som e time. By May 1946 they had inserted an American CỈC agent, w ho could pass com fortably for a Swiss G erm an. They also encouraged them to develop contacts with a British officer Svho pretended to be a British Fascist and a secret sympathiser w ho prom ised them benign contacts w ith the British Foreign Office'.47 But Barbie was too sm ooth to be caught by this operation, and by early 1947 he had already escaped from the British and Americans three times. In August 1946 he had been picked up by the American CIC b u t leapt from the jeep in which he was being taken to prison. T he startled American driver crashed. Barbie was pursued and lighdy w ounded by gunfire, b ut made his escape. H e also claimed that he was arrested by the British o n the railway station in Hamburg. Initially beaten, he was locked in the coal cellar o f an old house, the makeshift prison cells o f the local Field Security Unit, together with two other men. A fter three days the

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soldier on guard apologised that there would be no exercise that day, explaining that he was the only person in the building. T he soldier then moved to a room above and began practising the flute. T he m en broke out o f the cellar using a piece o f iron pipe and crept away, leaving the soldier to his musical endeavours.48 ỉn early 1947 ID and CIC felt they knew enough to make w hat was hoped to be a final swoop on Nazi groups. This was O peration Selection Board, launched on a rainy night in February in the Stuttgart and M arburg areas and directed at fifty-seven named targets, including Barbie. Barbie eluded capture by leaping from the bathroom window at the back o f one o f the target houses as it was being raided. T he CIC officer in charge o f this operation was Captain R obert Frazier.49 T h e British ran a further snatch in June, codenam ed O peration D ry M artini, to pick up som e o f the last rem nants they had missed in the British Zone.50 Seventy people were caught in these dragnets, but Barbie, w ho had fled to the Munich area, was n o t am ong them . H e was recruited in Munich by an entirely separate American CIC unit that had n o t been involved in O peration Selection Board and was used by it against the KPD, the Soviets and, remarkably, the French. T he main CỈC headquar­ ters at the United States Forces E urope H Q became aware o f this awkward state o f affairs only in April 1947. By then the CIC Region IV at Munich was determ ined to protect Barbie as one o f its m ost effective agents. It argued, ‘It is felt that his value as an inform ant infinitely out­ weighs any use he may have in prison.' After he had been employed as an agent for six m onths he was finally arrested in O ctober that year and sent for detailed interrogation at the E uropean C om m and Intelligence C enter near Frankfurt. But curiously he was interrogated only about his contacts with Nazis and subversives in G erm any in 1945-6 and not about his years in wartime France. This is peculiar because it was precisely upon his French expertise that his CIC operadons were drawing.51 Barbie was valuable to the US because o f his wardm e work in France. H e knew many other G erm an intelligence and G estapo officers w ho had worked in France and w ho were now hiding in the French Z one o f Germany. T he long border shared by the American and the French Zones, together with the fact that Heidelberg, the US Forces E urope headquarters, was a few miles from the French Zone, was the key to Barbie’s desirability. T he US CIC was anxious about com m unist penetra­ tion o f the French secret services, even to the extent that som e consid­ ered them close to being hostile services. CIC told Barbie that one o f his key tasks would be to gather intelligence on this French apparatus. It wanted:

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1. Information pertaining to the degree of collaboration between the Soviet and the French Intelligence Services. 2. Degree of Communist penetration of the French Intelligence Service. 3. Activities of the Communist party of France in the French Zone of Germany and of the KPD in that Zone. 4. Any information concerning the activities of French Intelligence for the Soviets in the US Zone.52 Barbie was also tasked with penetrating the K P D in cities such as M unich, where the Party was reported to run a clandestine radio station.53 Barbie succeeded in penetrating the Bavarian branches o f the K P D and was soon obtaining the minutes o f meetings in m aịor centres such as Frankfurt. Working with US Arm y CIC officers, som e o f w hom were expatriate G erm ans, he com m anded great professional respect. They saw him as a superb counter-intelligence officer w ho had an instinctive talent for manipulating hum an beings. O ne officer recalled a case where he was convinced that a suspect was a com m unist agent but had made no progress in proving it. ‘Barbie told me I was wrong. O f course I accepted his judgement. H e always said use guile n o t duress . . . except where a bit o f duress is needed.*54 T he Americans could n o t now place Barbie in internm ent for fear that the British o r the French would claim him. His security from arrest was assured by inter-Allied tensions. His knowledge about ‘CIC, its agents, subagents, funds, etc. is too great’, they concluded, to risk handing him over. Barbie was now spinning a story about having had a wartime career in the Waffen SS, a military unit. O ne technical intelligence specialist at US Arm y CIC H Q recalled that w hen Barbie was released from E uropean C om m and Intelligence C enter in early 1948 it was deem ed advisable to continue using him as an inform ant in Region IV: because of his detailed knowledge of CIC modus operandi and because o f the apprehension of [CIC] headquarters that Barbie, if not employed, would con­ tinue his overtures to the British to work for them as an informant. If Barbie had been allowed to make these overtures the British would have found out that the reason CIC had not turned Barbie in or reported him in connection with Selection Board was based on the fact that he was employed by CIC as an informant. Although Barbie’s situation had initially com e about through simple con­ fusion between different CIC units which had n o t been com m unicating with each other, the Americans felt that it would now look suspicious to the British if they adm itted to having recruited him and that it would cause an ‘em barrassing situation’.55 It was intelligence operations against the French by Barbie, and also by

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his colleague K urt Merk, that imperilled French efforts to obtain Barbie from 1950. C1C explained that its agents were producing valuable material: T h e se m en have worked their way into intelligence positions in the French Zone, where they have access to classified material o f counter intelligence interest.' This material included not only French C om m unist Party docum ents but also docum ents on 'French Intelligence Activities from LINDAU into the US Z one’.56 In 1950, the French, w ho were now aware that the Americans had Barbie, pressed for his extradition. US Army CIC was increasingly aware o f the nature o f his wartime past, b u t it concluded that the real reason the French security wanted to get hold o f him was because French com m unist sympathisers in its ranks w anted to discover m ore about the extent o f American penetration o f the K PD . It decided to arrange his escape down a 'Rat Line’ to resettlem ent in Bolivia, rather than hand him over to the French. T he Rat Line was an operation used to move valuable contacts out o f E urope and resetde them elsewhere, often in South America. It ran through Italy, w here visas, docum ents and the co-operation o f local officials could be p u r­ chased with ease. In 1966, when the US State D epartm ent queried US Army Intelligence about Barbie it replied that 'BA RBIE’S perform ance for US Army Intelligence was outstanding and he was considered to be one o f the m ost valuable assets targeted against Soviet intelligence o per­ ations and the subversive com m unist elements in southern G erm any’. It added that he could n o t be exposed to French interrogation because o f the 'high level operations and operational procedures which would have been com prom ised’. This, in turn, reflected the fact that during the 1950s and 1960s W ashington continued to regard the French intelligence ser­ vices as badly penettated by the Soviets.57 T he Klaus Barbie episode underlines the wider point that relations betw een British, French and American intelligence in G erm any w ere rather awkward. Intelligence co-operation o r 'liaison’ usually contains a fundam ental duality. As we have seen, liaison simultaneously seeks close co-operation against an enemy and also affords a window into the activ­ ities o f an allied secret service. It is thus a classic secret service problem and has inspired equally tim e-honoured solutions. D uring the Cold War, this involved com partm entalisation, ensuring that secret services w ith ambiguous relations could maintain both friendly and distant relations simultaneously. This was the solution preferred by early post-w ar American intelligence in G erm any as it was in the process o f evolving from OSS into ssu and finally into CIA. D uring these changes the p o s­ sible m erger o f American sections with distinctly different relations w ith the British prom pted som e fascinating discussions that illuminate the problem s o f intelligence and allies.58 O n 2 and 3 February 1946, Brigadier Robin Brooke o f SIS paid a visit

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to the ssu Mission H Q in Germany. Brooke had som e far-reaching and sensitive proposals for an Anglo-American exchange o f cover and docu­ m entation (C&D) materials for agents moving backwards and forwards into the Soviet Z one and for general exchanges o f other expertise. He even offered access to the full SỈS range o f L ondon C& D facilities. H e was fulsome and encouraging, giving the American ssu the impression th at 'if we wanted to do so, we could establish a joint Britísh-A m erỉcan C& D in London’. But there were problems. SỈS had a long and irritating wartim e history o f using ‘co-operation and co-ordination’, together with the advantages o f a L ondon base, to extend a degree o f control over American espionage activities in Europe. Brooke’s offer was thus exam­ ined with justifiable caution. A week later General Sibert, the head o f US A rm y Intelligence in Germany, offered his opinion on the proposed extension o f co-operation with SIS. H e was worried about the 'political implications o f som e o f ou r operations’. W ider issues were also arising as the result o f a proposal to merge the American SSƯ counter-intelligence (X-2) elem ent and the ssu secret intelligence (SI) elem ent in Germany. First came the issue o f security. X2 had especially strict security measures, including a refusal to employ anyone w ho was n o t o f American nationality. It was ‘largely as the result o f their strict security requirem ents that the British have been prepared to share their inform ation so fully and extensively’. In practice the material shared derived from signals intelligence. X-2 had also worked closely with the SIS offensive counter-intelligence com ponent —Section V — to exploit this material during the war, and it wanted to 'continue their current very close liaison with the British’ and to gain access to such British material. So at the very least quite a few foreign m em bers o f SI units would have to be weeded out during the merger. But there was also a greater structural problem in com bining X-2 and SI: The X-2 representatives are also concerned on the ground that whereas they have no secrets from the British, the SI Branch has been engaged in certain activities which if known to the British would not be approved of by them. This, in turn, would make it necessary to decide whether the X-2 collaboration with the British could be continued and whether this collaboration could be extended to SỈ as well, at least within Germany. There is a division of opinion on this point, some believing that much more valuable intelligence can be obtained on the British Zone (and elsewhere in Germany) through close cooperation with the British, than would be possible through our continuing to operate on our present independent basis and through our own agents in the British Zone. This school of thought cites the expressed desire of the British to co-operate with US more closely on the posi­ tive (SIS) side; the fact that our major target in Germany is the Germans and what they are doing, and not what the British are doing in Germany; and the

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fact that the best positive intelligence which we have yet received from the British Zone has come from agents which we originally operated but turned over to the British for their operation. The other school argues that the British would not cooperate fully and would continue to maintain their own secret sources in the American Zone; and that we would never receive from the British any significant information regarding their plans and policies and activities which they would not like to have us Americans know. E ither way, and whatever W ashington decided, it seemed to ssu high time to tidy up its act in the area o f liaison. It conceded that it was ‘essen­ tial for us to revise our present m ethod o f operation in the British Z one for the reason that it is n o t sufficiently secure*. T here was ‘som e indica­ tion’ that the British had becom e aware o f ‘the nature o f certain o f o u r activities’. T he general issue o f how to handle liaison was all the m ore pressing because in early 1946 Allen Dulles had been discussing the need ‘for the closest possible collaboration with the Swedish, the Danish and the Norwegian Intelligence Services’, especially in penetrating Germany. T he Swedes had recendy doubled their intelligence budget and W ashington knew there were liaison dividends to be had.59 In the event the well-worn soludon o f a structural division, o r liaison firewall, had to be resurrected to deal with the problem . O n the Cold War’s new front line and indeed eventually all around the world, CIA starions would be divided into two secdons: officers conducdng joint operations with the host country; and officers conducdng independent American operations, hopefully unknow n to the host. O n 3 May 1946, Colonel R. D odderidge, w ho com m anded the ssu station in Paris, argued strongly for just such a firewall between joint operations with the French and his m ore sensitive independent activities, ssu in Paris, he complained, was carrying out its own clandestine intelligence operations, semi-overt work with a range o f inform ants, liaison with the French secret services and investigative security work for the American Embassy, all from the same location. A t present all SSƯ officers were ‘known to the French Security Services’ and this was bad. *To com bine, thus, overt and clandestine functions under one central office in a foreign country is, I believe, a violation o f the fundam ental principles o f intelligence work.’ D odderidge rightly presum ed that the French had already uncovered som ething o f SSU’s ‘clandestine intelligence work’. I f this activity was going to continue with any measure o f success it ‘should be kept separate and distinct from the liaison work with French Intelligence’. Nevertheless, he insisted, all these undertakings, although carefully sep­ arated, should be controlled by a single head o f station in Paris.60 Liaison between w hat became the CIA in June 1947 and foreign ser­ vices was increasingly sophisticated and broadly well managed. By con­

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tra s t liaison between the myriad rival American secret services remained problem atic. A t its m ost basic there were real financial costs to com peti­ tio n . A t the end o f 1950, Robert Murphy, the American Am bassador in B elgium —a m an with extensive experience o f wartime intelligence - sur­ veyed the E uropean scene. H e warned that as regards ƯS Army Intelligence, CIA and many other American organisations the problem w as that ‘in the field they go pretty well their independent ways’. He went on: The net result from our government’s point of view is an expensive one because the professional informers with whom we deal abroad deliberately shop among the several American intelligence agencies often selling the same bill of goods more than once and getdng the agencies to bid against each other. At one time this was particularly true in Germany and the foreign informers with whom our agencies dealt literally had a field day selling the same report more than once.61 T h e problem s extended well beyond that o f wasted resources. T he same rep o rt, however spurious and fantastic, if entering the system through several different channels tended to receive seemingly independent confirm ation from several agencies and was thus accorded a high degree o f plausibility in Washington. In G erm any and Austria this problem becam e so widespread that eventually a rather im perfect listing o f m ore seasoned freelance intelligence m erchants w ho were ‘suspected double dealers or near criminals’ was circulated am ong the num erous American and Allied secret services. This was particularly necessary in centres such as Berlin and Vienna where by 1949 the black market had begun to decline as a source o f income for the residents and where, as one practi­ tioner recalled, in the absence o f other gainful occupations, ‘intelligence was certainly the m ajor industry’.62 Nevertheless, both L ondon and W ashington knew there were priceless intelligence com m odities to be had in the ruins o f the T hird Reich, if only they knew where to look.

9 Operation D ick Tracy: A i r Intelligence in London and Washington D ICK TRACY is the largest collection o f all, and was also the first to be found; at Hider’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden. David A. Paine (ỊARIC), ‘Berchtesgaden to Brampton’, Novem ber I960'

ritish and American Air Intelligence enjoyed a very close partner­ ship. This was, in part, a product o f enmities elsewhere between the different American services. Service rivalry is a ubiquitous aspect o f m ost national defence establishments. But senior British figures were still shocked by the openly expressed hatred o f one American arm ed service for another, which exceeded the bounds o f norm al rivalry. T he result was beneficial to Anglo-American relations. Leo Amery, the wartime Secretary for India, once noted in his diary that although all the American services were ‘jealous’ o f the British they ‘will always fraternise with their sister service on our side against their enemy service'. General Pug Ismay, the Secretary to the Chiefs o f Staff, had apparendy asked American sailors in the M editerranean about their mechanisms for co­ operating with the US Army. T he sailors were amazed at the idea that they m ight have dealings with the Army, responding, ‘D o you think we would have that bunch o f rattlesnakes on board?’2 American inter-service enmity helped to create a m erger o f AngloAmerican Air Intelligence effort against the Soviet Union in which the main business was ‘target intelligence’. This enmity was accentuated in 1947 as W ashington separated the US Army Air Force from the Army and created, for the first time, a US Air Force as an independent third service. In the words o f General Charles Cabell, the new USAF was ‘struggling mightily’ to achieve a co-equal existence with the Army and Navy. Moreover, prior to 1947 it had been allowed only limited intelligence

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functions, and even these were o f recent creation. Air Intelligence seemed neglected and this was one o f the factors that had made the creation o f a separate USAF necessary. Thereafter the embryonic USAF intelligence set-up looked instinctively to the RAF for support.3 This Anglo-American collaboration also reflected wider strategic and operational developments. In 1946 M ajor-General Carl spaatz, the head o f w hat was then the US Army Air Force, m et with Air C hief Marshal L ord A rthur Tedder, C hief o f the Air Staff in L ondon, to negotiate the Spaatz-Tedder agreement. This provided for the preparation o f four o r five E ast Anglian airbases for use by American bom bers in time o f crisis. Such joint operational planning inevitably pointed towards joint intelli­ gence. In the period before Britain acquired nuclear weapons, real estate constituted its strongest bargaining chip. Although Curtis LeMay, the head o f US Strategic Air Com m and, was reluctant to em bark on a strat­ egy that left him dependent on other countries, in the short term he had little choice. American long-range bom bers such as the B-36, with a range o f 4,000 nautical miles, only began to make their appearance in 1951, leaving the US desperate in the short term for airbases close to the Soviet Union. Using bases in Japan, N o rth Africa and the UK , the US Jo in t Chiefs o f Staff believed that they could bring 80 per cent o f Soviet industry within range o f air attack. W hen the Korean War broke out, American contingency plans for a hot war required over half the American air strike on the Soviet Union to be launched from Britain, ren­ dering it an ‘unsinkable Aircraft Carrier’.4 Close Anglo-American co-operation o n target intelligence for air strikes was also the result o f a remarkable scoop. Air intelligence benefited from fantastic treasures rescued from a collapsing G erm any at the end o f the war. As we have seen, Bletchley Park was already eaves­ dropping on the Luftwaffe signals intelligence service and its work on the Soviet A ữ Force as early as 1943. But in May 1945 British and American intelligence teams had overrun Luftwaffe intelligence centres with vast stocks o f priceless m apping photography and aerial target traces for the Soviet Union that had been gathered by Heinkel photo-reconnaissance aircraft throughout the campaign on the eastern front. T he recovery operation was fraught, but by June 1945 m ost o f this material was in London. This invaluable — but hitherto unknow n — intelligence pro­ gram m e provided the strategic target intelligence for the USAF and the RAF for the next two decades. Because it provided target traces som e waggish individual (whose wit g o t the better o f his spelling) codenam ed the key phase O peration Dick Tracy. As further phases developed the mass o f material was given the generic designation ‘G X \ T he story o f its rescue and exploitation was dramatic, fascinating and complex. T hose w ho worked on this endeavour exclaimed that it was all ‘too horrible to

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be p u t dow n on paper', but nevertheless they penned an internal classified history o f their efforts. G X material was hidden at several strategic locadons across Germany. Some material was ‘saved only by a m atter o f hours from a fiery end in burning canal barges’ as the G erm ans tried to destroy it. O th er material was ‘removed from under the very noses o f the Russian Army’ in the first heady days o f G erm an surrender. T he best material came from H itler’s m ountain retreat at the Berchtesgaden in Bavaria and was codenam ed Dick Tracy. An American team secured this only by a m atter o f hours. It had ‘just m oved this material under cover when the Russians, w ho knew o f its existence and were looking for it, arrived on the scene’. Dick Tracy was supplem ented by other collections from places as far afield as Vienna codenam ed Orwell, from O slo codenam ed M onthly and from Berlin codenam ed Tenant. T here were nine different collections in all. In mid-June the material was flown to Britain, arriving at the US 8th Army Air Force Headquarters and then m oved to the Anglo-American Central Interpretation U nit at Pinetree in Essex. H ere joint Anglo-American exploitation was begun.5 T here were special reasons why L ondon became the centre for O peration Dick Tracy. In August 1945 General Sibert, head o f US Army Intelligence in Germany, rather belatedly asked W ashington 'about the permissibility o f joint conduct with the British o f Intelligence research activities on Russia’. In fact he had been pursuing these for som e m onths. W ithin a day the US C hief o f Staff General G eorge Marshall refused perm ission and extended this refusal to a general injunction that intelligence activities should ‘n o t involve joint research work on Russia with any Allied nationals’ because o f the sensitivity involved. However, M ajor-General Quesada, the US Army Intelligence chief in W ashington, realised that this would outlaw ịoint work o n Dick Tracy and other pro­ jects. Experienced staff officers redrafted the injunction so that it focused o n continental E urope only. This edict remained in place until 1946.6 O ne participant rem em bered the crates arriving in London. Hapless airm en carried a seemingly endless supply o f heavy boxes from the air­ craft. As one batch was brought off the plane, a box crashed to the floor and split open. It was found to contain not ph o to materials but smuggled Swiss watches. Lurking under G X were also som e private enterprise operations conducted by individuals. T he contents o f this particular box were quickly 'tidied away’ before officers arrived. T he crates m osdy con­ tained prints that were twelve inches by twelve, together with som e orig­ inal film. T here was also a mass o f plots, target traces, m aps and other valuable docum ents providing aử intelligence cover o f the whole o f the Soviet Union as far as Siberia. T here were also a lot o f scrapbooks and fascinating personal effects belonging to G erm an crews w ho had flown

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over die Soviet Union. T he latter were irresistible to the airm en who cam e upon them and, in their ow n carefully chosen words, were ‘all “mislaid” within 24 hours, and never found’, constituting prize souvenirs o f the air war on the eastern front. E xploidng this m am m oth haul was a daunting task. A fter a num ber o f false starts a complex system was finally developed to classify all G X material. T he idea was originally to copy all o f it, b u t in the event there was so much that the RAF was ‘selective’ and kept the product o f only 8,000 sorties that had generated between 800,000 and 1,000,000 prints^ T h e copying process for even this portion o f G X was vast and initially required the services o f som e 200 officers. In O ctober 1945 the project was moved to M edm enham in Berkshire and the main work o n copying the excellent Dick Tracy material was com pleted by a target date o f M arch 1946. Further material, captured from the burning river barges by M ontgom ery’s Twenty-first Army, arrived that March. In May the follow­ ing year the whole operation was still going and, together with the Central Interpretation Unit, was moved to N uneham Park, about three miles from H untingdon in Cambridgeshire. M edm enham was handed over to the reform ed 90 G roup as the new RAF signals headquarters which was gearing up for an electronic intelligence effort against the Soviet U nion, o f which we will hear m ore in the next chapter.7 G X was so enorm ous that even the preliminary sorting work o n the m ore obscure collections w ent on until January 1949. In M ontgom ery’s captured materials in particular there were som e extraordinary finds that did n o t fit com fortably into an air intelligence program m e. A m ong this collection were several large mahogany cases o f beautifully arranged 35m m photographic prints, som e 15,000 o f them , showing the com plete pictorial story o f the G erm an 1936 expedition to Borneo and Africa. (T hese were given to the Royal Geographical Society in London.) Secretive entrepreneurial activities ensured that the G X collection con­ tinually expanded. In 1954 it acquired m ore material in the form o f anno­ tated target prints o f vital areas o f which the RAF and USAF did not yet have cover. They were obtained for an undisclosed sum from ‘two gen­ tlem an o f E urope’ and proved to be o f ‘great intelligence value’. E ven in 1958 new areas o f the collection were still being discovered by analysts, including 3,200 mosaics o f Finland. T he key material representing areas th at were a high priority for bom bing in any future strike against the Soviet U nion w ent to Air Intelligence in Whitehall, while the main stock was kept at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence C entre o r J ARIC located at N uneham Park. Here G X was stored in a huge new building characterised by miles o f shelves and ‘acres o f brow n linoleum’. G X was always on the move. In May 1957 JA RIC and its G X collec­ tion m oved to B ram pton, also in Cambridgeshire. Here the prints were

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stored separately from the 30,000 volatile negatives and him, which were kept in the 'notorious K Bay’. T he alarming nature o f K Bay derived from the fact that much o f its stock was nitrate film —a material which develops its own oxygen when burning, thus flaring like magnesium. In Septem ber 1960 a long-feared fire finally broke out in K Bay which was contained only with difficulty. T he m ost valuable material was 22,000 target plots and traces filed in brow n envelopes, Britain’s key targets in any future war, which were stam ped with a sortie num ber and placed in ranks o f grey filing cabinets. In the early 1960s efforts were still being m ade to reconcile gaps between British and American batches o f records, b ut the physical task o f managing and sorting and preserving this colossal body o f decaying material seemed endless.8 W hat was the value o f Dick Tracy? This intelligence scoop provided mass photography on a scale unimaginable before the advent o f w ide­ spread satellite reconnaissance in the mid-1960s and rem ained a key intelligence resource for m ore than two decades. It also boosted th e confidence o f the RAF B om ber Com m and and US Strategic A ir Com m and. O n 3 N ovem ber 1948, during the latter phase o f the Berlin Crisis, Jam es Forrestal, the US D efense Secretary, had one o f his fam ous dinner parties which - as usual - degenerated into an informal business meeting. Curtis LeMay was there and talk soon turned to war with Russia. T he assembled com pany interrogated LeMay 'o n our ability to drive hom e attacks on targets in Russia’. LeMay replied that 'th e G erm ans had obtained excellent air photographs o f all im portant targets in Russia up to the Ural M ountains and that we are in possession o f all o f the G erm an material descriptive o f these Russian targets’. T he audience was impressed. But privately LeMay knew that, even with the best intelli­ gence, the nascent Strategic Air Com m and had a long way to g o in finding targets over a large landmass. G X remained o f critical im portance as late as 1960. Even then much o f the RAF and USAF target data co n ­ sisted o f predicted radar pictures o f targets which were derived from this ageing G erm an photo cover. Although the British and Americans would make a num ber o f clandestine flights over the Soviet Union in the 1950s the coverage obtained was small and G X was replaced only with the arrival o f satellite photography in the 1960s.9 Exploiting G X cem ented the existing Anglo-American air intelligence relationship. In May 1945, several large US Army Air Force intelligence teams were already working with the British. A four-m an team was based at the Air Ministry dealing with - sometimes prickly —signals intelligence issues, headed by Kingm an Douglas, w ho would later becom e deputy director o f the CIA. O thers, like Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Powell, were at Bletchley Park. Powell had participated in the American sw oop on Hitler’s Berchtesgaden. H um an treasures were also collected there which

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called for joint exploitation in London. Having learned that the G erm ans had moved m ost o f theừ G eneral Staff dow n to the Berchtesgaden, Powell joined General G eorge M cDonald, the US Arm y Air Force Intelligence chief, to investigate even before the form al surrender. T he 101st A irborne Division had occupied the area and the RAF had ‘just blitzed the chalets o f Hitler and the senior officers*. T hey had found the intelligence staff w ho specialised o n the Soviet Air Force billeted in a school halfway up a m ountain. M cDonald wanted the G erm an experts as well as the G X material. In the event, the G erm an intelligence officers ‘were happy to go to England, as we asked them to do. T hey were afraid o f w hat the Russians m ight do to them .’ T he deal was that they would share all the intelligence they had on the Soviet Air Force, and the Allies would release them within a year. ‘It was fascinating to work with these G erm an intelligence officers. We p u t them up in house outside London.* Powell remained as the American Air Intelligence liaison chief in L ondon.10 Partly as a result o f his presence there som e G erm an special­ ists on the Soviet Air Force travelled o n to W ashington rather than returning to G erm any in late 1945.11 G erm an military advisers o f the sort depicted in Stanley Kubrick’s nuclear strategic comedy D r Strangekve were in fact ubiquitous. By 1946 the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff had asked none other than General Alfred Jodi, w ho had com m anded the planning staff o f OKW, H itler’s High C om m and, to set o u t his ideas for the m ost effective W estern attack against the Soviet Union. In his typically thorough report Jodi urged air attack against the southern Soviet Union: The vital key-points for the entire Soviet war machine are in the oil areas of Ploesti, Baku and Maikop, with the Grosny refineries, and about eight (8) to ten (10) latge power plants which deliver practically all the energy (power) required by the Russian armament industry. The German Air Force studied this question precisely and had models made of all the plants in question. These models were brought to the area south of Flensburg at the end of April 1945 and, under my orders, stored. I assume that nowadays they are in the pos­ session of the British. General M cDonald wasted no time in asking his opposite num ber, the newly appointed Air Vice Marshal Lawrie Pendred, to search the models o u t 12 Anxiety to continue air intelligence co-operation grew rather than diminished in the years immediately after the war. A vast array o f scientific and technical materials o f air interest, especially missiles, continued to be extracted. In April 1947, a specialist from W right Field, the US Air Technical Intelligence Center, contacted W ashington regarding Project Abstract: T h is project has been carried out in the T heater with the assis­ tance o f the British. To date 3 Boxes o f vitally im portant docum ents and

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cylinders containing the locations o f alleged burials o f other docum ents and guided missiles equipm ent have been found in the British Z o n e / T he American concluded that further British co-operation was 'essential in the operation’. American officers in G erm any strongly recom m ended 'furtherance o f joint operation’ and pressed W ashington for authority to pursue the project ‘on joint British-U S basis’.13 Predictably the answer was yes. L ondon form ed an ideal forward base for exploitation, and much o f the material was spread across the two Zones, dem anding that it be pieced together. By the sum m er o f 1945 British and American Air Intelligence each had half o f this invaluable picture. M utual exchange and assistance was self-evidendy desirable. By the end o f 1945 the first wave o f exploitation was finished. British Air Intelligence had consolidated its haul into two reports, one entitled T h e Soviet Air Force’ and the other surveying G erm an intelligence work on the Soviet Air Force order o f batde. Digesting the G erm an intelli­ gence had been tough work. L ondon and W ashington soon discovered they had swallowed two battling G erm an factions which 'vioỉendy dis­ agreed’ with each other. T he high-level Berlin-based Ic Section o f O K L , the Luftwaffe High Com m and in Berlin, was feuding with the theatre com m and level Auswertestelle O st. By late 1945 the sixteen senior Luftwaffe intelligence officers w ho had been captured were drawn evenly from the two factions. Ic claimed to be the higher-echelon organisation, but O st was able to produce m ore evidence. T heir main bone o f conten­ tion was over the rate o f Soviet aircraft production, som ething which offered an eerie foretaste o f the 'bom ber gap’ and the ‘missile gap’ argu­ m ents that would preoccupy W estern intelligence in the 1950s. W hat could not be disputed was that signals intelligence had been G erm any’s key source and gave all its work a broad authority. It was by far the m ost voluminous and also the fastest source and covered the whole o f the eastern front. It was 'excellently supplem ented in the north by the Finnish m onitoring service’. T he sigint take was better when the front was mobile, forcing Soviet units to use wireless transmission, while static periods resulted in proliferation o f secure land-lines that could n o t be intercepted. Radio silence and deception caused the G erm ans 'co n ­ siderable difficulties*. After sigint, captured POW s were the best source and allowed them som e insight into w hat was going on behind the front lines.14 Perversely, L ondon and W ashington sometimes had to hide their co­ operation from their mutual friends. In the sum m er o f 1946 Swedish intelligence requested British help in investigating mysterious reports o f missiles flying over Sweden. Initially they were dismissed as meteorites, b ut later pieces o f missiles began to be found in rem ote areas o f Sweden. Assistance with tracing radar was given and missile fragments were

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b ro u g h t back to the U K for analysis. T he source was thought to be Soviet m issile-testing stations inherited from the G erm ans in the Baltic. U nderstandably the Swedes were irked to find that their country was b ein g used as a free missile testing range, but they were also twitchy about th e possibility o f com prom ising their neutrality. A British offer o f a flight o f specially equipped aircraft to track the missiles was eventually declined. T h e C hief o f the Swedish Com bined Intelligence Board urged the ‘extrem e delicacy* o f co-operation, asking the British ‘to take all possible m easures to prevent the Americans finding out about Swedish full co­ o p eration with us in investigating the mysterious missiles’.15 T he British gave the Swedes assurances vis-à-vis the Americans and prom pdy dis­ h o n o u red them. Air Vice Marshal Elm hirst, the head o f Air Intelligence in L ondon, at once gave everything to G eorge M cDonald in Washington. B u t he warned M cDonald that the Swedes were developing ‘cold feet’ and they agreed to maintain the fiction o f their non-cooperation in this area.16 Air power was the cutting edge o f post-war strategy and it was appro­ priate that Anglo-American air intelligence was in turn the cutting edge o f W estern intelligence co-operation. In early 1946, two years ahead o f the famous UKƯSA agreem ent on sigint, M cDonald and Elm hirst had concluded a formal deal on ‘world-wide exchange o f photographic cover o f every description on an entirely world-wide basis’ and ‘w ithout financial com pensation’. This was soon extended to include microfilming o f the voluminous Luftwaffe intelligence reports on the Soviet Air Force. It represented the first o f many Anglo-American post-war intelligence treaties.17 L ondon and W ashington not only exchanged sensitive target m ateri­ als, they integrated their target intelligence staffs. In June 1947 the British Joint Intelligence Bureau produced an especially hard-nosed study, T h e Characteristics o f Russian Towns as Targets for Air Attack’. It gave atten­ tion ‘particularly to incendiary attack’ and was essentially an analysis o f how well Soviet towns would burn and w hether their incineration would take industrial plant with it. T he news for the planners was not good. Gorki, for example, covered only eight square miles as a town, but the related industrial areas spread for another hundred square miles around. A high proportion o f Soviet living accom m odation was made o f wood and m ight burn well. T h e centres o f Russian towns generally provided compact and inflammable targets for incendiary attack,’ but, the Bureau noted, the industrial areas were dispersed and would be hard to bomb. Only six copies o f this report made their way outside the JIB. But Washington received one o f the first copies because Maịor Daniel T. Seiko o f the US Air Force was part o f the JIB team which wrote it. Soon further copies o f this ‘extremely useful’ survey made their way to W ashington.18 This close co-operation on the really detailed problems o f

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target intelligence continued into the later 1940s and early 1950s. A series o f conferences were held between JIB and the ƯS Air Force Target Analysis Division to consider how fast Soviet railways could recover from bombing. Discussions centred around a detailed study w ritten by two experts from the Southern Region o f Britain’s railways, s. w. Sm art, the Superintendent o f O perations, and A. H. Cantrell, the Assistant C hief Engineer. They had been set 'sample recuperation problem s’ for restoring railway services after various degrees o f bom bing.19 O n 23 June 1948, the M cD onald-E lm hirst agreem ent was replaced by a full U SA F-RA F Joint A greem ent on Target Intelligence, which was ratified by their successors, Lawrie Pendred and Charles Cabell, in the autum n o f that year. Pendred w rote to Cabell in affable term s taking evident pleasure in w hat he called ‘ou r intelligence offensive’.20 This treaty had its opponents. Rear Admiral Tom Inglis, the US Navy Intelligence chief, was 'vỉoỉendy opposed’ to the US Air Force as a separ­ ate service and 'resented its existence’. He disliked the close relationship with Air Intelligence in L ondon even m ore and ‘threatened to cut off the flow o f U.S. Navy acquired intelligence to US so long as we had a British officer in our shop’. Cabell recalled, ‘I refused to accede to his dem and and he soon dropped it.’21 Tom Inglis had serious reasons for why the Americans should avoid the embraces o f L ondon’s senior intelligence officials which he set ou t before Jam es Forrestal during O ctober 1947. He conceded that the British had made all their intelligence available to the United States ‘with practically no restrictions’, including 'very valuable material’, but parallel efforts by British officers to access American long-range research and developm ent were also 'm ore and m ore persistent’. This problem had to be handled with 'som e finesse’. T h e British have been very inquisitive and acquisitive and missed very little inform ation which we have. Also the British have been restive and im patient with our control machinery and have frequently com pared the free and casual access which our rep­ resentatives have to their inform ation with the channelling and red tape which their representatives suffer.’ Inglis also feared that much o f w hat was handed over was going to the Com m onw ealth o r 'into commercial channels where it could be used in com petition with American prod­ ucts’. He stressed that it 'm ust also be rem em bered that British G overnm ent is British Business’. Moreover, he argued that general British decline com bined with a tendency to 'pull the rug o u t from under the US in countries like Greece and Iran’ m ade Britain look 'less o f an asset and m ore o f a liability'. He was also alarmed by the strongly social­ ist credentials o f figures such as Stafford Cripps. By early 1948 alarms about British Com m onwealth security gave the warnings offered by Inglis a rather prescient air.22

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D espite these anxieties, by late 1948 the tide o f W estern intelligence agreem ents had becom e irresistible. O ctober 1948 even saw the com ple­ tion o f an Anglo-American naval intelligence treaty betw een Inglis and his opposite num ber, Vice Admiral Longley-Cook, the D irector o f Naval Intelligence in L ondon.23 However, the scope and texture o f naval intel­ ligence co-operation between L ondon and W ashington was always less than that relating to air intelligence. In the early 1950s the US Office o f Naval Intelligence was finding that the process o f getting certain material o u t o f L ondon was proving Very difficult’ and ‘long delayed’.24 A ư intelligence co-operation was a close Allied partnership, b u t not everything recovered in G erm any was exchanged. In February 1946, US Air Technical Intelligence teams were making their way through the massive archives o f G öring’s Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin. They hap­ pened upon a m ost interesting collection o f docum ents on the British, including papers giving details o f the mission by M ajor Christie o f SIS to Holland in N ovem ber 1939 to explore peace term s with Prince H ohenlohe-Langenberg, w ho was close to Goring. T he archives also dis­ closed a range o f em barrassing pro-G erm an activities by prom inent British personalities and evidence o f large-scale leaks from Am bassador H enderson’s British Em bassy in Berlin before the war. These docum ents did the rounds in W ashington ‘by safe hand o f officer' before disappear­ ing into the State D epartm ent.25 Surprising news about British activities accelerated Washington's accession to the new Anglo-American Target Intelligence Treaty in 1948. T h e Americans suddenly discovered that the British had been running risky photo-reconnaissance flights inside the Soviet Union: the US Navy found by accident that ‘the British were taking photography o f the south­ ern shoreline o f the Caspian Sea’. Knowledge o f the operation, run from a rem ote airfield on Crete and aimed at Soviet missile-development com ­ plexes, was kept within a small circle. This material was ừresistibly attrac­ tive to W ashington for one simple reason. T he State D epartm ent had banned similar spy-flights by American aircraft as too provocative.26 T he RAF certainly had the capability for such flights. In N ovem ber 1947 it had reform ed two strategic photo-reconnaissance squadrons at RAF B enson — No. 541 with spitfire XIXs and No. 540 with the special M osquito PR34. T he latter was an aircraft o f remarkable speed and range, capable o f 2,500 miles with its under-wing drop tanks and extra tanks in the bom b bay. It was probably this aircraft that began to probe the Soviet U nion in 1948 from bases in Iraq, Crete and Cyprus.27 Britain was n o t the only country undertaking risky overflights into the Soviet U nion in the late 1940s. Perhaps prom pted by being used as an ersatz missile-testing range, and encouraged by the British, the Swedes tried their hand about the same time. In N ovem ber 1948 a special

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Swedish photo-recce unit equipped with high-flying aircraft reported that ‘while over-flying Soviet-controlled territory in Finland at 38,000 feet’ its plane had been intercepted by lighters and came under accurate radar-controlled anti-aircraft Are. Although it was undamaged, the pilot reported that ‘flak bursts beneath him shook his plane’.28 L ondon tried to persuade o ther European countries to share the risk. W hen Attlee was asked about photo-reconnaissance o f the Soviet Navy in the Spitzbergen area, he replied that it would be good to get the D anes to do it rather than the RAF. However, despite this forward attitude, British target intelli­ gence interest did not give first priority to Moscow, nor indeed to o th er targets deep inside the Soviet Union. Although the RAF had a longrange program m e that aimed at covering all o f the Soviet bloc, its short­ term ‘crash’ targets in 1948 were, in fact, in Western Europe, focused on Germ any west o f the Elbe river. If war broke out soon a vital task would be the destruction o f certain key bridges and other installations that would impede the progress o f the Russians towards the Channel coast, together with airfields that m ight be used by Soviet bom bers to attack Britain. Thus, in the short term , target traces o f G erm any and France were as valuable as anything else.29 In late 1948, the Berlin Crisis was in progress and Foreign Secretary E rnest Bevin was pressing for a tough line, having just negotiated the arrival o f US atomic-capable bom bers in E ast Anglia, although as yet w ithout atom ic weapons. (American atomic weapons would n o t arrive in Britain until July 1950, prom pted by the outbreak o f the Korean War.) Against this dramatic background, US Air Force Intelligence officers in L ondon were impressed - but also alarmed - by the first RAF overflights over the Soviet Union. Some saw them as excessively risky ventures and began to speculate about w hat they m ight imply in relation to wider British strategic intentions. They were struck by the ‘reported relaxing o f the Foreign Office attitude toward covert aerial reconnaissance over the USSR’ in contrast to the line taken by the State D epartm ent which was ‘adam ant concerning ou r observance o f a respectful limit from the coast­ line’. Was it, they asked, the first signs o f desperation by a country gripped by ‘econom ic poverty and extreme vulnerability’ and which had lost its judgement? It was conceivable, American officers argued, that the British m ight be considering provoking a war with the Soviet Union. Although the idea seemed at first glance fanciful, the possibility remained and the thesis was, they insisted, entirely logical. N o t only was the British econom y seemingly in terminal decline, but Britain was faced with a Soviet U nion that would be increasingly capable o f waging a successful global war. T he eventual result o f the Soviet atomic program m e, which m ost intelligence estimates assumed would produce its first bom b in the early 1950s,

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would be that the CƯK will becom e untenable* —in other words, com ­ pletely desưoyed in the early stages o f a future war. If, as many came to believe, a h o t war with the Soviet U nion was very likely in the next ten years, then by far the m ost acceptable time-frame for this event, from the British point o f view, was now, in the late 1940s. This stem m ed from the fact that for the next two o r three years the United States would have a nuclear monopoly. Only by provoking a war soon, they argued, could the U K avoid atom ic destruction. This train o f thought was as alarming as it was logical: ‘It m ust be assumed that there is a possibility that the British governm ent m ight consider provoking a war in the immediate future if faced with probable victory now with W estern help, over a USSR unpre­ pared for a global war as against alm ost certain annihilation in such a war a few years hence.’ These officers had little evidence that Britain was looking for a preven­ tative war o ther than the RAF intelligence overflights. They accepted that everything else in their report was speculation and that ‘a lot o f exception will be taken to it’, but they felt strongly that the possibility was w orth considering. In late 1948, in the m idst o f the Berlin Crisis, British and American chiefs were beginning to turn their m inds to these atomic problem s in the knowledge that the eventual arrival o f the Soviet bom b would change the situation irrevocably. However, none o f them had guessed that that event was only m onths away —a spectacular intelligence failure. O nce the Soviets exploded their first atomic bom b on 29 August 1949, the situation was reversed. Britain then became very vulnerable and anxious to avoid war, while W ashington faced a limited period o f rel­ ative invulnerability. From late 1949, the b o o t would be on the other foot, and it would be the turn o f British intelligence officers to worry about American partiality to the idea o f preventative war.30

10 The Failure o f A to m ic Intelligence [T)he intelligence services are at war with Russia and we are losing heavily in the field in which I am engaged. Commander Eric Welsh, head o f Atomic Intelligence, June 1952'

n 1948, Britain’s G C H Q was directed to make Soviet atom ic weapons its absolute top priority target. Also in this category were other weapons o f mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons, together w ith the strategic means o f delivery such as bom bers and missiles. But the task was hopeless for m ost Soviet ciphers could not be broken; m ore­ over deep inside the Soviet Union com m unications used secure land­ lines rather than radios. SIS fared no better as it did n o t have agents deep inside the Soviet U nion, and in any case did not know where to send them. In M arch 1948 L ondon conceded that it ‘is n o t yet known where the Russians are developing their atom ic plants’. Its best guess that year was that the Soviets m ight explode their first atom ic bom b in early 1954. American intelligence broadly agreed, suggesting 1953. This guess was wide o f the m ark by som ewhere between four and five years. M oscow’s surprise test on 29 August 1949 dealt the West a shattering psychological blow. This explosion, followed by Allied encounters with the superior M iG fighter in Korea the following year—secretly piloted by Soviet crews —banished any thoughts o f the Soviets as technically infe­ rior. T he British JIC and its subordinates had sneered at the Soviet approach to science, which involved having many o f its experts in con­ centration-cam p laboratories run by the MGB. T he rest were harassed by the police, and the whole atomic bom b project was in the hands o f Lavrenti Beria and the MGB. D efecting scientists painted a grim picture o f this environm ent and suggested that this factor reduced their effectiveness by 50 per cent. D r Tokaev, the star aeronautics defector o f 1948, reinforced this gloomy picture. In June 1949, only two m onths before the Soviet bom b, the British Joint Scientific and Technical Intelligence Com m ittees had concluded ‘It seems certain . . . that the

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scientific potential o f the USSR, though im m ense in num bers, is in fact less form idable than it appears. It is perhaps a reasonable deduction that, while much com petent and original work is being done and will continue to be done, Soviet scientists are unlikely to rise to the greatest heights o f scientific thought and imagination, from which the m ajor advances in hum an knowledge proceed.’ Here ideological insights, about the necessity o f freedom to great intellectual achievement, multiplied pre-existing racial stereotypes about the backwardness o f the Russians. This was further multiplied by the G erm an prism through which the Soviet eifort was viewed. T he West knew about Soviet science that the G erm ans had learned of, b ut n o t much more. This resulted in insights into som e fields and mistakes in others, such as Soviet rocket science, where progress was underestim ated.2 Consequently the shock o f the Soviet atom ic bom b test in August 1949 was intense. President Trum an reacted quickly, ordering work to begin on the American H -bom b. M ore importantly, the Soviet bom b fundam en­ tally recast Anglo-American relations. From this point L ondon would fear any forward activity in the Cold War, knowing that it risked oblitera­ tion. W ashington, by contrast, sought to quicken the pace, knowing that within a decade it too would becom e vulnerable to attack and thereafter would be compelled towards an increasingly inert position.3 Second-guessing the Soviet atomic bom b program m e —together with the even m ore obscure Soviet efforts in chemical and biological warfare —was undeniably a tall order. But it was made yet m ore difficult by the calamitous disorder w ithin British scientific intelligence after the war. T his situation was puzzling given the outstanding achievements o f figures like Professor R. V. Jones, the Scientific Intelligence Adviser to the Air Ministry. Jones understood scientific intelligence and at the height o f the war he and his team had identified the new radio guidance system that was enabling the Luftwaffe to bom b L ondon accurately. His team had persuaded an incredulous Churchill o f the existence o f this system and then w ent o n to devise instrum ents to investigate it, creating counter-m easures within weeks. Jones was in many senses the father o f a new field o f electronic intelligence and radio counter-measures. Moreover, in 1945 L ondon had given exceedingly high priority to scientific and technical m atters and to their im pact on warfare. H enry T izard’s special report on this subject, revised after Hiroshim a and Nagasaki, ensured that the revolutionary developm ents o f the previous five years were absorbed into British strategic thinking. T he JIC was also o n the ball. As early as the spring o f 1945 it gave Professor P. M. s. Blackett o f Naval Intelligence control o f an ad hoc com m ittee set up to review the future o f scientific and technical intelligence. O n 19 May 1945 it subm itted its plan to the JIC .4

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T he D irector o f Military Intelligence immediately detected the central flaw in Professor Blackett’s plan. Instead o f concentrating the scientific intelligence effort o f the services in one organisation, they were to be spread across Whitehall. Each service intelligence departm ent was to have a penny packet o f scientific intelligence staff headed by a scientific intelligence adviser. Technical m atters were separated and dispersed in the same way. They would get together on occasion in joint committees. Yet the targets o f this sort o f work - radar or missiles - were shared problem s with greater scope for economy o f effort and inter-service collaboration than alm ost any other area o f intelligence. R. V. Jones had fought Blackett in committee. He had set out an alternative option o f a m ore centralised scientific intelligence service with a single director closely linked to SIS. But Blackett’s curious arrangem ent pandered to the political desire o f each service to maintain a separate identity and so it won the day. T he legacy was an incredible two decades o f inter-service squabbling.5 Blackett’s new organism sat next to neither the producers nor the con­ sumers o f intelligence. T he scientific and technical elements o f service intelligence were located together in rented buildings in Bryanston Square, together with K enneth Strong’s new Joint Intelligence Bureau. Bryanston Square was not only a shabby building noted for its rotting linoleum, but was also situated too far from Whitehall. Scientific intelli­ gence had ‘been . . . exiled north o f Marble Arch’ and so the service was looked upon as ‘a dustbin for misfits’. In March 1947, even Sir Stewart Menzies, n ot known for his interest in m odernisation, was expressing deep concern to the Chiefs o f Staff about the weakness o f Britain’s scientific and technical intelligence. In 1948 Francis Crick, w ho had a background in scientific intelligence for the Navy, tried to reform it but w ithout success. Despairing, he departed for pure research work in Cambridge which would eventually lead to a N obel Prize. T here were further failed efforts in 1949. In N ovem ber 1952, Churchill returned for a second term as Prime M inister and found things still in disarray. He was obliged to recall Jones in the hope o f a m ajor overhaul o f the entire system. But this was n o t achieved until 1964.6 Disorganisation and dispersal was com pleted in 1945 by the m ishan­ dling o f atomic intelligence. This was completely separated from the rest o f Britain’s scientific intelligence e ffo rt even though many o f its scientific processes were related to other fields. In 1945, Sir John A nderson, the D irector o f the British com ponent o f w hat had becom e the M anhattan Project, moved British atomic intelligence to the Foreign Office and the Ministry o f Supply, in an attem pt to m irror the American system and thus to perpetuate future co-operation. Although this was an odd place to p ut atom ic intelligence, Menzies had been especially keen to avoid dis­ turbing existing Anglo-American wartime atomic machinery. However

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the abrupt term ination o f Anglo-American atom ic co-operation in 1946 rendered this a useless ploy. As atomic intelligence co-operation was gradually restored the British discovered that the Americans were doing things differently. Meanwhile the crucial area o f British atomic intelli­ gence languished at the Ministry o f Supply in the ‘secure cages’ at the Shell Mex buildings, far removed from any other intelligence centre in W hitehall.7 But Blackett’s nemesis was not, as som e have suggested, R. V. Jones, Churchill’s brilliant architect o f the wartime ^Wizard War’. Instead it was General Sir K enneth Strong, w ho had served as Eisenhow er’s intelli­ gence chief for the D -D ay landings. In 1945 Strong had volunteered to set up a body called the Joint Intelligence Bureau, which would bring together areas o f activity that could easily be pooled by the services, such as econom ic and geographical intelligence. But his messianic obsession with centralised inter-service intelligence seemed politically dangerous, and for the time being he was able to capture only bits and pieces o f the intelligence system that no one wanted. Typically, its topographical intel­ ligence archives inherited the thousands o f holiday snaps o f French beaches donated in response to a public appeal prior to the invasion o f E urope in 1944. Yet Strong, starting out with this improbable collection o f 'beach intelligence’, was the wave o f the future. For alm ost twenty years he waged an unrem itting campaign as JIB chief for 'ịointery’ and centralisa­ tion, while periodic rounds o f econom ies also worked in his favour. H e was a natural empire-builder and he had already identified a key role for JIB in target intelligence —tying it at an early stage to the business end o f atom ic weapons, the h o t issue o f the day. Helped by excellent personal relations with figures like Eisenhower, his star was rising. In the mid1950s, JIB would take over atom ic intelligence. Finally, in 1964, Strong would becom e the first head o f the D efence Intelligence Staff under a newly centralised Ministry o f D efence (MoD) in which Army, Navy and Air Intelligence com ponents were subsum ed.8 Britain’s atom ic intelligence program m e itself was run from the outset by C om m ander Eric Welsh. Welsh was a short, owlish and som ewhat rotund form er Naval Intelligence officer w ho had joined the Royal Navy in the First World War as an ordinary seaman. Formidably intelligent and courageous, he was soon comm issioned at sea for gallantry in action and then taken into Naval Intelligence. D uring the inter-war period he left the service, but maintained his intelligence contacts. As technical manager o f a com pany called International Paints and Com positions he specialised in maritime chemical developm ents for the hulls o f naval vessels and worked all around the Baltic. By the late 1930s he was assist­ ing with the now famous N orsk Hydro plant at Vermork in Norway

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which was soon producing heavy water required for atom ic engineering. W hen the G erm ans arrived in 1940 he departed quickly for Britain, leaving his Norwegian family in place, w ho then served as agents during future expeditions.9 Welsh began the war by running agents against G erm an naval activ­ ities in the Baltic, which was a haven for the developm ent and testing o f revolutionary new weapons. Moving from Naval Intelligence into SIS, he was increasingly involved in scientific intelligence, including the collec­ tion o f data on the V-2 testing site at Peenemünde. He was also involved in the O slo Report, a startling docum ent produced by the agent Paul Rosbaud, which offered R. V. Jones critical details o f a range o f G erm an scientific developm ents at an early stage o f the war. Thereafter, a chance m eeting with Menzies led to Welsh being given responsibility for atom ic intelligence in SIS. N either Welsh n o r Menzies really knew much about atomic weapons and it was a typically spur-of-the-m om ent appointm ent by ‘C . Welsh was then closely involved with the famous S O E operation against the heavy-water plant in Norway, later celebrated in the film The Heroes o f Telemark. T he raid o n the heavy-water plant was launched from S O E ’s Special Training School No. 61, known as Farm Hall, a remarkable building which served as a menagerie for all sorts o f different wartim e agents m oving in and o u t o f Britain en route to the continent. For this reason it was comprehensively wired for sound. In 1945 it provided Welsh with the ideal location to debrief ten captured G erm an atomic scientists about their wartime activities. Listening in to their conversations, British m oni­ tors held their breath when they heard the G erm ans discuss the question o f w hether their accom m odation was bugged, only to dismiss the pos­ sibility on the ground that the British were n o t sophisticated enough to try such a trick. Although the G erm an atomic scientists enịoyed sum ptu­ ous food and accom m odation, Welsh was not soft o n them and often told them that his personal preference would be to have them shot. He always appeared before them in full-dress naval uniform with medals — earning him self the nickname ‘G oldfasan’, o r the G olden Pheasant.10 By 1946 G erm an atomic scientists w ho had returned from Farm Hall to G erm any had becom e a liability. These were a special category o f person whom the West least desired to lose to the Soviets. They remained under constant ‘special surveillance’ under an Anglo-American covert scheme called O peration Scrum Half. This was co-ordinated by Com m ander Welsh, w ho sat o n the Anglo-American Atomic Energy Intelligence Com m ittee and was a regular visitor to Broadway Buildings. SIS in G erm any was very interested, but security o n the ground was pro­ vided by ID, and by US Army Intelligence in the American Z one.11 By April 1948 Welsh and his boss, D r Michael Perrin, the D irector o f

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Atom ic Energy at the Ministry o f Supply, had becom e m ore anxious about the ‘kidnapping o r murder* o f selected G erm an scientists in the atom ic field. T here had been an unconfirm ed attem pt to kidnap the fam ous Professor W erner Heisenberg, leader o f the G erm an wartime atom ic effort, in late 1947 and this had probably focused their minds. T hey made a special visit to G erm any to set up m ore elaborate counter­ measures, including ‘a special covert joint Anglo/us Intelligence Security Surveillance Board’ and a range o f other contingency plans col­ lectively called O peration D inner Party.12 D r Bertie Blount had responsibility for creating a list o f vulnerable atom ic scientists, which had now grow n to approximately thirty. Blount was hidden in a special atomic section o f the British Control Com m ission known as the Research Branch o f the Office o f the E conom ic Adviser. H e took a practical line and advised General Haydon, the new chief o f ID in Germany, that they should w orry only about ‘kid­ napping and n o t m urder, since the latter merely denies the scientists to both sides’. He also suggested that the scheme be extended to cover the eventuality o f a Soviet invasion as well as an outbreak o f kidnapping. Haydon conceded that ‘m urder may be a lesser evil than kidnapping’ but added dryly that it would be quite good to try and prevent either eventu­ ality. O peration D inner Party had two phases, ‘red warning’ and ‘scram­ ble warning’, depending o n the level o f threat.13 Seasoned intelligence officers w ho knew their business regarded both these variants o f the operation as unrealistic. I f the Soviets tried to snatch these figures they would probably get them . R obert Schow, D eputy D irector o f Intelligence at EU CO M , w ho would soon becom e chief o f CIA secret intelligence in W ashington, also had little time for this special security surveillance. As far as he was concerned there were only two solutions, incarceration o r perm anent evacuation to the United States o r Britain, and he recom m ended the latter. T he Military G overnor General Clay also declared it was absurd to have such vital people living freely in G erm any b ut under massive surveillance, the cost o f which was ‘prohib­ itive’. T h at senior G erm an atom ic scientists were living openly in G erm any in 1948 cannot help but prom pt the thought that there was m ore to th eừ presence than m eets the eye and that som e atom ic decep­ tion operations against the Soviets may have been afoot.14 G erm any and G erm ans continued to be a critical source o f the limited intelligence o n Soviet strategic programmes. G erm an scientists and tech­ nicians seem ed to offer tangential access to an otherwise inaccessible ta rg e t Personnel working for an organisation set up to m ine and process uranium in the Soviet Z one o f G erm any were recruited by both the British and the Americans, as were technicians providing other com po­ nents for the immensely complex process o f refining uranium. Both also

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developed sources within the huge industrial com bine IG Farben, which had factories across the Soviet Zone. Inform ation about rail shipm ents to the Soviet Union was also being sent by radio and this was intercepted in the West. D uring 1948 two G erm ans w ho passed through Britain’s interrogation cam p at Friedland brought tantalising news o f the first Soviet plutonium -producing reactor - Cheliabinsk-40 —which was situ­ ated near Kyshtym east o f the Urals and close to two large lakes used for cooling. This plant was central to the Soviet weapons program m e. All this allowed som e guestímates o f Soviet uranium production and som e export control measures, but was n o t a substitute for agents at the heart o f the Soviet nuclear program m e.15 At the o th er end o f the world, intelligence teams were exploiting a par­ allel source —Japanese POWs. O ver a million had fallen into Soviet hands at the end o f the war and had endured harsh conditions in central Siberia and the Urals, where many had been used for labour. In the late 1940s they were allowed to return. Lieutenant-Colonel Benson o f the CIA, w ho chaired the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Com m ittee in W ashington, set considerable store by this. But although they were able to supply first-hand accounts o f the intense efforts the Soviets were putting into new uranium mining, in som e cases w ithin the Arctic drcle, it did n ot tell them m uch about Soviet atom ic bom bs.16 Allied exchange o f this material was complicated. Initially, H orace Calvert headed the L ondon Office o f the M anhattan Project’s Foreign Intelligence Section, whose m ain duty was to liaise with Eric Welsh. Welsh posted a series o f SIS officers, the first o f w hom was William M ann, to sit in the equivalent office in W ashington, which was being absorbed into w hat would becom e the CIA. But this set-up was elimi­ nated by the M cM ahon A ct o f 1946, which made it a criminal offence for any American citizen to pass atom ic inform ation to a foreigner. An SIS officer with atom ic responsibility continued to be sent to W ashington, b ut he hung around in W ashington rather than achieving liaison with the right office.17 G erm an scientists continued to provide tantalising glimpses o f Soviet work on the bom b. In February 1947 W estern intelligence interrogated Frafft Ehricke, w ho had been the assistant chief o f rocket engine devel­ opm ent at Peenemünde. In April 1946 he had been invited to Leipzig to join a group o f G erm an scientists w ho were travelling to M oscow under a Professor Pose to work o n the Soviet atomic bom b project. T hey had already spent two m onths in M oscow discussing the details o f how to advance the project with Professor Peter Kapitza, a leading Soviet atomic scientist. T hey had then returned to G erm any to collect a team o f seventy G erm an scientists and technicians to take back to Moscow. T he G erm ans were to undertake m uch o f the ancillary research in related

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fields in which they were expert, ‘whereas the developm ent o f the bom b was to be left entirely in the hands o f Russian scientists’.18 Signals intelligence had told the W est very litde about Soviet bom b production b ut its efforts were n o t completely barren. O n 20 April 1949, Admiral Hillenkoetter, the American D irector o f Central Intelligence, surveyed intelligence efforts on the Soviet atomic program m e. T he CIA had been holding discussions with USAF, which wanted intelligence that would support ‘the counter offensive bom bing o f the Soviet atomic installations’, and this was now receiving a very high priority. T he Agency had decided that it was now ‘essential that every means be utilized to .. . fix the precise location o f the m aịor atom ic installations in the USSR’. Production facilities were a key question, so that Soviet capabilities to produce a stockpile could be gauged in peace and also attacked in a future war. T h e m ost productive in the past and the m ost prom ising m ethod, and hence the one m ost deserving o f priority, is Special Intelligence’, HiUenkoetter observed, special Intelligence was a euphe­ mism for signals intelligence. Signals intelligence, he explained, had offered material on the way in which the Soviet program m e was organ­ ised and administered, providing the ‘basic framework’ into which all the o th er intelligence was fitted. This other material came from interrogating returning G erm an scientists, POW s and escapees, from hum an agents and from com bing published Soviet scientific literature. Seismic detec­ tors were also under development. These different approaches were mutually supportive. Material from the open literature had been o f ‘great value’ in offering context for the sigint work. Despite heading the CIA, in the atom ic field Hillenkoetter put his m oney on the signals intelligence experts, urging that ‘an expansion o f the C O M IN T effort is required’. American signals intelligence resources were already over-com m itted, and m ore atomic intelligence would m ean m ore spending in this area.19 W hat sorts o f predictions had this intelligence effort generated in the first years o f the Cold War? T he best guesses were m ade early on. Perversely the m ore effort that was applied thereafter, the worse they became. In N ovem ber 1946 the JIC surveyed the future scale o f aừ attack against Britain and made its only lucky guess, predicting that if the Soviets acquired atom ic weapons before 1951 they would have acquired a num ber unlikely to exceed five.20 This was spot on, but it was also a fluke that was n o t repeated. Exactly a year later, W hitehall conceded that ‘intelligence about Soviet developm ent o f atom ic weapons is very scanty’, but, o n the basis o f w hat they had, officials thought it unlikely that the Soviets would have a sufficient stock o f bom bs to give a ‘decisive result’ in war before 1957. They also suspected that the Soviets would ‘devote special attention to the rapid developm ent o f biological w eapons’, perhaps allowing them to attack earlier.21

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Such forecasts were now form ing the very foundations o f British defence policy. W ith Britain’s military leaders pinning theừ hopes on the prospect o f no war before 1957, the re-equipping o f British arm ed forces was postponed, while resources were ploughed into the exploitation o f new developm ents in defence science, in the hope o f skipping a whole generation o f designs and types. In other words, the Chiefs o f Staff decided to play the game long. This made the JIC uneasy. It accepted that it knew very little about Soviet atomic bom bs and its tentative forecasts were qualified by protestations o f ignorance. But its projections were still taken as gospel by service planners working o u t the architecture o f British post-war defence. T he Admiralty, when thinking about the future target date for the m ajor re-equipm ent o f the fleet, asserted in March 1948 that ‘H M G [His Majesty’s G overnm ent] have accepted the assum p­ tion that no probable enemy will be able to use weapons o f mass desttucdon, (viz. V.2, atomic and biological weapons) before 1954, and possibly 1957.’ Increasingly, 1957 became the fixed date o f Soviet atomic sufficiency employed in Bridsh military planning and research.’22 In July 1948 the JIC com pleted its annual review o f intelligence on Soviet intendons and capabilides, a docum ent running to m ore than seventy pages. Soviet atom ic weapons were the m ost im portant subject and the JIC based m uch o f its guesswork on Soviet supplies o f uranium , which it considered to be ‘the limidng factor’. Given w hat it took as the Soviet start date, and given the extrem e technical difficulties, the JIC thought it just possible that the Soviets m ight ‘produce their first atom ic bom b by January 1951, and that their subsequent stockpile o f bom bs in January 1953 may be o f the order to 6 to 22’. B ut as we have seen the JIC then cast doubt o n its own worst-case analysis, dismissing this projection as the maximum possible assuming that Soviet work would progress as rapidly as the British and American work had done in wartime. Allowances for the slower progress o f the Soviets ‘will alm ost certainly retard the first bom b by som e three years’. L ondon had never credited the Soviets with particular scientific prowess, so the JIC ’s very best guess for the first Soviet atom bom b was early 1954p W ashington was broadly in line. Although US Air Force Intelligence expected the Soviets to produce a bom b m ore quickly, the Navy view had prevailed. O n 29 March 1948 the American JIC stated, 'T he probable date by which the Soviets will have exploded their first test bom b is 1953.’ Again, this gave a projected operational date for a Soviet nuclear force o f about 1956/7.24 Because 1953/4 was a long way off, L ondon and W ashington had strong suspicions that M oscow would be giving a lot o f priority to bio­ logical and chemical weapons, stimulated by knowledge o f G erm an nerve-gas developm ents which had revolutionised this field. W estern

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intelligence was, if possible, even m ore ignorant about Soviet biological and chemical warfare projects than it was about atomic developments, ỉn N ovem ber 1946 the JIC thought that the Soviets would have m anufac­ tured considerable stocks o f the ‘three new G erm an nerve gases’ includ­ ing Tabun by 1951.25 T he problem s o f collection were similar to atomic intelligence. SIS confessed that its intelligence on Soviet chemical warfare was hopeless. Alan Lang-Brown, head o f the SIS scientific section, known as the Technical Collection Service, confessed, ‘In the case o f C .W . . . we are at present up against som ething like a blank wall.’ T h e problem was that this research was going on ‘in inaccessible regions in central Russia’ and not in countries ‘such as Sweden o r Switzerland where secret intelligence is relatively easily gathered’. E ven defectors, w ho had proved to be the best hope o f progress in this and other fields, were m osdy chance windfalls, and there was little chance o f actively encouraging o ther defectors from the right target groups.26 L ondon considered that only the Americans were making any headway in the trickier field o f bacteriological warfare. D uring the war the Americans had developed a full-scale production plant for anthrax which could produce enough bom bs for a substantial attack over six m ajor cities in a period o f nine m onths. T he Americans were focused on a virus called Brucella which was a superior agent, being easier to produce and present­ ing no problem o f long-term contam ination. But they wondered w hat the Soviets had captured w hen they overran a large Japanese bacteriological weapons establishm ent at H arbin in M anchuria.27 All their inform ation was derived from increasingly stale G erm an o r Japanese intelligence, o r from knowledge o f w hat G erm an facilities had been captured in 1945. Reviewing what it knew in D ecem ber 1948, the American Joint Intelligence G roup was confident that the Soviets did n o t have enough biological capacity to exploit it in an intensive military fashion and instead could conduct only small-scale operations, ‘particularly o f a covert nature’. G erm an intelligence reports dating from 1940 identified the key centre as the rem ote Vozrozhdeniya Island in the Aral Sea. In 1936 the entire popu­ lation had been evacuated at six hours’ notice and the area handed over to the Biotechnical Institute. N ow no one was allowed to approach within eighty kilometres. As early as 1937 experiments were being conducted with the plague virus. Continuous work had been conducted at the site since that time, and British biological warfare intelligence had since identified another site closer to Moscow. In 1945 the Soviets had captured about 6,000 tons o f G erm an nerve g as—a state-of-the-art w eapon against which there was litde defence. They had also seized intact a full-scale m an­ ufacturing plant at D yernfurth near Breslau, which was presumably still in operation. But these were little m ore than rum ours and there was simply no hard intelligence available on these issues.28

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Intelligence on Soviet chemical and biological capability probably spurred on Britain’s intense interest in this area in the 1950s. T he British chemical program m e was well advanced by the late 1940s and possessed new nerve agents, som e captured from the G erm ans, but they were thought too nasty for testing in Britain. In 1947 D r Perren from Porton D ow n w ent o ut to visit the Benin area in Nigeria to identify a new testing ground for ‘new chemical warfare agents now being developed in this country*, a reference to nerve gas. O ne o f the requirements o f any testing site in Nigeria was a good supply o f pigs and goats, the unfortunate sub­ jects o f this expanded testing program m e. Successful tests led to the con­ struction o f a nerve-gas production plant at Nancekuke in Cornwall in the early 1950s.29 T he first secret Long Range D etection Flights, which sought to pick up samples o f radioactivity in the air, were flown over G erm any in the autum n o f 1944. They were required by General Groves, head o f the M anhattan Project, w ho feared that the G erm ans m ight make dirty con­ ventional bom bs by adding radioactive material, even though they could n o t make p roper atom ic weapons. B-26 medium bom bers o f the US Army Air Force were used, flying o u t o f Britain for w hat were considered to be ‘suicidally* low runs over certain industrial areas. T heir missions were so secret that the intelligence officers from the M anhattan Engineering D istrict would n o t tell the crews w hat they were collecting. D etecting atomic explosions after the fact was a relatively safe business com pared with these perilous missions.30 T he collection o f radioactive samples o f air and water, together with seismology, was established as early as 1947 as the key rem ote technique for detecting atomic explosions. A m onth after assuming the job o f D irector o f Central Intelligence, Hillenkoetter was making extensive rec­ om m endations, not least for special flights by ‘suitably equipped planes’ to carry o u t air sampling around the perim eter o f the Soviet Union. This could be done quickly, while a chain o f seismic m onitoring stations ‘feeding data in Central C onttol’ would take longer. Admiral Lewis Strauss, w ho had replaced Groves as head o f the US atomic weapons program m e, repeated this call in April 1948 and action was soon under way employing a fleet o f USAF B-29s. T he battle for control o f US atom ic intelligence was already emerging, with General Curtis LeMay insisting that this area should be a US Air Force Intelligence program m e and n ot a CIA one.31 Strauss strongly resisted the participation o f the British in atomic intelligence, as he was adam ant that they were ‘very lax about security’. O n 7 January 1948 he expressed grave doubts about working with the British and the Canadians o n long-range detection. Yet those running the American program m e knew they had geographic gaps which only the

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B ritish could cover. Against Strauss’ wishes the British were som ehow to ld o f American atomic tests in the spring o f 1948 and were able to try o u t their embryonic British system against the American tests. Strauss w as incensed when he discovered this unauthorised leak to the British, ỉn S ep tem b er that year a British delegation visited W ashington to attend the first discussions on operational Long Range D etection Flights. Again Strauss opposed this meeting, and after it had happened he was unable to discover by w hom clearance had been given. T hereafter the RAF routinely carried out two atom ic detection pat­ terns. T h e first were O peration Bismuth flights from N orthern Ireland and th e second were O peration N octurnal flights from Gibraltar. These used m odified gasmask filters to collect samples - protected from hail by a w ire grid —which could later be tested with a Geiger counter. W hen A m erican detection flights over the Pacific picked up the first Soviet b o m b in August 1949 there was some discussion as to w hether the M cM ahon Act would allow the US to inform London. Finally, fore­ w arned by the Americans on 10 Septem ber that a radioactive airmass was likely to appear soon, the RAF was able to lay on extra flights. By 22 Septem ber, Harwell - the site o f Britain’s first atomic pile —had carried o u t its ow n tests and was able to confirm the American results.32 Scram bling to launch extra ‘special air m onitoring flights’ became a regular part o f RAF duties. In O ctober 1951 Freddie Morgan, the new B ritish C ontroller o f Atomic Energy, w rote to congratulate Slessor, w ho had becom e C hief o f the Air Staff, on ‘extremely valuable’ results. Part o f th e urgency arose from the need to dem onstrate Britain's ability to ‘fill certain gaps’ with inform ation that was not available to the Americans, w ith the hope o f underlining the value o f m ore joint operations. But Slessor’s pleasure was short lived, for he was soon horrified to see the ‘full story’ o f these top-secret flights in the D aily Express, and a leak enquiry was launched to find the culprit. However, the much m ore secret British program m e o f seismic detection remained undisclosed.33 T hese indirect means o f gathering atomic intelligence on the Soviet U n io n had failed to give any advance warning o f M oscow’s first test. F ro m the outset the indirect approach to intelligence-gathering had its stern critics. Charles Turney, the leading naval scientific intelligence spe­ cialist, observed in 1947 that, daunted by the difficulties o f penetrating central Siberia, the British had tried ‘semi-overt m eans’ such as chatting to E astern bloc nuclear physicists at scientific conferences. This was, he said, simply dodging the hard work that lay ahead. T h e long-term problem is to effect a penetration o f Russia itself (no other country m atters by com parison), and this has barely been started.’34 Immediately after the explosion o f the Soviet bom b, Turney felt both depressed and vindicated. T he indirect approach was ‘widely adrift’, he lamented. *We

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should have g ot far better inform ation from a m essenger o r labourer in the right place than from any num ber o f Professors o f Physics swanning round Europe.’ T he lessons were clear: the British needed to d o m ore clandestine work. It was now Vital to take every opportunity o f pressing for authority to carry out active intelligence operations against Russia. W hether they are in fact practicable ... is a m atter for M.I.6.’35 Expanded SIS operations with agents against the Soviet atom ic p ro ­ gram m e were n o t practicable. In the wake o f the first Soviet test, atom ic intelligence was expanded but did not improve. M atters were n o t helped by the fact that Eric Welsh suffered a heart attack in early 1949 and spent a long period in the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for Officers. T hereafter he was plagued with further heart attacks and died in N ovem ber 1954.36 D u rin g ju n e 1952, by then a very ill man, Welsh, w ho was still head o f Atomic Intelligence, reviewed Britain’s batting average in this field. T he scores ‘made depressing reading'. H e confessed that whenever he had inform ation to report it was always ‘in the nature o f a post m ortem over Russian achievements'. To be fair, he added, to gain the inform ation that the British had secured about Soviet tests at a great distance, for example through atm ospheric sampling, was a ‘remarkable feat'. They had followed with som e success the first test in August 1949 and the second in Septem ber 1951 and a third som e weeks later in Septem ber o f the same year. Welsh was quite clear about the failings o f Atomic Intelligence. In his view the role o f intelligence was not to track past events but to give fore­ casts. In the atomic intelligence field they needed to be able to give the Chiefs o f Staff warning about future Soviet intentions and capabilities. He conceded, ‘we are making a very po o r stab o f it in the field o f Atom ic Energy Intelligence. Long distance detection techniques supply H istory not News. N othing is as stale as yesterday’s newspaper. W hat the J.I.C. w ant and what the J.I.C. dem and is preknowledge o f w hat are the enemies’ intentions for tomorrow.’ In other words the questions that they could n o t yet answer were the critical ones. W hen would the Soviets have a stockpile o f atom ic bom bs which in their opinion would justify the risk o f open warfare? W hat kinds o f fissionable material were they making and w hat was their present stockpile o f bom bs? W hat was their current rate o f production? These were the questions to which the policy-makers and the planners in Whitehall and W ashington really wanted answers.37 Efforts to answer these questions eventually led them into vast, complex and ultimately highly inaccurate intelligence program m es to estimate ore production inside the Soviet bloc and to track ore shipm ents outside it. Refugees from the uranium mine at Erzgebirge in the Soviet Z one o f G erm any were always o f interest. T he mine was run by the

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M G B as a punishm ent operation, and twenty m iners died on average each day due to the lack o f even elementary safety. Interview ing those w ho had m anaged to flee from this horrible place told the West a great deal about the mine, but gauging how much uranium it was producing was remarkably difficult.38 T he elaborate Music program m e, which attem pted to deduce uranium production by m easuring gas in the atm os­ phere, was, by London’s own admission, even m ore inaccurate. Later it would try to guess the throughput o f Soviet uranium production facto­ ries by simply m easuring the dimensions o f various buildings. A lot o f tim e was also spent mulling over Stalin’s statem ents in Pravda and trying to deduce som ething from his changing intonations w hen asked ques­ tions by journalists o n international control o f atom ic weapons. T he W est came to believe, wrongly, that the Soviets were short o f uranium, while in fact the M GB had conducted an exhaustive and productive search inside the Soviet U nion and there was no shortage. These p ro ­ gram m es were ultimately useless substitutes for w hat the West really needed - an agent o n the inside o f the Soviet strategic weapons p ro ­ gram m e. This they did n o t have, and would not have until such an indi­ vidual volunteered him self in the late 1950s.39 T h e Soviet atom ic bom b in 1949 had a profound im pact on AngloAmerican relations. T he arrival o f Soviet atom ic power that could reach anywhere in E urope showed that Britain m ight bear the b ru n t o f any nuclear retaliation. This would becom e an issue o f imm ense sensitivity and one that would increasingly dom inate the British approach to the Cold War. W ashington had anticipated this dramatic change in Britain’s strategic situation, although it did n o t expect it to occur until the 1950s. In D ecem ber 1948, at a conference attended by the top American war planners the key question had been asked with admirable clarity by General s. E. Anderson: ‘W hat is the possibility o f our being denied England as a base?' M ajor-General Charles Cabell, the US Air Force Intelligence chief, expanded on the question, adding, Svhat would happen in the event that the British were convinced that the Russians had an atomic bom b? O f course, he added, ‘the world believes that Russia has no atom ic bom b at the present tim e’. Cabell revealed to his colleagues that he had already, very discreedy, gone to *a little m eans’ to try and uncover the answer to this question. So far as he could determ ine, the British would ‘grit their teeth and continue to accept American deploym ents in Britain'. General Lauris N orstad added that, ‘w ithout raising it blundy’, he had also pursued this quesdon w ith A rthur Tedder and with the Bridsh Secretary o f State for Air. Although the British all realised that w hen the Soviets acqmred atomic weapons an entirely new era would follow, ‘I was very agreeably surprised that the general feeling seemed to b e . . . that we still have to go o n with the

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operations.’ But nagging doubts now began to surface about American access to strategic bases throughout the Em pire-Com m onw ealth. T h e Americans conceded that the Karachi aerodrom e in Pakistan, which was essential for hitting central Soviet Union, m ight have to be taken and held by force. T he same was true in Egypt where —bizarrely —they looked to the overstretched British to hold key airfield facilities for long enough against their reluctant Egyptian hosts to enable them to use the airfields for the purpose o f atomic attack on the Soviet Union.40 W ashington understood the im portance o f this change very well. Britain’s position as a world power was ebbing and clearly it was ‘unusu­ ally difficult’ for a ‘proud people’ to accept their new position as ‘the weakest o f the T hree G reat Powers’. But the geo-strategic changes brought on by the new weapons and m ethods o f war had effected a trans­ form ation in Britain that was arguably m ore fundamental than the gradual slipping o f imperial power, and this new developm ent had affected the attitude o f the population at large: *World War II has given the British people a deep realisation o f personal danger and o f their vul­ nerability as a nation. For four years litde m ore than the 22-mile wide English Channel stood between them and the W ehrmacht. T h e Luftwaffe and the V-Bombs made the war a personal m atter to tens o f millions.’41 By Septem ber 1949, news o f the Soviet atomic bom b had increased this sense o f threat and had created what might be called a 'vul­ nerability gap’ between the British and the Americans. In any future war, L ondon would alm ost certainly be vaporised, while W ashington was n o t within range o f Soviet bom bers and missiles and would probably n o t suffer the same fate. In June 1950, the outbreak o f the Korean War turned this ‘vulnerability gap’ into an abyss. Suddenly Whitehall felt the urge to apply the brakes, and in this frightening environm ent getting accurate intelligence became ever m ore im portant.

11 GCHQ: Signals Intelligence L o o k s E a s t (A|n organisation which will compel the respect o f the Services and take its proper place as the unchallenged headquarters o f all signals intelligence. ‘A N ote on the Future o f G.C.&C.S. ỊGCHQ]’, 17 September 1944'

WO immediate observations can be made about the place o f G C H Q in the early Cold War. First, alm ost nothing has been written about this organisation.2 Second, by any m easurement, w hether volume o f product, size o f budget or num bers o f personnel, G C H Q was the m ost im portant service. Personnel is the easiest aspect to track. In 1966, G C H Q and its attendant supporting collection arm s com m anded about 11,500 staff. This was n o t only m ore than SIS and MI5 combined. It was also larger than the entire Diplomatic Service, including the Foreign Office in L ondon and all its overseas embassies and consulates. Yet we know alm ost nothing o f this vast army o f technicians and codebreakers w ho spied on the airwaves.3 This curious disparity is n o t difficult to account for. And those w ho prefer a conspiratorial approach can identify a deliberate elem ent in the improbably low profile o f G C H Q . As we have seen, in the sum m er o f 1945, the JIC deem ed signals intelligence, together with deception, to be the two areas that were absolutely beyond the pale in term s o f the writing o f the history o f the Second World War. Both the JIC and the L ondon Signals Intelligence Board devoted much time to airbrushing these m atters o u t o f history. Bletchley Park and signals intelligence, o r sigint, during the E uropean War remained secret until the 1970s. By contrast, books about the role o f SO E in the Second World War began to appear in the late 1940s. Indeed, by the 1950s the multiplying accounts o f Churchill’s increasingly ‘unsecret army’ provided a convenient historical distraction.4 Yet historians needed no help from the authorities to go badly off

T

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track. T he arcane m atters o f m odern code- and cipher-breaking — o r cryptanalysis — are n o t an immediately attractive subject for historical writing. T he work o f special operations o r secret agents, dependent on hum an beings for their progress, has seemed m ore accessible and m ore comprehensible. M arket forces have also played their part. Since the 1960s British popular culture has developed a strong appetite for revela­ tions about Soviet agents in high places, especially ‘molemania’, with its rich tapestry o f governm ental em barrassm ent and tales o f nefarious doings. In 1963 the Profum o Scandal confirm ed the ever expanding public appetite for such subjects. Thereafter, in both E ast and West, secret services themselves capitalised on public tastes, sponsoring m ore semi-official accounts o f defecting agents, o f which Kim Philby’s M y Silent War m ust surely count as one o f the m ost successful. T he critical change at G C H Q towards the end o f the war concerned n o t targets, but attitude. Led by an aggressive managerial figure, Sir Edward Travis, and having brought in highly intelligent universityeducated staff w ho enjoyed free thinking and free speaking, G C H Q saw an atm osphere o f constructive self-criticism develop. In 1945, all o f Britain's established secret services were still som ewhat antiquated in their approach to operations, reflecting the inter-war years o f m oribund leadership and underfunding. But G C H Q had the keenest appreciation o f this fact and was the m ost active in seeking to transform itself. T h e pre-war G overnm ent Code and Cypher School, the predecessor to G C H Q , had not been a real intelligence service, but rather a code- and cipher-breaking centre. It had also been som ething o f an underdog, working in the shadow o f Menzies, w ithout even the limited organisa­ tional intelligence structures o f SIS and MI5. Wartime expansion, the construction o f Bletchley Park, active university recruitm ent and contact with the Americans had opened the eyes o f G C H Q to w hat was possible. N ow a core o f determ ined individuals were eager to prom ote change. In 1944 they began the long-range planning that would turn wartime Bletchley Park — with its chess-players and crossword puzzlers — into G C H Q , Britain’s prem ier post-w ar secret service, with a strong sense o f identity, a substantial budget and predatory designs on other bodies. T hree key figures were instrum ental in this change. First, G ordon Welchman, the man behind Bletchley Park’s H ut Six, which focused on the breaking o f the G erm an Enigma. Second, H arry Hinsley, w ho would serve as the ‘sherpa’ for im portant Anglo-American Com monwealth sigint summits immediately after the war. T hird, Edward Crankshaw, who had handled wartime sigint discussions with the Soviets. O n 15 Septem ber 1944, only weeks after the liberation o f Paris, G C H Q established a com m ittee to study its post-war future. These three influential G C H Q officers set out their future vision for Travis. They

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surveyed die entire British intelligence scene, calling for a m ore central­ ised ‘Foreign Intelligence Office' as part o f a coherent British national intelligence organisation. Led by G ordon Welchman, they pressed for a comprehensive body dealing with all form s o f sigint, and also with a m odern signals security organisation with the latest com m unications engineering. This would becom e a truly m odern Intelligence Centre gov­ erning all types o f interception activities. T h e pre-war G overnm ent Code and Cypher School, they conceded, had been ‘little m ore than a cryptographic centre’ with no ability to sift, collect o r interpret material. T here was little appreciation o f the com ing im portance o f electronic engineering. T here was no conception o f the im m inent requirem ent for large-scale planning to cope with the exploita­ tion o f intelligence produced on an industrial scale. University-based recruiting in wartime had saved them . This had brought in som e natural leaders who, together with the few pre-war figures o f wide outlook on the perm anent staff, had made ‘a passable show in this war’. T he war against Japan, with its need for m aịor organisations overseas, would con­ tinue for some time, probably into 1946 —o r so they thought. Japanese traffic presented complicated problem s to which they felt they could no t make m ajor contributions. T he Americans were ahead on Japanese systems and they should be left to it. Sigint for figures such as M ountbatten and Slim fighting in Burm a was n o t considered a high m an­ agerial priority. Instead Welchman’s group made a hard-nosed proposal. T here were few people in G C H Q with real ability in general planning and strategic co-ordination. Indeed, they said, ‘it would be difficult to count as many as a dozen’. They should not be wasted on the Japanese War. So, they insisted, ‘as soon as the G erm an war is over, as many as possible o f the few potential planners should be set to work in the direction o f our three immediate objectives, instead o f devoting m ore o f their time to Japanese problem s’. G C H Q should n o t lose touch with developm ents in the field o f Japanese sigint problems, since there were things w orth learning in this sphere. But they sought to extract technical benefits from the Japanese War, n o t to expend resources upon it. For British com m anders in Burm a the tag o f the ‘Forgotten Army’ was wholly appropriate.5 G C H Q moved quickly. Tim e was against it, so it was ‘imperative to make an approach to the present Prime Minister at the earliest possible m om ent’. N o successor to Churchill, they feared, however sympathetic, could have a real appreciation o f ‘the fruits o f intelligence in this war’ o r his keen understanding o f the im portance o f tight security. In Churchill, they had a heavyweight advocate and they wanted to strike while the iron was hot. They dreaded a return to the pre-war situation o f under­ recognition o f w hat sigint could achieve. Extrem e secrecy was its own

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worst enemy, for even now the true scale o f their wartime output was known to a ‘very few* in ‘high places’. Moreover, the really talented sigint planners were newcomers, and soon they would be lured back to their pre-war occupations, unless positive action was taken to retain them . Quite simply this came down to cash. G C H Q had to have high status to secure ‘a sufficiently liberal supply o f m oney to enable it to attract m en o f first rate ability’. T he Welchman group were thinking particularly o f engi­ neers and electronics experts; even now G C H Q had to subsist with ‘amateurish engineering groups’. They were also sensitive to the shift to peacetime intelligence, arguing that, in the post-war period, Bletchley would have to give equal weight to 'all types o f intelligence about foreign countries, including scientific, commercial and econom ic m atters’. This was a tacit reference to the targeting o f neutral and friendly states.6 These ambitions shaped the progress o f G C H Q as it moved from its wartime site at Bletchley Park to new accom m odation at Eastcote in Uxbridge on the suburban fringes o f north-w est London. By 1946, it had escaped the form al control o f Menzies, the Chief o f SIS, to becom e m ore o f a separate intelligence service in its own right. It quickly achieved a managerial role in the new field o f electronic intelligence, the m onitoring o f non-com m unication electronic signals from radars and missiles, known as elint, and hitherto dom inated by the three services. G C H Q ’s incursion into this field began in 1948 and was com pleted in 1952. But there were further battles ahead. It was 1969 before its wish to control all aspects o f signals work, including comm unications security, or comsec, was realised.7 In 1945 G C H Q continued to advocate a centralised Foreign Intelligence Office, tied closely to the Prime M inister and the Cabinet Office. William F. Clarke, w ho had served continuously from 1916, now applied his long experience to G C H Q in the post-war world. He warned that the ‘enorm ous power wielded by the Treasury’ might be brought to bear against it. As in 1919, work on military ciphers m ight cease in favour o f concentration on diplomatic material only. This, he said, m ight be ‘dis­ astrous’ and the resulting damage to ongoing cryptographic research m ight mean that, in a future conflict, enemy military traffic would prove inaccessible. It was also essential, he counselled, to build up the prestige o f G C H Q . Many in governm ent did not know o f its true value. T here was, too, the ‘potential danger’ o f a Labour governm ent com ing to power, recalling the inter-war Labour governm ent and its aversion to things secretive. Clarke paused to consider Roosevelt’s emerging United Nations, observing that if the new international organisation took the step o f abolishing all code and cipher comm unications this action *would contribute m ore to a perm anent peace than any other’. *11118 however’, he predicted, ‘is probably the counsel o f perfection* and would not

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happen. Instead codemaking and codebreaking would be even bigger business in the post-war world.8 W hen did G C H Q begin to work on Soviet codes and ciphers? Although the official history o f British intelligence insists that Churchill ordered this to stop when Moscow became an ally in June 1941, it is now clear that it never stopped completely. John Croft, w ho worked at Britain’s wartime diplomatic codebreaking centre, at Berkeley Street in L ondon, was one o f those w ho soldiered on. C roft did not mix with the maịority o f specialists working on Axis com m unications but was one o f those rarer types working on the comm unications traffic o f neutrals and allies on Berkeley Street’s upper floors. He was engaged on wartime C om intern traffic in Europe, codenam ed Iscott. Although circulated to only a very select group o f individuals within Whitehall, this material revealed litde m ore than a dutiful struggle against their shared enemy, Nazi Germany. T here is no indication w hether this material was exchanged with W ashington o r not. D espite the lack o f any known Anglo-American treaty covering diplomatic traffic, material was exchanged on many countries, including the Free French, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. G C H Q was reluctant to give the Americans material on territories close to Britain, for example Egypt, while the ƯS Army felt it unwise to offer the British Latin American systems. W hether som e o f this very limited Soviet product was exchanged remains unknown.9 In practice it is all but impossible to draw a distinction between G C H Q ’s work on wartime G erm any and its growing work on the Soviet U nion in the 1940s. Knowledge o f G erm any required the tracking o f events on the eastern front and involved learning as much as possible about the Soviet effort. British intelligence began to value the G erm ans for their knowledge o f the Soviet Union as soon as Ultra came on stream. T h e Luftwaffe had an especially efficient sigint system and was busy lis­ tening into Soviet traffic. G erm an messages used to send sigint sum m ar­ ies back to Berlin were, in turn, intercepted. This 'second-hand’ sigint proved to be L ondon’s best source on the perform ance o f the Soviet forces. As early as 1943 the JIC was able to produce detailed and accurate reports on the capabilities and characteristics o f the Soviet Air Force in batde, based on Luftwaffe sigint material.10 In July 1944 Britain and the United States were gearing up for piratical raids on the archives and laboratories o f a collapsing Germany, and sigint material was one treasure that was actively sought. T he Com bined Intelligence Priorities Com m ittee began consulting at Bletchley Park about w hat material it wished to scoop from an occupied Germany. Suitably briefed, by early 1945 Intelligence Assault Units were moving into G erm any with the forward elements o f Allied form ations, looking for all kinds o f G erm an docum ents, experimental weapons and atomic

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plant. Com bined Anglo-American Target Intelligence Com m ittee (TIC O M ) teams were despatched from Bletchley Park to Germ any to seek out cryptographic equipm ent and sigint personnel. They were no t disappointed. A t Hitler’s Berchtesgaden, they joined Air Intelligence groups in turning over the spoils. These include a Luftwaffe comm unica­ tions centte and a large am ount o f comm unications equipm ent Eventually G erm an POW s were persuaded to lead them to a vast haul o f signals materials buried nearby and four large G erm an lorries were loaded to capacity with contents that were then unearthed. T he teams returned to Bletchley Park with their haul on 6 June 1945." T he Allies wanted bodies as well as documents. O n 19 May 1945 the British caught Generalm ajor Klemme, the Senior Com m ander o f Radio Intelligence for the Luftwaffe at the Husum-M ilstedt intercept station, and he was then taken to N eum ünster Prison. He was quickly moved to N eum ünster cam p for civilian prisoners and then to Adeilheide. He worked with the British in G erm any until 10 March 1948, when he was considered to have been drained o f all he knew about Soviet com m uni­ cations. O th er key staff, including Major Oelịeschaeger and Major Beulmann from the Cryptographic Centre, which had been based in a stable block o f the M arstall-Neues Palais at Potsdam com m anding Branch 3 (responsible for planning), set off for Hitler’s Alpine H Q at the Berchtesgaden on 1 May. A few days later, with the Allies closing in, they stopped at Viehoff to burn all the records o f Branch 3 and fell into Allied hands on 22 May near Munich. They were flown to Britain on 5 July, where they were placed in a ‘special cam p’ and were surprised to be m et by theứ Branch Chief, Lieutenant-Colonel Friedrich, w ho had arrived before them . By June 1945 the British and Americans had scooped m ost o f the senior Luftwaffe sigint officers.12 By 22 July, the US Army European T heatre Interrogation Center had com pleted a dossier on the ‘G erm an G -2 Service in the Russian cam ­ paign’ running to over 220 pages. This gave considerable attention to the role o f the W ehrm acht’s Signal Intelligence Liaison Officers, ‘the m ost im portant m an’ in the circle o f intelligence sources for each m ajor head­ quarters in the East, w ho delivered the fruits o f G erm an Signal Reconnaissance Regiments tasked with wireless interception on the battlefront. Soviet radio discipline, the C enter concluded, was very good, and much depended on the interpretation o f radio silence o r knowing the transmission habits o f particular operators. T he United States was soon seeking to reconstruct this G erm an service if only to ensure the security o f the com m unications o f the nascent G erm an administration. In 1947, D r Erich Hutenhain laid the foundations o f a new G erm an crypto service based at Cam p King, O berursel, co-located with the early Gehlen Organisation, a revived G erm an wartime body that had dealt

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w ith Arm y intelligence o n the eastern front. Inevitably, this unit had to be ưeated to a surprise briefing o n Ultra and the inadequacy o f wartime G erm an Enigm a m achines.13 T h e Soviets were also swooping on G erm an cryptographic assets. Bletchley Park discovered to its surprise that the Soviets had taken over som e G erm an Enigm a-based com m unications nets and were using them for their own purposes. But initial hopes o f a post-war dividend from the breaking o f Enigm a were quickly dashed. Roy Jenkins, w ho was then working at Bletchley, recalled: When the Russians got to Berlin they took over the Fish machines in the War Ministry, somewhat changed the settings, and proceeded to use them for sending signals traffic to Belgrade and other capitals in their new empừe. We continued to do the intercepts and played around with trying to break the mes­ sages. We never succeeded. 1 think it was a combination of the new settings being more secure (which raises the question of how much the Russians had found out about our previous success) and the edge of tension having gone off our effort. Elsewhere Allied recovery teams overran a G erm an sigint operation that was still chattering away, producing decrypts o f mid-level Soviet Army G ro u p traffic. T he G erm ans offered to stop the offending machinery at once, but they were urged n o t to disturb the precious flow and so this unit kept working.14 G C H Q ’s corporate takeover o f the Axis sigint effort was not limited to Germany. In Septem ber 1945, British Field Security Units located a val­ uable prize, capturing Admiral Chudoh, the Japanese C hief Signals Intelligence Officer for the southern armies, in Saigon. T here were even greater dividends in post-war Italy. These derived pardy from the fortui­ tous coincidence that the deputy chief o f the SIS station in Rome from 1944, Sheridan Russell, had previously worked at Bletchley Park and was sensitive to the fact that the Italians were talented cryptanalysts and was scooping them up where he could. Russell was an extraordinary figure. Originally a classical musician and fluent in French, Italian and Russian, he nevertheless encountered real difficulty in finding useful employm ent during the early stages o f the war. In 1941 Russell was censoring PO W mail in a singularly unattractive location near Liverpool. It was only a chance encounter at a railway station with a friend w ho was working at Bletchley Park that resulted in his transfer to m ore interesting work. Soon he was engaged in the trans­ lation o f naval intelligence, twelve hours at a shift, in the small Italian section in H ut Five o f Bletchley Park. H e worked in the ‘W atch’, which dealt with items o f immediate interest, and his task was to translate ‘at break-neck speed’ long strips o f messages produced by a machine that had been captured from an Italian naval vessel. Russell was o f a som ewhat

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conservative turn o f m ind and disapproved o f what he considered to be the racy lifestyle o f som e o f his female colleagues. O n being allocated to his billet at Bletchley Park he discovered a wom an’s shoes and stockings under his predecessor’s bed and reacted with great moral indignation. In May 1943 he joined a small party o f cryptanalysts w ho were despatched to Algiers in support o f the invasion o f Sicily, moving to Malta as the Allies advanced. This was one o f Bletchley Park’s primitive out-stations and Russell, w ho often took the night-shift, chose to break codes in light silk pyjamas for coolness com bined with knee-length hiking socks sprinkled with D ettol and flit for protection against the voracious insects. H e was eccentric but also fantastically able and at the surrender o f the Italian fleet in 1943 he dealt with the takeover o f Italian Naval Intelligence.15 Russell then joined SIS. In 1944 he was responsible for recruiting and training Italian agents at two stations that were set up in the counttyside outside Bari, w ho were then sent into northern Italy. Ex-Italian Air Force personnel, w ho were already familiar with the operation o f radio trans­ mitters, were a favourite source o f recruits. Russell affectionately referred to his agents as 'thugs’ and later several o f them became prom inent in post-war Italian governm ents. Soon he was second in com m and o f the SIS station in Rome under his namesake, Brian A shford Russell, which was billeted in style in a lavish apartm ent that had belonged to a mistress o f a form er high-ranking fascist governm ent official. Local SIS transport was a super-charged four-seated Italian sports car which he drove very slowly, mostly to take SIS staff on tours o f the classical sights. T he whole post-surrender scene in Italy was chaotic, with the possibility o f the Yugoslavs fighting the Allies near Trieste, and a poverty-stricken local population was struggling against the devalued lira.16 O thers were bidding in the same m arket for talented cryptanalysts. A fter the Italian surrender in 1943 a substantial rem nant o f eighty Italian sigint staff under Major Barbiéri continued to work for the G erm ans at a station near Brescia until April 1945. W hen this latter group were finally interrogated in Rome in mid-1945 they proved to have a large quantity o f material, including photostatic copies o f the codebooks o f Turkey, Rumania, E cuador and Bolivia. They had reconstructed codebooks from France, Switzerland and the Vatican. They also had smaller am ounts o f British and American traffic. By 1945 Barbieri’s unit had been concen­ trating on French diplomatic traffic, 'a large num ber being messages to Paris either from B O N N E T [French Ambassador] in N E W Y O RK o r from CATROƯX [French Ambassador] in Moscow'. This traffic offered insights into subjects as diverse as Soviet-Yugoslav relations, Soviet policy in Germany, French econom ic negotiations with the United States and French plans for exploiting the Saar coalmines in Germ any.17 U nder new British m anagement, this precocious Italian unit worked

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o n w ithout a break into the post-war period and w ithout deviating from its French target. Berkeley Street in L ondon was already doing extensive work on Free French communications, but m ore help was always welcome. Britain m onitored the traffic o f m ost o f its allies throughout the war and felt justified in continuing to do so, for it regarded many o f its partners as either insecure o r untrustw orthy o r both. Much o f this stem m ed from a sense o f indignation at their behaviour in 1939 and 1940. In N ovem ber 1944 Churchill wrote to Eden, T h e Belgians are extremely weak, and their behaviour before the war was shocking. T he D utch were entirely selfish and fought only when attacked, and then for a few hours . . . ’ T he Free French, as other historians have shown, came in for especially close attention during the war and this continued after­ wards. In the course o f the m ajor diplomatic conferences o f 1945-6, Jim m y Byrnes, the new American Secretary o f State, was apparently m ore eager to see decrypted French material than anything else, con­ cerned that Paris was likely to be double-dealing with Moscow.18 French traffic from Moscow was o f great interest to London, perm it­ ting a precise measure o f an uncertain Cold War ally. In March 1944, the form er French Air Minister, Pierre Cot, began a special diplomatic m ission to Moscow to examine the possibility o f reviving traditional Franco-Soviet co-operation against G erm any in post-war Europe. This was a fascinating subject. In Moscow, in particular, French wartime diplomacy was wild and troublesom e. T he first Free French Ambassador, Roger G arreau, had proved to be a ‘preposterous person’ for w hom diplomacy was ‘a really savage business'. Alarmed British dip­ lomats complained that Garreau threw into his work all o f his ‘immense self-im portance . . . his loud voice, his reckless indiscretions, his heavy breathing, his pop eyes and all the fury that dwells in his bantam body'. O n e day he would attack his prime enemies, the Nazis and the traitors o f Vichy France, but the next he would turn to attack his ally, the United States, which he loudly denounced as ‘a land o f Jews and N egroes’. In 1945 Garreau was finally replaced by General Georges Catroux, a m an o f m ore sober habits, but French traffic from M oscow o r W ashington would always be w orth watching.19 M ajor Barbieri's sigint unit was an Italian Army Intelligence element within 808 Com m unication Service Battalion. Barbiéri was proud o f his efforts against the French, but pressed for m ore staff. So many o f the best cryptographers, he complained, had been captured by the French in Africa, and he added, ‘the FR E N C H are now employing them in their own service!' Nevertheless, the British concluded that the Italians were ‘doing remarkably well with the limited reserves at their disposal’.20 By mid-1946 the British were giving their Italians new tasks, including Soviet T aper five-figure traffic British liaison officers with the Italians were

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working dosely with G C H Q in Britain on the identification o f new T a p e r groups’. Remarkably, som e o f the Italian operators did ‘not know that they are intercepting T aper traffic’ because the British were telling the Italian interception staff as litde as possible about the traffic they were working on. Occasionally an operator, after intercepting several typical Taper messages, would note that ‘the procedure signal. . . is often used by the Russians’. It was obvious that senior Italian sigint officers knew that T aper traffic ‘which had been taken with so m uch depth and continuity for the past m onth’ was Soviet intelligence traffic. T he process was p ro ­ ductive yet precarious. British sigint officers handled Barbieri's organisa­ tion carefully lest they do som ething that m ight ‘lead to them asking w hat is done with traffic they are passing’ and then refusing to co-operate further.21 D espite taking on these freelancers, G C H Q shrank at the end o f 1945. T he pressure to demobilise, com bined with the end o f the need for oper­ ational sigint, affected even the m ost privileged ranks o f signals intelli­ gence. British Army sigint collection units w ent from 4,000 personnel in D ecem ber 1945 to about 1,000 by the following March.22 Reorganisation was facilitated by relocation, for some o f its equipm ent was consttucted at the laboratories o f the Post Office Research D epartm ent at Dollis Hill in north L ondon and it was no coincidence that Travis chose to move his organisation to Eastcote near Uxbridge in north-w est London, only a few miles from Dollis Hill. Here it remained until 1952 when his succes­ sors chose to relocate to Cheltenham , influenced - it was rum oured —by an affection for the turf.23 In the late 1940s, as we have seen, the key target for G C H Q was the Soviet bomb. T he British Chiefs o f Staff were fascinated by the problem o f Britain’s relative vulnerability to attack by weapons o f mass destruc­ tion and wanted forecasts on this crucial issue. T he JIC exhorted Britain’s codebreakers to focus their efforts upon this, together with other strategic weapons systems such as chemical and biological pro­ grammes, ballistic rockets and air defence. Although the J 1C placed these subjects in a special high-priority category, it was to no avail. T he Soviet bom b took the Western Allies by com plete surprise o n 29 August 1949. O th er Soviet activities, including espionage and diplomatic initiatives, constituted second and third priorities, but here too there were thin pick­ ings. Many Soviet messages employed one-tim e pads, a secure system which, if correcdy used, could n o t be broken. T he extent to which Britain was surprised by the T ito-Stalin split in 1948 underlines the limited success enjoyed against its diplomatic targets. Secure Soviet com ­ munications were only part o f the problem . M oscow and its satellites used land-lines, which could not be easily intercepted, instead o f wireless transmissions. It was these problem s that prom pted the British to follow

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the Soviets down the path o f m ore extensive physical bugging in the mid-1950s.24 High-priority targets aside, G C H Q was nevertheless providing W hitehall with large quantities o f material in the late 1940s, albeit o f a secondary and tertiary order. Some medium-level Soviet systems were vulnerable, especially military systems. G C H Q also continued to attack the comm unications o f many states with vulnerable cipher systems. Som e were persuaded by the British and Americans to adopt Hägelin­ type machines previously used by the Axis, in the belief that these pro­ vided a secure means o f communication. This was a belief that G C H Q did nothing to undermine. T he JIC also asked G C H Q to look at subjects such as Arab nationalism, the relations o f Arab states with the U K and USA, and the attitude o f the Soviet Union, France, Italy and the Arab states towards the future o f the ex-Italian colonies, especially Libya. G C H Q was also urged to focus on the Zionist movem ent, including its intelligence services. These subjects proved m ore accessible. In 1946 Alan Stripp, a codebreaker w ho had spent the war in India working on Japanese codes, suddenly found him self redeployed to the Iranian border, and throughout the Azerbaijan Crisis o f 1946 he worked on Iranian and Afghan communications.25 Much G C H Q activity was hidden by the use o f the signals units o f the arm ed services for interception. Each o f the three services operated half a dozen sites in Britain. G C H Q also had a num ber o f civilian out-stations including a sigint-processing centre at 10 Chesterfield Street in London, a listening post covering L ondon at Ivy Farm, K nockholt in K ent and a Post Office listening post at Gilnahirk in N orthern Ireland. G C H Q had overseas stations hidden within embassies and high commissions in countries such as Turkey and Canada. T here were also service outposts. In the Middle East, the base o f Ayios Nikolaos, just outside Famagusta o n Cyprus, became a critical intelligence centre, receiving Army and RAF sigint units as they gradually departed from Palestine, Iraq and Egypt. F urther east, the Navy maintained its intercept site at HMS A nderson near Colom bo on Ceylon, and the Army began reconstruction o f its pre­ war sigint site at Singapore. But the main British sigint centre in Asia after 1945 was H ong Kong, initially staffed by RAF personnel. Here, with help from Australia’s budding sigint organisation, which was effectively under G C H Q management, Chinese and Soviet radio traffic was captured.26 L ondon decided to give G C H Q the lion’s share o f British intelligence resources. O n 22 January 1952, the Chiefs o f Staff had m et together with Ivone Kirkpatrick, by then Perm anent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, to review plans for improving British intelligence. G C H Q came o u t on top. Its cutting-edge programmes, mosdy in the area o f com puters and ‘high speed analytical equipm ent’ for communications intelligence,

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were given 'highest priority’, and governm ent research and supply ele­ m ents were instructed accordingly. T he Admiralty was beginning a new program m e to build better receivers for ground-based and seaborne Technical Search Operations. Elint was no less critical and so new air­ borne radio search receivers for the Central Signals Establishm ent were also given 'all possible priority’. T he Chiefs o f Staff continually sttessed the 'very great im portance’ o f speeding up developm ent and construction in these ‘very sensitive’ areas.27 By N ovem ber 1952 a fuller review o f British intelligence was under way. T he process was prolonged by the primitive nature o f available m an­ agerial instruments. Patrick Reilly, w ho liaised between SIS and the Foreign Office, confessed that no one really knew w hat Britain spent on intelligence. N ow 'fo r the first time’ Sir Edward Bridges from the Treasury and a com m ittee o f perm anent secretaries were assembling some figures so they could review intelligence costs in the context o f the overall defence budget. T he Chiefs o f Staff wanted 'increased expendi­ ture on intelligence’ within the general program m e o f rearm am ent, but were unsure o f the figures o r how much detail to give to ministers. All were crystal clear that in the short term the emphasis should be ‘for Sigint’. T he D irector o f G C H Q reported that he was busy filling the 300 extra staff posts recendy authorised and proposed a further increm ent for an extra 366 staff to follow. In the late 1940s and early 1950s G C H Q was moving from strength to strength.28 As early as 1945, m ost English-speaking countries had com m itted themselves to the idea o f post-war signals intelligence co-operation. Policy-makers at the highest level had come to expect a world in which a global sigint alliance rendered enemy intentions alm ost transparent. They were n ot about to relinquish that privilege willingly. In the autum n o f 1945, when Trum an was publicly winding up OSS, he was also secredy giving perm ission for American sigint acdvity to condnue and approved negodadons on continued Allied co-operadon. All desired the maximum option. O n 19 November, Andrew Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, attended a critical meeting o f the British Chiefs o f Staff. T here was 'm uch discussion about 100 per cent cooperation with the USA about Sigint,’ he recorded, adding that they had ‘decided that less than 100 percent was n o t w orth having’. In Ottawa, George G lazebrook recom m ended to the Canadian JIC that Canada enhance its independent sigint effort in order to stake a claim in this secretive and emerging co-operative system. 'It is param ount,’ he said, 'that Canada should make an adequate contribution to the general pool.’29 In the latter stages o f the war, Travis together with the British services had fought hard to maintain British dominance in the field o f Ultra and other form s o f sigint in the West. This had made a deep impression on

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the intelligence officers o f the American arm ed forces fighting in Europe w ho felt an unpleasant sense o f dependency. In early February 1945 the US Army Air Force held a conference o f all senior intelligence officers (A-2s) across Europe. T here ‘every A-2 expressed his disappointm ent at o u r utter dependence on the R.A.F.’ in sigint matters. T he US N inth Air Force had deployed some tactical listening or Y units, but the British had controlled the flow o f sưategic sigint. T he lesson was clear. Colonel R obert D. Hughes, D irector o f Intelligence for the US N inth Air Force, warned W ashington that the US Army Air Force needed its own air sigint units with conưol over sigint policy and sigint research: ‘We feel that you should dem and, and organize under your control, for peace as well as war, an organization similar to that o f the R .A .F.. . . Unlike other highly technical form s o f intelligence, in which our American Air Forces have shared, we have continued to depend entirely on the R.A.F for this level o f work in “Y”.’ T he experience o f wartime co-operation was thus ambiguous. T here had been close collaboration. But this integration allowed the Americans to sense that the term s and conditions o f sharing were im portant, schooling them in the m eaning o f intelligence power. Many American officials were now determ ined that the post-war agree­ m ents should allow the United States a m ore global capability.30 In March 1946, William Friedman o f the Army Security Agency, and one o f America’s m ost senior codebreakers, travelled to L ondon to com ­ plete details of, and sign, a revised version o f the wartime BRUSA agree­ m ent on signals intelligence between Britain and the U nited States. Key aspects o f the post-war relationship were already beginning to fall into place, with the Americans opening a special US Liaison Office (SUSLO) in L ondon and the British opening an equivalent British Liaison Office under Douglas Nicoll at Arlington Hall in Virginia. Yet the way ahead was strewn with obstacles. T he complex package o f agreements, letters and m em oranda o f understanding, often referred to as the ‘UKUSA treaty’ that sealed a vast Western sigint alliance, was not com pleted until 1948. As UKUSA emerged, Britain derived considerable benefit from its dom inance over its Em pire-C om m onw ealth partners. T he semi-feudal relationship which L ondon enịoyed is no better illustrated than in Australia, where sigint operations were controlled by London. Only in 1940 did Australia establish its own separate organisation. W hen this became the Australian D efence Signals Bureau, form ed at Albert Park Barracks in M elbourne on 12 N ovem ber 1947, it remained in the shadow o f G C H Q . Four Australian applicants for the directorship were rejected in favour o f Britain’s Com m ander Teddy Poulden, w ho filled the senior posts with twenty G C H Q staff and com m unicated with G C H Q in his ow n special cipher. D uring the winter o f 1946-7, a Com monwealth

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sigint conference was held in London, chaired by Edward Travis, during which each country was accorded designated spheres o f activity.32 Canada’s sigint organisation, under the long-serving LieutenantColonel E d Drake, suffered similar treatm ent. O n 13 April 1946 the Canadian Prime Minster, Mackenzie King, authorised the consolidation o f a num ber o f wartime organisations into a small post-war unit o f about 100 staff known as the Com munications Branch o f the National Research Council (C B N R Q . Again, the senior posts were filled by staff seconded by G C H Q , prom pting them to say that CBNRC stood for ‘Com munications Branch — N o Room for Canadians', and by the late 1940s Drake had resolved to offset this by developing better relations with the US Army Security Agency.33 However, the Americans were also inclined to give Canada second-class treatm ent. D uring the 1948 discus­ sions on the UKƯSA agreem ents it became clear that the US Com munications Intelligence Board was equally anxious to prevent an inform ation free-for-all am ong its signatories. It preferred to hand material to the Canadians ‘on a “need to know" basis’ and was keen to prevent a proliferation o f liaison officers.34 UKUSA also touched on codem aking as well as codebreaking. Weak Com monwealth security had a huge bearing on cryptographic sharing within UKUSA. By early 1949 L ondon was willing to offer Australia details o f the cryptographic principles and also ‘research aimed to improve current U.K. cypher systems’, but details from com bined USU K systems could be handed over only on approval from W ashington. T here was a distinct hierarchy and the new Com m onwealth was out in the cold. India, Pakistan and Ceylon were not perm itted anything over and above w hat they were in possession o f in August 1947. Perhaps worried by the Com m onwealth factor, the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff decided to keep a separate set o f cipher systems that were for American com m unications only. In O ctober 1949 L ondon proposed a full and com plete interchange o f cryptographic principles, but the idea was rejected by Washington.35 Lurking beneath this was the suspicion that Britain and the United States m ight attack each other’s communications. Extensive work o n the French and the D utch naturally inspired such fears. Moreover, there was historical precedent. In the period up until D ecem ber 1941 British code­ breakers had certainly been busy working on American diplomatic systems such as Grey. American intelligence liaison staff in London, w ho were beginning to put together the early stages o f co-operation against the Axis, were amused, rather than alarmed, by the complications that this generated. Some were convinced that, once joined together in a war against the Axis, London would have m ore interest in the total security o f all American systems. But in practice British anxiety to ensure American

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cipher security extended only to those systems carrying Ultra and Magic. T here are som e indications that the British continued to undertake limited wartime work on medium-grade American communications. Jo h n C roft recalled som e work ongoing on American systems at Berkeley Sư eet during the war. Predictably, clear traffic from American oil com pa­ nies was also being intercepted in 1944 as they began to look for new m arkets in E urope.36 Counter-measures had to be taken. In 1948 and 1949 W hitehall regu­ larly received instructions o n the use o f the word ‘G uard’, a term used on docum ents ‘which m ust never, so far as can be foreseen, be disclosed to the Americans'. W ashington used a similar term ‘C onư oỉ’ for the same purpose, a term later replaced by ‘N o fo rn ’ o r no foreign eyes. T he general purpose was to prevent ‘em barrassm ent o f relations’ between L ondon and W ashington and also ‘to preserve certain sources o f intelli­ gence’. Subjects for the use o f G uard included discussion o f senior US personalities o r m atters 'affecting British trade interests, in which the Americans m ight be our rivals’. Interestingly, these telegrams required ‘special cypher precautions’. Moreover, any details o f comm unication security including ‘instructions on British cypher systems’ were also to be given the G uard treatm ent. L ondon thought it probable that the United States would try and read British comm unications if it could. T he whole business had a surreal quality because the existence o f the w ord G uard itself had to be ‘guarded’. W hen sending such material by post ‘two enve­ lopes m ust always be used’ and ‘the inner envelope only m ust be marked ‘‘G U A R D ’”.37 T he use o f G uard and Control soon became widely known to officials on both sides o f the Adantic. Nevertheless, leaving the w ord G uard off docum ents could have disastrous consequences. O ne o f Churchill’s wartime telegrams about controversial activities in Greece was sent w ithout G uard and made its way quickly round an inter-Allied H Q and thence into the hands o f American journalists like D rew Pearson, w ho made much o f it. Perhaps for this reason, even in his second administration Churchill ‘had a phobia about the procedures sur­ rounding the use o f G uard’.38 Although G C H Q representatives were often overawed by the scale o f American sigint resources, m atters looked quite different from W ashington. Here there were several types o f trouble. W ith the war over, and an econom ising Republican Congress controlling the federal purse strings, resources for American c o m in t—o r comm unications intelligence —interception activities were remarkably tight before 1950. This led to a state o f parlous under-preparedness prior to the Korean War. It also pre­ vented the E uropean expansion that American sigint had hoped for. In 1949, Arm y Security Agency interception units in E urope were still passing their product to G C H Q rather than back to W ashington for

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analysis. G C H Q retained primary responsibility for areas such as E astern Europe, the N ear East and Africa.39 Yet financial stringency did not prevent the two American arm ed ser­ vices responsible for sigint from continuing their notorious wartim e rivalry. In 1947, they were joined by a newly independent US Air Force. T he creation o f a US Air Force sigint outfit prom pted James Forrestal, the Secretary o f Defense, to launch an enquiry into sigint in August 1948, chaired by Admiral Earl E. Stone. Com posed o f officers from the three services the board was hopelessly split from the outset. Only the Army took a rational position, urging a unified cryptological service, contrast­ ing Britain’s co-ordinated G C H Q with what it called the ‘hydra headed G erm an wartime C O M IN T effort’. T he Stone Board produced a divided report and Forrestal buried it. It was unearthed by his successor, Louis Johnson, in March 1949. Under m ore pressure from Congress for budget savings the Army plan for consolidation looked good and was now rec­ om m ended to Truman. Trum an urged, ‘So be it. G o back and fix up the orders.’ In the words o f an American internal history: T h e n the scream­ ing started.' T he Air Force and, in particular, the Navy had no wish to be relieved o f their m ost precious intelligence assets. So while a centralised Arm ed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) was set up on 20 May 1949 it was a weakling, underm ined by jealous service chiefs and by the Congressional budget cuts which had caused it to be created. Perversely, AFSA became an unwanted fourth service, ineffectually trying to co­ ordinate, but not commanding, fragmented American sigint. For G C H Q , the task o f liaising with this multiple entity was becom ing m ore difficult.40 Allied exchange o f com int was o f several types. A narrow range o f com int-producing agencies exchanged all m anner o f material, both raw and processed. A much wider range o f bodies circulated the finished product. T he key instrum ent was the ‘com intsum ’ - a digest o f the latest ‘hot’ material — which made its way around comint-cleared centres. London would send twenty copies o f this docum ent to W ashington on a regular basis, with two copies going to Air Force Intelligence, two to Army Intelligence and so forth.41 T he UKUSA agreements o f 1948 simply codified and sm oothed out what was clearly a pre-existing prac­ tice. As early as 28 April 1948, General Charles p. Cabell, the new chief o f USAF Intelligence, reviewed the com int arrangements in support o f the atomic strike plan Halfm oon. ‘At the present time,’ he noted with satisfaction, ‘there is complete interchange o f communications intelli­ gence inform ation between the cognisant United States and British agen­ cies. It is not believed that the present arrangem ents ... could be improved.*42 More mysterious is British and American co-operation with obscure ‘third parties’. T he recovery o f a range o f sigint files from the Baltic

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states at the end o f the war —codenam ed Stella Polaris —was a fascinat­ ing aspect o f this issue. In May 1946, American naval codebreakers received reports that the Stella Polaris riles originally contained a range o f American State D epartm ent and military codes obtained from the American Embassy in Soria and elsewhere. Reports varied as to where these came from, perhaps the Russians, the Japanese o r the Hungarians, b u t the consensus was that they had been obtained by bribery. Stella Polaris was also reported to have obtained a great many other codes from the head o f the Hungarian sigint unit, General Petrikovicz. It was widely believed that much o f the Stella Polaris material had now been trans­ ferred from Stockholm to a new French sigint centre based at 9 Avenue du Maréchal M aunouroy in Paris.43 Stella Polaris material, together with other fragments o f Soviet code­ books, was fed into the m ost im portant Anglo-American sigint p ro ­ gram m e codenam ed Venona, which, as we have seen, would be producing the names o f Soviet spies in the West by 1948. This was an attem pt to exploit weak operational practice in Soviet intelligence traffic. Periodically short o f fresh enciphering materials the Soviets had abused theứ theoretically very secure one-tim e pad system and re-used materials that were safe only if used once. Occasionally, there were periodic leaps forward for those working on an otherwise m ind-num bing difficult task that offered only partial breaks into a small percentage o f MGB m es­ sages. G ouzenkou —a cipher clerk —brought over material which allowed the decrypting o f other messages that he did n o t have copies of, but which had been recorded by the West before his defection. T he same was ttu e o f the Australian cases. Here the controversial and speculative PH P papers from 1944 and 1945, which had caused so much trouble in Whitehall, for the first time proved really useful, though perhaps not in a m anner which the authors had intended. Makarov, the M GB chief in Australia, considered his purloining o f P H P papers to be such an im por­ tant coup that he asked Moscow for perm ission to send them by cipher rather than courier. Moscow intelligence chiefs had indeed been delighted by this material. But two long P H P papers, ‘Security in the W estern M editerranean and the Eastern Adantic’ and ‘Security o f India and the Indian O cean’, provided the West with a vast word-for-word crib to get into much other Soviet traffic from Australia for that period. T he Australian dimension o f Venona, together with the need for copies o f sensitive British warrime docum ents to attack it, speeded up AngloAmerican co-operadon in this area.44 Although the Bridsh and the Americans had been working on M GB traffic condnuously from 1945, they began to collaborate on Venona only in late 1947. T he breaks were now sufficient to show that during the war agents with access to British and American secrets had com prom ised

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an imm ense quantity o f material, ỉn early 1948 Venona offered its first tantalising clues to the possibility o f spies within the British Foreign Office and in various Com m onwealth governments. It was not until three years later, in the spring o f 1951, that their precise identities were uncovered. Yet Philby, Burgess and Maclean eluded the authorides. O n Friday, 25 May, D onald Maclean and G uy Burgess headed for the conti­ nent, tipped off that the net was closing in o n them. Remarkably, Kim Philby, suspected o f involvement, remained and bluffed it o u t This denied Venona the fruits o f m ore than three years o f Anglo-American cryptanalydcal struggle. But it was another Friday, three years earlier, that had marked the greatest disaster for British and American sigint. O n Friday, 29 O ctober 1948, just as Venona really began to produce som e dividends, the Soviets implemented a massive change in all theữ comm unications security pro­ cedures. All radio nets, including military systems, m oved over to one­ time pads, which henceforth were n o t re-used. M uch o f the procedural material that had been sent 'in clear* between operators running mediumgrade Army, Navy, Air Force and police systems in the Soviet bloc was now encrypted for the first time. O perator chatter was banned. O ver a period o f twenty-four hours, alm ost every Soviet system from which the East was deriving intelligence was lost. This included new Venona m es­ sages. T he w ipeout was alm ost total. In 1955 w hen the CIA and SIS began their famous operation to tunnel under E ast Berlin to tap into Soviet telephone comm unications, one o f the motives was to try and claw back som e o f the ground lost. T he CIA remarked that this new operation 'provided the U nited States and the British with a unique source o f intel­ ligence o n the Soviet orbit o f a kind and quality which had n o t been avail­ able since 1948’. Accordingly American cryptographers referred to the fateful events o f Friday, 29 O ctober 1948 as ‘Black Friday’.45 T he instigator o f ‘Black Friday’ had been William Weisband, a US Army Security Agency cipher clerk. Weisband had been recruited by the Soviets as an agent in 1947, but his espionage was n o t discovered until 1950. Although the evidence against him was com plete and compelling, he was n ot prosecuted for fear o f advertising the work o f signals intelli­ gence to o ther countries which m ight take similar steps to upgrade their communications.46 Weisband is litde known, yet the wider im pact o f his espionage, perhaps som e o f the m ost damaging Soviet agent acdvity o f the early Cold War, offers som e im portant insights into signals intelli­ gence. Like Tyler K ent, the valuable agent the Soviets had recruited in L ondon in the early 1930s, he was a lowly functionary in a cipher unit, n ot a high-level agent. Now, clearly, checking the reliability only o f senior officials was no longer enough and, as the Cold War organisms expanded remorselessly, the problem o f vetting and clearing all staff in their

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teem ing thousands became an insurm ountable problem for the West. W eisband also probably helped to trigger a rethink on W estern approaches to busting Soviet communications. H itherto Britain and the U nited States gained m ost o f their successes against Soviet comm unica­ tions by the sweat o f cryptanalysis. By contrast the Soviets broke into som e high-level traffic because their agents repeatedly obtained the solu­ tions, and because the Soviets were very good at bugging diplomatic premises, including the code-room s o f embassies. It is likely that the m o st damaging work o f high-level Soviet agents in the West was when they served as facilitators o f Soviet sigint, opening back doors to the interception o f thousands o f sensitive messages. By the 1950s the West was trying to move down the same track.47 T he closest Anglo-American signals intelligence relationship during th e immediate post-war period was that developed between the RAF and the US Air Force. General Charles Cabell, chief o f US Air Force Intelligence in 1948, found RAF Intelligence under the convivial Lawrie Pendred to be an ideal partner for his newly independent service. This growing friendship also reflected the fact that G C H Q had identified air pow er as a critical area for sigint, especially those arcane form s o f sigint associated with strategic bombing. Sigint in the air was one o f the m aịor grow th areas o f the early intelligence Cold War. Air Intelligence was keen to develop elint o r electronic intelligence. This involved the interception o f electronic signals that did not carry messages, but instead offered inform ation about subjects such as radar sites and air defences. Such inform ation was invaluable for the operational planning o f air attack against the Soviet Union. It was equally invaluable to anyone planning peacetime spy-flights in Soviet airspace and looking for gaps in Soviet radar cover. Thus, in this area, air intelligence collectors were also consu­ mers, n o t least to protect the security o f their own sensitive and danger­ ous overflight missions. Elint was developed by Professor R. V. Jones in the face o f radio-guided G erm an air raids during the Second World War and was later sited at the Central Signals Establishm ent at RAF W atton in N orfolk.48 Towards the end o f the war it was refined against Japan. An elaborate elint unit was set up under M ountbatten’s South East Asia C om m and (SEAC) under the improbable cover-name o f the Noise Investigation Bureau, and early elint-equipped listening aircraft known as Ferrets paưolỉed the night skies over Rangoon and then Singapore listen­ ing to Japanese radars in the spring and sum m er o f 1945. Ferrets were o d d aircraft with a myriad o f domes, bulges and aerials on the outside, while inside they looked like a primitive flying laboratory, cluttered with oscilloscopes and every conceivable type o f electronic apparatus.49 T he Anglo-American elint exchange began early. General Curtis LeMay had been given perm ission to begin trading elint with the British

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o n an informal basis at the end o f 1947, but it is likely that co-operation began even earlier. By 1948 elint-sharing was being brought within the growing body o f W estern signals intelligence agreements. At this time G C H Q was attem pting to extend its control over elint activity by the arm ed services and approached W ashington with a proposal to ‘extend the present British—u.s. C om int collaboration to include counterm eas­ ures, intercept activities and intelligence’ in the held o f elint. This was put forward by Colonel M arr-Johnston, the G C H Q Liaison Officer in W ashington, w ho then negotiated with Captain J. Wenger, a senior US naval cryptanalyst. H e suggested co-ordinated patterns o f ferret flights with the resulting intelligence being swapped ‘via Com int channels’. By 1952 G C H Q had achieved complete control over elint in the U K and was managing relations with the Americans in this held.50 Initially, the RAF was ahead o f the US Air Force in elint. Britain’s wartime elint work had largely been carried out by 100 G roup. This was run down immediately after the war, but by Septem ber 1946 things were undergoing a revival and the remaining expertise was pooled into a new 90 G roup together with a Radio Warfare Establishm ent co-located with the Central Signals Establishm ent at RAF W atton, with a satellite station at Shepherds G rove.51 By 1947 a fleet o f specially equipped Lancaster and Lincoln aircraft was patrolling the East G erm an border, com ple­ m ented by the m onitoring o f basic low-level Soviet voice traffic by ground stations at locations such as RAF G atow in Berlin. British ferrets began their first forays into the Baltic in June 1948 and into the Black Sea in Septem ber 1948. O ther flights operated out o f RAF Habbaniya in Iraq.52 In 1948 they began to be supplem ented by new American ferret variants o f the B-29 flying missions from Scotland to the Spitzbergen area. From 1950 B-29 ferrets were also supplied to the RAF and renamed W ashingtons under the Mutual Assistance Act.53 Much o f the perim eter o f the Soviet U nion was covered by a British undercover team operating in northern Iran m onitoring Soviet radar in the Caucasus, as well as Soviet missile tests at K apustin Yar on the edge o f the Caspian Sea. T he team conducting this activity were posing as archaeologists, a favourite British cover for all sorts o f intelligence-gathering, including atomic intelligence work ongoing in India at the same time. This inform ation was useful for RAF crews flying aerial reconnaissance o f this area from bases in Crete from 1948.54 T heir US partners had not been inactive. In July 1946 the first post-war American elint operations with ferret aircraft were launched from Thule airbase in Greenland. T he early flights were designed to test new airborne equipm ent with a view to beginning to m ap emissions in the polar region, where gaps in Soviet radar cover were suspected. This activity — appropriately codenam ed Project N anook was run jointly by the Army Security Agency and Strategic Air

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Com m and. B ut it would be 1947 before the US Air Force came into being with its own sigint unit, the Air Force Security Service (AFSS).55 Early W estern elint efforts in the air were spurred on by the knowledge that the Soviets had launched their own ferret programme. In April 1948 an American radar station in G erm any reported that it was being probed by ferret aircraft, and in N ovem ber 1948 a Soviet aircraft circled a US radar station at Hokkaido in Japan for an hour and then escaped w ithout interception due to bad weather. Defectors also brought teasing snippets. In May 1948, Vaclav Cukr, General Secretary o f the Czech Air Force Association, escaped to the West with inform ation about a group o f Dakota-like aircraft at Z ote airfield outside Prague. These mysterious air­ craft were kept under constant guard in ‘special hangars’ and had ‘several special antennae on the outside o f the plane’.56 A t sea an even m ore sensitive signals-collecdon program m e was under way. Much o f what L ondon and W ashington knew about the Soviet Navy had been derived from captured G erm an material, or from w hat the British had gleaned from their uncom m only good relations with the Soviet Navy during the war. But by 1948 this inform ation was becom ing outdated. T he US Navy decided to send two submarines into the Barents Sea to test the possibility o f intercepdng Soviet signals off the m ajor Arctic ports. In August 1949 it sent two further boats, modified with the latest snorkels, to see if they could m onitor missile tests in the same area. T he specialist equipm ent was installed in the Cocbino (Spanish for pig) by the British at Portsm outh, but was operated by US Naval Security Cochino, escorted by three G ro u p personnel. In August 1949 the o ther submarines, headed for Arctic waters. However, water poured in through a m alfunctioning snorkel and a serious battery fire developed and burned for fifteen hours. D espite a rescue by the Tusk in the storm y seas off the Norwegian coast, seven crew were lost and the Cocbino sank in 950 feet o f water. These were the first casualties in one o f the m ost secretive and dangerous areas o f Cold War signals intelligence activity. But L ondon and W ashington were not deterred by these inauspi­ cious beginnings, and by the early 1950s the British and American sigint submarines were regular visitors to the headquarters o f the Soviet Atlantic and Pacific fleets.57 T he Royal Navy also conducted surface operations around the Soviet northern periphery. In O ctober and N ovem ber 1949, the cruiser HMS Superb undertook a m onth-long elint investigation o f the Kola Peninsula and the naval base o f M urmansk. T he Royal Navy also maintained a chain o f fixed stations in the U K and a forward listening station at Kiel on the Baltic.58 T he destruction o f US Navy elint aircraft off the coast o f Latvia in April 1950 while they were trying to identify new Soviet missile bases seemed to indicate that aerial collection in these areas was m ore

uss

uss

uss

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hazardous than ship-based o r subm arine-based work. F urther missions were postponed, but the outbreak o f the Korean War resulted in enhanced dem and for intelligence, and operations resumed. From 1952 onwards much o f this work was carried out by American RB-50Gs oper­ ating o ut o f Lakenheath in Suffolk.59 E lint in northern areas was a multinational activity. D uring the war, Bletchley Park had worked with the Norwegians and, as we have seen, by 1946 the RAF was assisting the Swedish Air Force in investigating w hat were thought to be Soviet rocket tests that had intruded into Swedish air­ space. W ashington took responsibility for co-operation with the Norwegians and encouraged reconnaissance in the area o f M urm ansk and Novaya Zemlya. By January 1949, detailed material o n Soviet radars from Swedish intelligence was making its way to W ashington via British representatives w ho had taken responsibility for co-operation with Sweden. T here was particular interest in the possibility that the Soviets m ight be attem pting the further developm ent o f G erm an stealth tech­ nology, such as radar-absorbent coverings for submarine periscopes and snorkels.60 T he Korean War prom pted a m ajor expansion o f bom ber com m and com m unications and navigation which in return dem anded a greater elint and com int input. Some elint could be m onitored from sites in Britain, and these were expanded. T he 47th Radio Squadron o f the US AFSS opened a station at K irknew ton airbase in Scotland listening to activity around the Kola Peninsula. But a great deal o f traffic was short range, requiring collection by ships and aircraft. E lint had becom e so large that liaison arrangem ents had to be expanded and L ondon pro­ posed the appointm ent o f an additional officer, Squadron Leader J. R. Mitchell, as ‘liaison officer for G C H Q ’ specialising in elint. W ashington agreed and appointed William Trites and Forrest G. H ogg to equivalent roles in Britain.61 T he com int and elint effort against the Soviet Air Force and associated nuclear strategic systems was one o f G C H Q ’s key achievements in the first post-war decade. Although the im m inent arrival o f the first Soviet atom ic bom b went undetected, the deploym ent o f an atom ic-arm ed Soviet strategic air force certainly did not. D uring the late 1940s and early 1950s the JIB in L ondon and the USAF target intelligence staffs had been busy exchanging sensitive data on ‘the mission o f blunting the Soviet atomic offensive’. This involved the early counter-force targeting o f Soviet nuclear forces in the hope o f destroying them on the ground before they could be used. This was politically sensitive because it raised the issue o f the use o f nuclear weapons at an early stage in any future conflict. Nevertheless, senior RAF officers in L ondon gave particular attention to this m atter because o f the vulnerability o f the UK.

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W ashington was impressed by the ‘considerable progress that London had m ade on the counter atomic problem ’. Here G C H Q and the RAF had amassed ‘a significant am ount o f evaluated intelligence, particularly in the special intelligence field, which would be o f the greatest value*. M ost o f the airfields and the operational procedures for Soviet strategic a ứ forces in the European theatre had been m apped by 1952.62 Indeed, during the immediate post-war years there were substantial sigint suc­ cesses in the area o f the Soviet order o f battle on the ground and at sea, as well as in the air. T he full Anglo-American intelligence exchange in the atom ic counter-targeting field was som ewhat ironic given the different views held in L ondon and W ashington on nuclear strategic issues by 1949, views which continued to diverge thereafter. However, full intelli­ gence exchange on targets carried on regardless. Although Soviet atomic weapons and strategic delivery systems remained G C H Q ’s top targets, it w orked on a m ost diverse range o f subjects. In the late 1940s it was also engaged in Britain’s end-of-Em pire sưuggles, including the vicious guer­ rilla war in progress in Palestine.

12 D efeat in Palestine The Stem G roup is a gang o f desperadoes 300 to 500 strong: its speciality is assassination. Joint Intelligence Committee, 9 September 1947*

C H Q was not only busy with the Cold War, it was engaged in Britain's h o t wars o f decolonisation across the Empire. Between 1945 and the outbreak o f the Korean War in 1950, Britain’s sigint special­ ists were busy on a remarkable range o f tasks around the world. In Palestine, Malaya and other rem ote locations, G C H Q —together with the rem nants o f Britain’s very secret wartime deception organisation —was brought out to engage som e unlikely enemies. Britain’s wartime decep­ tion had been run by L ondon Controlling Section, the main centre for orchesưating the complex deception operations by MI5, SIS, Bletchley Park and others that had masked Eisenhow er’s successful assault on the N orm andy beaches in 1944. A t the end o f the war it had been preserved on a care-and-maintenance basis. A small num ber o f staff kept the tech­ niques o f strategic deception alive, compiled dossiers o n the deception lessons o f the last war and drew up strategic deception plans for the next. But by July 1947, with Britain under extreme pressure from a m ounting guerrilla war with the Jewish underground in Palestine, London Controlling Section, now renam ed the Hollis Com mittee, considered a m ore active role. L ondon Controlling Section drafted plans to frustrate the ships carry­ ing illegal immigrants from E urope to Palestine. Im migrants were placing a strain on the authorities, and the experienced fighters am ong them were being quickly absorbed into the underground. T he British plan was to try to misdirect ships by the use o f false radio messages, causing them to be intercepted by the Royal Navy. Eventually the idea was rejected as fraught with all sorts o f political dangers. Equally worry­ ing was the likelihood that this sort o f trick would soon be exposed for what it was. T he result would probably be that the Jewish organisations

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would ‘change their frequencies and codes’ to prevent radio m onitoring ‘w ith a consequent loss o f Signals intelligence to ourselves’. T he London Signals Intelligence Com m ittee was unwilling to ‘blow’ its capabilities in this area unless ordered by a higher authority. Together with aerial reconnaissance, it was already allowing many ships to be caught and tu rn ed back.2 D espite the attentions o f G C H Q , L ondon Controlling Secdon, aerial reconnaissance and other arcane organisations, Palestine was the intelli­ gence war that Britain lost. T he British security forces outnum bered their adversaries by m ore than twenty to one, a better ratio than Britain enjoyed later in its successful campaign against the guerrillas in Malaya (seventeen to one). In 1948 the Army blamed its num bing defeat on restrictions imposed by London and by the civil authorities in Palestine w hich tied its hands and obstructed a ‘get tough’ policy. But this was not the case. In reality, getting tough had never paid dividends; instead it was intelligence failure that played a large part in explaining the débâcle.3 N o t only was British intelligence poor, but the JIC had to concede by Septem ber 1947 that the Irgun, the main underground opposition, could deploy between 5,000 and 6,000 fighters w ho were ‘well trained in street­ fighting and sabotage’. Moreover, the Irgun’s own intelligence organisa­ tio n contained many who had cut their operational teeth in the European W ar and were, the JIC lamented, ‘excellent’. Indeed some o f those serving with both the official Haganah and the Irgun had previously w orked for SIS o r SO E.4 Trouble had begun in 1919 when Britain was mandated Palestine by th e League o f N ations and opened the territory up to Jewish immigra­ tion. T h e shifting balance o f the population and contradictory agree­ m en ts resulted in unrest and violent riots. T here followed the creation o f underground Jewish military organisations such as the Irgun that rejected the m oderate Jewish line and dem anded the immediate creation o f a Jewish state. By 1939 the Irgun had already begun to turn its violence from the rival Arabs on to the British, but the advent o f the Second W orld War highlighted their com m on cause against G erm any and a tem ­ porary ceasefire followed. T he Irgun was fragmented, however, and its ceasefire was n o t observed by all. O ne o f its leaders, Colonel Abraham Stern, led a breakaway group determ ined to continue the fight against the British. Stern’s group was initially known as the Lehi group and only later as the Stern Gang. These groups were small, num bering no m ore than 4,500, and they did not enjoy the support o f the majority o f the Jewish population. Meanwhile, the official Jewish Agency trained its own legally established arm ed forces, the Haganah and the m ore elite Palmach, for w ar against the Axis. T he underground Irgun also limited itself to secret arm ing and training during the early years o f the war.

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T he British eliminated Abraham Stern in 1942. T he public story was that Stern had been shot while trying to escape capture. Privately the British told American officers o f OSS serving in the Middle East the full story. T he British had in fact ‘discovered Stern’s hiding place and he was surrounded and caught unarm ed. He raised his arm s to surrender, b u t was drilled through and through by the police. T heir explanation (unofficially) is that they could take no chances with such a dangerous character. . . therefore, they liquidated him on the spot.’5 T he Stem G ang apart, during the war the Army had pursued a relaxed policy towards m ost arm ed Zionist groups, which was a legacy from an alliance against the Arab revolt in Palestine during the late 1930s and so a defacto truce was in operation. But by 1944, with the G erm an threat banished from the Middle East, the Irgun was free to resume its anti-British position. A fter years o f quiet re-arming its ranks were bolstered by new refugees, including Menachem Begin, w ho had arrived from Poland to becom e the Irgun com m ander in 1943. In February 1944 the informal ttuce was broken dramatically with well-organised attacks o n police and tax offices which revealed good guerrilla intelligence and excellent organisation. Matters were made worse by the m anner in which different groups com ­ peted against each other, prom pting the selection o f high-profile targets.6 Even in 1944, the policing and intelligence system in Palestine, last revised in 1938 by Sir David Petrie, w ho was soon to becom e wartime director o f MI5, was focused on the rural Arabs not on the urban Jewish population. This m eant that the police spoke Arabic rather than the bewildering range o f languages spoken by the Jewish immigrants. T he police C ỈD —the main intelligence-gathering force —had successes. It infiltrated the Haganah and the Palmach and always had the minutes o f the Jewish Agency executive within hours o f its meetings. Its messages to the World Zionist Organisation in London were also intercepted. But the cell structure o f the Irgun and Lehi frustrated it, and this was reflected in the JIC ’s inflated estimates o f their num bers —three times their real size.7 O n 8 August 1944 the High Com missioner for Palestine, Sừ Ronald MacMichael, narrowly escaped death at the hands o f Lehi gunm en during an attack on his motorcade. Undeterred, the Lehi turned its atten­ tion to a bigger target, the British Minister o f State for the Middle East, Lord Moyne. O n 6 N ovem ber 1944, two mem bers o f the Lehi m urdered Moyne in Cairo as he arrived to keep a luncheon engagem ent Many in Cairo, including Moyne’s successor, Lord Killearn, pressed for a tough response. Although his killers were executed, Churchill ordered restraint, knowing that sweeping and systematic searches would drive m ore in to the arms o f the guerrillas. Counter-terrorism remained a m atter for the police, while the Army was to be used as mobile columns to support them in emergencies. Fighting now subsided until the end o f the Second

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W orld War. After the m urder o f Lord Moyne in Cairo, Egyptian security, w hich was heavily supervised by the British, tried to turn one o f Moyne’s assassins, Eliahu Beth-Tsouri. But he replied that he could not help even if he had wanted to. Everyone in his group had false addresses and false nam es and no one really knew who they were working with. Tom Wilkin, th e only British policeman w ho was sufficiently integrated into Jewish society to make any inroads in infiltrating the Lehi, was assassinated by them in Septem ber 1944.8 Indeed, the British intelligence system, as other historians have dis­ covered, although rum oured to be om nipresent in the Middle East, lived o ff its reputation and was in fact very weak. W hat should have been the cutting edge, the Political Section o f C ỈD - effectively the Special Branch - was very small and had alm ost no Hebrew o r Yiddish speakers. T h ere was also a local MỈ5 office - the Defence Security Office —but this was staffed n o t by well-trained regular MI5 staff, w ho were already over­ stretched elsewhere, but by enterprising amateurs w ho were seconded to the unit. T here were a myriad o f Army intelligence outfits including General Staff Intelligence and Field Security Units. N o t for the first time, Arm y and police did not co-operate in an ideal fashion, a problem that would resurface in Malaya by 1948. T heir tendency to work alone was reinforced by enemy penetration. As the security intelligence well knew, governm ent offices themselves contained agents o f the underground, and classified material was making its way to their opponents. But this was only half the problem. T heir adversaries were small but o f high quality. Although the British had interrogation centres for process­ ing prisoners, little inform ation was extracted and, crucially, almost no one was turned. Some in the Jewish Agency warned the British o f violent attacks o f which they did not approve, but this was rare. In contrast to the fighting in Ireland in the 1920s and in Malaya and Kenya in the 1950s, it was impossible to get mem bers o f the lrgun o r the Stern G ang to offer inform ation o r to broadcast propaganda, still less to becom e members o f counter-gangs o r pseudo-gangs. In Kenya, for example, the ability to get terrorists to becom e active counter-terrorists was a ‘critical aspect’ o f success. For this reason, the undercover work attem pted in Palestine was often as directionless as the overt sweep and search, blundering about in the hope o f a contact.9 T he end o f the war in 1945 had brought the Labour governm ent o f Clement Attlee to power. Although Attlee was com m itted to dispersing the Em pire as quickly as possible —especially Palestine - he was blocked by Bevin and Montgomery. Although these latter figures did not see eye to eye, for different reasons they both wanted Britain to hang on to foot­ holds in the Middle East. M ontgom ery was the m ost fervent. In early 1947 he threatened Attlee with the mass resignation o f the Chiefs o f Staff

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over Middle East defence issues - which m ight have brought the precar­ ious Attlee governm ent down —and so got his way.10 But Zionist groups were now determ ined to evict the British. T he end o f the war saw the underground groups m ore anxious to force the British governm ent to a decision on Palestine, and violence escalated once more. Already well arm ed, their stocks were supplem ented by easy raids on service depots. S1ME, the MI5 umbrella organisation in the Middle East, suspected them o f being responsible for a raid on an RAF station on the night o f 25 N ovem ber 1945 when they helped themselves to eight Vickers machine guns and sixty-one Sten guns. SIM E reckoned that the arm oury o f one o f the guerrilla organisations, the Irgun, ran to run to 2,000 rifles, 270 sub­ machine guns and 300 pistols.11 M ontgom ery sent the tough British 6th Airborne Division to Palestine. But the Arm y tactics were still those used during the Arab rebellion o f the 1930s. This rebellion had been largely rural, had involved obvious military form ations and had been supported by m ost o f the Arab population. O pponents, both military and civilian, had been easy to identify and punish. But the Jewish underground chose an urban strategy and constituted only a small proportion o f the population. M atters were made worse by changes at the top. T here had been friction between the military com m and and the civilian administration. T he Colonial Office chose a new police chief from the ranks o f the military, selecting Colonel Nicol Gray, a form er Royal Marine w ho had seen much front-line action in Europe. Gray was a m an o f action and had little time for subde intelli­ gence work.12 Action certainly followed and between April and July 1946 an acceler­ ating cycle o f incident and reprisal developed. In March 1946 the Irgun raided one o f the largest military bases in the Middle E ast at Sarafand, held up a quarterm aster and walked off with the contents o f one o f the armouries. O n 23 April an attack on a police station left three dead. Two days later six soldiers from the 6th A irborne Division were killed in their tented encam pm ent. Pressure for arbitrary retaliation was building within the ranks o f the British forces. In mid-June a wave o f attacks destroyed five trains and ten o f the eleven bridges connecting Palestine to neighbouring states. T hen on 18 June, when two captured Itgun m em bers were sentenced, six British officers were seized in retaliation. O n 29 June, known as ‘Black Saturday', London's restraint broke down. W idespread raids netted 2,700 o f the overt leaders and m em bers o f the Jewish Agency, but no Irgun leaders nor the missing British officers. T he British arrests came as the various underground groups were planning a bom b attack o n governm ent offices at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem . Many were anxious to hold off, but M enachem Begin was keen to go ahead. T he im portance o f reprisal against British action was

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critical, he aigued. Begin was also w orried about docum ents captured in earlier raids and now held in governm ent offices located in the King D avid Hotel, which would reveal the links between political figures such as David B en-G urion and the underground groups. H e wanted them destroyed before the British could make them public. M ost im portantly he feared that the operation would be blown unless it w ent ahead soon. O n 22 July 1946, six young m em bers o f the Itgun entered the basem ent o f the hotel. They appeared to be delivering churns o f milk, but these were packed with 5001b o f explosive. A t 12.37 p.m. an explosion sheared o ff all o f the south wing, causing ninety-one deaths and forty-five further casualties. Several sections o f the Palestine governm ent were completely destroyed. T he King David Hotel was also the nerve centre o f the British anti-terrorist effort and this attack marked a devastating blow. Large-scale cordon and search operations began in Tel Aviv. But all these operations left the key underground organisations m ore o r less untouched.13 General Cunningham, the Army com m ander, told L ondon in N ovem ber that he opposed general reprisals against the population, having seen ‘the examples in Ireland and even the Arab Rebellion*. Instead he had obtained the advice o f ‘an expert* with a view to im prov­ ing the chances o f hunting the individuals concerned and ‘catching them on the job*. Cunningham wanted to get advance warning o f attacks and then eliminate the perpetrators - he insisted that ‘I have always been clear that the best m ethod o f dealing with terrorists is to kill them.* But all this depended on excellent advance intelligence warning o f specific attacks, which he did n o t have.14 From late 1946 through until March 1947 terrorist attacks continued against the background o f an intense argum ent in London. T he military led by M ontgom ery argued for a tougher policy, while the Colonial Office argued that such an approach would generate recruits for the ter­ rorists. M ontgom ery obtained his wish on 2 March 1947, when martial law was declared in Tel Aviv and in the Jewish quarter o f Jerusalem. By bringing econom ic life to a halt, the Army hoped to pressurise the majority o f the Jewish population to expose the com m itted terrorists in the underground. But the principal result o f this approach was to end all Jewish co-operation against the attacks. T he underground seemed doubly anxious to prove that martial law was a failure, and the volume o f attacks increased. O n 11 July 1947 the Irgun captured two British sergeants from Army Intelligence in Natanya, Cliff Martin and Mervyn Pake, w ho had been working for Field Security. T he Irgun used them as hostages against three o f their m em bers awaiting execution after being convicted o f terrorism . O n 19 July the three Irgun m em bers were executed, and two days later

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the bodies o f the two sergeants were found hanging in an orange grove. Booby-traps had been planted on the bodies and an officer was badly injured while recovering them. Passions now boiled over and policem en in Tel Aviv went on the rampage. Rioting developed and before order was restored five Jews had been killed and sixteen injured, and many Jewish shops had been burned down. An arm oured car was driven through a funeral procession and the police fired on a bus, a taxi and a crow ded café. However, the underground had won, for there were no m ore execu­ tions o f terrorists. This was probably the turning point in the campaign and the British press now began calling for withdrawal from a campaign which, they concluded, could not be won by military means.15 N o t all British revenge attacks were spontaneous. T he particular p ro b ­ lems o f insurgency and terrorism prom oted a dem and in som e quarters for special units to take the war to the enemy. As would prove repeatedly to be the case, this call came not only from the regular military but from the locally raised units and police forces, w ho often felt the regular military were not up to the job, o r from ex-members o f the special forces w ho felt that a fresh approach was needed. In February 1947, Brigadier Bernard Fergusson, a senior officer in the Palestine Police w ho had served with General O rde Wingate and the Chindits behind enemy lines in Burm a, explained to the Colonial Office that a special paramilitary police unit was being formed. Wartime SO E and SAS officers made up its core: T h e re is in the Army a small num ber o f Officers w ho have both the technical and physical knowledge o f terrorism , having themselves been engaged in similar operations on w hat may be term ed the terrorist side in countries occupied by the enemy in the late war.' He explained that there had been frequent occasions recendy when the scale o f terrorist action had been very substantial, 'necessitating special measures for which norm al resources and organisations are inadequate’. Fergusson him self was a special forces enthusiast and would soon move on to look after these issues at SH A PE H Q , and would superintend political warfare during the Suez Campaign.16 Roy Farran was a leader o f one o f these special police squads. H e recalled his exhilaration as he was given his orders: In Jerusalem Police Headquarters the brief was explained to US. We would each have full power to operate as we pleased within our specific areas. We were to advise on defence against terror and to take an active part in hunting the dissi­ dents ... It was to all intents and purposes a carte blanche and the original con­ ception of our part filled me with excitement. A free hand for US against terror when all others were so closely hobbled!'7 T he squads operated for some weeks. They dressed up as mem bers o f the Jewish population and roamed about in delivery vans planning ambushes and meeting with some success.

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B ut soon they were embroiled in the Rubowitz Case. In May 1947, Alexander Rubowitz, a sixteen-year-old-member o f the Lehi, was abducted in a taxi and did n o t resurface. Accusations were made and the squads were stood down. Meanwhile Farran was suspected o f involve­ m ent and fled abroad to Syria. Offered immunity from arrest by Fergusson, he returned only to be arrested. L ondon was told nothing for three weeks, to the eventual fury o f A rthur Creech Jones, the Colonial Secretary. A farcical court-martial followed at which Fergusson refused to give evidence and Farran’s w ritten version o f events, penned in his cell, was ruled inadmissible. After his inevitable acquittal, he was required to resign his commission. As a grand finale, Fergusson flew the senior police officers out over the M editerranean and threw Farran’s ‘confes­ sions* into the sea.18 O ther curious activities had been going on for som e tim e. In O ctober 1946 allegations surfaced o f substantial illegal arms sales by Army officers to the Arabs. W hen enquiries were made the two officers named were on the staff o f the local MI5 chief, the Defence Security Officer. N o action was taken as they were both mysteriously ‘on leave’ and their return date was unknow n.19 O n e o f the least enviable tasks for British intelligence was attem pting to prevent illegal immigrants passing from Europe to Palestine. They were thought to be swelling the num bers o f a population that British forces were already failing to control and providing the guerrillas with further experienced fighters. Yet many o f these illegal immigrants were refugees w ho had endured the full weight o f H ider’s assault on the Jews in E urope and were hoping to find sanctuary in a new Jewish state. T urning their ships back was a sorry task, but one increasingly dem anded by the British administration in Jerusalem, buckling under the burden o f the insurgency being fought on the ground. T he main thrust o f the intel­ ligence effort against the illegal refugees was provided by sigint together w ith RAF aerial photo-reconnaissance aircraft. N o fewer than four reconnaissance squadrons were moved to Palestine during the campaign. In 1946 this led to the intercepdon o f seventeen ships by the Royal Navy, which turned them back to their ports o f origin. T he Irgun retaliated with attacks on RAF bases in Palestine. Even when the ships were inter­ cepted the situation was not ideal. Some o f them could not make it back to their point o f departure, and the refugees were then held in unpleasant camps on Cyprus prom pting headlines in New York.20 Attlee was forem ost in dem anding action to stop illegal immigration into Palestine, ideally at source. O n 31 March 1947, H ector McNeil, Minister o f State at the Foreign Office, explained to him that there had been a special meeting to discuss ‘ways and m eans’ o f stopping the immi­ gration traffic. MI5, SIS, New Scotland Yard, the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office and the Admiralty got together to develop a joint strategy.

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McNeil said that they had identified the How o f immigrants from the south o f France as a ‘running sore* and they had decided to make this location ‘the forefront o f our attack’. Measures were to be taken in co­ operation with the French and liaison was to ‘be carried o u t by the repre­ sentatives o f M.I.6 [SIS] in Paris’. Attlee was in the m ood for action. He wanted the ‘utm ost pressure’ p ut o n the Italians, Greeks and French to stop the departure o f ships car­ rying the immigrants. But he also recognised that mere ‘general protests’ to these governm ent were likely to be ineffective. ‘It is essential that we should take all possible steps to stop this traffic at source,’ he insisted. He urged officials to ‘think out what practical measures m ight be taken in each country to prevent the departure o f illegal imm igrants’. London, he w ent on, ‘should send experts from this country’ to assist in devising ‘enforcing measures’. By 30 July, British representatives on the spot in Marseilles were trying to induce the French ‘to co-operate in som e use o f force’ against the would-be transportées.21 Although the language was vague, pressure from the top for direct action was intense. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that these exhor­ tations from Attlee to ‘take all possible steps’ — only declassified in 1999 - sit congruendy with accounts from several sources that direct acdon was authorised. Form er SO E officers were employed by SIS to attach lim pet mines to some o f the ships leaving Europe for Israel. T he scheme was reportedly devised by Colonel Harold Perkins and imple­ m ented by Frederick Vanden Heuvel, w ho had been the long-serving SIS head o f stadon in Berne. SIS had already felt the heat o f the Palesdne struggle. It suffered its only post-war active service casualty in Tel Aviv when the underground assassinated Major D esm ond D oran - the form er head o f stadon in B ucharest—on his balcony with a hand grenade on 9 Septem ber 1946. T he chance to respond was doubdess welcomed.22 Yet against the background o f demobilisation and the U K economic crisis o f 1947 and an accelerating Cold War in E urope in 1948, the Atdee governm ent could not take the strain. Faced with a choice o f increasing troop levels to impose martial law, which would create a furore in the US and at the UN, o r withdrawal, it chose the latter. All military personnel were to be gone by May 1948. T he Irgun seized its opportunity and carried out a series o f massacres against Arab villages in their departing wake. Even as the British retreated from Palestine, MI5 was looking for ulterior explanations for events there. In Septem ber 1948, at a meeting at the Colonial Office, MI5 officers offered their views on ‘relations between the Stern G ang and M oscow’. They stressed that M oscow was willing to support the Stern G ang and, ‘although not necessarily com m u­ nist at heart’, they would ‘gladly accept this support’. But the evidence

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for such explanations was lacking and they had to concede that there was ‘little concrete evidence to show that the Stern G ang received actual material assistance from Russia’. They fell back on vague statem ents ab o u t the G ang’s propaganda following the com m unist line on the subject o f Anglo-American imperialism.23 American pressure for withdrawal from Palestine had pushed AngloAm erican relations to breaking point. W ashington refused to act against new spaper advertisements collecting funds to support terrorist groups w orking against the British. However, the FBI was effective against arm strafificking. In January 1948 it seized 56 tonnes o f explosives en route to Tel Aviv. T hree m onths later two m en were arrested in N ew York for attem pting to supply som e 600 weapons to the Irgun.24 Meanwhile in E urope the CIA was also aware o f illegal air-traffic in arm s moving betw een Prague and custom ers in Palestine using American crews and American C-54s. They would land in Prague and in one instance the pro­ tests o f air-traffic controllers were overruled by the ‘senior secret police officer w ho stated that the flight was a governm ent operation’. Some thirty-five heavy crates were loaded on board.25 T he ordeal suffered by British forces on the ground in Palestine ended on 30 June 1948. T he UN decreed that Palestine should be partitioned, resulting in the creation o f the State o f Israel. A team o f UN observers and mediators - UNSCOB —was now responsible for preserving the set­ tlement. But tensions with the Israelis remained high, for L ondon had treaty obligations to defend both Egypt and Transjordan. As a result the RAF m ounted heavy photo-reconnaissance against Israel throughout this period. In May 1948, a m onth before the formal birth o f the State o f Israel, clandestine high-level overflights were ordered by the RAF C om m ander in the region w ithout reference to London. This reflected rum ours about the developm ent o f an embryonic Israeli Air Force. T he RAF m ounted ‘P.R. cover every 48 hours Tel Aviv— Jaffa area and Jewish held airfields’. These flights continued into D ecem ber with the results being passed to the Foreign Office and to the UN Mediator, ‘both o f whom were glad to have them ’. John Slessor, the Chief o f the Air Staff, was aware that they were in progress but no Minister was notified. But in the week before Christmas these flights came to the attention o f A. V. Alexander, the M inister o f Defence. He was surprised that ‘Ministerial authority was never obtained for these flights’ and took the m atter up with Attlee. Alexander nevertheless argued that they should continue because o f Plan Barter, the British secret military scheme to defend Transjordan against attack by Israel. If Britain had to defend Transjordan without these flights it would be forced to ‘go into action blindfold’. ‘It seems to me that if we refrained from sending our recon­ naissance afrcraft over this area in the circumstances we should get no

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thanks from anyone and merely deprive ourselves o f im portant intelli­ gence which may, in certain eventualities, be vital to US . . . It is my view that we should accept what risk there may be.’ Clement Atdee agreed. H e accepted their advice, but added two im portant warnings. He felt it was ‘quite w rong to expose unarm ed aircraft to the risk o f attack’ and w anted fighter escorts for all types o f reconnaissance work. H e also w anted governm ent Ministers to stop calling these sorts o f activities ‘training flights* when they referred to them in the House o f Commons. Clearly, this was a deliberately misleading practice and the real purpose o f such flights was ‘obvious*.26 Alexander responded that arm ed escorts were n o t always provided. T he high-altitude reconnaissance work was being done by M osquito air­ craft ‘which rely on speed and altitude to avoid detection’ and to provide escorts would slow them down and attract ‘undesirable attention*. H e suggested that these high-level flights by Mosquitoes over Israel should continue, but he pointed out that low-level tactical reconnaissance was also ‘now taking place over the Egyptian frontier’ to m ap detailed dispo­ sition o f Israeli land forces and this was done by appropriate fighter air­ craft, which could defend themselves. Alexander, Bevin and the Secretary o f State for Air, A rthur H enderson, discussed these low-level flights again and agreed they ‘should continue until further notice’.27 RAF photo-reconnaissance squadrons based in Egypt —also a trou­ bled location —were being used mosdy to conduct detailed reconnais­ sance o f the border between Israel and Egypt, which was the focus for a growing num ber o f incidents. T he photographic ‘take’ was m ade avail­ able to multiple customers: the US State D epartm ent and also to the UN in New York, as well as to L ondon and to the British Com manders in the Middle East. It was valued by many, but Atdee was nevertheless right to identify this work as hazardous. Disaster followed only a week after Atdee’s exhortations. O n 7 January 1949, four RAF Spitfires o f 208 Squadron were sent out to reconnoitre and photograph an incursion o f som e twenty miles into Egypt by an Israeli force. Two Spitfires con­ ducted the low-level tactical photography while the others flew above providing a defensive ‘cap’. O ne spitfire was immediately hit by ground fire. His fellow pilots ‘saw him climb up steeply and bale out from his air­ craft which was on fire’. Meanwhile the remaining three RAF Spitfires were attacked by Spitfires o f the Israeli Air Force, which employed the same camouflage colours and the same distinctive red propeller bosses. They dived on the RAF Spitfires from higher altitude and all were shot down. O f the four pilots on this mission, one was killed, two were cap­ tured by the Israelis and one managed to return to E g y p t A t the same time a M osquito had been carrying out a high-level photo-reconnaissance o f the same area, but was escorted by four

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T em pest fighters, as Attlee had suggested. This passed off w ithout inci­ dent. But later that day a force o f thirteen RAF aircraft, searching for the m issing Spitfires, was attacked by the Israelis and another RAF aircraft a Tem pest —was lost and the pilot killed. T hree other Tem pests were hit an d damaged in the engagement, but managed to return to base.28 This engagement - resulting from intelligence overflights - remains Britain’s greatest loss o f operational aircraft on a single day since 1945. Unlike the Americans, w ho lost many reconnaissance aircraft desteoyed around the periphery o f the Soviet Union, Britain felt the heat in an endof-Em pire conflict. Indeed the overflights took place because o f fears o f an impending war between Israeli and Transjordan in which Britain and the United States m ight find themselves supporting opposite sides. This is instructive in term s o f the direction o f Britain’s post-war intelligence effort as a whole. Em pire issues were looming larger by 1948 as trouble flared not only in the Middle East but also in Asia.

PART III

The C o ld W ar T urns H o t

1950-1956

13 The Korean W ar A war against China, however started, with the express purpose o f getting the Communists out o f the saddle, and thus compressing the Soviet orbit, is what Mr Dulles and Co. appear to be advocating... Foreign Office comments on PUSD ‘Sore Spots’ review, 22 February 1952'

he Korean War erupted early on the m orning o f Sunday, 25 June 1950 with the surprise invasion o f South Korea by N orth Korea. Like the detonation o f the first Soviet atomic bom b alm ost a year before, it took the West completely by surprise. But the deeper resonance came n o t from the m enacing events o f August 1949 but from an earlier sur­ prise attack. It recalled another bitter Sunday m orning alm ost a decade earlier - the attack on Pearl Harbor. Because there was no warning in 1950 the substantial sums disbursed on secret service did not seem to be paying dividends and, as with Pearl Harbor, Congress wanted to know why. Initially the finger o f blame was pointed squarely at the CIA. This reflected its designated centralising and co-ordinating role. It also reflected deliberate scapegoating during off-the-record briefings by senior figures such as the Secretary o f State, D ean Acheson. Surprise attack does n o t always m ean intelligence failure and in the Korean case the small CIA station established in Seoul in 1949 had managed to insert several dozen agents into N o rth Korea during the pre-existing semi-civil war. A few agents had survived and returned across the 38th parallel which divided N o rth from South Korea to report on increased troop m ovem ents and arm oured build-ups. This had not led to a direct predic­ tion o f the invasion. But it had allowed the CIA to circulate warnings on 20 June about the N orth Korean mobilisation to m em bers o f President Trum an’s Cabinet, including Acheson. Admiral Hillenkoetter, D irector o f the CIA, knew all about the Sundaym orning surprise attacks. H e had been literally blown out o f the water while serving on the battleship uss West Virginia at Pearl H arbor in D ecem ber 1941. He now headed for Capitol Hill with ‘a stack o f

T

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docum ents’ and *a good story to tell’. W ith Trum an’s approval, he was extremely direct in providing Congress with evidence o f the prior cừcuỉation o f these documents. He was eventually able to convince Congress that the CIA had perform ed adequately, if not with distinction, in Korea. T h at one Senator initially accused Hillenkoetter o f fotging the receipt slips for som e o f these docum ents testifies to the ‘h o t’ political climate in which intelligence chiefs operated and the constant danger o f being selected as a scapegoat in any crisis.2 T he recriminations o f the sum m er o f 1950 obscured the real reasons for intelligence failure. First, although American intelligence had begun to be revived in 1947 following a period o f post-war retrenchm ent, this revival was largely focused on the Marshall Plan and the Berlin blockade, while Asia remained starved o f intelligence resources. Secondly, the CIA was in fact the m inor player in Asia, battling to re-establish itself after its ejection from its base in mainland China in 1949, but regarded as an alien presence by the immensely jealous and proprietorial General MacArthur, Supreme Com m ander Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan. Thirdly, intelli­ gence resources were fragmented and lacked co-ordination. T here had been other intelligence failures in 1950. In early that year, at Trum an’s request, the CIA had sent out Jay Vanderpool to resolve a dispute between the British and M acA rthur’s H Q over estimates o f the size o f the N orth Korean forces. British intelligence claimed that there were only 36,000 troops, while Mac A rthur’s intelligence claimed 136,000. Vanderpool endorsed the British, but M acA rthur was much nearer the true figure.3 Later, on 6 O ctober, the Chinese Com m unist Party’s Politburo held an emergency session and decided to despatch Volun­ teers’ to Korea. This was a subtle strategy which involved the introduc­ tion o f regular Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) units wearing their norm al uniform s, while preserving the fiction that the war was limited to Korea. But, as late as the 12 O ctober, Trum an and Acheson were strongly influenced in their thinking by CIA suggestions that Beijing’s threats to intervene were a bluff and that ‘there are no convinc­ ing indications o f an actual Chinese Com m unist intention to resort to full scale intervention in K orea’. T he British JIC in London fared no better in forecasting these matters.4 All this reflected the fact that the very limited resources in Asia had been largely directed at the Soviets. Little intelligence effort had been directed at China, and effectively none at N o rth Korea. In the late 1940s a degree o f confusion and fragmentation had pre­ vailed in the American post-war intelligence community. Signals intelli­ gence was not centralised, the CIA was still trying to gain control o f covert operations from its semi-detached sister organisation O PC, and meanwhile psychological warfare was developing in half a dozen unre­

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lated locations. M ost importantly, the three arm ed services remained the m o st energetic players in all these fields, ensuring that m ost acdvities were duplicated o r worse. T he bitter experience o f the Korean War would eventually enforce a degree o f rationalisation. In Asia the CIA, and its partner O PC, laboured under special handi­ caps. Working closely with G eorge Kerman’s Policy Planning StaíT, O PC had focused its efforts on Europe and the M editerranean, resisting com ­ m unist encroachm ent in countries like Italy and France under the aus­ pices o f the Marshall Plan, and then embracing ideas o f liberation current in L ondon and W ashington in 1949. With the exception o f E d Lansdale’s successful campaign in the Philippines, O PC had made litde impression in Asia. Real obstacles confronted it on that continent. T he CIA's prede­ cessor, OSS, had established itself widely in Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist China by 1945, to the dismay o f Chiang’s own xenophobic security service. But these OSS stations, which soon became the first CIA stations in Asia, were gradually squeezed as Chinese Nationalist for­ tunes declined in the ensuing civil war with the communists. T he first m ajor CIA station in Asia was codenam ed Econom ic Survey D etachm ent 44. Com m anded by Colonel Amos Moscrip, it was co­ located with the US Army’s military headquarters at Shanghai, and was eventually eịected in O ctober 1948. Its satellite stations, like the one run by Major Jo h n K. Singlaub at M ukden, eventually fled under fire, and only narrowly avoided capture. But the main CIA problem in Asia was its narrow focus on the Soviets. O n 11 D ecem ber 1947, the improbably named Lloyd George, w ho superintended the CIA’s Far Eastern Division, explained the hierar­ chy o f targets for ESD 44. ‘M r G eorge said that ESD had two funda­ mental directives, (1) to observe and report on Soviet activities in China and (2) to follow closely Soviet penetration in northern Korea, and one secondary objective, to observe Chinese Com m unist activities.’ In other words Chinese and N orth Korean activities were o f litde interest in themselves.5 As China fell, it would have been natural for the CIA and O P C to fall back upon American-occupied Japan. But Japan was a feudal kingdom dom inated by General MacArthur, SCAP. Here M acA rthur enjoyed a fearsome reputation for intolerance towards entities that he did not control. D uring the Second World War he had frequendy boasted that he had n o t allowed William D onovan’s OSS to enter his theatre. He was no less ‘jealous’ o f the CIA, which he ‘despised’. During the unhappy period o f transition o f OSS to CIA, their China stations had been supported by the US Navy Seventh Fleet, rather than the Army, adding an additional layer o f revulsion for the partisan MacArthur. T he General allowed no m ore than a handful o f CIA to enter Japan. Meanwhile:

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MacArthur informed Truman that FECOM’s [Far Eastern Command’s] own organic intelligence organisation under his ưusted aide, Major General Charles Willoughby, was more than sufficient to meet American requirements. He con­ sidered the Agency’s officers rank amateurs in Asia and let it be known that he and Willoughby combined decades of Far Eastern experience. Any political or military intelligence President Truman might need, they could supply. M acA rthur’s ability to ưuncate the d e a r global rem it o f Hillenkoetter's CIA, and Trum an’s tolerance o f his extraordinary arrogance, bore testi­ m ony to the form idable unseen political power o f wartim e com bat leaders w ho were associated in the public m ind with victory over the Axis. Even premiers were political pygmies alongside these wartime giants. M acA rthur would n o t perm it any substantial CIA presence in Japan. U nbeknow n to him, however, the CIA opened an undeclared network o f clandestine safe houses in Japan by sending officers like Tom M cAnn to Tokyo ‘on leave’. But the majority o f experienced CIA person­ nel evacuated in late 1948 were dispersed from China.6 Yet M acA rthur’s own intelligence system was n o t up to the job. H e him self was weak o n intelligence and his subordinate, the aristocratic Prussian Willoughby, sarcastically known as ‘Sir Charles’, was worse. Willoughby was valued by M acA rthur for his extreme loyalty, even syco­ phancy, while his other deficiencies were overlooked. But they were widely known. Even in 1945, British intelligence chiefs had expressed w onderm ent at his curious attitudes, in particular his com plete lack o f interest in all but tactical intelligence and his active disregard for anything happening outside his own immediate vicinity. T he same phenom enon occurred in 1950, with Korea being regarded by Willoughby as barely on the fringe o f his responsibilities. Willoughby’s attendons were directed elsewhere. Dangerously rightwing and an open adm irer o f Franco, he was obsessed with the problem o f dom estic com m unist subversion. This was reflected in the intelligence arrangem ents at the Dai-Ichi Building in Tokyo. Willoughby lavished attention on the G -2 Intelligence Staff o f SCAP which worked on counter-intelligence and dom estic security in Japan. By contrast the G -2 Intelligence Staff o f FEC O M , which had a foreign intelligence role throughout the region, was a Cinderella service, suffering further cut­ backs even as the Korean War broke o u t in 1950. M acA rthur had once described Willoughby as ‘my lovable fascist’. This was o n target, for Willoughby saw com m unist and Jewish conspiracies everywhere, even in W ashington and in the ranks o f the SCAP adm inistration itself.7 Willoughby’s obsession with com m unist subversion was the source o f the distorted situation in Japan. Everything was focused on dom estic security, and foreign intelligence languished. T he US Army CỈC and SC AP G -2 served as apologists for dubious pre-war police figures w hom

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they regarded as ‘effective’. They faced down objections from Americans in the civil sections w ho were anxious to carry forward the project o f dém ocratisation and w ho considered the police guilty o f ‘outrageous vio­ lations’ o f fundamental hum an lights. Colonel H. E. Pulliam, head o f the G -2 Civil Intelligence Section, offered an uncom prom ising response: ‘Genghis Khan, Cesare Borgia and Charles V had each relied upon a cen­ tralized police, Japan should do likewise.’ Anti-com munism was the key criterion and, he insisted, ‘mawkish sentimentality over the individual rights o f m an' could not sit easily alongside practical considerations in a world o f external conflict.8 M ost intelligence coming to FEC O M from the Asian mainland was historical or ‘dead’ intelligence, obtained from form er prisoners, desert­ ers o r refugees. This inform ation was often very detailed but it was also o u t o f date. T he main sources were Japanese POW s returning from Soviet captivity to Japan, or Chinese refugees fleeing to areas like H ong Kong. Increasingly sophisticated efforts were made to screen this vast hum an detritus for inform ation. M acArthur’s FEC O M organisation also hosted a small unit for running hum an spies called Joint special O perations Branch, as did the US Air Force. But, like the program m es for processing refugees, their main focus was on Soviet military activity, n o t on events in China or Korea.9 Although Willoughby was not doing much intelligence-gathering outside Japan, he fought others w ho might. Quite simply, he saw the CIA issue as a continuation o f his old feud with William D onovan’s OSS. Privately, in a letter to General A1 Wedemeyer, a fellow veteran o f the war against Japan, he let rip with his old prejudices. CLA officers were either ‘complete newcomers . . . working under various thin covers’ w ho had 'n o t been in the business long enough’, o r worse, they were ‘left-overs from OSS’. OSS, he insisted ‘is obviously the intellectual parent o f CIA'. H e continued, T h e y are o u t here in our area. I have given them moral support and urge co-operative joint operations; we are o f course years ahead o f the game. I did not need OSS during the War and expect to operate without the CIA. They have nothing to offer in the past o r at this time.' A t once dismissive but also fearful, Willoughby warned Wedemeyer that the CIA was making ‘preposterous claims’ about a superior capacity, adding that his Army Intelligence was now being ‘sm eared’ by the newcomers.10 Willoughby battled with all those w ho might rival Army dom inance o f intelligence in Japan. General Charles Cabell, the US Air Force D irector o f Intelligence, described M acArthur’s intelligence set-up as a 'closed corporation’, unhealthily obsessed with internal subversion and with little time for the international scene outside Japan. Willoughby had declared him self ‘too busy’ even to m eet with Cabell when he came out

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to inspect USAF intelligence elements in the Far E a s t ‘Instead he sent a bottle o f whisky to my hotel ro o m / Cabell was finally able to force a meeting only because Willoughby's perm anent quarters proved to be in the same hotel. Willoughby finally showed up in a bathrobe to a short and unproductive meeting. This did n o t augur well for W estern intelli­ gence on the brink o f a m ajor war.11 Britain was an alm ost invisible partner alongside the towering pres­ ence o f M acA rthur and the SCAP organisation. T here had been bitter argum ents about the intelligence dividend from captured Japanese atomic materials in the SCAP area, and so relations with the small British intelligence com ponent in Tokyo were already awkward. M acA rthur’s intelligence staff in Tokyo only liaised with the British ‘unofficially’. Britain enjoyed very little independent capability, and its intelligence spe­ cialists conceded that without inform ation from M acA rthur they would ‘know little m ore than appears in the Press’. This was exacerbated by the wider problem o f Anglo-American antagonism over the British recogni­ tion o f com m unist China in 1949, which reflected London’s policy o f recognising whoever was de facto in power. W ashington tied its flag instead to the m ast o f Chiang Kai-shek’s beleaguered Nationalist regime in Taiwan (Form osa).12 T he surprise invasion o f 1950 wiped out Britain's very limited intelli­ gence capacity in Korea itself. This took the form o f a newly opened SIS station in Seoul run by a middle-ranking SIS officer called George Blake. In 1948 he was withdrawn from G erm any and retrained to reinforce SIS operations from China into the Soviet Union. W ith China now in turm oil, SIS instead sent him to Seoul to open the first SIS station in Korea, based at the British Embassy. But Blake’s main target was still the Soviet Union, not E ast Asia. Although they were investigating the increased troop m ovem ents in June 1950, Blake and his colleagues were also taken by surprise. More importantly, because L ondon and W ashington were not yet com m itted to the war, much o f the W estern diplomatic corps decided to remain in Seoul as neutrals, and became cap­ tives o f the N o rth Korean troops. Accordingly, the new SIS station was overrun within days. Its staff occupied themselves with burning theứ codes and ciphers in a quiet corner o f the Embassy garden, hoping not to attract the attention o f N o rth Korean troops.13 Soon G eorge Blake and his com patriots from the British Embassy were all captives in the N orth. A t the outset Anglo-American intelligence co-operation was bad. O n 11 July 1950 the D irectors o f Intelligence in L ondon told the Chiefs o f Staff that their opposite num bers in W ashington considered that Korea and Form osa were ‘not covered’ by agreements on intelligence exchange ‘in view o f the political difference between US over China’. As a result ‘no

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intelligence had been received from the Americans on either o f these countries’.14 D enied much in the way o f their own sources at the operational level in Korea, L ondon continued to doubt American intelligence when it becam e available. In April 1951, exacdy a year after it had been proved w rong about N orth Korean teoop numbers, British Military Intelligence was still refusing to accept American estimates, arguing that they were infected with ‘M acArthuritis’. T he fact that American Military Intelligence from W ashington was ‘based alm ost entirely on Far E astern C om m and and there is no independent check’ rendered it highly suspect Meanwhile W ashington was withholding from L ondon its top intelli­ gence on the Chinese order o f batde, derived from signals intelligence. L ondon had repeatedly asked for it but General O m ar Bradley, Chair o f the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff, had confessed to his colleagues in April 1951 th at 'this scares US on security grounds’. Exacdy what Bradley had in m ind is n ot clear. But D onald Maclean, the Soviet agent w ho had been in the Bridsh Embassy in W ashington and was now head o f the Foreign Office N orth American D epartm ent in London, was under M I5 surveil­ lance from March 1951 and slipped through the dghtening net to freedom on 25 May that year. Bradley was clearly vindicated in restricdng sigint at this time.15 However, sigint material was especially thin because the Soviets had trained the N orth Koreans well and material o f value was usually sent by the safe hand o f an officer. Moreover, comm unications between the N o rth Korean capital, P ’Yongyang, and M oscow were routed through the Soviet Embassy in P’Yongyang and made use o f one-rime pads. This effectively shut off high-level dividends from sigint. W hen the Chinese entered the war they did the same. T he situation was made worse by the extensive use o f land-lines and undersea cables, which prevented radio interception.16 W hatever the quantity o f signals traffic available before the outbreak o f the Korean War, the British and the Americans were no t well disposed to intercept it. American signals intelligence had been in a state o f disarray since the end o f the Second World War, split between the feuding arm ed services —a state o f affairs made worse by the creation o f a weak A rm ed Forces Security Agency. T he largest American sigint operation in the region was the Army Security Agency, with its headquarters at the Tokyo First Arsenal, an eighteen-acre facility seven miles outside Tokyo, but this boasted only forty-seven officers and about 200 staff. Across the region it disposed o f only four listening stations, which operated a nine-to-five day as a result o f personnel shortages. Moreover, morale was low and the nature o f sigint-collection during peacetime intrinsically tedious. T he conscripts that constituted the rank and file o f these sigint units had a high turnover.

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They were short o f the necessary skills but long o n disciplinary prob­ lems, alcoholism and ram pant venereal disease.17 Prior to the sum m er o f 1950 the limited American sigint facilities in Asia were m osdy targeted on the Soviet military, with som e residual Chinese coverage. Sigint was alm ost the only form o f intelligence-gathering n o t subject to M acA rthur’s cram ping orders. But its perform ance was still ham pered by the fact that M acA rthur and his staif were poor consum ers o f the material. Few o f his officers had the security clearance to see sigint and still fewer knew how to use it, employing it exclusively to build up a picture o f the enemy order o f battle.18 W hat o f intelligence on the ground in Korea before June 1950? All American ưoops, w ho had been present since the end o f the Second World War, had been withdrawn from Korea by 1 July 1949 and defence had becom e the responsibility o f the governm ent o f South Korea (ROK). (In 1950, the brief withdrawal o f the Soviets from the U N Security Council allowed the reinforcem ents to be designated a ƯN force, though they were mostly American.) Various remits had required M acArthur to maintain an intelligence watch on this area, but there was a justifiable sense that this was no longer a priority concern for him. All o f the three R O K service intelligence organisations were running agents in N o rth Korea, together with their secret service —the Higher Intelligence D epartm ent. Although the casualty rates were very high, taken together with prisoners captured during the ongoing guerrilla war between N o rth and South a detailed picture o f the N orth Korean military had been constructed by 1950. However, Seoul’s priorities were very similar to those o f MacArthur. Dom estic security and internal secret policing were very high on the agenda. Foreign intelligence was secondary and concentrated on order o f battle rather than attack warning. Although a great deal was passed to the Americans, in com m on with intelligence provided by Taiwan it was regarded as politically skewed and therefore untrustworthy. Moreover, experienced US military atta­ chés responsible for sifting and forwarding South Korean material were withdrawn immediately prior to the invasion, leaving intelligence liaison in the hands o f a small advisory group with only four intelligence officers.19 US signals intelligence activity had ceased in Korea with the departure o f American forces in 1949. As M atthew Aid has shown in his brilliant study, US sigint conceded in 1951 that ‘Prior to the attack there was vir­ tually no C O M IN T covering N o rth Korea; w hat litde N o rth Korea radio traffic was intercepted was not being analysed.’ In the sum m er o f 1950 it was gradually dawning o n intelligence managers that Korea was an emerging hotspot, but a slumbering bureaucracy had not yet issued direc­ tives for an expanded intelligence effort there. Even if this had been

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implemented it is unlikely that the invasion would have been detected by this o r o ther means. T he N orth Korean Army observed scrupulous radio silence, and much o f its traffic was sent by land-line. Soviet radio security advisers in Korea were fully aware o f the potendal o f techniques such as traffic analysis and direction finding, which allowed intelligence to be squeezed even from traffic that had not been broken.20 Successful sigint began to develop only in the latter part o f the war, when the front line became stable. Both Britain and the United States built up substantial operations to intercept tactical radio traffic. Special operations were launched in an attem pt to capture both radio equipm ent and ciphers and quite a lot o f this material was recovered. Elaborate precautions were taken for fear that W estern crypto centres m ight be overrun, and at forward outposts filing cabinets and safes were ostentatiously topped by therm ite grenades, ready to torch crypto material at short notice.21 O ne o f the m ost successful sigint coups during the Korean War was carried o ut by the CIA and was designed to disrupt cable networks. Having learned from Korean seamen that some sort o f cable stretched between the Shantung Peninsula in mainland China and Dairen in Manchuria, it was realised that this m ust be the marine telegraph cable carrying m uch o f the traffic between Chinese forces in Korea and Beiịing. T he Yellow Sea is generally quite shallow and a converted arm ed junk, normally employed on coastal raids, and com m anded by a form er Air Force m aster sergeant, was used to search for it: ‘Early one May m orning, his trailing grapples fetched up the thick, weedy cable. While barnacles popped from the cable to crunch beneath his boots on the swaying deck, the sergeant wielded a fire axe, whacking out a three foot length o f cable. He then ran to the wheelhouse, called for maximum speed, and hightailed it back across the Yellow Sea.’ T hose working on signals intelligence were delighted. T he Chinese were now forced to use an improvised radio teletype. For the duration o f the conflict and also during the protracted ceasefire negotiations, this provided a rich source o f intelligence.22 T he CIA’s fortunes were only marginally improved by the onset o f the Korean War. O n the one hand the war at last allowed it a real foothold in Japan and a rationale for expansion. O n the other hand, it was now expected to launch extensive operations from a very low base. Surprised by this new war, and forced to work in the shadow o f M acArthur and FEC O M , CIA operations chiefs searched for a radical approach to accel­ erate their operations in Asia. T heir answer was Hans Tofte, a D ane who had lived for many years in Manchuria and the United States and who had previously served with both OSS and British Security Co-ordination in W ashington during 1941-Ỉ. Tofte was placed in com m and and chatged with the overnight generation o f CIA activities - for which he

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made use o f US Air Force cover organisations. T he tiny CIA station was moved from a laughable tem porary location in a Tokyo hotel to a giant new complex at Atsugi Air Force Base, hiding there as 6006 A ừ Squadron. W ithin weeks o f his arrival it boasted over 1,000 personnel. H e was joined by a unit from the semi-detached O P C organisation, headed by G eorge Aurell, w ho would becom e CIA station chief in Bangkok in the 1960s. In the early stages they were largely dependent on Chinese Nationalist organisations for their intelligence.23 A ttem pts to conjure up large-scale secret service operations overnight are rarely successful. W hen they are undertaken in the face o f opposition from secure police states the result is bound to be grim. Life was alarm­ ingly short for the majority o f CIA hum an agents employed in the Korean War. T he m ain source o f personnel was the Korean Labor Organisation (KLO), a manual labour pool that consisted m osdy o f N o rth Korean students, deserters and refugees. T he CIA gradually took over the m anagem ent o f the KLO, while workaday administration was carried o u t by the refugees themselves. Discipline was extremely harsh and alarming rum ours circulated o f unauthorised trials o f suspected com m unist infiltrators w ho then disappeared. D espite draconian meas­ ures adopted to prevent com m unist infiltration o f training camps, the large volume o f hum an material consum ed by such operations made som e com m unist penetration inevitable.24 A t least 2,000 agents were inserted into N o rth Korea during the Korean War, but few survived. Agents were given the usual wartime O S S/SO E -type paramilitary training including parachuting, radio proce­ dure, escape and evasion, dem olition and use o f firearms. But such train­ ing was o f little avail in an environm ent as sterile as N o rth Korea. Even if they reached a locality where they could depend on friends and family, intense fear on the part o f the local population normally resulted in denunciation to the authorities. T he effectiveness o f T ofte’s operations remains hody contested. However, suspicions were raised when he pro­ vided W ashington with implausible ‘film footage* o f his agents conduct­ ing unopposed 'covert operations* in broad daylight in decidedly unKorean-looking surroundings. A t the end o f the Korean War he was removed and disciplined for falsifying many o f the claims made by his organisation.25 O nce Seoul had been recaptured in late 1950, the main CIA station was located in the newly renovated Traymore Hotel, using the covername Joint Arm isdce Com mission, Korea (JACK). It also maintained a large operational base on the island o f C hodo on the west coast o f Korea. O perations were professionally superintended by Ben Vandervoort, a CIA officer w ho had been a colonel in the US 82nd A irborne Division. T he problem s were formidable. M ost com m itted anti-com m unists had

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retreated south w ith U N forces at the start o f the war, denuding the N o rth o f any potendal support networks for agents. Substantial num bers o f parachute drops and coastal insertions resulted in ‘a few successful small team s’ reporting on ư o o p movements, but hopes for a large-scale resistance network o f the sort achieved in wartime France never m ateri­ alised.26 T he CI A was required to ‘co-ordinate’ its operations with M acA rthur’s huge intelligence and special operations entity called Com bined C om m and for Reconnaissance Activities, Korea, o r CCRAK. T he Army background o f CIA figures such as V andervoort certainly helped and efforts were made to join up the various operations, notably by making V andervoort simultaneously deputy head o f CCRAK. But secret services rarely co-operate well on the ground unless separated geographically. T h e system under CCRAK offered the worst o f all possible worlds, for it created heavy com petition for everything from agents to parachutes to transport. Anxiety to protect sources led to absurd secrecy even within individual services. In May 1952 this confusion culminated in a US Air Force strike on a US Air Force Intelligence unit operating from a dis­ guised ịunk in the Yellow Sea. 'Every service was intent on running its ow n intelligence network,’ recalled one officer. T he biggest tu rf battles were fought in W ashington and Tokyo, but ‘the differences filtered down and the result was we all worked independently’.27 T he struggles between the CIA and M acA rthur in Korea had ignited wider issues between the CLA and the military. Should the arm ed services be allowed to conduct intelligence-gathering by use o f secret agents in parallel to the CIA? In O ctober 1952, negotiations on ‘the conditions, type and extent to which the Services may conduct espionage operations’ were ‘progressing’ bu t no agreem ent had been possible. In April 1953 this issue was still live, and the best com prom ise was to appoint military staff to head the CIA within FECO M . Similar argum ents over the rights and perm issions o f the CIA with regard to military operations were going on simultaneously in European headquarters at SH A PE, E U C O M an d NA TO .28 T he military flinched at deploying a m ajor asset —the large American 10th Special Forces G roup at Fort Bragg — until late in the war. Remarkably, senior American officers feared that units would be cap­ tured and subjected to com m unist 'brainwashing techniques’ which had claimed the headlines in the early 1950s. They envisaged entire American units being persuaded to fight for the communists, o r to indulge in das­ tardly acts o f sabotage o r assassination, to the vast propaganda advantage o f the East. Accordingly they were forbidden to serve behind the lines in K orea as organised units. Anxieties about com m unist success with brain­ washing in Korea led to a series o f scientific experiments in the same field in the United States which stretched on into the 1960s.29

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M acA rthur soon asked for British forces to join CCRAK in raids behind the N o rth Korean lines. L ondon looked on invitations for British participation in CCRAK as a mixed blessing and the issue was relayed to Attlee. Few details o f Britain’s part in this brutal undercover war have sur­ faced. In the early 1950s its small special operations capability resided m osdy in the SAS and the Royal Marines. M ore than two years into the Korean War, W hitehall’s Inter-Service Com m ittee o n Raiding O perations reported that this area was m oribund and that there had been no production o f new special operations equipm ent since Ỉ945.30 T he SAS was busy in Malaya, so in Korea the British CCRAK contribution consisted largely o f a Royal Navy Volunteer G roup and 41 Independent Com m ando, Royal Marines, an all-volunteer outfit o f ten officers and 240 o ther ranks. Com m anded by Lieutenant-Colonel Drysdale, they joined with 320 volunteers from the US Army and Navy and 300 South Koreans to form Special Activities G roup. They carried out sixty days o f intensive training at Cam p McGill o n Tokyo Bay and employed a submarine, uss Perch, converted for special operations. O nce the US Navy had fought off a hostile takeover-bid from the US Army, outdoor fighting could begin. In Septem ber 1950 these forces were used in diversionary raids launched at Kusan from the frigate HMS Whitesand Bay, as part o f a deception plan to cover the m aịor amphibious landings at Inchon. They then attem pted to capture the K im po airfield outside Seoul and were used to ‘destroy key enemy installations and personnel] in Seoul prior to the capture o f that city’.31 In O ctober they launched successful raids to destroy railway lines and tunnels in N o rth Korea before fighting theứ way back to the coast. B ut at the end o f the year, as the possibilities for raids diminished, 41 C om m ando reverted to m ore conventional operations. This was som e­ thing o f a relief for the British, w ho confessed that co-ordination betw een the many ‘funny parties’ had been a nightmare, while ‘clandes­ tine organisations continued to multiply and spread as a law unto them ­ selves’, raising the spectre o f serious friendly-fire incidents.32 W ashington also hoped for an SAS battalion for land-based special operations. T he SAS only had one operational squadron and a territorial unit. While they were en route to Korea, L ondon got cold feet about attaching them to CCRAK and diverted them to Malaya. By the second year o f the war there were no specifically British o r American special units operating behind the lines and the Koreans were left to bear the b ru n t o f this dangerous work. A few individual British ex-SO E and exSAS officers were given to CCRAK. Major Ellery A nderson, a form er SAS officer and veteran o f resistance operations in France, led a mixed British, American and Korean CCRAK unit conducting guerrilla-training operations. His controversial account o f the clandestine war in Korea presents itself as constrained ‘by loyalties which som etim es over-ride

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conscience', with much ‘left unsaid'. Nevertheless, the dangers and to r­ m ents o f CCRAK operations are starkly revealed.33 O ptim ism inform ed the first British-led efforts. A nderson and his col­ leagues were enthused by their wartime experiences in France, Yugoslavia and Albania. T he po o r road comm unications and m ountainous country o f Korea suggested immediate parallels with the Balkans. This prom pted CCRAK operations designed to cause long-term rail disruption, which m et with som e success. In 1951, A nderson led para-dropped teams to destroy N o rth Korean trains deep inside m ountain tunnels, rendering the wreckage alm ost impossibly difficult to clear. His contem poraneous plans to capture Russian staff officers advising the N o rth Korean forces were vetoed at a high level as too provocative. Sabotage operations m et with a m odicum o f success and teams inserted by air often reported at least one bridge destroyed before they went off the aứ.34 But later in 1951 there were failed attem pts to branch out from straightforward railway sabotage into the m ore complex business o f con­ structing perm anent resistance forces inside N o rth Korea. T he organisa­ tion m ade elementary mistakes, including making parachute supply drops by day, m atters that the N o rth Korean Security Police could hardly fail to notice. T heir distinctive green police uniform s with red piping were soon in evidence everywhere and the embryonic guerrilla groups were destroyed o r led away for interrogation. T he problem s o f surviving for any length o f time within a country with an active security police were underestimated. O ne experienced American officer recalled that the simple act o f moving from one village to another required different doc­ um ents, the nature o r colour o f which changed on an irregular basis. By the end o f the war, confronted with large num bers o f line-crossing agents, the N o rth Koreans devised an ingenious system o f small pinholes in documents. Only the security police would have the right key and would check travel docum ents by holding them up to the light: ‘I f the pinholes were n o t in the right configuration the individual carrying the docum ents was subject to arrest, torture and death.' ‘Radios were captured, stolen o r abandoned with their codes, and false inform ation was sent back.’ Both Army Intelligence operations and the CIA ran into 'frequent problem s with captured radios and false radio transmissions'. B ut wider problem s were encountered that probably dogged W estern operations in all rural areas o f com m unist countries: There was a certain ethnocentricity at work here... We generally assumed that any North Korean sent back to his homeland could quickly and easily fit back in, no matter what part of the country he was sent to. To US a North Korean was a North Korean was a North Korean. But such was not the case. If a stranger showed up in a village he was immediately suspected o f being either an infiltrator or a deserter and the local police were nodfied.

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It was the same story as E astern Europe, and N o rth Koreans were alert to the possibility o f agentsprovocateurs planted by the security police to test the loyalty o f the local population. This technique had been used m ost famously by the N K V D , which dropped ‘G erm an’ parachutists am ong suspect Soviet minorities such as the Volga G erm ans to test theừ loyalty in 1941. T hose w ho had welcomed them were led away and summarily shot.35 U ndeterred by initial reverses, and anxious to exploit the brief sum m er campaigning season, senior CCRAK officers ordered A nderson to develop a new and hasty program m e. In future British and American officers would rarely be allowed to venture behind enemy lines on air­ borne penetration missions. Large-scale shallow penetration o f the enemy front was to be attem pted using individual Korean para-dropped agents. Inserted fifty miles behind the lines and arm ed only with a pistol, they were expected to make their way back to their own lines, gathering military inform ation en route. Senior officers conceded that only about a third o f those inserted would return, but they expected ‘som e really good inform ation’. A nderson, w ho had direct experience o f N o rth Korea, was less sanguine. Scepticism turned to dismay when he learned that those selected for insertion were fresh recruits and would have seven days to prepare for theừ mission. It was clear that these agents were regarded as expendable in the extreme. W hen the ‘fifteen specially selected K oreans’ he had been prom ised arrived at Anderson’s facility for training, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Pathetic and m alnourished, they were mosdy shy rustic youths in their teens, som e as young as fifteen. A week was enough for them to m aster the use o f basic firearms, but they ‘had only the haziest idea o f the parachute drill’. Accompanying his ‘agents’ as far as their dropping zones triggered a sense o f black depression: Never before had I taken unprepared men into batde and now I was about to do something far worse. I was sending untrained men into the most frighten­ ing and lonely of batdes ... the cold night air rushed in through the open jump door. The tense queue o f men waited to jump. Red light, green light, and the first man stumbled out into the night, then the next, then the next. The fourth hesitated and was pushed by those behind, and so the procession of fear went on until the fuselage was empty but for m yself... For one wild moment I longed to jump after them and, like the ancient mariner, felt that I ‘had done a hellish thing'. In 1952 the emphasis changed again. Line-crossing had proved ineffective and there were attem pts to build up guerrilla groups on n o rth ­ ern coastal islands near the m outh o f the Yalu river. W ith CCRAK’s own Special Air Mission to conduct supply flights, pre-existing groups o f sep­ aratists, bandits and smugglers were built up. Descending towards one

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makeshift island runway Anderson was overcom e by a sense o f the out­ p o st’s fragility: ‘I felt it could be easily smashed and its litde garrison annihilated like a beede trodden underfoot.’ His words were propheric and many island guerrilla groups were soon eradicated by N o rth Korean security troops. Later he learned that one o f his British CCRAK col­ leagues» Lieutenant Leo Samuel Acton-Adams, had been captured after calling down artillery fire on his own com m and bunker as it was overrun. H e was later shot during his third escape attem pt, only two days before the armistice brought an effective end to com bat in Korea. Assessing the effectiveness o f guerrilla-type operations is proble­ matic. Guerrillas rarely hold ground and their im pact should be meas­ ured primarily in term s o f the logistical drain on enemy forces and the psychological impact on the population. Anderson observed that it was ‘impossible to judge the effect o f our very presence behind the lines’. I f battalions had been diverted to look for his parties, and if strategic installations across N o rth Korea had been m ore heavily guarded as a result o f raiding, then he could claim success. But the net effect, he con­ ceded, was unfathomable. Meanwhile the war as a whole he judged to be a tragedy.36 T he line-crossing operations have produced personal accounts which often contradict each other over details. But all sing with one voice about their unease at the nature o f such intelligence missions. Remarkably, American CCRAK officers recalled that for many agents ‘their first jump was on a com bat mission behind the enemy lines’. In early 1953 it was com m on to insert groups o f ten alm ost on a weekly basis and hear nothing from them at all. T h e se airdrops were virtual suicide missions for all involved.’ Yet the CCRAK picture reported to W ashington by its officers in Tokyo was unremittingly optimistic, claiming that in the first ten m onths o f 1952 CCRAK guerrillas accounted for 19,000 comm unists killed o r wounded. Agent operations had reached 1,400 and the hope was to hit 2,000 by March 1953. General Mark Clark, w ho succeeded M atthew Ridgway as the Com m ander o f U N forces in Korea, urged addi­ tional funding for CCRAK, adding that Eisenhower, the President-elect, was ‘very interested’ in extending this kind o f operation.37 But the deepest reservations about the secret war in Korea held by British and American personnel concerned not intelligence and special operations, b ut counter-intelligence and internal security. T he im prob­ ably named Ivor Pink, a British diplom at in Tokyo, warned L ondon about the severity o f the anti-com m unist witch-hunt that M acA rthur had allowed his intelligence chief to launch in Japan. T hose with liberal or Jewish associations, often seen as essentially the same thing, were rem oved from posts. T he US Army CIC was used to m ount extensive surveillance on journalists and trade union leaders, and wild conspiracy

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stories circulated. Perversely, M acA rthur’s ow n plans for the regeneration o f Japan contained strong socialist elements.38 Matters were far worse in Korea. W estern security co-operation with South Korea was handled by Colonel D onald Nichols o f the US 6004 Air Intelligence Service Squadron. Nichols was an eccentric figure and as late as 1945 he had been a sergeant superintending a m otor transport pool at an airbase in Guam . But by 1946 he had transferred to a US Army CIC unit in Korea and, having found his calling, was rising fast. By 1948 he was responsible for all Air Force security throughout Korea and also for training the counter-intelligence services o f the South Korean Premier, Syngman Rhee. Nichols developed a close relationship with Rhee and was watching many o f his political opponents, including the South Korean Labour Party. In a remarkably frank m em oừ he w rote o f the various unpleasant m ethods used by both American and South Korean personnel under his control. However, Nichols’ characteristic iron self-control had buckled during July 1950 in the chaotic first weeks o f the N orth Korean invasion. As South Korean security elements prepared to flee their facilities in Seoul at very short notice they were confronted with the problem o f w hat to do with 1,800 political prisoners in the vicinity, som e o f w hom were com ­ munists, som e Rhee’s rivals. Nichols remembered: I stood by helplessly, witnessing the entire affair. Two big bull-dozers worked constandy. One made a ditch-type grave. Trucks loaded with the condemned arrived. Their hands were already tied behind them. They were hastily pushed into line along the edge o f the newly opened grave. They were quickly shot in the head and pushed into the grave ... I tried to stop this from happening, however, I gave up when I saw I was wasting my time. Publicly, the affair was attributed to the invading N o rth Koreans. But pri­ vately even the hardened Nichols was troubled by 'terrible nightm ares’ in the decades that followed. Remaining in com m and o f the 6004 Air Intelligence Service Squadron after the Korean War, his principal mission continued to be support for Rhee’s security agencies. In 1957 certain 'irregularities’ resulted in him being relieved o f his com m and and taken back to the United States for investigation, b u t the nature o f these activities had long been known am ong those w ho served in Korea.39 Some senior officers found the harsh nature o f the South K orean security system convenient w hen dealing with infiltrators. D uring an operations conference at EUSA K (US Eighth Army in Korea) on 8 January 1951 the issue o f w hat to do with ‘Enem y in Civilian Clothing’ came up for discussion. This proved to be an annoying subject for there were many suspected N o rth Korean low-grade agents drifting around in front-line areas and the consensus was that 'We cannot execute them ,

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although they can be shot before they becom e prisoners/ Senior officers in the US Army IX Corps dismissed the problem as none too difficult, stating that in their com m and area *We just turn them over to the R O K ’s and they take care o f th em / T he ‘R O K s’ were the South Korean arm ed forces and the m anner in which they took care o f any enemy caught in civilian clothing was hardly a secret. T he existence o f agents working for either side was clearly nasty, brutish and short.40 T he unpleasant police state existing in South Korea quickly revealed itself to Bridsh personnel there. O n 29 O ctober 1950, w hen the Chinese entered the war and the com m unist forces swept south for a second time, there was further panic and another great spree o f executions as political enemies were massacred rather than evacuated from their camps. But this time there was a complicating factor. British officials and troops were often in the vicinity when this was happening. O n 15 D ecem ber British troops witnessed a particularly nasty massacre by Rhee’s security police. Alec Adams, a British diplom at in Seoul and later Bridsh Am bassador to Bangkok, gave London a graphic account o f the reaction o f British soldiers: As I understand it, considerable feeling was aroused among British troops both because o f the callous way in which the executions were carried out and because they mistook two of those shot for boys (they were in fact women wearing trousers). Fearing that there would be an incident if British troops were again subjected to the spectacle of mass executions in then vicinity, I rep­ resented to the United States Embassy yesterday the urgent need to dissuade the Korean authorities from running any risks. A nother mass execution occurred only two days later, but this time Allied troops were kept away. However, journalists had got wind o f w hat was going on and L ondon told Adams that the press were giving ‘a lot o f trouble’. Australian, American and British journalists all learned o f exe­ cutions o f groups o f up to sixty prisoners, often civilians thought to be guerrillas. James Cam eron o f the Picture / w reported on Rhee’s concen­ tration camps and described them as *worse than Belsen’, which he had also witnessed personally. But his story was never printed, causing a furore am ong the magazine staff.41 Only fringe-left papers such as the com m unist Daily Worker carried extensive stories about atrocities by the South Korean governm ent. Attlee’s Cabinet panicked and rummaged in the cupboard to try and find legislation that prevented publication o f such material. T he only insttum ent they could find was a charge o f ưeason which carried a m andatory death penalty, so the issue was allowed to lapse. Inform al pressure was applied to editors, and ỈR D was brought into play to contradict the massacre stories which L ondon knew to be correct.42 It is likely that G eorge Blake, the SIS officer in Korea

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captured when Seoul was overrun in the sum m er o f 1950 and suppos­ edly later turned by a Soviet interrogator in a N o rth Korean camp, found his existing disillusionment with the West gready reinforced by his expe­ riences in Korea during the period before his capture. An extended guer­ rilla war had been fought across the South since 1948, with Rhee clinging on to control in rural areas by fearsome police tactics. By day the police tortured suspects for inform ation and at night reưeated to their block­ houses. T here were few regimes less worthy o f W estern support and Blake would have been strange if this had n o t given him pause for thought.43 Intelligence improved in the course o f the conflict. Aerial reconnais­ sance quickly tilled som e o f the gaps left by other form s o f intelligence and was critical in inform ing the day-to-day operations and especially the punishing air bom bardm ent o f the N o rth Korean forces, but intelligence for ground forces was neglected. Anxious about the possibility o f Soviet intervention, American sigint facilities in the region had remained focused on Soviet targets for weeks beyond the initial invasion, while N o rth Korean targets were neglected. O nce the belated shift to Korean targets began, an impossible shortage o f Korean linguists was discovered and there followed extraordinary episodes in bribery as com peting units tried to secure som e o f the few com petent civilian hirelings available.44 Incredibly, even under pressure o f war, neither W ashington nor FEC O M in Japan was willing to surrender any sigint units to support General Walker’s EUSAK on the ground and m ost were in any case static rather than mobile units. General Willoughby gave explicit orders that any such transfer should be blocked. Walker was resourceful and created his own sigint unit from scratch, known as G roup M. Using a motley col­ lection o f South Korean Army and Air Force signals personnel together with US Air Force advisers, they learned the sigint trade on the job and made a vital contribution during the bitter fighting to defend the Pusan perim eter in late 1950. W hen a small com int detachm ent from outside the theatre finally arrived, EUSA K requisitioned its equipm ent for M, b u t sent the personnel packing. T he result was a furore.45 Bom bing paved the way for som e sigint success at the operational level and within a few m onths o f the outbreak o f war the N o rth Korean com m unications system was collapsing under the strain o f American bombing. Radios and electronic spare parts were in increasingly short supply. M ounting casualties also affected radio security discipline. As a result m ost N o rth Korean Peoples’ Army codes at the operational level were being solved within hours by South Koreans in EUSA K’s sigint team. EUSA K had several days’ vital warning o f the offensive against the Pusan perim eter at the end o f August 1950, together with detailed infor­ m ation about the plan o f attack. T he perim eter held by only the narrow-

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est o f margins and w ithout sigint the result would probably have been very different. In September, sigint offered General N ed Alm ond, com ­ m ander o f the Inchon landings, which outflanked the com m unist forces near Seoul, detailed inform ation o f w hat his opponents knew o f his amphibious attack. Nevertheless, sigint operations both in Korea and in the FE C O M area remained ad hoCy with only limited co-operation between the three American cryptanalytical services, which all Steove to ignore the new A rm ed Forces Security Agency. O n the ground South Korean operators and later Nationalist Chinese from Taiwan proved crit­ ical in the supply o f sigint. T heir final trium ph was highly effective work against the Chinese Air Force at the end o f the war, contributing substan­ tially to heavy com m unist losses. But W ashington still refused to update their equipm ent for fear o f com prom ising American sigint secrets.46 T he whole Korean War was characterised by a fog o f uncertainty on all sides. W estern signals intelligence and hum an espionage alike delivered thin pickings. For much o f the war PO W interrogation and air reconnais­ sance fed the planners at both operational and strategic levels. Moreover, W ashington did n o t trust its Asian collaborators in the field o f intelli­ gence, while L ondon was dubious o f material emanating from Washington. Equally, despite their well-placed agents, Chinese and Soviet appreciations o f W estern thinking were probably poor. Both M oscow and Beijing took a great deal o f time to come to the conclusion that there was little to be gained from pursuing the war. By the time they had reached this conclusion it had dragged on for m ore than four years. T he wider impact o f the Korean War cannot be overestimated. It sped up the militarisation o f the Cold War and extended it from a largely E uropean-M editerranean conflict to a global confrontation. More than any event prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis it threatened to turn the Cold War into a h ot war. Korea also accelerated an alarming divergence between Britain and W ashington which had been apparent since the sur­ prise testing o f the Soviet atomic bom b in August 1949. Lurking under this political divergence was a strategic Vulnerability gap’. Britain was now very vulnerable to Soviet atomic weapons, while the U nited States was likely to remain out o f range until the late 1950s. T he Korean War ensured that this problem could not be ignored. Moreover, it brought with it a heightened profile for the China Lobby together with Mac A rthur abroad and McCarthyism at home. As late as 1948 L ondon had pressed W ashington to take a tougher line over the Cold War, but by 1950 it was applying the brakes. It now identified choices: to search for peaceful mutual coexistence o r to drive forward in the hope o f winning the Cold War. For Atdee, and for his successor Churchill, this was no choice at all and both were willing to accept Soviet gains in E astern E urope in return for a m ore stable version o f the Cold War.

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Days after the Korean War broke out the British Am bassador in M oscow held ‘certain conversations* with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet D eputy Foreign Minister, about how to ‘put a stop to present hostilities in Korea’. A deal seemed possible in which the Soviets m ight ‘put som e pressure on N o rth Korea to end hostilides’. T he Russians’ ‘price’ seem ed to be an American cancelladon o f the com m itm ent to defend Taiwan (Formosa) if attacked by the Chinese, an opdon that was also very attrac­ tive to Beiịing. Pierson Dixon from PU SD discussed this with the Chiefs o f Staff o n 12 July 1950. T here was a widespread view in Whitehall that American com m itm ent to Taiwan ‘m ight well lead to a world war’. This was doubly alarming given that the ‘latest intelligence appreciation was that the Chinese Com m unists m ight attack Form osa in the very near future - possibly by the 15th July’. If the attack came, the Chiefs o f Staff believed the Americans would hold Taiwan, but Britain would lose H ong Kong. M ore importantly, ‘there was a m ost serious risk we would provoke a world war’. They continued, *We were in no position to fight at the m om ent. If war broke out now, it was highly probable that both W estern E urope and the Middle East would be overrun. We m ust leave the Americans in no doubt as to o u r unpreparedness. . . Everything pos­ sible therefore should be done to get the Americans to agree not to use their forces for the defence o f Form osa in the event o f a Com m unist attack.’ For the time being L ondon was at pains to avoid revealing to W ashington just how far apart their positions were. But it soon became clear. T he gap continued to widen.47 In July 1950 W hitehall was beginning to peer into the nuclear abyss. Convinced that total war m ight be only days away, the British Chiefs o f Staff now began to consider the practical issues o f w hat would actually happen at ‘H H our’. They had to face the fact that the systems for com m and and control o f American nuclear forces in Britain, and the mechanism for joint decision, were shaky. Given that Britain was ‘the main base for the offensive’, this was worrying. T he Chiefs o f Staff asked Tedder, w ho was now head o f the British Joint Services Mission in W ashington, to start to firm up a very flabby system for joint consulta­ tion. O n 28 July, Tedder received a message from L ondon that is so revealing about the developing British predicam ent vis-à-vis the United States that it is w orth reproducing at length: Stricdy private for Lord Tedder from Chiefs o f Staff. 1. You are o f course aware of the existence o f an American plan in the event of a major war to initiate immediately an atomic attack on Russia from bases in this country: you also know that a substantial US. bomber force is already in this country. 2. We emphasised in our defence policy review the importance of the Allies being prepared to use, and if necessary initiate the use of, the atomic bomb in

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the event o f Russian aggression. And this policy has general acceptance here. On the other hand it has always been stressed here that the decision as to the initiation of such an offensive must be taken by Governments if and when the time comes. 3. While accepting that this decision may not be possible in advance, we feel it to be of the utmost importance that the policy and all its implications should be clearly thought out and understood in advance by all concerned, not least by Ministers who will have to take the decision. At the moment this is a very loose end which we feel must be tied up now firmly and formally. 4. The fact is that all we, the Chiefs of Staff, know about this plan is (a) that it exists, (b) certain broad details which our planners were able to glean during their last visit to America last year and (c) that there may be considerable difference of opinion about it not only between Strategic Air Command and the Air Staff in the Pentagon but also, judging from certain discussions at Horatius [a recent conference], between the airmen and the soldiers in America in reladon to the employment o f Strategic Air Forces in the defence of Western Europe. 5. This is clearly no longer an acceptable position. We cannot possibly afford to risk misunderstandings and last moment diveigences o f policy on a matter of such vital importance to US all. At present it is not unduly fanciful to imagine a situation in which Vandenburg [chief o f the USAF] or LeMay [chief of Strategic Air Command] sends Johnson [the USAF Commander in Britain] an order to initiate the offensive while we have to resist any action pending con­ sideration by the Prime Minister and Government to Government discussions. Although they respected General Leon Johnson, the senior USAF C om m ander in Britain, the Chiefs o f Staff felt the ‘problem s are getting too big for him ’. He was a first-class operational com m ander but had no real awareness o f wider policy issues. They were made m ore nervous by the fact that he ‘appears to be the m outh piece o f General LeMay’, whose default setting was certainly n o t restraint o r lengthy deliberation before action.48 These tensions boiled over repeatedly during the Korean War. L ondon increasingly feared that many in W ashington actively wanted a wider war, with China if not with the Soviet Union, in which Britain would be in the front line. In N ovem ber 1952, the Foreign Secretary Anthony E den and his Minister o f State, Selwyn Lloyd, were in W ashington to discuss Korea. T he Indian delegation at the U N had recently p u t up a proposal for peace negotiations which the Americans had hated. T here followed a tw o-hour confrontation with D ean Acheson which E den described as ‘one o f the m ost disagreeable he has ever encountered’. Acheson had previously been at a cocktail reception and was in a m ood to give full vent to his feelings: ‘D ean assailed Selwyn Lloyd in a m anner that was only half-jocular, accusing him o f n o t having dealt honourably with the Americans.’ H e added that ‘if Britain could not

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make up her m ind that she was with the United States on this m atter it would be the end o f Anglo-American co-operation, there would be no m ore NATO, etcetera*. He then rounded on various Commonwealth leaders w ho were pressing for a peaceful solution to the Korean War, speaking o f the Indian leaders in ‘contem ptuous term s’ and deriding Mike Pearson, the Canadian Foreign Minister, as ‘an empty glass o f water*.49 This growing divide between L ondon and W ashington also extended to policy on the Soviet Union. T hroughout his second period o f office (1951-5) Churchill sought some kind o f deal on mutual coexistence with Moscow, b o th before and after Stalin’s death in 1953. T he Geneva Conference o f 1954, which W ashington had fought hard to avoid, was as close as L ondon got. Here E den and the Soviet Foreign Minister M olotov co-operated to drag a reluctant John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary o f State, towards a general settlem ent which was not o f his choosing. E den and Dulles had begun to articulate their differences very freely. Jo h n Talhoudin, a junior British diplom at in attendance, recalled one m em orable exchange: ‘E den and Dulles were waiting for the lift in the hotel at Geneva and it was evident that E den was annoyed with Dulles and I heard him say “T he trouble with you is that you want World War III”.’ Geneva was a trium ph for Eden, steering Korea towards armistice and Indochina towards a brief period o f quiescence. China was persuaded to accept an agreem ent despite moving towards victory in the Indochina conflict. But Dulles was furious at this search for a com pro­ mise and briefed the press against E den in its closing stages.50 Secret service w ent to the heart o f this loom ing crisis in AngloAmerican relations in a paradoxical way. O n the one hand, close intelli­ gence co-operation allowed L ondon its best window into American military planning and showed how close W ashington was to all-out war. O n the other hand, the developing activities o f American psychological warfare and covert action all around the perim eter o f the Soviet U nion and China, which were mostly carried out by the secret services, looked increasingly dangerous. In the early 1950s the British JIC concluded that one o f the m ost likely causes o f war would be a Western attem pt to detach one o f the Soviet satellite nations. All this raised the question o f how close intelligence co-operation should be handled in a decade when Britain m oved from containing the Soviet Union to containing the threat o f war m ore generally. Increasingly it began to dawn on officials in L ondon that containing the general threat o f war m eant in practice that they would be ‘containing America’.51 This was a task that extended right across Asia and beyond.

14 C old W ar F ighting in A s ia The U .K .... fears that we have a secret policy in the Far Hast —namely, to overthrow Peiping. Paul Nitze addressing the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff, 4 April 1951'

A lthough Britain steadily withdrew its visible military forces from Asia x \ a n d the Middle East after 1945, the hidden hand o f secret service remained in the region. Intelligence-collection in particular lent a new utility to the remnants o f an old Empire that was situated in an area o f growing interest to the United States. Intelligence-collection assets, unlike defence forces, enjoyed a low profile that could survive the withdrawal o f Empire. Prolonged through Commonwealth connections, discreet leasing arrangements and so-called ‘communication facilities’ on remote islands, Britain’s intelligence power in the wider world survived the turning points o f 1956 and 1968, much beloved o f the historians o f the ‘End o f Em pire’. W hat Washington term ed the ‘strategic value o f residual Em pire’ lasted into the 1970s. It was finally eroded, not by imperial retreat, but by the arrival o f satellite platforms and also by President Nixon’s rapprochement with China. Even then, Hong Kong remained an intelligence centre o f outstand­ ing importance which signed off only with the hand-over to China in 1997.2 T he intelligence dimension o f Britain’s residual Em pire is o f immense importance. It helped to maintain Britain as an intelligence power and a valued partner for the United States. In Asia, the United States was at war, o r on the brink o f war, alm ost continually from 1950 to 1974. Four o f the five crises in which American Presidents seriously considered the use o f nuclear weapons occurred in Asia. Here, m ore than anywhere else, intelligence counted in a dramatic and immediate way. O n the other hand, the Asian dimension o f secret service also brought with it extra­ ordinary hazards. Asia had always been an area o f ‘unspecial’ relations between L ondon and Washington. T he them e o f economic rivalry had always been strong and their strategic outlooks differed. From 1950 their policies were sharply divergent.3

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T he ‘loss o f China* to the com m unists in 1949 was a traumatic event for the United States, com pounded by com m unist China’s intervention in Korea a year later. T he American public had been taught to idealise their relationship with China as a ‘sister republic* that was expected to becom e a reflection o f the United States. W hat became known as the ‘China Lobby’ in W ashington was determ ined that com m unist rule in China should n o t be allowed to establish itself on the mainland unteoubled. Even before the Korean War, Frank W isner’s O PC had begun a small program m e to keep resistance alive in mainland China. These efforts gained m om entum from the wars in Korea and Indochina, repre­ sented as operations to hit Chinese supply lines to these areas. This was the strategy sketched out by Colonel Bill D epuy and Richard Stilwell, the CIA officers superintending Asia from W ashington in 1951. These operations underlined the CIA’s general inclination towards covert action rather than intelligence-gathering. More specifically, it underlined a preference for paramilitary-style covert action. O PC, both before and after it was fully absorbed into the CIA, contained many colo­ nels and majors on secondm ent from Army units and they carried a mil­ itary culture with them . As in Europe, CIA operations in Asia represented m ore a means o f venting frustration against the general intractability o f Cold War problem s, and a means o f finding ideological expression, rather than realistic plans to overturn com m unist rule. Yet these program m es were remarkable in their scale, and by 1951 ‘Cold War fighting’ would be in progress around much o f the perim eter o f China.4 Clem ent Attlee was horrified by these activities and did n o t hesitate to say so at an early stage. In D ecem ber 1950, following the surprise Chinese intervention in Korea, he ưavelled hurriedly to W ashington to speak to Trum an amid fears that American forces m ight be compelled to use nuclear weapons. Attlee took a high-powered delegation, including the C hief o f the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir William Slim. Trum an was accompanied at the talks by Acheson, the Secretary o f State, and Marshall, the Secretary o f Defense, together with the Chairm an o f the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff, O m ar Bradley. Attlee was exceedingly blunt, stating that he ‘did n o t want to becom e involved in a m ajor war with China*. He was also uncom fortable about supporting a governm ent in South Korea which was ‘very corrupt and inefficient’. H e was willing to hold o ut in Korea in the short term , but only so ‘a cease-fire may be secured; then we could begin to talk. It was very im portant that this be regarded as a primary point.’ Attlee was bothered by the insidious spread o f war. T here was, he insisted, a growing trend in American policy towards a covert war all around China’s borders which seemed pointless and certainly would not draw China towards the peace table:

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The Prime Minister said, very frankly, that this had not appealed to him very much. He wondered what could be done in the way o f economic warfare or subversive activity or through other actions which amounted merely to pin­ pricks which could really lead eventually to the settlement. Our cards were not good enough to lead to that effect. The policy suggested was for a kind of limited war and this did not appeal to the British people or to the bulk o f the United Nations. They feared that, if we began on a limited war, this might become a full war ... the Government of the United Kingdom does not approve of limited warfare against the Chinese if this were not directed to the immediate terrain o f Korea but became a kind o f war around the perimeter of China. Attlee wanted to get the Chinese comm unists seated in the UN and to get talking with them . Trum an understood where Atdee was going but replied that it was not practical politics on Capitol Hill and that what A tdee was suggesting *was political dynamite in the United States*. Acheson’s further com m ents only reinforced Atdee’s fears that a general war was looming. T he leader o f East Germany, Acheson said, had just sent a letter to Adenauer, the West G erm an leader, which ‘had a danger­ ous similarity to the letter which the N o rth Koreans had written to the G overnm ent o f Korea just before they attacked*. Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet Foreign Minister from 1949 to 1953, had been making speeches in the United N ations arguing that American actions in Korea were ‘the first step to the T hird World War*. Acheson added, ‘O ne had to ask how near we are to war.’ If things were, regrettably, 'gathering speed*, the last thing he wanted to do was to try to ‘buy off the aggressor ịust before the crash came*. T he veiled reference to 1938 and 1939 was hard to miss. Atdee sensed that W ashington believed that all-out war was now quite close.5 A m onth after Attlee’s visit, senior officials in W ashington sat down to review th ek policy towards resistance groups in mainland China and on the extent to which they should be stimulated from Taiwan. They set out with a basic premise that T h e United States desires the overthrow o f the Chinese Com m unist regime’ but conceded that W ashington would 'n o t have the support o f friendly countries in its efforts’. They were in the meantime unsure w hether they wished to ‘take the initiative in creating a new, perm anent leadership* in China o r merely pursue a policy that ‘creates a state o f chaos on the mainland’. At this point the comm unists were admitting to 400,000 guerrillas still active on the mainland, o f w hom the United States had high hopes, although they knew the military value o f Chiang Kai-shek’s forces on Taiwan to be low.6 W herever the West could gain access to the perim eter o f China the pinprick war was accelerated. Pakistan, India, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Taiwan, H ong Kong, Japan and Korea all served as springboards for

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insurgency against Beijing. These attacks were supported by the CIA, bu t were pressed hom e with even m ore vigour by Taiwan’s secret agencies, still sm arting from their defeats on the mainland. T hus the Chinese civil war did n ot end in 1949 and no armistice was signed. Taiwan felt at liberty to back guerrillas against Beijing’s Anti-Revolutionary Suppression Campaign led by the Ministry o f State Security. In 1952, it claimed that its T ree China seaborne guerrillas’ had fought no fewer than 609 separate engagements. Several thousand casualties had been inflicted in what were, in some cases, battalion-sized engagements which looked like a limited war.7 In O ctober 1952, Taiwan carried out a large ‘raid’ on Nan-)ih that involved 4,000 regulars and 1,000 special forces, returning with 720 prisoners. These arrived just in time to participate in Chiang Kai-shek’s birthday parade. T he CIA’s task was to train and upgrade this effort. However, when these parties made the mistake o f advancing inland they were usually surrounded and destroyed. Early attem pts to rouse the mainland population to rebellion by m oving through inland rural areas were gradually abandoned in favour o f largescale coastal hit-and-run raids o r propaganda leaflet-dropping.8 T he CIA on Taiwan conducted its activities through cover organisa­ tions: Western Enterprises Inc. and the airline Civil Air T ransport (CAT), which together dropped teams o f Nationalists on to the mainland. Some agents were Chinese POW s from the Korean War w ho had chosen to be repatriated to Taiwan rather than China. These operations were o f two main kinds. Resistance missions sought to build up a long-term resis­ tance m ovem ent in rem ote areas, while com m ando raids using small boats sought to ‘destroy key installations’. T he CIA and the Taiwan Secret Service had different objectives, with the form er wishing to keep som e o f these activities secret while the latter preferred to trum pet them. T he CIA's worries about boasting were confirm ed in N ovem ber 1952 when two o f its officers were captured on a mission over the mainland. T he CIA had decided that it wanted to collect an agent for extensive debriefing, but the original infiltration team had been captured and ‘doubled’ and was now working for Chinese security. T he low-flying C-47 aircraft conveying the new team was damaged and crashed before it reached the collection point. T he two CAT pilots were killed but the two young CIA case officers, Richard G. Fecteau and John T. Downey, w ho had recendy joined the CIA, survived and were incarcerated on spying charges for almost two decades in Chinese jails, until Richard N ixon secured their release. Nevertheless, with the Korean War in full swing the pressure from W ashington was to increase the pace. In July 1952, even the US Am bassador in Taipei, the capital o f Taiwan, was ordered to get busy ‘expanding and developing resistance in China to the Peiping regime’s control, particularly in South China’.9

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T he inner meaning o f Cold War fighting has often been m isunder­ stood. This is not surprising since, even at the time, its general purpose was n o t agreed. O nly a minority believed that real liberation could be achieved and individual countries be prised away. Some saw it as a form o f ideological aggression, the only honest expression o f America as a freedom-loving nation. It helped relieve the frustration o f the frozen front in which real conflict was increasingly prohibited by nuclear deter­ rence. Yet others saw it as a way o f keeping the enemy o if balance. If Stalin and Mao could be kept busy worrying about their ow n backyards they would n ot intrude into the Western spheres. William D onovan, one o f America’s longest-serving practitioners o f covert warfare, took the latter view that Cold War fighting was really about keeping the com m unists off balance, n o t about real liberation. Having undertaken a range o f ‘privateer’ covert activities in E urope in the late 1940s, D onovan turned his attention to Asia in the 1950s. In 1953 he was sent out to Bangkok to beef up covert warfare on that con­ tinent. H e was a dear-m inded individual and in May that year he returned briefly to the US and spoke to the Naval War College at Rhode Island about his objectives. W ith the recent death o f Stalin and with attention focused on som e o f the failed risings in Poland and Berlin, he took the opportunity to expound on the nature and purpose o f continued Cold War fighting. ‘W hether it is fought on the battlefield o f Korea o r in the ballot boxes o f Italy, it remains a war which involves the survival o f the kind o f life we want to live.’ T he era o f a big shooting war, he thought, was over, while war by conspiracy and subversion remained. E ast Asia would be its main battleground, and D onovan was optim istic about w hat could be done from Taiwan, arousing resistance movem ents on the mainland using radios, pam phlets and leaflets together with covert operations. Taiwan was being well supplied with m odern arm s and equipm ent, and ‘Chinese guerrilla forces are active o n the mainland.’ O perational nuclei were being organised, he claimed, with small well-trained and wellscreened cadres to activate a resistance force in the countryside. D onovan knew China well and insisted there were ‘many regions o f China which offer ideal areas for resistance organization due to their topography, tradition and the independence o f their people. For instance, last year in Kansu Province in N orthw est China 20,000 peas­ ants rose in open rebellion against their Com m unist leaders.’ But he was equally clear that he was not advocating liberation, only making trouble for the communists. He warned that ‘China will n o t fall into our hands like a ripe pear.’ Americans should ‘harbor no hopes’ o f rolling back either the Soviet U nion o r com m unist China. Instead, the aim was to halt ‘M ao’s expansionism ’. T heir task was to delay the consolidation o f

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com m unist power, to bring ‘constant headaches to Red authority’ and to 'breed chaos and confusion’. But D onovan also knew the limits and warned his listeners ‘not to arouse the population to prem ature and futile revolt when they have no weapons, but to fom ent unrest and dis­ content, and sustain hope’. N o t every policy-maker enjoyed such clarity o f thought in this area.10 By March 1954, Asia was thought m ore prom ising than Europe, and the Cold War fighting program m e there was still expanding. T he CIA and the D epartm ent o f D efense came to an agreem ent on the joint developm ent o f an ‘aggressive’ clandestine raiding effort from Taiwan. These raids were intended to keep the Chinese comm unists off balance, to destroy com m unications and vital installations and to present ‘an increased threat to the m ainland’. T hey were also designed to destroy China’s coastal trade.11 Away from Taiwan, Cold War fighting was now the order o f the day all around the 3,000-mile perim eter o f China's southern and eastern borders. In Burma, the CIA gave extensive support to the Chinese Nationalist warlord G eneral Li Mi from Yunnan Province, whose N ationalist Kuom intang (KMT) forces loyal to Chiang Kai-shek had retreated into northern Burm a at the end o f the Chinese civil war. T he idea had originated with the Pentagon during the early stages o f the Korean War and was intended to distract Chinese forces from Korea. T he plan was presented at a high level to H arry Trum an and the National Security Council. Lloyd G eorge, head o f the CIA’s Far E astern Division, recalled T rum an’s orders clearly: ‘D on’t tell the American Am bassador in Rangoon w hat the hell is going on.’ Accordingly Am bassador David M cKendree was told nothing about this operation.12 O nce established in the rem ote Shan States o f northern Burm a, Li Mi ran a sem i-independent kingdom based on banditry supplied by both W estern Enterprises Inc. from Taiwan and the CIA’s Sea Supply Com pany in Thailand. In 1951 several thousand o f his troops attem pted an invasion o f Yunnan province in southern China, but the local population failed to rise in support. Li Mi was reinforced and in 1952 repeated his operation with an estimated 10,000 troops. Although he penetrated sixty miles into China he was eventually repelled with heavy losses. Thereafter his troops settled down in northern Burm a and diversified into a m ore com fortable existence based on opium cultivation, smuggling and banditry.13 L ondon and Paris took special exception to these operations launched from Burma. N o t only did they threaten to provoke the com m unist Chinese into piecemeal retaliation, perhaps against H ong K ong or Indochina, b ut they also aggravated the already dangerous dom estic instability in Burma. General jean de Lattre de Tassigny, w ho was both the French High Com m issioner and Com m ander in C hief in Indochina,

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told British and American intelligence that he was fed up with these trou­ blemakers and *was imprisoning every Chinese nationalist he could get his hands on’. T he British feared that Burma would descend into chaos, perhaps turning com m unist and ending Britain's cherished hopes o f drawing the country back within the Commonwealth. A t an intelligence conference in 1952, British officers openly confronted their American counterparts over these operations, insisting that T h e ir military value and offensive action against the Com m unist Armies is nil but they are a very serious political threat both to the Burmese G overnm ent and to worldpeace. —to the Burmese governm ent from the stand point o f inter­ nal security; to world peace because the presence o f KM T forces close to China and based on foreign soil might be well used as a provocation or excuse for an attack.’ However, American representatives at this confer­ ence flatly refused to discuss these operations, although later the United States agreed to keep Britain better inform ed o f operations using KM T rebels.14 British officials had other reasons for trying to avoid trouble in Burma. T hey had visited the State D epartm ent in July 1951 to complain that Rangoon was having to deal with Li Mi’s K M T troops by taking its forces away from the business o f guarding ‘certain oil installations which the British G overnm ent wished protected by Burmese tto o p s’ from ban­ ditry. They could see a time when the Burmese would join with Beijing to deal with Li Mi. They offered to ignore Washington’s previous transparently dishonest assurances that the US was not involved if, they said, ‘British and American undercover agents “get together” on this m atter in Burma to the end that com m on action to solve this problem be taken’. State D epartm ent officials realised that L ondon and Rangoon were now ‘convinced’ that the CIA was behind the provision o f supplies to the guerrillas. However, American diplomats insisted that neither they nor Taipei had any control. T here was no meeting o f minds here and the Americans simply inform ed L ondon that there had been m ore fighting with the Chinese in Yunnan and hoped that the British would ‘share our pleasure upon learning that the Kuom intang troops were successful in causing the Com m unist troops trouble’.15 Co-ordination and control across the whole field were certainly poor. W ashington was still attem pting to make the fusion o f W isner’s O P C and the CIA’s intelligence-gathering arm a reality in the field. In Bangkok in particular, the main CIA centre in South-east Asia, the covert action arm o f the CIA tended to exceed its authority and undertake wild activities, to the dismay o f the intelligence-gathering arm. In the spring o f 1952 a dispute broke out between the two wings o f the CIA station in Bangkok when the O PC element tried to steal an agent from the intelligence section w ho was a senior official working in the Thai governm ent. O PC

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then kidnapped the station’s radio operator to try and prevent W ashington from finding out w hat was going on. T he CIA’s Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick together with its D irector o f Policy and Plans, Colonel Pat Johnson, had to be sent o u t to Bangkok to prevent them from ‘shooting live bullets at each other’.16 By 1954 som e pretence was m ade at shifting KM T forces o u t o f Burma. Small num bers o f troops were m oved and ‘unserviceable weapons’ were being surrendered. But the m ain forces o f KM T were defiant and declared ‘that they had no intention o f quitting Burm a until the mainland o f China had been regained by Chiang Kai-shek’. T he Karens, with w hom the British had enjoyed a long-term , if uneven, rela­ tionship, were now having open discussions with the KM T about co­ operating against the Rangoon governm ent. L ondon maintained a sneaking admiration for the rebel K aren tribes. It noted that the Karen chiefs had recently invited forty Burmese com m unist rebels from the W hite Flag faction to dinner and then m urdered them , an exercise in diplomacy that was ‘quite unique'.17 American diplomats on the ground were the last to know the full extent o f w hat the CIA was doing. William Sebald was a senior Foreign Service officer in the US Embassy in Rangoon in the early 1950s and gradually realised that, in W ashington, it was the CIA and the China Lobby backing the K M T that were in the driving seat. Sebald and his colleagues sympa­ thised with the Rangoon governm ent and with the British position, but by January 1953 they were afraid that if they expressed these views they would find themselves ‘o n the w rong side o f W ashington opinion’, a dan­ gerous place to be in the early 1950s. T here was the possibility that the China Lobby and the McCarthyites would ‘spread distorted stories’ asserting that ‘the KMTs would be able and willing to defeat Red China were it n ot for the “Red” G overnm ent o f Burm a’. Sebald believed that the Burm ese Army should have been fighting com m unist rebels in Burma instead o f Li Mi’s K M T forces, he also feared a punitive raid into Burm a by Beijing. American press articles by leading journalists such as Joseph Alsop were now alleging CI A support for Li Mi, and eventually Sebald understood that this was a joint CIA-Taiwan operation that was out o f control. In N ovem ber 1953 the full truth began to dawn: The jungle generals sent a message to Li Mi in Taipei strongly hinting that unless the United States favored them and stopped its pressures, they would be forced to tell the world of the former relations between the United States and themselves. This ... suggests a not too subtle form of blackmail in which the Chinese Government [in Taiwan] seems to be involved. It also lent credence to the recurrent reports that our C.I.A. had originally given covert support to the KMTs. We asked the Department for advance guidance in the event this story should break ...

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As usual, die ordinary Foreign Service officers were left to clear up the mess on the ground once covert acdon policies had gone astray.18 By the end o f 1953 the CIA were using their own airline, Civil Air Transport, to begin to move som e o f Li Mi’s guerrillas out o f Burma. T he operation was run from the som ewhat volatile CLA station in Thailand. A Joint Evacuation Com m ittee was set up to negotiate the process which included Colonel Raymond Palmer from the US Embassy and Colonel Chatichai Choonhavan from the Thai Army, together with Willis Bird and Saul G. Marias from CAT. O n 21 O ctober 1953 AỈ Cox, w ho was described as the ‘President’ o f CAT, flew into Bangkok to seal the arrangem ents, agreed a price o f $123 per evacuee, and confirm ed an o ffer o f four ‘special C-46s’ to fly them out, hopefully rising later to six air­ craft. But they were clearly envisaging removing no m ore than 2,500 o f the estimated 15,000 KM T troops in Burma. Cox was in fact a senior m em ber o f the CIA Far East Division and by 1960 was running the para­ military branch o f the CIA covert action staff.19 In March 1954 the Burmese Prime Minister complained directly to President Eisenhower. T he much touted withdrawal, he said, was partial, with no arm s being surrendered. T he few troops that were leaving were doing so with ‘bad grace’ and were handing their arm s to the K aren rebels. He deplored the fact that Taiwan was ‘perm itted to com m it this aggression in this country under the guise, so blatantly false, that they are crusaders against the menace o f com m unism in the E ast’. H e dem anded that Eisenhower place ‘the utm ost pressure’ on Taipei.20 In fact it was only in 1958 that the CIA chief on Taipei, Ray Cline, began real efforts to repatriate KM T fighters to Taiwan. CIA support for the K M T in Burm a during the 1950s came into the category o f ‘implau­ sible denial’, a noisy activity that was hardly covert at all and certainly fooled no one in Burma. As one American diplom at put it, ‘we’d been caught red-handed supplying K M T guerrillas in the Shan state and con­ tributing to the disruption in the Shan state, making efforts to make trouble for the Com munists in Yunnan Province next door at Burm a’s expense’. T he winding down o f CIA support after 1958 marked an end to a ‘chilly period’ in US-Burmese relations.21 T he confusion caused by W estern Cold War fighting in Asia is under­ lined by the m anner in which, despite adding to Burm a’s internal security problem s during this period, W ashington was simultaneously contracting to help Rangoon improve its internal security. In Septem ber 1953 the State D epartm ent and a delegation from the Burm ese Embassy in W ashington m et at the offices o f Inpolco in W ashington, a private com pany that specialised in providing expertise in police m ethods at a training school in Vienna in Virginia, and which also supplied ‘certain pieces o f equipm ent'. T he Burmese delegation was acting on behalf o f

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u

Inspector General Pe T han, head o f the Rangoon special B ran ch . They examined a range o f interesting artefacts —from bullet-proof v e sts to a James Bond-Style ‘miniature tape recorder with wristwatch m ic ro ­ phone’ priced at $390 —and were then invited to inspect the curriculum o f the security training school at Vienna. Later the State D e p a rtm e n t asked if Inpolco would let it know o f 'any extra-curricular purchases o f equipm ent’, adding that the head o f the Burmese delegation loved th e wristwatch ‘and obviously yearns for one’.22 India too was a natural launch-pad for Cold War fighting against co m ­ m unist China. Rivalry between Czarist Russia, British India, China, a n d the tribes o f smaller states for suzerainty in Central Asia had constituted the famous 'G reat G am e’ o f the late nineteenth century. M ore recendy, the wartime British authorities in India had co-operated w ith D onovan’s OSS in supporting Tibet, to the intense anger o f the wartim e Chinese governm ent. T he arrival o f new governm ents in Delhi in 1947, and in Beijing in 1949, seemed to point to warm er Sino-Indian relations. T he Indian Prime Minister Pandit N ehru was especially anxious to culdvate Mao and remained publicly sceptical o f the W estern line during the Korean War. But privately his line began to change in O ctober 1950, when the Chinese com m unist PLA defeated the small Tibetan Army and marched into Lhasa, expelling the local Indian diplomatic mission. L ondon was restrained in its criticism o f China, sttessing that it recog­ nised Chinese suzerainty in T ibet but not sovereignty. Since Britain had devolved its interests in that part o f the world to Delhi, the Foreign Office concluded that ‘any attem pt to intervene in Tibet would be impractical and unwise’ and limited itself to supporting India. T he American line was different. As early as 24 July 1950, following the out­ break o f the Korean War, the United States inform ed the British that it was willing to help the Tibetans with 'their desire for arm s' and, if allowed transit through India, it would help ‘with procurem ent and financing o f the Tibetan purchases’. Nevertheless W ashington moved cautiously, adding that ‘any project had best be undertaken by the Tibetans themselves rather than initiated by us’. Assistance remained low key because o f British opposition and Indian uncertainty. American officials from Delhi worked with the Tibetans by visiting the border town o f Kalim pong as ‘tourists’, although their activities were known to the local Indian Security Service, known as IB, that watched all movements intently. It was the CIA that financed the move o f one o f the Dalai Lama’s elder brothers, T hupten N orbu, to the United States in 1950.23 India’s attitude was also changing. Overtly, it remained critical o f the American Cold War effort in Asia, but privately it now joined in. Brutal Chinese PLA action in Tibet eroded any fraternal feelings that N ehru had entertained for the Beijing regime. T he CIA had been assisting

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T ibetan resistance groups since the sum m er o f 1950, probably with tacit Indian approval. W ashington now approached N ehru and offered to help India 'in every possible way’ to support the Kham pa and Am doan resistance groups in Tibet.24 T he Indian IB opened bigger offices in n orthern India at Kalimpong, Darjeeling and Gangtok, to counter com ­ m unist infiltration and to help forge resistance groups into a unified force now called the National Volunteer D efence Army o r NVDA. A low-level border war now began. Detailed arrangem ents were finalised by N eh ru ’s sister, Vijaylakshmi N ehru, the Indian Am bassador in W ashington, and in March 1951 a secret Indo-Am erican agreem ent was signed relating to military aid and secret service co-operation. London wished to see Tibetan resistance stiffened but was anxious to act through proxies so as n o t to provoke the Chinese direcdy o r jeopardise H ong Kong. *We are not supplying arm s to Tibet,’ the Foreign Office asserted, but only 'selling to India certain arm s to replace som e o f the arm s she may supply to Tibet from her own stocks’. Krishna M enon, w ho had moved from being the Indian High Com missioner in London to becom e India’s Foreign Secretary, complained that Britain was ‘passing the buck’.25 For the United States, these developments had a dual purpose. Although the situation in Tibet was n o t materially changed, Delhi was now embroiled in the Cold War and had learned a salutary lesson in the perils o f non-alignment. An agreem ent between Tibet and Beijing signed in May 1951, offering som e local autonomy, resulted only in a tem porary lull in the fighting. By 1953, Chinese efforts to extend the revolution into T ibet’s oudying province o f Kham led to intensified fighting. O ne o f T ibet’s two co-Prime Ministers fled to K alim pong to encourage the resis­ tance. Meanwhile 12,000 KM T soldiers, w ho had been hiding in the m ountains near Tibet since the end o f the Chinese civil war, ịoined the NVDA guerrillas. T he fighting spread, and the CIA and the Taiwan secret service accelerated air-drops from both India and Thailand. A Chinese crackdown only accelerated the cycle o f covert action and reaction. But in late 1953 Delhi got wind o f American plans to draw Pakistan into the South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and o f an American security agreem ent with Pakistan. This had a neuralgic effect upon N ehru which no am ount o f reassurance from Eisenhower could counteract. N ehru now began talks with China to defuse tensions over Tibet. W hen the United States confirm ed its ties with Pakistan through the Baghdad Pact in 1955, N ehru responded by visiting Moscow. Joint U S-Taiw an-Indian assistance to the Tibetan rebels was now brought shuddering to a halt by the cross-cutting local rivalries over areas like Kashmir. Meanwhile the PLA took the opportunity to launch new operations against the NVDA, forcing the Dalai Lama to reach an

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accom m odation with Beijing. T he CIA adm itted tem porary defeat and suspended its operations in Tibet in 1955.26 M ost liberation operations against China had a KM T input. But Taiwan did n ot enjoy a m onopoly and Chiang Kai-shek was not viewed by the CIA as an ideal partner. Even in late 1948, some o f Chiang Kaishek’s m ost experienced warlords had recognised that the corrupt nature o f the K M T regime was the largest im pedim ent to hill American support. They had approached the CIA with the idea o f creating a T h ird Force’, a democratic and anti-com m unist alternative to Chiang’s co rru p t Nationalist KMT. M ost experienced CIA ‘China hands’ recognised that this was a m ore realistic way to resist com m unist consolidation in China. W hen the CIA’s proposal to work with T hird Force adherents reached W ashington it sent diplomats in the Far E astern Division ‘into shock’. But at a higher level these ideas were thought attractive. Acheson pri­ vately told Sir Oliver Franks, the British Am bassador in W ashington, that while the Americans would use Taiwan as a base for operations against the mainland, Assistant Secretary D ean Rusk was leading a team o f mili­ tary, CIA and Nationalist KM T Army representatives w ho would push forward with plans to depose Chiang and perhaps place Taiwan directly under Mac A rthur’s military control. In the mid-1950s, the CIA was still pursuing the Third Force option quite vigorously.27 Pursuit o f the T hird Force option reflected deep disillusionment with Chiang Kai-shek. W ashington thought claims for the num bers o f his arm ed forces ‘deceptive’ and believed that their presum ed loyalty would evaporate under an attack. Co-ordination between the various branches o f the arm ed forces was ‘non-existent’ with Chiang practising divide and rule. H e did not want an efficient m odern com m and system, ‘which he cannot manipulate as o f yore’. Backing him was no longer attractive since the idea that W ashington wanted ‘to place the KM T back in the saddle on the mainland again' would alienate waverers on the mainland and also allies w ho disliked Chiang. T he Chinese communists would have a ‘beau­ tiful ready-made propaganda line created for their use’. In 1951 W ashington considered altering the Nationalist governm ent on Taiwan, if necessary using a 'coup d’état following preliminary measures to assure suitable conditions’. This was obviously risky, but it felt that ‘with the right propaganda line, the job could be done with the minimum o f repercussions’. T here were obvious problem s with this solution since other equally corrupt allied regimes in other countries would fear similar house-cleaning measures. Moreover, even if successful, ‘the United States would have the problem o f how to dispose o f the deposed’. Instead, after due reflection, W ashington opted for a twin-track policy o f gently trying to alter the governm ent on Taiwan through Chiang’s son and heir Chiang Ching-kuo, while backing T hird Force groups outside

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Taiwan, from H ong K ong and Hanoi. However, it accepted that these were in the hands o f disapproving allies and that ‘these spots will doubt­ less be denied to US*. So they fell back on operations launched from the Japanese island o f Okinawa.28 T he widespread Cold War fighting across Asia in the early 1950s con­ fronted Britain’s SIS with a perplexing dilemma. Although it disapproved o f many American policies, one o f Britain’s m ost highly valued contribu­ tions to American security was its intelligence on China and Vietnam. N o t only did Britain enjoy elaborate signals intelligence facilities in H ong K ong and a long-established network o f agents and contacts, often established through commercial conduits, it also had staff with a lifetime o f experience interpreting events in Asia. Indeed, as the Vietnam War escalated in the 1960s, experienced British intelligence officers retiring from Asia found themselves in dem and in W ashington as analysts. H ong K ong was invaluable as a watchtower on China and also as a launch-pad for operations. As Frank W isner had once observed to Kim Philby, "whenever there is som ewhere we want to destabilize, the British have an island nearby’. But provoking com m unist China through Cold War fighting was the last thing that L ondon wanted. T hus H ong K ong was one British island where secret service co-operation was anything but straightforward, and indeed it was often hidden-hand activity that created the flashpoints.29 Joseph Buckholder Smith, a CIA officer w ho worked closely with SIS officers in Asia for many years, recalled "it was our H ong K ong station, with its guy lines trailing across the Straits o f Form osa, that really set their teeth on edge’. Britain was anxious to preserve its commercial inter­ ests and to protect H ong Kong, which was ultimately dependent on Beijing’s goodwill. By contrast, W ashington, already pursuing a rigid eco­ nom ic em bargo o f China, and w ithout an embassy in Beiịing, had little to lose. Menzies, the SIS Chief, insisted that his staff and the CIA in H ong K ong keep "at arm ’s length’ in this "sensitive spot’, even to the extent that for a while intelligence material on China was only exchanged in Singapore, where the CIA m aintained a much smaller station.30 This was an argum ent over practical interests rather than the nature o f the Beijing regime. L ondon had no illusions about Mao as a mere social­ ist "agrarian reform er’. SIS had had excellent relations with the Chinese com m unists throughout the Second World War and knew that Mao Tsetung was a real comm unist. T he wartime head o f station in Chungking, Colonel H arm on, had enjoyed a close friendship with Chou En-lai, M ao’s Foreign Minister, and had seconded a British academic, Michael Lindsay, to the com m unists to manage their radio network. This picture was confirm ed for the British Cabinet in March 1949. E rnest Bevin explained to his fellow Ministers that the special Branch in H ong K ong

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had just conducted a surprise raid on a leading Chinese com m unist and the diaries and docum entation that were seized painted ‘a revealing picture o f the ruthless fervour, efficiency and cynicism o f the Chinese Com m unists and provide abundant evidence that, far from the Chinese C om m unist Party being m oderated by any special “Chinese” factors, it is stricdy orthodox, confident, mature, and at the highest level very well organized. T here is no trace o f Titoism .’31 L ondon drew greater distinc­ tions between Beijing and Moscow. But it did not resist American poli­ cies o f Cold War fighting in Asia because o f som e prescient anticipation o f a Sino-Soviet split that was still ten years away. Instead it dragged its heels because it saw CIA activities as unrealistic and dangerously adverse to its own imperial interests in Asia, especially the survival o f H ong Kong, which could be overrun by com m unist Chinese forces alm ost at will. Violent W estern disagreements over policy towards com m unist China did n ot lessen the insatiable dem and for intelligence on China during the 1950s and 1960s. W ith the closure o f American diplomatic premises in mainland China even the British Embassy in Beijing offered the United States an im portant window o n com m unist China. M ore importantly, the American Consulate G eneral in H ong K ong grew to becom e the largest ‘consulate’ in the world - indeed bigger than m ost embassies - with forty-two vice consuls and hundreds o f staff. This ‘consulate’ absorbed many o f the American Foreign Service’s m ore experienced Sinologists now ejected from China. T he CIA station in H ong Kong, com m anded by AỈ Cox in the mid-1950s, also expanded rapidly, rivalling even the huge CIA station on Taiwan at Taipei. William Colby, w ho later rose to becom e director o f the CIA, recalled that at this time T h e great chal­ lenges to secret intelligence gathering were ... in Berlin, Vienna and H ong Kong.’32 British military com m anders in H ong K ong were the m ost sympa­ thetic to American intelligence. In June 1952, General Terence Airey, the British Com mander, was fighting British regional intelligence chiefs in Singapore for perm ission for an Anglo-American Intelligence Com m ittee in H ong K ong to specialise in military aspects o f com m unist China, which was a ‘favourite project o f his’. Airey had previously worked at Eisenhow er’s SH A PE H Q in Paris and was quick to reassure the Americans that the French would n o t be told o f this group. He sought escape from ‘the academic and unreasonable restrictions imposed by Singapore. . . milfitary] and civil authorities] on exchange o f Far East inform ation] anywhere except Singapore’ and wanted the power to overrule the G overnor o f H ong K ong to give ‘sensitive, though vital inform ation to US’. Meanwhile he was pressing the D irector o f Military Intelligence in London, General S horn, about his plan ‘to greatly

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increase Brit covert agent organisation] on mainland China’. S horn w anted ‘much stronger and riskier measures’ to improve intelligence. O n e o f the key intelligence targets in China was atomic developments. Agents were continually despatched towards the uranium gaseous diffusion plant under construction at Lanchow and the plutonium plant at Pao Tou, both in north-central China. But there was litde success, and hard inform ation on the Chinese atomic program m e had to await the advent o f satellite photography in the 1960s.33 As in G erm any and Austria, the key American intelligence operation at H ong K ong used refugees rather than agents. T he vast ‘China-watch­ ing group’ was a mirror-image o f ‘Project W ringer’, which debriefed ref­ ugees from the Eastern bloc entering Austria. It involved the in-depth interrogation o f knowledgeable refugees and defectors, many from aca­ demia, the military o r business, escaping from com m unist China. This developed into m ore elaborate operations, based on Chinese families in H ong K ong w ho had influential relatives in Com m unist China, which were shared with British organisations. This watchtower on China offered n o t only the usual form s o f political, econom ic and military intel­ ligence, b ut also an excellent window on Chinese society. This was vital to CIA officers trying to assess the im pact o f their efforts to destabilise China. Much intelligence work was designed to service what Colby called the ‘paramilitary and political action culture’ which had ‘unquestionably becom e dom inant in the CIA’.34 CIA support for guerrilla activity was increasingly focused on south­ east China, where it was hoped it m ight reduce Chinese assistance to H o Chỉ M inh, the com m unist leader in Indochina. This was reinforced by a propaganda campaign using radio and air-dropped leaflets.35 T he large num bers o f refugees passing through H ong K ong allowed the CIA to m easure the level o f dissent. In March 1950 it reported on the impact o f an air-dropped propaganda campaign against the towns o f the southern province o f Kwantung. Consistent with the traditions o f covert action, this operation had its element o f farce: ‘U pon these leaflet raids there was always a certain am ount o f humour. T he natives dare not pick them up off the sưeets for fear o f Com m unist retaliation. However, practically half the town would head for every scalable ro o f and with impunity get the leaflets there.’36 A key part o f the CIA’s work on destabilisation was its attem pts to assess the effectiveness o f the comm unist secret police run by the Ministry o f State Security, with which resistance groups had to contend. Its interest extended not only to current Chinese dissident groups, b u t also to the m ore ambitious program m e o f operations by ‘retardation groups’ that would begin work only in the event o f all-out war with China, which often seemed imminent. In 1951 Taiwan’s secret service claimed that it controlled 1,600,000 guerrilla troops, but

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American officials believed that resisters num bered m ore like 300,000 and that Taipei’s actual control over them was ‘alm ost non-existent’. Nevertheless, the CIA believed that at the very least in a war they could ‘tie down very large num bers’ o f com m unist troops. As late as 1969, the CIA reports on the Chinese secret police were still based primarily on H ong K ong interrogation material.37 CIA reports from H ong K ong regularly found their way on to the President’s desk. In 1950, Admiral Hillenkoetter, the D irector o f the CIA, sent H arry Trum an an urgent message on China, prefacing it with the remark: ‘A trusted inform ant from H ong K ong has provided the fol­ lowing inform ation.’ A decade later in June 1960 the N ational Security Council declared H ong K ong to be simply ‘the m ost im portant source o f hard econom ic, political and military inform ation on Com m unist China’. This situation prevailed throughout the 1960s and H ong K ong’s value as the American watchtower on China grew with the extent o f American military involvement in Asia. Edwin M artin, the US Consul General in H ong K ong in the late 1960s, recalled this period - the height o f Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution - as the m ost productive because o f the huge flow o f refugees: T h e re was a lot o f faction lighting am ong the Red Guards and o ther com m unist groups w ho delighted in exposing what they would consider past crimes o f the Party. T hey published their own little papers, they published documents.’ As a result there was ‘a real explosion o f inform ation’ about w hat was going on in China.38 President Lyndon Johnson received similar H ong K ong material on subjects as diverse as Soviet military assistance to China and contacts between the Chinese and Latin American com m unist parties in 1964. In the late 1960s attention turned to Vietnam. Indeed, as late as 1970, intel­ ligence from an agent recruited in H ong K ong was at the centre o f a high-level controversy over N ixon’s decision to extend the war into Cambodia. However, the m ost im portant intelligence product from H ong K ong came from the large sigint station run jointly by the British, Americans and Australians at Little Sai Wan. Like the British SIS, the CIA also used H ong K ong for its black-market exchange service to provide currency for operations throughout Asia. Decline only came in the 1970s, with N ixon’s extraction o f the U nited States from the Vietnam War and his surprise rapprochem ent with com m unist China, heralding the beginning o f joint Sino- American intelligence operations focused on the Soviet Union, including Soviet missile development.39 T he m ost awkward flare-ups happened inside H ong K ong itself and were caused by either covert action o r subversion rather than by intelli­ gence-gathering operations. An obvious area o f confrontation was eco­ nom ic warfare, which paralleled the subversion war. T he main instrum ent here was C O C O M restrictions, an agreed program m e o f

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W estern econom ic blockade that tried to prevent useful W estern prod­ ucts from reaching com m unist countries and indeed to prevent the East exporting profitably to the West. In the abstract these measures seemed sensible, but in practice in H ong Kong, a centre o f entrepôt trade, they could quickly becom e ludicrous. Chickens could not be im ported from com m unist China’s neighbouring Kwantung Province into H ong Kong, this much was clear. But if a live com m unist chicken laid an egg while ille­ gally in H ong Kong, was the egg also a com m unist product? These m atters were a regular cause o f friction between British and American officials in H ong Kong. Even during the Korean War, Britain resisted these restrictions. A key role for num erous American vice consuls was to make discreet enquiries to ensure that the H ong Kong authorities were policing these issues properly. Eventually they rode along with British patrols intercepting junks in H ong K ong waters that were smuggling steel plate o r rubber tyres. O ne o f the many American vice consuls in H ong Kong, Richard E. Johnson, rem em bered that, during the Korean War, he received an urgent request from W ashington to investigate the possible re-export to China o f Western condoms: And the question was: What are Hong Kong's requirements for prophylactic rubbers? And I had to go all around Hong Kong, talking to importers of pro­ phylactic rubbers and asking: How many do you think Hong Kong uses? And how many are reexported to China? And I wrote about a ten- or twelve-page airgram, which received commendations from Washington. Then 1 got a further communication saying, 'Please update this carefully. We have heard that the Chinese Communists are using prophylactic rubbers to protect the muzzles of their guns from moisture.’ Just as this unusual military function for condom s was confirm ed by intelligence reports from Korea, he received another telegram from the Pentagon that said: ‘Forget all about it.’ T he Pentagon’s experts had dis­ covered that if you tty to protect your gun muzzles in this way, they would simply rust and pit out the muzzles because the m oisture would collect with no air circulating in the muzzle. ‘So any prophylactic rubbers that want to go to Com m unist China, okay.’ Although it was easy to ridi­ cule trade restrictions with mainland China these measures did hurt Beijing. T he CIA identified the quasi-illicit gold trade between H ong K ong and Macao, the neighbouring Portuguese colony, as a key source o f hard currency that Beijing used for buying essential technologies throughout the world.40 Alongside battles over CO CO M controls, overt and covert psywar activity from H ong K ong was growing fast even before the outbreak o f the Korean War. In Washington, staffers working on NSC docum ent 4 8 /2 —a key American blueprint for future Cold War fighting —noted

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that the ƯS Inform ation Service office in H ong K ong *has greatly expanded its activities in recent m onths. It is now mailing approximately 80,000 items o f printed m atter m onthly to about 9,000 addresses within C om m unist China. Some distribution is also being conducted through underground channels with the co-operation o f Nationalist groups and commercial smugglers.* T he use o f covert channels was essential as the Chinese com m unist censors were catching m ost o f the overt mailshots. US Inform ation Service adm itted to the British that it was used by what it referred to quaintly as ‘the other Agency’ for covert activities. In D ecem ber 1951, Adam Watson, L ondon’s psywar liaison officer in W ashington, was asked to look into US Inform ation Service links ‘with covert activities’. USIS tried to ‘sm ooth over British suspicions’ by sug­ gesting that this was either unauthorised use o f the US Inform ation Service label by Taiw an supported anti-com m unist groups’ o r else Beiịing making fraudulent claims. But W atson now knew that USIS had broken agreements on activity into China based in H ong K ong and was used for CIA activity.41 American operations continued to grow. T he overt activities alone o f USỈS in H ong K ong ran to $3.2 million for the years 1958-61. It sought n ot only to destabilise the Chinese com m unist regime, but also to desttoy any sympathy between the Chinese overseas population and the main­ land, and thus targeted audiences right across Asia. O ne o f its m ost suc­ cessful ventures was a seemingly independent magazine in Mandarin Chinese called World Today which enịoyed a huge circulation in Taiwan and South-east Asia. Its popular mixture o f current affairs together with ‘quite a bit o f stuff on movie stars’ com peted o n the newsstands with Sttaight magazines, and the fact that it was not free added enorm ously to its credibility.42 T he Beijing authorities devoted considerable energy to exposing CIA and USIS propaganda activities in H ong Kong. In N ovem ber 1958 they issued a long and detailed press story entitled ‘US spy ring seeks to conưol education, culture in H ong K ong’. It asserted that ‘the United States espionage organisations have been exerting every effort to control schools, film enterprises, publishing houses and cultural organisations in H ong K ong by deception, bribery and to use them as tools to poison the m inds o f the H ong K ong com patriots and carry out criminal activities against China.’ T hey correctly identified the attem pts o f the Asia Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Mercius Foundation to draw in local schools with offers o f grants. American teachers in schools, they insisted, had been recruiting graduating stu­ dents as agents with a view to sending them into mainland China. Plenty o f American front organisations in H ong K ong were identified, includ­ ing the Asian Film Company, established in 1954, used ‘to shoot reac­ tionary films’, along with publishing houses such as the Asia Press and

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the U nion Press. T he American Consulate General also watched any bookstores o r him companies that were distributing material sympa­ thetic to comm unism .43 Sir Alexander G raham , H ong Kong's G overnor, took the toughest line on the CỈA. W hen aircraft from the CIA's own private airline, Civil Air T ransport, evacuated from mainland China to H ong K ong in 1949, he im pounded them prior to handing them over to the communists. William J. D onovan, the wartime head o f OSS, together with Richard H eppner, head o f his wartime China station, arrived to act as lawyers on CAT's behalf. G raham was warned that they would make it ‘hot for him ' in L ondon unless he relented, which he eventually did. T he CIA believed that Beijing had developed an extensive com m unist underground organ­ isation in H ong K ong by infiltrating labour groups, which G raham appeared to tolerate. By contrast, he seemed intolerant o f Taiwan's secret organisations using the colony as a springboard for operations into main­ land China. While the CIA was financing Taiwan's anti-com m unist groups in H ong Kong, the British were cracking down on them and arresting their leaders. By August 1951 eight undercover operatives from Taiwan were in custody. G raham later recalled his fury at ‘extremely ham handed’ CIA activities and taking *a very strong line to stop them being so stupid’.44 M atters reached a crisis point on 11 April 1955, towards the end o f the First Taiwan Straits Crisis. Against the background o f growing artillery barrages between Taiwan and mainland China, Taiwan’s secret service arranged the bom bing o f an Air India airliner, T he Kashm ir Princess, carrying Chinese com m unist journalists to the neutralist Bandung C onference o f Asian leaders in Indonesia. T he bom b was planted when the plane refuelled at H ong K ong and the plane exploded and plunged into the sea as it approached the Indonesian coast. All passengers and crew were killed. Beijing claimed that it had warned the security author­ ities in H ong K ong that Taiwan’s secret service would attem pt to sabo­ tage the plane. Chou En-lai, the Chinese Foreign Minister, had intended to travel on this aircraft, but wisely changed his m ind at the last minute. G raham told L ondon that security teams from com m unist China, H ong K ong and India were collaborating closely in an attem pt to catch the per­ petrators. But relations were prickly and the Indians had to serve as a buffer between the British and the com m unist Chinese security organisa­ tions. Nevertheless, by May 1955 a team consisting o f Inspector K aon o f the Indian IB, MI5, the H ong K ong special Branch and three represen­ tatives o f the Chinese secret service were in H ong K ong and were busy on the case. T he Chinese secret service claimed to have had heard rum ours o f planned attacks on Chinese delegations as they passed through H ong

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K ong on their way to Bandung as early as March 1955. But on the day before the bom bing all it knew was that Taiwan’s secret service was ‘actively making preparations’. Shortly after the attack the Beiịing author­ ities had secured very detailed intelligence on the perpetrators from one o f their agents. This identified the chief saboteur as one C hou Chu, alias Chow Tse Ming, a m em ber o f the ground crew at Kai Tak airfield. They asserted that the device was a small time bom b supplied by the United States and that it was part o f a batch o f bom bs shipped from Keelung to H ong K ong on 5 April on the ss Szechuan, a m erchant vessel owned by Butterfield and Swire; they also knew the identities o f the individuals w ho had transported the bom bs. Taiwan’s secret service in H ong Kong, they added, had arranged for Chou Chu to receive training in bom bing airliners that emphasised placing the device ‘close to a fuel tank in one o f the wings’. Chou Chu was still calmly going to work at Kai Tak on 18 May, a week after the bom bing, but by the time a raid was m ade on his hom e that night ‘he had bolted’. Raids were then made on the hom es o f the many o ther individuals named by Beijing. These produced further evidence. ‘O th er raids followed throughout the night on inform ation gained as a result.’ C hou Chu escaped to Taiwan on an aircraft owned by CAT at 10.00 a.m. on 18 May. CAT claimed that he had ‘stowed away’ and confirm ed that the escapee’s name was Chou Chu, alias Chow Tse Ming. T he H ong Kong authorities tried to secure his return by pretending that he was wanted for a low-grade smuggling offence, but it knew the game was up. T he H ong K ong special Branch blamed Beijing for passing on the intelligence tardily and only through the Indian IB. ‘I f the Chinese had made their inform ation available to US earlier we could have put him under surveillance and probably prevented his escape,’ they claimed. Although seven suspects were held for detailed questioning, the agentbased evidence could n o t be revealed in court, so they were merely deported.45 Beijing was furious. In August 1955 it complained that, despite the provision o f detailed intelligence, including a list o f the names o f thirtynine secret agents connected with the case, am ong them Chao Pin-cheng, Taiwan’s secret service chief in H ong Kong, no prosecutions had been secured. Beiịing insisted that the raids provided evidence that Chou Chu had received his training in explosives from Taiwan and had ‘escaped .. . under cover and aid o f the U nited States’. It blamed the failures on the fact that there were ‘lurking within the H ong K ong G overnm ent’s politi­ cal departm ent’ num bers o f ‘K uom intang secret agents’.46 H ow true were Beijing’s accusations? Files declassified in 1999 show that the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, was told in O ctober 1955 that the H ong K ong Special Branch was in no doubt that evidence it had pro­

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cured independendy proved that Chou Chu had indeed been recruited by Taiwan’s secret service. After the crash he had boasted o f his acdons to four separate witnesses, proclaiming that he had sabotaged the aircraft using ‘a small dm e bom b which made a slight ticking noise’ and he had been ‘praised’ and given *a reward o f 600,000 H ong K ong dollars’. Shortly before fleeing to Taiwan he spent a sum well beyond his norm al means. Extradition was obviously impossible. All E den could do was order a vigorous purge o f Taiwan’s secret service in H ong Kong. Thirtysix people were deported and eight incarcerated. E den was furious that the real culprit could n o t be brought to book and scrawled the single word ‘Bad’ on his brief.47 T he CIA head o f station in H ong K ong in the early 1960s, Peer de Silva, confirm ed that Taiwan’s secret service remained a perennial source o f trouble. China, like other divided states — Germany, Vietnam and Korea —abounded with double agents and H ong K ong was the obvious conduit. Because the Special Branch in H ong K ong knew that de Silva worked with Taiwan’s secret service, it came to him with complaints about their activities, which he bore philosophically. Agents were deported to Kwantung on the mainland or to Taiwan on a weekly basis depending on their allegiance. ‘Altogether’, recalled de Silva, ‘it was never ending burlesque, except that people did die perform ing it.’48 China, n o t the Soviet Union, was the ‘driver’ in American policy during the second half o f the twentieth century. Although confronting the Soviet Union in a Cold War, the United States was close to h o t war with the com m unists in China. T hus it was China that electrified AngloAmerican differences. China w ent to the very heart o f disagreements about how a Cold War that was turning hotter should be managed. Attlee, then Churchill and Eden, also worried that the United States would becom e embroiled in the ‘w rong war’, a vast conflict in Asia which would absorb its strength, leaving E urope exposed. More precisely, they feared the num erous flashpoints that m ight lead to conventional war fol­ lowed by the use o f atomic weapons. T he extensive Cold War fighting around the periphery o f com m unist China clearly had this potential.49 T he Straits crises over the offshore islands o f Quem oy and Matsu in 1954—5, and again in 1958 were the natural outcom e o f the persistent and dangerous policy o f Cold War fighting. L ondon saw Chiang Kai-shek as a ‘palooka’ w ho needed to be restrained because any kind o f war would result in the loss o f H ong Kong. But Chiang understood the dom estic politics o f Washington. T hroughout the Straits crises, American senators dem anded that the US equip him for an im probable all-out attack on the ‘soft belly’ o f the mainland.50 Was John Foster Dulles really seeking an all-out hot war with Beijing as L ondon feared? It appears not, for during periods o f high tension

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senior figures in W ashington seem to have been trying to slow the pace o f activities. O n 18 February 1955, during the first o f the recurrent Straits crises Dulles contacted his brother Allen Dulles and Frank W isner to make sure that leafleting operations over mainland China had been suspended, but W isner said that they were considering resum ption. John Foster Dulles was Reluctant to see action o f a provocative nature taken at this time unless it is o f real value’. But W isner was adam ant that his staff had gone a long way in helping the Chinese Nationalists to improve the quality o f their covert activities and now that ‘things are being accom­ plished’ he did not want to lose m om entum . H e added, ‘the Chinats are doing it anyway. We can’t stop it.’51 T h e answer was that John Foster Dulles wanted neither a h o t war with China, n o r did he want restraint. Instead he desired som ething just short o f a h ot war that kept up intense psychological pressure and was designed to serve as part o f a broader project against the entire com m u­ nist bloc. O n 10 February 1955 he outlined his conviction that T h e whole C om m unist dom ain was over-extended’, and that it was therefore essential to keep the com m unist regimes under pressure, which in turn would ‘lead to disintegration’. Cold War fighting and other hidden-hand activities were also an arena in which the ideological dimension o f American foreign policy, which was large, could find expression. All this w ent to the heart o f the question o f w hat the Cold War should be. Should it be primarily ‘Cold’, as L ondon clearly wished, o r should it be som e­ thing just sh o rt o f ‘War’, as Dulles preferred? T he latter strategy required greater risks, but held out the prospect o f som e sort o f ‘victory’ even if liberation was itself improbable. T he nature o f those risks was also becom ing clear as a struggle developed over a parallel program m e o f Cold War fighting in Europe.52

15 The Struggle to Contain L iberation It is doubtful whether, in a year’s time, the ƯS will be able to control the Frankenstein monster which they are creating. Vice Admiral Eric Longley-Cook, Director o f Naval Intelligence, 6 July 19511

overt action was expanding very fast in the early 1950s. T he ‘loss’ o f China in 1949 followed by the outbreak o f the Korean War in 1950 seemed to dem and a vigorous reaction. Accordingly, in the four years between 1949 and 1952, Frank W isner’s Office o f Policy Co-ordination grew from 302 personnel to 2,812, with 3,142 additional overseas con­ tract employees. Its budget increased from $4.7 million to $82 million per year. American covert action staff had been stationed in only seven coun­ tries in 1949 but by 1952 they were present in forty-seven.2 Korea also accelerated British anxieties about American approaches to the Cold War. O n 6 July 1950, Malcolm Muggeridge, a form er SỈS officer, m et with serving SIS officers to talk about the new war in Korea. Dick W hite o f MI5 was also there and offered the opinion that younger diplomats in the Foreign Office were ‘all and-American and against Korean interventio n \ They mused on how ‘lefdsm ’ seemed to be ‘finding its last foothold in E ton, T he Times and the diplomadc service’. But and-American sen­ timents were not the m onopoly o f young diplomats in Whitehall and now welled up across the political spectrum . In D ecem ber 1950, Muggeridge m et Montgomery, w ho was about to becom e deputy com ­ m ander o f SH A PE and w ho was certainly com m itted to an aggressive Cold War stance. Nevertheless he was unashamedly ‘gleeful over M acArthur’s reverses’ in recent batdes in Korea. Anxiety about an American taste for Cold War fighting moved in the context o f a broad, unfocused but growing anti-Americanism in Britain.3 In both E urope and Asia, the Foreign Office and SIS were now trying to reduce liberation operations. O n the surface, their afguments appeared to concentrate on the practical possibilities o f Cold War fighting and w hat they m ight achieve, against the background o f the

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disasưous Anglo-American operations against Albania. But m ore funda­ mentally these arguments were about the shadow o f nuclear power. T h e detonation o f a Soviet A-bom b in August 1949, followed by the com m u­ nist victory in China in O ctober 1949 and finally the Korean War in Ju n e 1950, influenced Western thinking profoundly. T he Foreign Office, SIS and even som e military figures in Britain now regarded a strategy o f lib­ eration as much too provocative. Increasingly, Britain’s purpose, they declared, was to opt for stable containm ent. N o t everyone in L ondon favoured Churchill’s idea o f a sum m it with Stalin, but all were anxious that the Cold War should stay cold. T he Foreign Office had never been com fortable with the paramilitary aspects o f liberation. Indeed, the whole architecture o f Britain’s secret Cold War apparatus can be under­ stood pardy in term s o f a struggle by diplomats to control aberrant figures like M ontgom ery and Slessor, Chief o f the Air Staff. This had largely been achieved, but there remained the larger problem o f the Americans. T he multiple shocks o f 1949 and 1950 had a very different effect in Washington. Although the US was appalled by the surprise advent o f Soviet atomic power, American dries remained largely invulnerable. T here were still no Soviet bom bers o r missiles within plausible range o f the United States, but American planners knew this would not always be the case. At some point in the late 1950s the Soviets would clearly acquire inter-continental ballistic missiles o r ICBMs and the era o f real American superiority would be over. Beyond the late 1950s, there would be a period o f mutual assured destruction and relatively stable deterrence. Meanwhile, between 1949 and the late 1950s, there appeared to be a ‘vul­ nerability gap’ that favoured the Americans and allowed them to ‘do som ething’. Some Americans saw this gap as a window o f opportunity and wanted to jump through it before it dosed. Patrick Reilly, whose task was day-to-day liaison between the Foreign Office and SIS, was the first to notice the enhanced British aversion to confrontation. W hen the Russia Com mittee m et in February 1950, he raised a puzzling insưuction he had received to eliminate the term ‘Cold War’ from a planning paper the com m ittee was preparing for the Perm anent Under-Secretary’s Com mittee o r PUSC. His superiors had simply told him not to use the phrase ‘Cold War’ at all, explaining that this term had ‘given rise to some loose talk about winning o r losing the Cold War’. T he whole concept o f Cold War had led to ‘too much em pha­ sis upon offensive aspects’ at the expense o f w hat diplomats preferred, namely ‘the need for constructive action by the non-Com m unist Powers in their own territory’. Air Vice Marshal Sir A rthur Sanders, the military representative on the committee, was dismayed, and said that he found the term ‘very convenient’. But Christopher Warner, the senior diplom at

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present, asserted that any reference to winning o r losing the Cold War ‘should be forbidden in the Foreign Office’.4 Stern disapproval could also be detected at the operational level. By July 1950, even the Russia Com m ittee had concluded that liberation was impossible and that in the foreseeable future, nothing short o f a h o t war could shake the Soviet grip on the Eastern bloc. T h e best we can hope to d o ’, it suggested, was to keep alive ‘some sort o f moral resistance’ by means o f propaganda. But propaganda was also off the menu, for in the same m onth the Foreign Office decided to halt BBC overseas broadcasts in Baltic languages, fearing that it ‘m ight further stimulate the unrest that already exists in these regions'. Meanwhile, it observed, clandestine resources were best directed towards the quiet gathering o f intelligence rather than stirring up trouble.5 By contrast the military in W ashington had incorporated liberation into its long-term thinking, and their answer to its inherent dangers was military superiority at all levels. Superiority would offer an umbrella o f deterrence under which m ore provocative Cold War fighting could be conducted, w ithout much danger o f retaliation o r escalation to a h o t war. I f M oscow perceived itself as militarily weaker, it would have to tolerate these provocations, perhaps even the rolling back o f the Eastern bloc, and would n o t dare to respond violently. This idea lay at the heart o f the American blueprint for global containm ent drawn up in 1949 and 1950 and known as NSC 68 which set out targets for substantial W estern rear­ mament. It has long been recognised that the advent o f the Korean War offered timely validation for efforts by the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff to militarise the Cold War. But the crucial links between high-level strategic superiority and the low-level business o f subverting the E astern bloc have n o t been fully recognised. A careful reading o f this famous Cold War blueprint which was finalised in April 1950 makes these connections between overt nuclear superiority and covert warfare very clear. NSC 68 argued that ‘W ithout suprem e aggregate military strength, in being and readily mobilizable, a policy o f containm ent —which is in effect a policy o f calculated and gradual coercion - is no m ore than a policy o f bluff; it added, ‘it is clear that a substantial and rapid building up o f strength in the free world is necessary to support a firm policy intended to check and to roll back the Kremlin’s drive for world dom ination’. Military superior­ ity, especially in the nuclear field, was central to any prospect o f carrying the Allies with them in the enterprise o f liberation. It was evident that w ithout an extension o f the umbrella o f nuclear and conventional deter­ rence to America’s allies in a convincing way, the alliance com m itm ent to winning the Cold War would begin to unravel. NSC 68 stated that ‘unless our com bined strength is rapidly increased, our allies will tend to becom e increasingly reluctant to support a firm foreign policy on our part and

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increasingly anxious to seek other solutions, even though they are agreed that appeasem ent means defeat'.6 In early 1950 the military in L ondon were busy developing theừ fabled ‘Global Strategy’ paper, Britain's ow n version o f NSC 68. T he Americans called it the ‘Slessor paper’, reflecting its intellectual paternity. In June 1951, this paper was given one o f its regular updates prior to its presen­ tation to Com m onwealth D efence Ministers. Its arguments are remark­ able and stand as a Arm testam ent, not only to the continued com m itm ent o f the British Chiefs o f Staff to the idea o f Cold War fighting, which put them o u t o f step with the rest o f W hitehall and W estminster, but also to the inseparability o f this and the drive for nuclear superiority. Like the United States they believed that military superiority was an essential precursor to liberation. They asserted that ‘o u r ability to win the cold war’ was ‘righdy our first defence priority’, and added: ... It is essential to our ability to win the cold war, which we cannot do without an increasing assumption of the offensive in the political and economic fields, that Allied foreign policy should not be cramped by the fear that if we go too far we could not defend ourselves against armed attack. In this respect Western superiority in atomic power and the security of the UK against air attack are vital factors. Cold war policy must therefore be related to military strength... Tie Aim in the Cold War... first a stabilisation of the anti-Communist front in the present free world and then, as the Western powers become militarily less weak, the intensification of ‘cold’ offensive measures aimed at weakening the Russian grip on the satellite states and ultimately achieving their complete independence of Russian control... We should not be unduly anxious about provoking the Russians. If it suited them to embark on armed aggression they would do so without waiting for provocation ... ... even now the Allies could afford to adopt a more forward strategy in the cold war, and should be making all possible plans and preparations to be more and more offensive as their military strength grows.7 M ore than a year after the concept o f winning the Cold War had been oudawed in the higher reaches o f the Foreign Office, the British military were still anxious to increase the pace. But in reality the British military had no capacity for Cold War fighting. T he Army itself had eliminated regular SAS units in 1945 —an extraordinary self-inflicted w ound - and resurrected elements were already at full stretch in Malaya. Meanwhile SIS capabilities together with propaganda and psychological warfare remained securely under the control o f the Foreign Office. Following E den’s wartime prescription, the m anagem ent o f British special operations policy was now controlled by diplom ats located in PU SD ’s shadowy Overseas Planning Section, run by Paul Falla. Situated in room s adjacent to the Perm anent Under-

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Secretary's office, Falla had to try and keep SIS and the military in line. Although SIS C hief Stewart Menzies was as anxious as anyone to resist liberation, there were gung-ho junior SIS officers about. Falla worked with Jam es Fulton o f SIS and Colonel Douglas Darling, an ex-SAS officer from the MoD. Meanwhile the Russia Com mittee, with its highlevel military representation, had been sidelined. In N ovem ber 1951, Sir William Strang, the Perm anent Under-Secretary, was told o f complaints by Slessor that under the new W hitehall com m ittee structure he never had direct contact with the Foreign Secretary. But this was exacdy w hat the diplom ats intended. T he Russia Com m ittee was gradually stripped o f som e o f its original functions and was reorganised in N ovem ber 1952. D ừ ect military input on Cold War operations had been reduced to a minimum.8 T he same applied to propaganda and political warfare. In June 1951 the Chiefs o f Staff invited Sir Pierson Dixon and C hristopher W arner to discuss this subject and the diplom ats sat patiently through complaints from the Chiefs about m atters well outside the military province, includ­ ing the fact that ‘a num ber o f teachers in our schools had Com m unist leanings’. Dixon was patently dishonest and inform ed the military that in the satellite states the Foreign Office was still trying to ‘foster the spirit o f revolt'. For their part the military continued to complain about the ‘clutter o f Com mittees all dabbling in the problem ’ o f Cold War and stressed that there was ‘an urgent need now for one Minister and one Civil Servant' to have control o f the whole effort. But Dixon and W arner replied that the new Cabinet com m ittees on com m unism , which had mil­ itary representation, were adequate and had Attlee’s sanction.9 Simultaneously, the three arm ed services continued to press for expan­ sion in military psywar, adding that the United States was directing ‘con­ siderable money and resources' at this and that Britain should follow suit. A Whitehall inter-departm ental working party on psywar was set up, chaired by the RAF. In the chairman’s view ‘the reqw rem ent o f a psycho­ logical warfare organisation exists primarily in cold war’ and also to a lesser degree in limited war, but n o t in total war. But this m et with ‘vigor­ ous opposition’ from the diplomats, w ho believed that the arm ed ser­ vices were ‘attem pting an incursion into the Foreign Office's spheres o f influence’. Despite the protests o f the military, the diplom ats had their foot firmly on the brake pedal.10 By 1951 the desire o f the British military to do som ething about winning the Cold War was being effectively contained, but diplomats in L ondon recognised that it was the Americans w ho had the real capacity to do things that looked dangerous. T he Foreign Office’s anxieties in this area represented a strange turn o f events, for as late as 1948 it had been trying to encourage greater American com m itm ent to the Cold War,

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fearing that Britain m ight be abandoned in the face o f Soviet power. B ut now it felt entrapped by American military figures w ho seemed overzealous, to the point where they were likely to spark a war in w hich Britain would be destroyed." At first glance, the worries o f W hitehall appear som ewhat exaggerated and paranoid. Conventional accounts emphasise that Trum an had never com m itted him self to a real liberadon effort, and that some so-called liberation escapades represented conces­ sions to W ashington lobby groups o r perm itted his successor, Eisenhower, some political posturing on the electoral hustings. Indeed, the approach o f Trum an, and then Eisenhower, to liberation has often been characterised as m ore talk than action. T he m ost substantial ele­ m ents o f liberation certainly consisted o f talk. T he large-scale activity was the radios, including Voice o f America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberation (later Liberty) and also Radio in the American Sector, w hich were engaged in a battle consisting o f ever m ore powerful W estern broadcasting and Eastern jamming. By 1952 Trum an could accurately claim that the weight o f these broadcasts directed at com m unist c o u n ­ tries was greater than all the dom estic radio output o f the U nited States combined. T he scale o f resources deployed was quite fantastic —som e­ thing which NSC 68 addressed in an annexe declassified only in 1999, which describes what W ashington called T h e Ring Plan'.12 T h e Ring Plan’ was simply a scheme to surround the E astern bloc with enorm ously powerful transmitters to overcom e ịammỉng. Radio warfare officials such as Chester o p a l worked with physicists like Jerom e Wiesner, later President o f the Massachusetts Institute o f T echnology (MIT), and scientific advisers from the W hite House. Edw ard B arrett, w ho superintended the program m e at the State D epartm ent, used to joke, ‘Listen, we get this thing working, we’re going to be able to tu rn o n the lights in Moscow and anybody with a metal filling in his m o u th is going to be able to pick up the Voice o f America.’ Joking apart, this seemed a realistic way o f com bining American technological and id eo ­ logical power in the peaceful penetration o f the Eastern bloc. C h ester Opal saw him self as creating an ‘incendiary potential’, adding that T h e Ukraine was top o f our list. N um ber two on our list was Poland, N u m b e r three on our list was Hungary.’ ‘I f you have enough power you can pick it up in your bed springs. This was the intention.’ Opal said that this all activity had ‘flowed out o f NSC 68’.13 T he highly sensitive annexes o f NSC 68 now underline the centrality o f psychological warfare to mainstream American Cold War strategy. T hey asserted that the penetration o f the Iron Curtain presented *a special problem* to which great energy should be devoted. ‘A g ro u p o f social and natural scientists have already been engaged to investigate every possible m ethod o f getting inform ation into the Soviet world.’ T h is

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investigation was going to include every scheme thus far put forward, ‘no m atter how unlikely o r unprofitable it may appear to be’. O thers com ­ m ented that the scale o f resources devoted m ight soon be equivalent to that devoted to the wartime M anhattan Project.14 T he rate o f expansion o n the ground was tremendous. In 1949 Voice o f America had been broadcasting only in Russian and Ukrainian. In 1950 the CIA loaned one o f its officers, Archie Roosevelt, to preside over expansion into Arm enian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Tatar and Uzbeck. Broadcasters with the right accent were acquired from eastern Iran and the signal was enhanced by a ship-based booster transm itter on a ship operating out o f Rhodes, disguised as a coastguard cutter, in an effort to beat the jamming. Initial VOA broadcasts were Very aggressive’ with ‘a lot o f name-calling . . . hasty words like “jackals” and “wolves’”, b u t by 1952 aggressive broadcasting had been handed over to Radio Liberty, allowing Voice to cultivate a m ore civilised image.15 British responses oscillated between derision and fear. In July 1951 PU SD noted that the Americans were ‘setting up an array o f very power­ ful transm itters all around the Soviet periphery . . . breaking through Soviet ịammỉng’. It doubted that it would be successful, but, if it was, it worried that the Soviets ‘m ight feel compelled to take counter-action'. All this was part o f w hat it saw as an alarming American policy o f ‘dis­ lodging’ the Soviets from E astern Europe, and it w ent on to add that any ‘move towards com pression may have the m ost far reaching conse­ quences for the whole free world’.16 Paul Falla, head o f Overseas Planning Section, thought the American schemes all very improbable. This vast program m e, he argued, was all predicated o n a questionable American notion that the Soviet m onolith m ight actually be quite brittle, and hopefully would not need too much encouragem ent to shake itself to pieces. He remarked that ‘some, at any rate, expect the walls o f Jericho to fall down after the first half dozen blasts o r so on the “Coherent Transm itter Array” or whatever their latest engine o f psychological warfare is called’.17 Both Trum an and Eisenhow er certainly exaggerated liberation to placate the American right. O n Capitol Hill, McCarthyites, the China Lobby, Captive N ation campaigners, the Catholic Church and many others, although separate, tended to hunt as a pack. T heir targets were officials in Trum an’s Dem ocratic administration w hom they regarded as liberal and ‘soft on com m unism ’. N o one was safe and by 1952 even quite senior CIA officers, such as Cord Meyer, were being dragged before th eừ boards o f enquiry. Ironically it was Meyer, now head o f the CIA’s International Organisations Division, w ho superintended the Agency’s radio program m e. Trum an, and then Eisenhower, used libera­ tion to counter these charges and to assume an ideological position o f

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non-acceptance o f the Eastern bloc. For the W hite H ouse these suppos­ edly ‘secret’ program m es were frequendy paraded publicly to suggest progress in a struggle which the m ore astute recognised as essentially static, if n ot stagnant.18 But while Trum an and Eisenhow er approached liberation with caution, at the operational level m atters were different. Rapid expansion resulted in an enorm ous program m e o f activity for its ow n sake, bu t w ithout clear purpose. Many in W ashington believed, like William D onovan, that the E astern bloc m ight easily crum ble if pressurised. Moreover, limited liberation m ight keep the Soviets on the defensive, and less likely to launch probing initiatives against the West. But how much activity and o f w hat sort? This ambivalence is encapsulated in Eisenhow er’s Volunteer Freedom Corps, a ‘Foreign Legion’ o f Eastern bloc exiles, defectors and escapees. T he establishm ent o f this C orps was approved by Congress and progressed as far as the recruitm ent and train­ ing o f several thousand E astern bloc exiles by the US Army. But it was stalled by protests from alarmed E uropean allies. Trum an and Eisenhow er w ent som e way with liberation, but stopped short o f giving the clandestine agencies the green light. Liberation was stuck on amber.19 An am ber light was enough for som e o f those leading the American Cold War fighting apparatus in the 1950s. Frank W isner, D. Jackson and Allen Dulles interpreted these guidelines generously. T he dom inant culture o f the CỈA already leaned towards special operations rather than intelligence, a trend that accelerated w hen Dulles became director in 1953. Moreover, at the operational level m atters were often confused. Dissident groups inside the E astern bloc were good sources o f intelli­ gence, but, as even the cautious British SIS had discovered, they were unlikely to co-operate unless the West held o u t som e hope o f rescue. M atters were also blurred by ‘retardation operations’ intended for a future h o t war. This involved the construction o f sleeper groups with arm s caches, in both Eastern and W estern Europe, which would awake only in a h o t war, to collect intelligence and to create mayhem in the Soviet Arm y’s rear areas. These were favoured by the growing special warfare departm ents o f the American arm ed services, which had been deeply impressed by w hat the G erm ans had achieved by recruiting legions o f anti-com m unist Soviet citizens.20 T he special operations and psychological warfare divisions o f the US Army were keen on the idea o f recruiting Soviet citizens. T he wartime Vlasov Russian Army o f Liberation was a subject o f perpetual fascina­ tion and dozens o f studies were com pleted on this subject. They focused on the Prague M anifesto o f 14 N ovem ber 1944, in which General Andrei Vlasov appealed to a range o f minorities to join the Russians in over­ throwing the Bolsheviks. Although many volunteers wished to join

c.

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Vlasov’s wartime Russian Army o f Liberation, the idea filled H ider and H im m ler with distaste. Vlasov had never been forgiven for his disparag­ ing remarks about the W ehrmacht o r for his observation that 'it takes a Russian to lick the Russians’. Vlasov was in the last analysis a Russian nationalist. H e was handed over to the Soviets by the US Army in 1945 and hanged in Moscow in 1946 'fo r active espionage-sabotage and ter­ rorist activity’. But now the US Army called for a revival o f Vlasov’s legions and the reissue o f the Prague Manifesto as the *Washington M anifesto’. T here were lessons to be learned from the G erm an ‘mishan­ dling’ o f anti-Soviet Russians.21 T here were also organisational reasons for continued covert action in the 1950s. W hen Walter Bedell Smith became the new D irector o f Central Intelligence in 1950, he thought he was taking over an intelli­ gence organisation, but he now found that the CIA was a diverse entity engaged in a lot o f secret Cold War fighting, and indeed even open Cold War fighting. T he Agency acquired its own radio stations, news­ papers, airlines, even small private armies. This activity brought huge resources and by 1951, after it had absorbed Frank W isner’s O PC, Bedell Smith decided to allow it to continue to grow. In O ctober that year he chaired a staff meeting at CIA headquarters at which this issue was considered. Covert action had 'assumed such a very large size in com parison to our intelligence function that we have almost arrived at the stage where it is necessary to decide whether the CIA will remain an intelligence agency o r becom e a “cold war departm ent’”. But no deci­ sion was taken and instead Bedell Smith allowed these activities to roll o n under th eừ own m om entum .22 For L ondon the breakpoint with the Americans over covert action also came in late 1951. British and American secret services now found themselves increasingly at odds on the ground, and SIS had begun dis­ creet efforts to ham per CIA activities which it thought particularly ill advised. R obert Joyce o f the Policy Planning Staff told the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff that SIS and the CIA had begun 'to foul each other up in som e o f their covert operations’. Consequently, in D ecem ber 1951 .Joyce led a team to London for an emergency meeting with SIS on liberation: I outlined to the British as best I could the NSC-68 policies and indicated why Bedell Smith desired to beef up his covert operations ... I tried to obtain their approval for our point of view and to obtain their agreement that they would not foul up our operations. I must say that in December I got a very negative reaction. The British were strongly inclined to accept the status quo ... The pitch is that the UK. wants a voice in decisions on these matters. They arc worried that the Americans will go too far too fast. They repeatedly empha­ sised that they are only 25 miles away from the Continent and that this is much too close for comfort.

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SIS said that its line was that it was only ‘interested in intelligence gather­ ing, n ot in subversion*. T he m ore two sides talked, the further apart they appeared to be. Joyce had tried to reassure SIS by explaining that m uch o f the expanded CIA activity consisted o f ‘retardation operations’ rather than liberation. W hat the CIA wanted to do was create nucleus groups that would form the basis o f partisan activity in the event o f a future open conflict; this required time and could not be done at short nonce. All o f this, he protested, was designed n o t to accelerate the Cold War, but to plan prudendy in case o f a h o t war. But references to hot war were not well calculated to calm Bridsh nerves.23 Alarmed by Joyce’s presentation, the British now sprang into action. PƯSD, the new Foreign Office control centre, had already begun a review o f liberation activities and its task was to find a way to slow the Americans down. Originating with the small Overseas Planning Section and Pierson Dixon, its ideas then w ent to the ten-person c Committee, which form ed the mam interface between senior SIS officers and PUSD. These ideas were finally endorsed by the Perm anent Under-Secretary’s Com m ittee in January 1952 and emerged as ‘Future Policy towards Soviet Russia’, which set out a new gradualist approach to liberation that m ight be called ‘general softening’.24 PU SD argued that the West should abandon the idea o f prom oting mass insurrections and revolts com ­ pletely. Instead it should aim at reaching peaceful coexistence with the Eastern bloc by negotiating a num ber o f local settlem ents that ‘m ight be expected to lead cumulatively to a general stabilisation’. While PUSD accepted that the im pact o f the T ito-Stalin split o f 1948 was highly favourable for the West, it could not see it being repeated and concluded that ‘operations designed to liberate the satellites are impracticable and would involve unacceptable risks’. Instead PU SD m apped out a m ore general program m e o f covert oper­ ations designed to hasten broad changes right across the Soviet system. This m eant viewing the Soviet system as a whole, and regarding subver­ sion as part o f a longer-term psychological attack on the political struc­ ture o f the whole Soviet empire, including the Soviet Union itself. Instead o f risings and revolts PUSD preferred ‘a series o f specialist oper­ ations against specific targets’ within the com m unist governm ents, econ­ omies and armies to reduce their effectiveness and to ‘poison’ their mutual relations. After all, E astern E urope was undergoing a series o f vicious purges, which blatantly advertised the possibilities for encourag­ ing m ore self-inflicted damage. In reality this new approach to liberation was directed at the Americans rather than the Soviets. Broader covert measures aimed at a ‘general soft­ ening’ were only proposed by the British as an attem pt to divert the United States into activities that they considered to be less dangerous. In

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reality L ondon wanted SIS and the CIA to do nothing beyond intelli­ gence-gathering. CIA activities seemed not only provocative, but also ill directed and rudderless, with all the implicit possibilities o f unintentional collision. London asserted that the Americans: are already engaged in attempts to weaken the structure of the Soviet empire by various means including broadcasting, refugee organisations working from outside and covert activities and propaganda behind the Iron Curtain; and there are some indications that they rate the possibility of detaching the satel­ lites by subversion and revolt a good deal higher than we do. As their strength grows, they will no doubt be impatient... W hat concerned PUSD m ost was not the direction o f US policy but that there did n ot seem to be one. W hat was it all for and where was it going? T he long-term aims o f United States policy, it complained, ‘are n o t clear' and instead its covert apparatus appeared ‘m ore concerned with means than ends’. T he dismal fate o f risings in E ast Berlin in 1953, and Hungary in 1956, was clearly forecast by PUSD. T he end result o f liberation, it pre­ dicted, was that the anti-Soviet elements that were being built up in the satellites would ‘get out o f control’ and rise up o f their own accord: ‘We m ight then be faced with a choice between supporting the revolutionary m ovem ent by force o f arm s o r abandoning the revolutionaries to their fate’. T he West, it continued, would then reluctantly choose the latter and they would be crushed. This would ‘inevitably lead to a strengthen­ ing o f the Soviet hold over the whole o f the Soviet empire and the liqui­ dation o f all potential supporters o f the West.’ M oreover the West’s limited intelligence networks would then be wiped out. W hether it led to a war, o r a renewed Soviet crackdown, it added uncomfortably, ‘it is clearly on the European nations rather than on the United States that the first repercussions would fall’. But W ashington was already far down the road on Cold War fighting. L ondon knew that W ashington would not pay heed to criticisms which seemed ‘only obstructive and negative'. However, it argued, they ‘might be m ore ready to listen’ if the British proposed ‘a m ore forward policy aimed not at fom enting revolt in the satellites but at weakening the whole fabric o f the Soviet Em pire’. L ondon wanted to be ‘in a position to put forward suggestions and crit­ icisms as a partner from the inside’. This course would clearly involve SIS in going som e way with the Americans towards a m ore forward policy. In other words, London was getting on the American bus, but only to apply the handbrake.25 All this was presented to W ashington by Sir Oliver Franks, the British Ambassador, and by Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliott, the new head o f the British Joint Services Mission. Predictably the Americans saw right

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through it and were less than delighted. O n 12 March 1952, key American figures, including Paul N itze and Robert Joyce from the S tate D epartm ent, m et together with General O m ar Bradley and the rest o f the US Joint Chiefs o f Staff at the Pentagon to consider the ‘British p a p e r on covert operations’. Bradley thought it all Very timid’ and encapsulated the mood: ‘W hat worries me is that this paper has an appeasem ent ring to it.’ Superficially much o f the problem seemed to be different views o n how brittle the Eastern bloc m ight be in the face o f radio psychological warfare and other pressures. L ondon had sent the Americans a pessim is­ tic JIC paper on the subject. T here was also clear divergence o n atom ic matters. T he Americans thought the West was relatively as sư o n g as it would ever be and the Soviets were catching up, suggesting that Sve have g o t to do some things now to keep even’. But the British believed th at the West would be stronger in five years dm e and wanted to wait. N itze sug­ gested that the answer was to put the British through an ‘educational process' to help them understand current American strategic thinking, but he added that this should be done gendy, as ‘we do not w ant to scare the British to death’. More fundamentally, the issue was not Soviet vulnerability. It was instead different Bridsh and American appreciadons o f their own nadonal vulnerability, in other words a ‘vulnerability gap’ between the two allies. British views were determ ined by their desire to avoid a war in Europe. I f conventional, it would bring the Soviets to the Channel ports, and if nuclear, it would eradicate Britain. Joyce put it succinctly: the British ‘want to influence US a little and perhaps even control US a little. This is the guts o f the matter.’26 Although these British anxieties related to covert action o r special operations, NSC 68 and the ‘Global Strategy’ paper had already under­ lined that they could not be separated from questions o f nuclear strategy. Moreover, close Anglo-American co-operation on the intelligence side also served to intensify worries about open war. High-level intelligence contact was providing the British with simultaneous insights into American thinking about a possible first strike or ‘preventative war’. D uring late 1951 and early 1952 liberation had come together with fears o f preventative war to create an atm osphere o f near panic in Whitehall. These m atters were so sensitive that many were reluctant to com m it them to paper, so they are not easy to uncover. American thinking was increasingly fascinated by the idea that Soviet strength was growing and that Moscow was becom ing m ore, not less, dangerous. By the late 1950s the Soviets would be able to threaten the United States with missiles; they would also be m ore confident. Far better, some senior planners thought, to confront the problem now. A t the end o f 1951, just as Robert Joyce was preparing to travel to L ondon to talk to SIS, and just as Attlee was

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preparing to hand over the reins o f governm ent to Churchill’s second administration, these issues burst on the Whitehall scene. In the sum m er o f 1951, the D irector o f Naval Intelligence, Vice Admiral Eric Longley-Cook, was preparing to retire. Liberated from the constraints o f office he now felt free to speak his m ind, at least to a select group at the highest level. In a remarkable presentation entided ‘W here are we going?’ he argued that, although the Soviets were paranoid, they were also conservative and defensive. Cautious by nature, they were going nowhere and presented Britain with litde real threat. I f anything the stolid Russians were a force for stability in the world system. T hey would try to move their objectives forward by means o f psychological o r econom ic means but ‘n o t by a general military offensive’. T he main threat to strategic stability and indeed to the survival o f the United Kingdom , he suggested, came from America: (vi) Many people in America have made up their minds that war with Russia is inevitable and there is a strong tendency in military circles to ‘fix’ the zero date for war. (vii) It is doubtful whether, in a year’s time, the ƯS will be able to control the Frankenstein monster which they are creating. (viii) There is a definite danger of the U.S.A. becoming involved in a preventa­ tive war against Russia, however firmly their N.A.T.O. allies obịect. Longley-Cook had reached these conclusions after a num ber o f visits to the United States to m eet with senior American intelligence chiefs and planners. His view also reflected prolonged Immersion in the work o f Britain’s highest-level intelligence comm ittee, the JIC. In O ctober 1950 the British JIC and its American counterpart had come together for a m ajor conference In Washington. Here, the British JIC team confronted a ‘deep-seated conviction’ on the part o f the American military that ‘all o ut war against the Soviet Union was n o t only inevitable but im m inent’. T he British JIC exerted super-hum an efforts to convince its American partners to endorse a com bined appreciation o f the Soviet threat based on what it called ‘factual intelligence’. However, Longley-Cook contin­ ued, the Americans were quick to alter this to fit ‘theừ own pre-conceived ideas’ as soon as the British JIC team had departed W ashington. ‘United States intelligence studies tend to fit in with the prejudged con­ clusion that a shooting war with the Soviet Union at som e time is inevi­ table.’ T he Americans, he warned, ‘have accordingly gone ahead to prepare for an Inevitable clash o f arm s with the Soviet Union, “fixed” for m id o r late 1952'. Longley-Cook argued that, at the very least, the British should tell the U nited States that it ‘cannot expect to use our territory for a war against Russia or to have our support'. Longley-Cook claimed that the American fascination with the idea o f

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preventative war had moved beyond the Pentagon and had joined up with extremist sentim ents that abounded in American public life, charac­ terised by McCarthyism and the 'present witch hunt against President Roosevelt’s form er political advisers’ w ho had concluded the Yalta accords. Some, he said, were eager for war because the United States had never known real war and the devastation that it could bring. O thers were eager for war because they could see w hat m ight be com ing their way. This was Very apparent am ong the dwellers o f the larger American cities, w ho visualise in their own concenưated hom e towns the ruins o f Ham burg and Berlin’. He added, T h ese, and other Americans, say - “We have the bom b; let US use it now while the balance is in our favour. Since war with Russia is inevitable, let’s get it over with non?\' Finally, I have been impressed and concerned by my conversations with many responsible and influential Americans who are obviously convinced that war with Russia is inevitable and who have no clear idea what their policy is going to be once they reach a position of strength. Some talk of an 'ultimatum from strength*, but many more believe in the necessity for 'smashing the Russians’ at the earliest possible moment.27 Only six copies o f Longley-Cook’s extraordinary exposition were pro­ duced for the ‘eyes only’ purview o f W hitehall’s innerm ost circle. W hat m ost made o f this report we will never know. Almost immediately, they were ‘ordered to be destroyed’. O ne copy only survived in the Prime Minister’s Office, sent to Clem ent Attlee in the last weeks o f his administration. He had been ‘very interested’ but had been swept out o f office. Churchill, w ho now began his second administration, was given this doc­ um ent on 21 D ecem ber 1951 and read it in early January 1952 when beginning a visit to the United States. He was initially dismissive o f it, even wondering if Longley-Cook was some kind o f com m unist and ordering that ‘a sharp eye should be kept on the writer’. But after several encounters with his American hosts Churchill found his own cherished ideas for a sum m it with the Soviets abruptly rubbished by Truman. He also detected an increasingly bellicose atm osphere in W ashington and returned to London in a state o f deịection. In April 1952 he wrote to his Private Secretary, ‘I want to see the Secret report prepared by the late D irector o f Naval Intelligence and sent me by the First Lord when I was in America. Let me have it back again.’28 D uring his time in W ashington Churchill had sought greater reassu­ rance from the Americans about the circumstances in which the bom b m ight be used and greater detail on American target plans for a future war. He managed to extract a briefing on the main American emergency war plan from the US Secretary o f Defense and promises o f further atomic intelligence exchange despite its contravention o f the McMahon

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Act o f 1946. Although the record o f these conversations is very obscure o n the point, Churchill clearly pressed for som e sort o f veto on the use o f American airpower from British bases and was rebuffed. Instead the meetings came up with the formula that the use o f such airpower would be ‘a m atter for joint decision’, in the circumstances prevailing at the time, a vague form ulation which was open to interpretation. This form u­ lation became the orthodox wisdom on the m atter o f ƯS airpower in Britain and was repeated by British premiers from Churchill down to Margaret T hatcher in the 1980s.29 To w hat extent was Longley-Cook exaggerating the level o f threat? John Slessor, the C hief o f the Air Staif, also saw the paper and responded that there ‘is to my m ind, a lot in w hat Longley Cook says’. But he also thought that the tem ptation o f the United States to rush into a preventa­ tive war had been produced by a fear o f the Soviets overtaking it in the arm s race and that this fear was now waning in W ashington.30 LongleyC ook’s warning was not only on target, it was also one o f several such warnings which had circulated in Whitehall. Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy G arrod had been moved to write privately to Tedder and Slessor warning about preventative war after lecturing at the US Air Warfare College in 1948. T h e issue had come up during his lecture and G arrod had argued that it was ‘not a practicable proposition for democratic countries’ because it was an act o f w anton aggression. But the prevailing attitude that revealed itself in discussions afterwards ‘was m ore extrem e’ than he had expected. A fter the students had dispersed, senior officers talked frankly with G arrod. General Orville Anderson, the Com m andant, had argued that the Cold War was just as much a war o f aggression as a shoot­ ing war and that the Soviets were trading on an ‘artificial distinction’. This gave the West the m oral right to counter-attack by arm ed force. Moreover, the arrival o f the atom bom b had made the time factor ‘criti­ cal’ and it was dangerous to wait for an arm ed attack before launching an arm ed counter-attack: [General Anderson] admitted that the use of atomic weapons might create a wilderness in the country attacked and that this would result in a post-war problem similar to our present problem of rehabilitating Germany but on a vaster scale. The view was put forward that if we waited until Russia was able to develop and launch atomic weapons this wilderness might be created in Western Europe or even the United States and the result might be the end of Western civilisation. We can afford, however, to create a wilderness in Russia without serious repercussion on Western civilisation ... we have a moral obli­ gation to stop Russia’s aggression now by force, if necessary, rather than face the consequences of delay This, warned G arrod, was ‘General A nderson’s thesis in bold outline*. Slessor and M ajor-General Bill Williams were scheduled to lecture at the

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US Air War College and he felt that they should know w hat ‘sort o f atm osphere' awaited them .31 O n 19 April 1950, G eneral G eorge c . Kenney at the US Air Force Headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama w rote to H oyt Vandenberg, w ho had moved from being head o f the Central Intelligence G roup to be chief o f staff o f the US Air Force. Kenney was reflecting o n a recent Com m anders Conference and wanted to highlight som e cridcal issues that had emerged. T he Soviet atomic stockpile, he feared, was expanding much faster than Charles Cabell, their D irector o f Intelligence, believed. Moreover, he said, current planning for a response to a Soviet attack —such as Plan O fftackle—was hopelessly over-optimisdc. ‘T he one conclusion that alm ost everyone seemed to reach was that if we waited until Russia hit US, Europe, very probably including the United Kingdom, would be lost to US.' O nce this had happened the pos­ sibility o f gaining air superiority in order to repeat som ething like the N orm andy beachhead, and then to push back into an occupied E urope, would be ‘alm ost inconceivable'. T he Soviets would never be dislodged from Europe. Equally, the current idea o f holding a Soviet push at the River Elbe ‘does not appear feasible’ given the level o f forces in Europe. T h e United States m ight win, but if many Soviet bom bers got through ‘civilisadon as we now know it would be a thing o f the past’. Given this gloomy oudook for both Europe and America, and with the situation getting worse by the day, there was only one answer. Kenney wrote: I believe that we have got to do something about the conception that we must wait until Russia hits US before we can start shooting. I realize that this is a matter beyond your control, but perhaps something can be done about educat­ ing the public or at least preventing them from becoming too apathetic about the situation, which in the final analysis is a question of survival. If we ignore the warnings... continually made by Communists all over the world and allow a new and far greater Pearl Harbor to overtake US, there is a good probability that we will lose the hot war as well as the cold war. I believe that something can be done to bring it home to the people of this country and to their repre­ sentatives in Congress that we are now actually at war. By all previous definitions, we are now in a state of war with Russia. Whether we call it a cold war or apply any other term, we are not winning. We are not seriously mobiliz­ ing to start winning or to undertake the offensive between now and mid­ summer 1952. When a state of war exists, it is not necessary to tell our opponent what our next move is going to be. It seems to me that almost any analysis of the situation shows that the only way that we can be certain of winning is to take the offensive as soon as possible and hit Russia hard enough to a least prevent her from taking over Europe. If we plan and execute the operation properly, the weight of our attack in the early stages may be sufficient to compel Russia to accept our terms for a real peace. It would not be a preventative war, because we are already at war.32

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T his was n o t an outburst by one belligerent Air Force general. Instead, Kenney’s views were, as he rightly stressed, symptomatic o f a dom inant m indset am ong senior USAF com m anders in the early 1950s. It was a frightening argum ent because it was underpinned by a compelling, if amoral, rationale. Kenney’s allusion to Pearl H arbor was especially poig­ nant. It was just such an argum ent by senior Japanese figures in late 1941, proclaiming that Japan’s situation was bad but likely to get worse, that propelled it from a ‘Cold War’ o f semi-blockade into w hat it saw as a pre­ ventative war o n 7 D ecem ber 1941. Like Kenney, the Japanese had envis­ aged an effective first strike, followed by a favourable armistice. T he British JIC team had detected this problem in 1950. A rift between the British and American JIC s over the likelihood o f war and its possible date had been developing since 1949 and was already apparent at a troubled conference between the British, American and Canadian JIC teams held at the Pentagon soon after the outbreak o f the Korean War in August 1950. T he conference had been extended into Septem ber but still ended in barely concealed disagreement.33 O n 7 August 1950, slightly less than a year after the explosion o f the Soviet atomic bom b, Major-General T. H. Landon, the US Air Force D irector o f Plans, recounted a recent gathering o f British and American intelligence chiefs on the ‘Present World Situation'. They had been poles apart and there had been fierce arguments. L ondon insisted that the Soviets would not be ready for general war before 1955 but the Americans expected war in 1952 ‘o r even earlier’. He was worried about ‘divergence on this m ost im portant ques­ tion’ and suggested that a British JIC team be invited to Washington again to try and iron the difficulties out. A m onth later, in Septem ber 1950, General Orville Anderson was sacked from the US A ử Force when he prom oted ideas o f preventative war publicly and gained front-page newspaper headlines. T he following year the regular sum m er AngloAmerican JIC conference was characterised by stand-up rows. T he diver­ gences were becom ing ever wider and pointed to future trouble.34 Remarkably, we now know that preventative-war thinking was a dom ­ inant strain within the US Air Force from 1948 until at least 1953. This is confirm ed by the unpublished memoirs o f General Charles p. Cabell. Cabell served as the US Air Force Intelligence chief at this time and then became deputy director o f the CIA under Kennedy. He recalled: During this general period and lasting for several years, there were many advo­ cates of a ‘preemptive’ or ‘preventative’ war with the Soviet Union. The theory was that the Soviet Union was determined upon attaining world domination and that somewhere along the line a general war between East and West was inevitable. So —went the theory —if war was to come anyhow, it behooved the United States to ensure the winning of that war by launching it herself at a time of her choosing, before the Russians were ready —and that meant soon.

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Cabell recalled that the theory was 'simple, logical and attractive to m en o f action’ and there were many proponents in the USAF. ‘Some o f my honored friends and advisers pressed me hard to climb on that bandwa­ gon.' But Cabell resisted, believing that there were other courses open and that preventative war would be an ‘act o f immorality and despair'.35 Fears o f a possible preventative war, perhaps initiated by a confronta­ tion over a rebellion in Eastern Europe, were the main cause o f rapidly cooling Anglo-American relations in the early 1950s. By 1952, L ondon had the two issues som ewhat tangled up. D uring the PUSD discussions in early 1952 on covert action, SIS had been notably determ ined to stam p o ut any British support for American ideas. But support for W ashington had com e from an unexpected quarter. In early 1952 the booldsh staff o f the Foreign Office Research D epartm ent - known as FO R D — had simultaneously circulated their own paper on the ‘Internal Stability o f the Soviet Regime'. Although it did n o t call for m ore action against the Soviets, its views supported those who did. It argued that the Soviet system was getting stronger and m ore stable all the time and, as it did so, it would becom e ‘nastier’ and m ore troublesom e, unless short-term measures were taken to keep it off balance. In a fit o f absence o f m ind, senior officials had allowed the FO R D paper wide circulation.36 SIS officers were apoplectic w hen they read it. They declared that 'the result o f the FO R D paper is to present an argum ent for preventative war’.37 T he Foreign Office argued that SIS - referred to as ‘Mr Reilly's friends' - was over-sensitive and that there was 'n o serious discrepancy' between FO R D and the m ainstream policy o f dam ping things down. But it was clearly embarrassed and wanted to keep the issue ‘o u t o f court’ and ‘deal with M.I.6 by direct discussion’.38 T he eventual response o f Paul Falla's Overseas Planning Section to the complaints o f SIS, given in July 1952, was disarmingly candid. Falla conceded that ‘It is true that in som e circles the situation is so regarded. In fact, if war were an instrum ent o f policy that W estern G overnm ents could readily con­ template using, there would be very sư ong arguments for it. We cannot obscure those arguments, at least in official circles. It is just fortunate that m ost o f our minds do not work in such a way as to accept them.' Exactly where these ‘circles’ were remains unclear, but the general im pact o f ideas o f preventative war upon Anglo-American relations was highly corrosive.39 In 1952 General O m ar Bradley warned senior American diplomatic and military chiefs that Anglo-American relations were now deteriorat­ ing fast. T h e re have been so many irritants in our relationships with the British in recent m onths that I think we may have a showdown with them som etim e in the near future.' Some o f these m atters were very sensitive and he did n ot think they should be addressed at an official meeting;

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instead he thought the Americans should just sit down with som e key British figures ‘and call each other names for a while’ and try to get the mutual bad feeling out o f their system. Admiral Sherman, US Chief o f the Naval Staff, volunteered that ‘the explanation o f these difficulties’ had been conveyed to him very confidentially by M ountbatten: ‘H e told me that the British are increasingly apprehensive regarding the effects upon them if the development o f US policy leads to the involvement o f the U K in a w a r . .. the U K would suffer devastation.’ But Sherm an wanted everyone to be ‘very careful’ in order ‘to protect the security’ o f his source, believing that M ountbatten, then Fourth Sea Lord, would be car­ peted for speaking to W ashington with candour.40 Meanwhile, at a lower level, liberation efforts on the ground were not going well. As we have seen, by the end o f the operational season o f 1950 the idea o f liberation had already been badly dented by the failed SIS-C1A O peration Valuable in Albania. SIS now gave up o n Albania and Colonel David Smiley pulled his Pixies out, although the CIA con­ tinued a faltering program m e into that country long after. In the sum m er o f 1951 General Bradley asked his colleagues about progress in Albania: *What is the chance o f getting a free governm ent there?’. H. Freeman Matthews from the State D epartm ent knew the score and replied, ‘N one, now.’ But his colleague, Frederick Reinhardt interjected, ‘You might want to try getting one forcefully. . . T he Greeks and Yugoslavs would split it up for you.’ After all, he added, the covert program m e o f military assis­ tance to the Yugoslavs was growing and they were getting m ore confident all the time. L ondon and W ashington had already opened dis­ cussions on an overt invasion o f Albania. But m atters were made compli­ cated by the fact that ‘the British have a split position’, with the Foreign Office wishing to do nothing and to preserve an independent com m unist Albania while ‘in some places in the British G overnm ent they are think­ ing o f a split Albania'. London’s diplomats did not want to stir up trouble, but the British military remained interested in m ore aggressive measures.41 Unsurprisingly, it was only in military surroundings that British Army officers offered their views freely. O n 22 August 1952, Bradley’s opposite num ber, Field Marshal William Slim, Chief o f the Imperial General Staff, addressed Allied com m anders at General Eisenhower’s SH APE Headquarters in Paris. Here he had no qualms about calling for a crusade against the East. Slim could not fail to be aware o f how directly he cut across British policy at the highest level, since he had accompanied Churchill on his visit to the United States earlier that year, the key purpose o f which was to sell Trum an the idea o f a sum m it with the Soviets. But his presentation at SH A PE H Q made no concessions to Churchill’s search for mutual coexistence, and instead called for victory:

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To end this cold war, we ought to be very much more aggressive. We, the British especially I think, are too much on the defensive. And as our strength grows, so should our aggression in the cold war. We should aim first of all at separating the satellites from Russia. It is not an impossible objecdve, espe­ cially in a countty like Czechoslovakia, where the people can still remember freedom. Or in Poland, where they can still remember freedom. In Russia they can’t ... the idea of separating a national movement from Russia, as has hap­ pened in Yugoslavia, is not all that impossible and we should aim at doing it. Slim was profoundly influenced in his thinking by the T ito model. H e urged officers ‘n o t to bother too m uch’ w hether separatist states splitting away from Stalin remained com m unist o r not. It followed from this that the Western propaganda effort should n o t be so much against com m u­ nism in the satellite countries: ‘It should be against Russia, the dom ina­ tion o f Russia. It should be nationalist propaganda.’ This, he suggested, had been the critical mistake in W estern liberation efforts so far, not to exploit the potential separation between Russia and communism. Slim stressed that he was pressing n o t for h o t war, just for a markedly m ore aggressive Cold War. Again, drawing on the Yugoslav example, he argued that as long as the states leaving the Soviet orbit stayed com m u­ nist this could be done w ithout all-out confrontation. ‘Russia won’t go to war for that reason,’ he maintained. He contrasted this with overt mili­ tary encroachm ents, which he regarded as dangerous: ‘if you go and put a big American airbase in Finland’ which touched on the historic and continuing national interests o f Russia ‘then you are taking a risk’. Slim's position was cogent, but it was now far removed from that o f SIS, o f the Foreign Office and indeed o f the British Prime Minister.42 Slim’s position on Czechoslovakia, however artfully presented, could n ot survive the experiences o f failed risings in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Berlin in the sum m er o f 1953, prom pted by Stalin’s death in the spring o f that year. As PUSD had predicted, the West decided that it could n o t risk overt assistance to the rebels, and therefore sat on its hands while pro-W estern elements were rounded up.43 T here were plenty o f ele­ m ents w ho wished to intervene. Senior com m anders in the US Army pressed for assistance to the guerrillas and moved the 10th Special Forces G roup from their base at Fort Bragg to Bad Tölz in Germany. ‘Everybody wanted to go,’ recalled their com m ander, and ‘get a taste o f the action’. British intelligence reported that the repression in Berlin in 1953 was relatively mild, but when the same thing occurred in Hungary in 1956 the results were brutal.44 T he CIA was not entirely disappointed with the outcom e o f the Berlin riots. O n the one hand it thought it unlikely that overt resistance would spread to other satellite states. O n the other hand the riots were likely to result in self-inflicted injuries. T he CIA looked forward to ‘a purge o f the newly installed hierarchy in G erm any’

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and the prospect that the repercussions would have a bad effect on the delicate post-Stalin power balance in the Kremlin. Provoking further purges was looked on by som e as a welcome bonus.45 President Eisenhow er was gradually retreating from liberation-type activities and harassm ent even before Berlin. T he death o f Stalin in February 1953 seemed to open up a range o f new possibilities. A t the N ational Security Council’s ‘Solarium Exercise’ a m onth later, Eisenhow er listened to three com peting prescriptions for future policy towards the E astern b lo c Robert Bowie, then head o f the Policy Planning Staff, rem embered, ‘I think part o f his purpose was to make sure that everyone understood that the basic policy was containm ent and n o t roll-back.’ This reflected an acceptance that Soviet control o f the sat­ ellites looked firm and difficult to disrupt. T he Berlin riots in June 1953 only underscored this. Bowie went on, ‘realistically the conclusion was that if you tried to intervene you risked a T hird World War’. W ashington accepted that prising away a satellite was improbable, but was still keen to create troublesom e problem s in the East.46 By Septem ber 1953, even G eorge Kennan, perhaps the key architect o f expanded covert action against the Eastern bloc, had begun to get cold feet. K ennan was enjoying a sabbatical at Princeton university when a per­ plexed c. D. Jackson asked him for his views on current strategy towards ‘minorities behind the iron curtain’. Kennan now urged the 'greatest caution’, especially with regard to exile groups like the Ukrainians. Such groups, he warned, ‘have sometimes been able to swing governm ent policy to an amazing degree’. They had ‘flirted very heavily with the Nazis in the late Thirties*. He now saw them for w hat they were and ‘honesty compels me to face the fact that they are probably selling the U.S. G overnm ent a dangerous bill o f goods’. This was a com plete U -turn on Kennan’s thinking in 1949.47 In the same m onth, US Ambassadors across E urope came together at Luxem bourg and discussed the 'concept and ideas for psychological warfare in E urope’. They were having to deal with the diplomatic fall-out o f liberation and warned that Western Europeans were ‘distrustful’ o f American strategy towards Eastern Europe: Pronouncements by important American officials about the liberation’ of Eastern Europe cause fear and anxiety in Western European capitals. It is gen­ erally believed that American impatience and implacable hostility to Communism might result in hasty and ill-considered action and that American political warfare and covert operadons directed against Eastern Europe might set up a chain reaction leading to military conflict, which Western Europe desires to avoid under almost any circumstances. ‘H ow h o t should be the cold war?’ asked America’s leading Am bassadors in Europe. Western E urope would go along with keeping the Eastern

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E uropean p o t ‘lukewarm* o r 'even simmering’, b u t they feared that American political warfare was inclined to ‘keep the p o t at constant boiling point*. They warned W ashington that this was divisive and 'dan­ gerous*. Ironically, far from breaking up E astern Europe instead it ‘serves the Kremlin’s objective to break the Western Alliance*. Prem ature revolts, they said, would retard any tendency o f the Soviets to lower their troop levels. A revolt would only desưoy the healthiest resistance ele­ m ents within the satellite countries. T hey added that resistance elements, historically, had proven effective ‘only on the eve o f liberation by military force’, like the resistance in France just before and after the N orm andy landings. ‘D uring the occupation o f France thousands o f persons who attem pted active resistance were shot, deported o r imprisoned.’ T he resistance elements w ho survived were the quiet organisers and the pamphleteers. In the light o f events in Hungary in 1956 this was a pre­ scient warning. T he Ambassadors advised soft propaganda that would build such groups rather than expose them to danger, including activities such as cultural exchange. W estern policy was already shifting towards the policy o f gradualised liberation and roll-back by stealth that would emerge as a consensus in the late 1950s.48 In D ecem ber 1953 when Churchill m et Eisenhow er again at Bermuda he continued to press the idea o f a m eeting with the Soviets to exploit post-Stalin opportunities. But Eisenhow er counselled that this would be seen by the Soviets as a sign o f weakness. Churchill did not direcdy blame the seemingly easygoing President for w hat he increasingly saw as American warmongering, but blamed instead his Secretary o f State, John Foster Dulles. T he Prime M inister was increasingly angry and com ­ plained later to his doctor, w ho accompanied him to the conference, ‘I am bewildered. It seems that everything is left to Dulles. It appears that the President is no m ore than a ventriloquist’s doll.’ H e added that Dulles preached ‘like a M ethodist M inister’ and his ‘bloody text is always the same*, namely that ‘nothing but evil’ could com e o u t o f a sum m it m eeting with the Soviets. Churchill had begun to feel his years and con­ fessed that ten years before he could have 'dealt with him* but now he did n o t have the energy, adding that ‘I have n o t been defeated by this bastard but by my own decay.’ H e felt this to be a personal failure and became tearful. But he was w rong on two counts. He had thought Eisenhower ‘weak and stupid’ but in fact the President chose to protect his friendship with him by blaming Dulles. Second, even the Foreign Office staff accompanying Churchill knew that the chances o f a genuine sum m it were slim.49 Churchill’s interest in nuclear power continued to grow and by early 1954, he was obsessed by the possibility o f war. T he United States exploded its first hydrogen bom b in M arch that year and the Soviets

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m atched this in September. Churchill was fixated by the extraordinary pow er and danger o f these new weapons. His views now began to parallel those o f the Longley-Cook report o f which he had initially been so dis­ missive. Aware that America was as yet relatively invulnerable to atomic attack because o f the Soviets’ limited delivery systems» he saw the dread­ ful attraction o f preventative war. T he idea o f a showdown before the Soviets could respond contained an obvious military logic and he con­ ceded, ‘I f I were American I ’d do this.’50 Although Eisenhow er had abandoned liberation, during 1954 and 1955 he remained com m itted to keeping the tem perature at boiling point. In 1954 he was still enam oured o f the Volunteer Freedom Corps. This would serve as an ideological beacon and also form a useful corps o f individuals with intimate knowledge o f E astern E urope for any future confrontation. Eisenhower stressed the British wartime example o f fifteen foreign battalions in the Pioneer Corps. But these plans were put o n hold for fear o f upsetting sensitive negotiations over a European D efence Community (E D Q , which sought to mask G erm an rearm a­ m ent by creating a European army. Instead, the US Army in G erm any continued to use its Labor Service O rganisation as a holding tank for 10,600 Eastern Europeans and about 15,900 Germ ans. In August 1955 the President tried again to go ahead with the Volunteer Freedom Corps to ‘provide a cadre o f trained personnel to form and control to u.s. advantage any large num bers o f defected Soviet O rbit personnel in the event o f war’. But he needed the co-operation o f the West G erm an governm ent, which was not forthcom ing.51 Although talks between the CIA and SIS had reached agreem ent on winding dow n much o f the liberation effort as early as the spring o f 1956, the failed Hungarian Revolution o f that O ctober sounded the real death knell o f these ill-advised activities. T he pathetic efforts o f the Hungarian underground against the invading Soviet forces also exposed the stupid­ ity o f any marginal policy o f stirring up trouble somewhere short o f lib­ eration. All the cracks and inconsistencies were now on public view. Privately both Eisenhow er and John Foster Dulles had been inconsis­ tent, sometimes emphasising caution and sometimes becom ing excited about the prospect o f Titoism . T heir lieutenants had pursued additional m edium -term objectives in the general area o f ‘harassm ent’ and ‘pres­ sure’, b ut these were never clear and now, when W ashington was pre­ sented with som ething that was far beyond its expectations, the result was paralysis and inaction.52 T he CIA had had ample warning o f Soviet intentions to crush the rebels. D uring the early stages, it established close contacts with employees o f the Hungarian state railway system and gained access to all the inform ation which passed across a telegraph net that ran from one railway switching point to another, right across

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Hungary. Messages passed through the metal o f the rail tra c k i t s e l f , recording the m ovem ent o f rolling stock. It became clear that n u m b e r s o f carriages were being assembled on the border between H u n g a r y a n d the Soviet Ukraine. T he Soviets were preparing to move in and u s e f o r c e . T he CIA chief in Vienna recalled that these ‘were very sad days* — ‘w e s a t powerless on the sidelines watching the Soviets preparing to c r u s h th e revolution’.53 H ow close British special forces came to participation in s u p p o r t i n g the uprising remains a mystery. SIS had employed form er Royal M a r i n e s in training a few Hungarians on the border in the early 1950s, b u t o n l y for stay-behind purposes in the event o f a Soviet invasion o f th e W e s t. W hen the fighting broke out in Hungary, Major Ellery A nderson, v e t e r a n o f CCRAK operations in Korea, pressed his superiors for p e rm is s io n t o lead volunteers to assist the Hungarians. H e managed to get as f a r a s Vienna ‘with hundreds o f others’ before being restrained. T he (u tility o f resistance operations against police states was now beyond any d o u b t : ‘W hen I returned hom e after the Hungarian frontier had been c lo se d a n d the trains had dragged their truckloads o f prisoners back to R ussia, a n d an uneasy, bloody repression had settled upon yet another country, I w a s forced to face reality.’54 Soviet ư o o p s had begun to advance on Budapest just before d a w n o n 4 N ovem ber 1956. O n the same day, Im re Nagy, leader o f the d is g ra c e d governm ent, sought and was given political asylum in the Y u g o sla v Embassy. In order to extract him from the Embassy he was lured o n t o a Y ugoslav’ bus by the KGB, which proved to have a Russian driver a n d several Russian passengers. H e was then taken to Rumania, w here t h e Securitate held him for interrogation in an operation overseen by th e KGB, and was eventually shot. T he Rumanian Securitate also helped to rebuild the Hungarian security service, the AVH, which was in a bad way. D uring the uprising the dem onstrators had focused particular atten tio n o n the AVH and hundreds o f its officers had been shot. T he Securitate assisted with training the new officers and with reorganisation.55 Hungary caused a great deal o f heart-searching within the com m unity o f American Cold War practitioners. Jim Hoofnagel, a senior USIS officer responsible for much Voice o f America output, addressed the US War College shortly afterwards. H e spoke openly o f his fears that the uprising had been encouraged by ‘our intem perate language and by our calling for a rising in eastern E urope’. This sparked a lively debate and others involved in the broadcast program m e insisted that the revolt was a purely internal episode, driven by years o f frustration at Soviet rule: Y o u mean to tell me that Dulles* clam or caused a poor guy w ho was at the end o f the street in Budapest to march right into the m outh o f the Russian cannon because he thought that the United States would liberate

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h im . . . This is silly. These people had simply had it up to h ere/ There w ere lengthy arguments about the lack o f American intervention. In W ashington the division was largely one o f levels. T hose near the top, w h o had ‘to m eet the future in history’, were m ore m oderate and ‘had h u n d re d o f reasons why no action was taken in Budapest’. But ‘the seco n d rung and third rung people were all for it’ and clearly felt ‘we had le t d ow n the Hungarians’. E ither way, many were privately satisfied to see th e first limited war behind the Iron Curtain regardless o f the outcom e.56 T h e multiplicity o f radio stations has m ade it hard to find out w hat had actually gone out on the airwaves. T he W hite H ouse was anxious about th e role o f the CIA’s radios and ordered Allen Dulles to discover quickly w h a t was broadcast by Radio Free Europe (RFE) before the uprising. D u lle s’ reply was a qualified one. He told the W hite H ouse that as far as h e could determ ine from ‘scripts currently available’ it appeared that ‘no R F E broadcast to Hungary before the revolution could be considered as in citin g to arm ed revolt’. He added, ‘N o R FE broadcast to Hungary im p lied promises o f American military intervention.’ However, he con­ c e d e d that once the revolution was under way RFE 'occasionally w ent b e y o n d the authorized’ and there was clear evidence o f ‘attem pts by RFE t o provide tactical advice’ to those on the ground. In fact R FE had been c o n fu se d , initally regarding the Nagy governm ent as a com m unist s to o g e , then later rebroadcasting some newspaper reports that seem to im p ly th at tangible Western assistance would arrive.57 Predictably, the n e w Soviet-im posed Hungarian governm ent claimed much more. In a d e ta ile d report to the Secretary General o f the U N it alleged that the ‘counter-revolution’ was ‘organised from the West’. CIA groups had o p e ra te d under the guise o f hospital and Red Cross personnel, it stated, a n d Radio Free Europe had urged the Hungarians to violate the ceasefire. It also announced the capture o f agents w ho had worked for th e A m ericans and for General Gehlen, the resurrected G erm an wartime intelligence expert on the Soviet Union, now based near Munich. But a f te r the ludicrous ‘confessions' during the purge trials o f the late 1940s a n d early 1950s, these statements had no credibility.58 A lm o st any retrospective examination o f Western activity directed to w a rd s Hungary was bound to be tinged by anxiety to avoid o r cast b la m e . Fortunately, a m onth before the rising, the Free Europe C o m m itte e hired a consultant to look into its parallel leaflet, press and m a ilin g campaigns in Eastern Europe. It comm issioned Professor Hugh S eto n -W atso n o f London University, ‘a warm friend o f Free E urope C o m m itte e ’ and ‘the m ost respected scholar in the field o f East E u r o p e a n (and Soviet) affairs’. He also worked for SIS and so was very m u c h o n the inside. Completing his sixteen-page report in O ctober 1956, S eto n -W atso n acknowledged that in each country the problem s o f how

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to accelerate the ‘thaw* in Soviet dom ination in the East were com plex, but by and large 'I still feel inclined to urge that even greater efforts be made in this direction.’ specifically on Hungary he thought m ore F ree E urope Com m ittee work would ‘help rather than hinder political evolu­ tion’. H e added, ‘I have discovered no evidence o f the frequendy heard assertions that Free E urope activities are run by emigres who, themselves comfortably established abroad, give their com patriots orders which would recklessly expose them to danger.’ Free E urope received this verdict o n 6 November. Detailed and thoughtful, it probably stands as the m ost objective evidence o f fairly clean hands in the H ungarian affair.59 Even though largely unprovoked by the West, Hungary was a body blow to the architects o f liberation. In 1956 Frank W isner was still a leading exponent o f liberation, deeply com m itted to freeing the peoples o f E astern Europe. Like Ellery Anderson, he had rushed to the Hungarian border to observe the miserable spectacle o f freedom fighters and refugees fleeing to the West. It was too much for him to bear and by the time he reached the CIA station in Rome he was beginning a m ental breakdown. H e was taken into Bethesda Naval Hospital near W ashington for treatm ent. Six m onths later, after several periods o f electro-convulsive therapy, he was able to return to duty, but suffered a relapse. W isner was eventually made nominal head o f the CIA’s L ondon station, in the hope that in a relatively relaxed post he would recuperate. But he remained unwell and tragically com m itted suicide in 1963.60 N o t all exponents o f covert warfare saw Hungary as a disaster. T h e backwash o f the Soviet repression o f that satellite was the eventual trial and execution o f five Hungarian leaders including Im re Nagy. T he public reaction in the West was one o f horror, but privately som e officials w ere n o t entirely displeased, c. D. Jackson discussed the m atter with C ord Meyer and then wrote to Allen Dulles, suggesting that ‘we have been handed a silver-platter opportunity through the m urder o f these five H ungarians’, adding, ‘Let’s not muff it this time.’ Jackson w anted to exploit the m ood o f international outrage over these executions and to press the UN to deny accreditation to the new Hungarian delegation sent by the hardline governm ent in Budapest to the UN. A campaign o f n o n ­ recognition and o f breaking off diplomatic relations with the new Hungarian governm ent would also mean the US would have to close its Embassy in Budapest. This, in turn, raised the tricky question o f the fate o f Cardinal Mindszenty, the leader o f the Catholic Church in H ungary w ho was now a refugee inside the US Embassy in Budapest. W hat if the Embassy was closed and the Cardinal could not leave Hungary? T h e world had already witnessed the fate that had befallen Nagy when he was enticed out o f the Yugoslav Em bassy in Budapest. Jackson told Allen

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Dulỉes» ‘I am going to be shockingly cold-blooded’ and explained that his staff had been in private discussion with the Vatican about repression in Eastern Europe. Cardinal Tardini o f the Vatican had been ‘curt’ and clearly disapproved o f M indszenty’s decision to seek asylum in the Embassy, observing, C ardinal M indszenty used to be a martyr. Today, he is simply a refugee.’Jackson argued that to remove M indszenty’s sanctu­ ary would ‘pose a very interesting problem for the Com m unists’, and predicted that ‘if, at the end o f the line, M indszenty were to becom e a martyr again Ỉ think the Kremlin case would receive a trem endous set­ back’. T he non-survival o f anti-com m unist elements in Hungary would be balanced by further em barrassm ents for the Soviets on the world stage. It is hard to resist the conclusion that events in Hungary not only confirm ed the bankruptcy o f liberation as a sưategy, but also underlined the m anner in which many Cold Warriors in the West had already shifted away from a simple strategy o f liberation. T hey were not primarily inter­ ested in the fate o f individual Eastern bloc countries and instead regarded resistance m ovem ents in the East as m ere footsoldiers in a wider campaign o f pressure and counter-pressure that extended across all o f E urope.61

16 The C I A ’s Federalist Operation: A C U E and the European M ovem ent OCB Special Staff to develop an oudine o f a special project for dealing with the Ijm don Economist staff through personal contact. Action: Taquey and Hirsch. Morning conference o f OCB Special Staff to review ‘Action Items’ chaired by D. Jackson, 19 O ctober 1953'

c.

overt operations are central to any understanding o f events in p o st­ war W estern Europe. N o less than the E astern bloc, W estern Europe was also a battleground, although the hidden-hand techniques deployed here were softer and m ore subliminal than those associated with Cold War fighting. Thom as w. Braden, the outspoken head o f the CIA's International Organisations Division in the early 1950s, has asserted candidly that 'newspapers, radio stations, magazines, airlines, ships, businesses, and voluntary organizations had been bought, subsi­ dized, penetrated o r invented as assets for the cold war’.2 In the late 1940s a great variety o f W estern organisations, n o t just intelligence agencies, drew up clandestine program m es designed both to underm ine com m unist influence in W estern E urope and to ensure a welcome for the Marshall Plan. T he examples are legion, from electoral politics and organised labour to science and cultural affairs. American officials, trying to stabilise post-war Europe in the face o f growing com ­ m unist parties in France and Italy, assumed that this required rapid unification, perhaps leading to a United States o f Europe. President Truman's Marshall Plan was designed to encourage a federal E urope and this was even m ore strongly emphasised under his successor, Eisenhower. European unification also offered a way to solve the tricky problem o f G erm an rearm am ent, by absorbing Germ any into a wider unit.3 T he creation o f a federalist United States o f E urope was therefore a holy grail for W ashington. Extensive covert operations for the specific

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p rom otion o f E uropean unity were launched by the CIA’s greatest lumi­ naries — William J. D onovan, Allen Dulles, Walter Bedell Smith, Tom Braden and Frank W isner — and they continued for over a decade. However, they had to overcome substantial obstacles, the biggest o f which was London, which under both Labour and Conservative adm in­ istrations staunchly resisted the idea o f a federal Europe. T he m ost remarkable US covert operation was vast secret funding o f th e E uropean Movement. By the early 1950s prom oting E uropean unity was the largest CIA operation in W estern Europe. T he E uropean M ovem ent was an umbrella group which led a prestigious, if disparate, set o f organisations urging rapid unification in Europe, focusing its efforts upon the Council o f Europe. T he European M ovem ent counted W inston Churchill, Paul-Henri Spaak, K onrad Adenauer, Léon Blum and Alcide D e Gasperi as its five Presidents o f Honour. In 1948, its main handicap was scarcity o f funds; indeed it was bankrupt and close to col­ lapse. T he discreet injection o f approximately $4 million by the CIA between 1949 and 1960 was central to efforts to drum up mass support for the Marshall Plan, the Schuman Plan (for integrating E uropean coal, iron and steel production), the European D efence Community and a E uropean Assembly with sovereign powers. This covert contribution never form ed less than half the European M ovem ent’s budget and, after 1952, it was probably two-thirds. Simultaneously this program m e sought to underm ine the staunch resistance o f the British Labour governm ent, and then o f the Conservatives, to federalist ideas.4 T he conduit for American assistance was the American Com m ittee on U nited E urope (ACUE), directed by senior figures from the American intelligence community. ACUE was set up in the early sum m er o f 1948 by Allen Dulles, then heading a com m ittee reviewing the organisation o f the CIA on behalf o f the National Security Council, and also by William J. D onovan, founder o f OSS. They were responding to separate requests for assistance from W inston Churchill and from C ount Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, a veteran pan-European campaigner from Austria. ACUE worked closely with US governm ent officials involved with the Marshall Plan, particularly those in the Econom ic Co-operation Adm inistration (ECA). But ACUE also had a fascinating E ast E uropean dimension, which tied it into liberation and the volatile exile groups working with the CIA and Radio Free Europe. T he full story o f this covert operation is only now emerging as the com plete records o f ACUE have come to light. In addition we can also draw on one o f the strangest doctoral dissertations ever com pleted by a research student in Britain. T he contents o f this thesis on the early E uropean Movement, written by F. X. Rebattet at the University o f O xford in 1962, were so sensitive that it was closed to readers in the

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Bodleian Library for three decades. It was opened to public inspection only in the early 1990s. F. X. Rebattet was the son o f G eorge Rebattet, Secretary General (1952—5) o f the E uropean Movement. His study was conducted with full access to the internal papers o f the E uropean M ovem ent and with the co-operation o f its senior figures. It is astonish­ ing for its frankness on the issue o f covert American funding and on how the m atter was concealed.5 T he CIA funding operation through ACUE tells US a lot about the nature o f American intervention in W estern Europe. T he origins o f this program m e lay less in the formal provisions o f National Security Council directives, which CIA historians have studied ad nauseam, and m ore in an inform al and personal transadantic network. This was a pattern o f hum an friendships created by m em bers o f the intelligence and resistance comm unity during the Second World War. Until 1950, much US aid to non-com m unist groups in Europe was sent through unofficial channels, although with governm ent approval and support.6 ACUE typifies the liberal philosophy underpinning many such CIA covert operations. It made litde attem pt to manipulate organisations o r individuals. Instead it sought genuinely independent vehicles that seemed com plem entary to American policy, and ttied to speed them up. This is far away from the stereotypical image o f the CIA ‘puppet-master*. Instead, the early history o f ACUE shows us prom inent E uropean politicians in search o f discreet American assistance, rather than the CIA in search o f proxies. Indeed many Europeans in receipt o f covert funding belonged to the non-com ­ m unist left, confirm ing Peter Coleman’s adept characterisation o f these CIA activities in E urope as a 'liberal conspiracy’.7 Many Americans working for the CIA through ACUE were either themselves liberals, idealists o r determ ined federalists, often with a strong belief in the United Nations. O thers simply viewed American fed­ eralism as an ideal political model which should be exported. ACUE cer­ tainly believed that the United States had a wealth o f experience to offer in the field o f assimilation. It exemplified what C hristopher T horne called America as an ‘idea nation’, anxious to export its values and polit­ ical culture. Strikingly, the same small band o f senior officials, many o f them from the Western intelligence community, were central in support­ ing the three m ost im portant ‘insider’ groups emerging in the 1950s: the E uropean Movement, the Bilderberg G roup and jean M onnet’s Action Com mittee for a U nited States o f Europe. A t a time when som e British anti-federalists saw a continued ‘special relationship’ with the United States as an obvious antidote to E uropean federalism, it is ironic that European federalism should have been sustained by the CIA. Quite simply, the m ost enthusiastic federalist power in post-war E urope was the United States.8

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CIA and ACUE m ust be understood in the context o f all US covert operations in Europe. Between 1948 and 1950 these expanded rapidly, pardy in response to pressure from senior State D epartm ent officials such as G eorge Kennan. Only a small num ber o f State D epartm ent officials were ever told about covert operations. Matters were further confused by the semi-detached nature o f the CIA’s covert action arm Frank W isner’s O P C - and its tendency to collaborate with American private networks. D espite this early confusion, the broad obịectíves o f American operations in post-war E urope are now clear. T he CIA —as we have already seen —were using bases in W estern Europe, especially at Munich, to provoke dissonance inside Central-Eastern E urope and were creating stay-behind o r G L A D IO networks against the possibility o f a Soviet incursion into W estern E urope.9 West European polidcal parues, often o f the non-com m unist left and centre, were subsidised. Famously, during the Italian elecdon o f 1948, various political groups were paid mil­ lions o f dollars which helped to revitalise the hitherto lisdess campaign o f the future Prime Minister, D e G asperi.10 T he CIA helped American and European trade unionists to underm ine the Soviet-controlled World Federation o f Trade Unions in Paris. Staunchly anti-com m unist m em bers o f the American Federation o f Labor, led by David Dubinsky, Jay Lovestone and Irving Brown, were often m ore zealous than governm ent agencies thought wise.11 T he United States also attem pted to influence cultural and intellectual trends in Europe, funding a variety o f groups, conferences and publications. This developed into a ‘batde o f the festi­ vals’ featuring the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the magazine Encounter; to which famous figures such as Raymond A ron, Stephen Spender and A rthur K oesder contributed. T he CIA's growing international cultural and labour activities trig­ gered a crucial change in early 1951. Much o f this work was now placed under a new departm ent o f the Agency, the International Organisations Division.12T he use o f private networks and organisations had been gath­ ering pace since 1947, encouraged by Allen Dulles, an enthusiast for covert operation. He had also used his position as chairm an o f the Council o f Foreign Relations to seek the help o f US charitable founda­ tions. However, by late 1950, when Dulles exchanged his inform al role as a consultant o n covert action for a senior post within the CIA, these fuzzy operations with youth groups, trade unions and cultural organisa­ tions lacked coherence, being dispersed untidily across geographically organised sections. In the words o f one CIA officer, this area was an 'operational junk heap’. Thom as w. Braden, w ho was Dulles’ innovative special assistant, proposed a new International Organisations Division to superintend all such work. Braden then headed this exciting new CIA division until replaced by Cord Meyer in 1954. Crucially, the work done

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by Braden, Dulles and Bedell Smith as founders and directors o f ACƯE in 1948-50 set out the path for this conttoversial new division. T he activ­ ities o f Braden’s International Organisations Division, while brilliant, were also dangerous and pointed to future trouble.13 T he origins o f CỈA covert funding for E uropean federalists may be traced back to the litde-known figure o f C ount Coudenhove-Kalergi. Like o ther prom inent pan-Europeanists o f the inter-war period his ideas owed much to disillusionment caused by the First World War. Exiled to the U nited States in 1943, by the eve o f the first Marshall Plan discus­ sions in March 1947 he was successfully lobbying US Senator J. w. Fulbright for Congressional support for the idea o f E uropean unity and succeeded in having m otions passed in favour o f a ‘United States o f E urope’ o n Capitol Hill. Allen Dulles and William J. D onovan, who helped Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1947, now came together to create the short-lived Com m ittee for a Free and U nited E urope designed to support such federalist groups in E urope.14 In the sum m er o f 1948 a rival group, the m ore prestigious International Executive o f the E uropean M ovement, closely associated with W inston Churchill, arrived in N ew York to urge the form ation o f an American com m ittee to support its own efforts for unification. This mission was led by Churchill’s son-in-law and President o f the European M ovem ent, D uncan Sandys. It also included the E uropean M ovem ent’s Secretary General, Joseph H. Retinger, and its finance chief, Major Edward Beddington-Behrens.15 Two American comm ittees supporting two rival groups would have been embarrassing, so Coudenhove-Kalergi, w ho was a prickly and awkward character, was dropped amid much recrimination. A new body, the American Com m ittee on U nited Europe (ACUE), was form ed to support Churchill and the European M ovem ent Although Churchill was now Leader o f the O pposition in Britain, he rem ained the m ost prestigious o f E uropean statesm en.16 Moreover, he was effectively the founder o f the E uropean Movement. As early as 21 March 1943, in a broadcast speech, he offered his vision o f a United Europe, with a High C ourt ‘to adịust disputes and prevent future wars’.17 T he E uropean M ovem ent tried, som ewhat uncertainly, to focus and co-ordinate the efforts o f pro-unity groups throughout Europe. It pinned its hopes on the E uropean Assembly at Sưasbourg. In late O ctober 1948 Britain, France and the Benelux countries had decided to establish a Council o f Europe, consisting o f a Council o f Ministers and an advisory E uropean Assembly which, in practice, served as an irregular conference o f national delegations. In August the following year the Assembly o f the Council o f E urope held its first session at Strasbourg.18 ACUE and its short-lived predecessor were only two o f many ‘American’ and ‘Free’ com m ittees established during 1948 and 1949

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which were all closely linked by com m on funding and complem entary objectives. Senior figures from the US intelligence comm unity provided the leadership o f ACUE during its first three years. T he Chairm an was William J. D onovan who, despite the demise o f OSS, was n o t in retire­ m ent, and continued to work for the CIA as late as 1955.19 T he Vice Chairm an was Allen Dulles, while day-to-day ACUE administration was controlled by Thom as w. Braden, the Executive Director, w ho had also served in OSS. Braden formally joined the CIA as special assistant to Allen Dulles in late 1950. D onovan and Dulles were well-known espion­ age chiefs, which was likely to prom pt awkward questions about the nature o f ACUE. Accordingly, in turn, during the early 1950s, Dulles, Braden and finally D onovan were succeeded by less well-known figures.20 ACUE’s Board o f Directors, set up in 1949, was drawn from prestig­ ious groups. It contained senior figures from governm ent, such as Lucius Clay, Bedell Smith, the Secretary for War R obert T. Paterson and the D irector o f the Budget Jam es E. Webb. It recruited Marshall Plan (ECA) personnel and other officials responsible for form ulating US policy in Europe, including the chief ECA Adm inistrator Paul Hoffman and his deputies Howard Bruce and William c. Foster, together with the US Representative on the N o rth Adantic Council Charles M. spofford. Prom inent politicians, financiers and lawyers were m embers, including H erbert H. Lehman, Charles R. H ook and Conrad N. Hilton. Finally, it included AFL-CIO figures already involved in the politics o f labour movements, notably A rthur G oldberg, now Chief Counsel for the C IO w ho had run the wartime OSS Labor Desk, together with the prom inent unionists David Dubinsky and Jay Lovestone.21 T he ACU E’s primary role was to fund E uropean unity groups. Many originated with wartime resistance groups with which D onovan and Dulles had worked previously. Strict criteria were set o u t for the receipt o f secret subsidies: the groups supported had to believe in a rapid rather than a gradual approach to W estern E uropean integration, including giving the Council o f E urope m ore authority, and to back the early real­ isation o f the aims o f the Marshall Plan and o f N A T O (which was founded in 1949). Program m es receiving support also had to favour the inclusion o f W estern G erm any within a unified Europe. T he ACU E’s secondary objectives, entirely overt, included publicising European unity within the United States, lobbying Congress on E uropean issues and sponsoring scholarly research on federalism. This overt work allowed ACUE to maintain a public ‘front’ existence with offices in N ew York.22 D espite this well-organised US apparatus, it was com peting groups o f Europeans actively seeking discreet American support w ho set m ost o f its agenda. T he E uropean M ovem ent had told ACUE in no uncertain

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term s that it wanted ‘moral support and m oney’. In March 1949 W inston Churchill visited New York to discuss final details with D onovan and Dulles and also to attend the formal launch o f AGUE at a public lunch in his honour. He followed this up by writing on 4 June to ask w hat sh o rt­ term funds ACUE could provide.23 In practice, control o f the flow o f American m oney soon passed to the E uropean M ovem ent’s President, D uncan Sandys. O n 24 June, Sandys wrote to D onovan confidentially setting o ut his requirements. T he European M ovement, he revealed, was nearly bankrupt and needed £80,000 to survive the next six m onths. Cord Meyer, w ho joined Braden’s International O rganisations Division in 1951, recalled that the ‘E uropean political and cultural leaders w ho solicited our a id ... made it a condition that there be no pub­ licity, since the Com m unist propaganda machine could exploit any overt evidence o f oflicial American support as p ro o f that they were puppets o f the American imperialists.’ This was certainly the case with the E uropean Movement. While Sandys pleaded for ‘a really large contribution from America’, at the same time he confessed to being ‘very anxious that American financial support for the E uropean M ovem ent should n o t be known’, even to the International Council o f the Movement. H e was worried about charges o f ‘American intervention’.24 Both Sandys and ACUE knew that if Moscow, o r indeed even the French, uncovered this link they would have a field day, presenting it as US capitalist imperialism in Europe. A t this early stage, Churchill was the m ost vital link between ACUE and the E uropean Movement. He enjoyed unrivalled personal contacts with American and European leaders; his fascination with intelligence and subversion kept him in touch with practitioners on both sides o f the Adantic; and he shared the view o f Allen Dulles and D onovan that the prom otion o f European unity through ACUE was the ‘unofficial coun­ terpart’ to the Marshall Plan.25 More importantly, as late as 1949 (but no later), Churchill also subscribed to the wider objectives o f ACU E’s various sister comm ittees prom oting liberation for Eastern Europe. ACUE and the European M ovement, he insisted, should join hands with the Free E urope Com mittee because com plete E uropean unity implied nothing less than the liberation o f all o f Eastern Europe. A t the formal launch o f ACUE in N ew York on 29 March 1949, he declared, T h e re can be no perm anent peace while ten capitals o f Eastern E urope are in the hands o f the Soviet Com m unist G overnm ent. We have our relations with these nations behind the iron curtain. They send their delegates to our meetings and we know their feelings and how gladly they would be incor­ porated in the new United Europe . . . We therefore take as our aim and ideal, nothing less than the union o f E urope as a whole.’26 T he delegates to w hom Churchill referred were primarily from the Assembly o f

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Captive E uropean N ations (ACEN). His views were widely shared in W ashington. During a conversation in 1949 with William Hayter, the Chairm an o f the British JIC in London, George K ennan stated that in the long term Europe could only move towards federalism, or unification ‘Phase Two’, once an over-extended Soviet Union had with­ drawn to its own borders.27 However, Churchill’s support for both liber­ ation and the European M ovem ent was now about to evaporate. T he CIA had its greatest im pact on the European M ovem ent in 1949 and 1950. Funds channelled through ACUE saved the European M ovement from financial collapse during the first meetings o f the Consultative Assembly o f the Council o f Europe at Strasbourg. Despite the substantial financial aid given by ACUE in 1949, Tom Braden returned from E urope in early 1950 to report that, once again, ‘the M ovem ent is very low on funds’. ACUE had supported conferences held at Brussels in February 1949 and at W estminster in April the same year which had laid the foundations for the Council o f Europe, and was paying part o f the costs o f the European M ovem ent’s secretariat and administration. More m oney was forthcom ing, but this strained ACUE’s resources.28 In 1950 ACUE also helped to resolve awkward leadership problem s in Europe. In the early summer, following talks with leaders o f the European M ovem ent — including Paul-Henri Spaak and the Belgian Foreign Minister Paul van Zeeland - Tom Braden and William J. D onovan concluded, rather prematurely, that E urope was on the brink o f federation. If those w ho were taking the lead received substantial support immediately, they argued, enorm ous progress would be made during the next year. A t the same time, they perceived a seemingly immovable obstacle, the growing resistance o f the British to a federal Europe. Attlee’s Labour governm ent, while not anti-Europe, preferred distant co-operation by independent states and fiercely resisted any diminution o f sovereignty through federalism. T he Foreign Secretary E rnest Bevin had already played a key role in emasculating the Council o f E urope at Strasbourg.29 T he Conservatives were also deeply uneasy when faced with federalism. In late 1949 and early 1950 the President o f the European M ovem ent itself, D uncan Sandys, working closely with Churchill, feared that his organisation was moving too quickly. Although Sandys had him self indulged in outbursts o f federalist rheto­ ric, they now realised the full implications. T he Sandys leadership began to drag its feet. Churchill was also backing away fast. T he resulting bitter disputes inside the European M ovem ent had material effects, dis­ suading prom inent Swiss industrialists like Nestlé from providing further funding. By early 1950 the European Movement, always a som e­ w hat fragmented body, was close to disintegration, with the influential

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French-based E uropean U nion o f Federalists withdrawing from its International Executive in protest.30 Senior CIA officers were now turning their attention to the problem . Frank W isner was especially enthusiastic about speeding European unification. H e was a frequent visitor to the Paris Embassy and was inti­ m ate with the Ambassador, David Bruce, and also with Averell Harrim an, w ho was running ECA. In February 1950, W isner wrote to H arrim an to explain that "we are presendy working on an over-all project that will seek to prom ote W estern E uropean political integration* and that he wanted ECA support. But W isner was worried about the current turbulence in the E uropean Movement. He feared that the M ovem ent was ‘presently dom inated . . . by those, including som e prom inent Britains’, w ho advocate a ‘slow and step-by-step’ approach to unity. ‘ỉn sh o rt’, continued Wisner, ‘we seem to be faced with this dilemma.’ I f the CIA backed the E uropean M ovem ent as it stood, and led by Sandys, would it n ot be supporting those ‘advocating a slow approach to the problem ’? He added, ‘would we not thereby deny our support to just those Continentals and some British w ho are today am ong the m ost active and effective workers on behalf o f just that type o f unity we m ost hope to see achieved?’ He said he was thinking o f energetic people like the British Labour M P and ardent federalist Richard Mackay, w ho ‘had made such a valuable contribution on behalf o f European Unity during last Sum m er’s Strasbourg meeting’. W isner advocated a diversified approach that would allow a range o f support to the real activists while bypassing the foot-draggers in the main E uropean M ovement. H e wanted to extend support direcdy to groups such as the European Union o f Federalists, the Econom ic League for E uropean Co-operation, the French Council for U nited Europe, the Nouvelles Equipes Internationales and the Socialist M ovem ent for a U nited States o f Europe. But this diversification could only be a palliative, for the E uropean M ovem ent was the high-profile organisation and needed sorting out.31 In April 1950 ACUE spelt out its ‘Program for the Future’. T he top item on the agenda was to secure the speedy resolution o f the leadership problem in the E uropean M ovem ent ‘and if possible the transfer o f lead­ ership to the Continent, with particular regard for France’.32 Strife in the E uropean M ovem ent was so bad by May that year that ACUE abruptly refused to continue funding. In June it sent D onovan and Braden back to E urope on a troubleshooting mission.33 Braden confirm ed that the European M ovem ent was torn between its British and continental lead­ ership: increasingly anti-federalist statem ents by the A tdee governm ent had forced the hand o f Spaak, w ho led the continental federalists. Spaak confided to Braden that he had been reluctant to pursue rapid continen­ tal federalism in the absence o f British support on account o f the special

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relationship between L ondon and Washington. B ut if the US would back him he prom ised to press ahead w ithout Britain, knowing that ‘Britain will be forced sooner o r later and in a greater o r lesser degree to com e along’. Braden liked Spaak's direct approach. He warned the D irectors o f ACUE that unless they backed the continental federalists against L ondon then inevitably ‘leadership on the continent will go to British Labour’ with dire consequences for unification. Meanwhile, if offered really substantial ACUE support by Braden, Spaak was willing to launch a takeover bid for the leadership o f the E uropean M ovem ent, rem oving it from D uncan Sandys and the British.34 In the event, Sandys reqw red only a light push and offered little resis­ tance. D uring late 1949 and early 1950 he had struggled in vain to find a com prom ise form ula that would embrace both the reticence o f the British and Scandinavian elements and the radical federalist position taken by the likes o f Henri Frenay, Chairm an o f the E uropean U nion o f Federalists. Matters had reached stalemate as early as 16 D ecem ber 1949. T he Secretary General o f the E uropean M ovem ent, Joseph Retinger, pu t the case for his departure frankly: T h e various M ovements com posing the E uropean M ovem ent are looking with increasing suspicion on your activities; our American friends do n o t agree with your tactics.’ In July 1950, largely as a result o f the Braden—D onovan mission, Sandys departed and Spaak’s federalist elem ent took control.35 Financial m atters had added to the private confrontation am ong leaders o f the E uropean Movement. T he whole financial structure under Sandys was ‘very unorthodox'. T hroughout 1949 strong attacks were m ade on him over curious expenses incurred and ‘a certain squandering o f funds'. In 1950 ‘a very bad financial situation' was bequeathed to Spaak and arguments developed about the distribution o f new ưanches o f secret funding that were beginning to arrive from the United States.36 ACUE now played a significant role in sm oothing the transition to a new era. W ith American support, Spaak had the resources to move the International Secretariat o f the E uropean M ovem ent from L ondon and Paris to Brussels. Subsequendy, Braden told Walter Bedell Smith that during early 1950 ‘Sandys attem pted to disband the European Movement.’ H e added that ‘Spaak and Retinger together have handled the Sandys situation . . . and kept the whole fracas from reaching the public.’37 T he Americans were very keen o n Spaak and had already made an unsuccessful bid to install him as director general o f the O rganisation o f E uropean Econom ic Co-operation (O E E Q . In the words o f one histo­ rian, the ‘American choice for “M r E urope” was ... Paul-Henri Spaak’, b u t British ‘foot-dragging’ and hostility prevented his appointm ent.38 Nevertheless, Spaak now got busy transform ing the European

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Movement. An ‘efficient’ secretariat was set up in Brussels, with experi­ enced national representatives, including G eorge Rebattet, form er secre­ tary o f the French Maquis, and Léon Radfoux, Spaak’s form er chef de cabinet. T h e primary objecdve o f this new secretariat was to generate a popular groundswell o f support for federalism through the ‘initiation o f m ajor propaganda campaigns in all countries', including a United Europe Week. Tom Braden reported that the goals were a free-trade area with a single currency and free m ovem ent o f labour, together with m ore power for the Assembly o f the Council o f E urope at Strasbourg.39 H ow closely did the CIA and ACUE follow m ainstream American policy during the period 1949—51? W ashington was divided over how much pressure to apply on E uropean issues. Some parts o f the Trum an administration were closer to ACUE than others. ACUE followed American policy m ost closely in tying E uropean unity to the cause o f East E uropean exile groups and to political warfare against the Eastern bloc. In May 1950, during the L ondon Foreign Ministers Conference, the United States persuaded Britain and France to give the exile groups asso­ ciate m em bership o f the Council o f Europe. A year later the W hite H ouse endorsed State D epartm ent plans to accelerate these efforts. O utlining its proposals in a special Guidance paper entided T h e C oncept o f E urope’, it adm itted its concern that the current propaganda effort in E astern E urope lacked the 'positive qualities which are neces­ sary to arouse nations’. Several studies had been m ade in an attem pt to find a positive concept that would stir the populations o f Eastern Europe, and it concluded that the them es o f 'E uropean Unity’ and ‘Return to E urope’ would succeed. Its 'solely European’ nature ensured that it could n ot be 'dismissed as another m anoeuvre o f American impe­ rialism’. N o r could the Soviets appropriate the E uropean ideal in the way they had shamelessly used them es such as 'freedom ’, ‘democracy’ and ‘peace’. As the Council o f Europe had recently adopted a Charter o f H um an Rights, this offered a particularly choice instrum ent with which to highlight the m ore unpleasant aspects o f Soviet rule. T he W hite H ouse hoped this would encourage Eastern bloc populations to stiffen their resistance - 'retard the Sovietization o f their minds, especially the m inds o f their youth’. G eorge M. Elsey, a m em ber o f Trum an’s staff, noted on 16 May 1951 that all this was ‘going in the right d ire c tio n . . . a good contribution toward the goal we were discussing at noon, namely, a subverting o f Iron Curtain countries’.40 American policy was m ore divided over unification pressure in W estern Europe. Senior State D epartm ent figures worried about alienat­ ing an anti-federalist Britain and the Com m onwealth, with which the United States sought to collaborate in other areas o f the world. Kennan was anxious to reassure British officials, speaking instead o f a long period

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characterised by som e kind o f loose ‘Atlantic Community*. He added that British objections to any m erger o f sovereignty with W estern E urope ‘were o f such strength that they m ust be accepted*, and that W ashington ought n o t to push Britain further than it wished to go. Looking to the long term , however, even K ennan was firmly in favour o f a federal E urope that would totally absorb Britain, drawing his inspiration for a future Europe from the American federal model. It ‘was clear that even­ tual union was in his m ind’, wrote one wary British official. K ennan pointed to the painful econom ic adjustm ents which Britain would have to make, com paring them to those which N ew England underw ent during the expansion o f the United States. Nevertheless, he returned from visits to E urope with a fuller appreciation o f the complex problem s o f the Com m onwealth and o f sterling, and the reluctance o f Britain to submerge its identity in a federal E urope.41 Averell Harrim an and his ECA officials, together with Spaak and Bruce, were less sensitive. They constandy urged W ashington to apply greater pressure on E rnest Bevin to change his m ind about an integrated W estern Europe. O n 19 January 1950, Spaak complained bitterly to K ennan and the Secretary o f State, D ean Acheson, o f w hat he saw as Britain’s attem pts to obstruct both O E E C and the Council o f Europe. W hen Kennan, Paul N itze o f the PPS and Charles Bohlen from the Paris Em bassy m et a few days later, N itze sum m ed up the dilemma: although Britain’s Com m onwealth ties and its fears over sovereignty inclined it against federalism, would a continental federation be strong enough w ithout Britain? They agreed that Bevin had been ‘back-sliding’ over com m itm ents to O E E C and that this now required action. Bohlen, rep­ resenting frustrated American officials based in Paris, including ECA, complained that the U nited States was shy o f applying real pressure in London, as it habitually did in Paris, because o f the close wartime rela­ tionship. T he Em pire-C om m onw ealth should be broken up, he argued, allowing Britain to merge with a federal Europe. However, K ennan replied that the Com m onwealth was valuable, and the United States should do no m ore than try gendy to persuade Britain to move towards E urope.42 Initially D onovan was n o t only an advocate o f covert pressure, he was an opponent o f overt pressure. In March 1950 he worked hard to impress upon key Congressional figures that tough measures would be counter-productive. H e was especially anxious that crude conditions should n ot be attached to the renewal o f Marshall Plan aid. In a presen­ tation before the H ouse o f Representatives Com m ittee on Foreign Affairs he warned that if you say, ‘H ere is the rule we are going to put in. You are going to have unification, or else,’ then this would ‘desttoy the very thing you want to accomplish*. It would n o t only alienate

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Europeans, it would also be ‘exploited propagandawise' by the Soviet Union. Congress was concerned that E urope would take the m oney and just ‘go through the m otions’. D onovan came very close to outlining th e secret business o f ACUE. His patient explanations persuaded C ongress that it was better backing the active European federalists, o r as he p u t it ‘giving Spaak an instrum ent’.43 However, by the autum n o f 1950, his patience was becom ing exhausted and he joined attem pts to persuade Acheson to push Britain into joining the Schuman Plan relating to coal, iron and steel manufacture in Europe.44 Acheson’s approach dismayed both ACUE and American officials in E urope w ho had the task o f carrying out the agreements o n E uropean econom ic co-operation. They found Britain exasperating and w anted som e bullying done. David Bruce, Averell H arrim an and th e Am bassador in London, Lewis Douglas, all agreed that Britain was their ‘big problem ’. They wanted action. H arrim an was the m ost vociferous, and m eeting with Bruce and John J. McCloy, the US High Com m issioner in Germany, in January 1950, he explained that he had had enough o f Bevin and o f the Chancellor o f the Exchequer, Sử Stafford Cripps, w hom he found ‘petulant and arrogant*. ‘H arrim an was exưemely perturbed,* saying that hitherto he ‘had been a firm believer in u.s. attitude o f per­ suasion against coercion*. But now he ‘felt the US should no longer tol­ erate interference and sabotage o f W estern E uropean integration by the United Kingdom . . . the Marshall Plan is breaking down because o f British opposition’. He warned that if the British Labour Party w on the forthcom ing general election o f 1950, as seemed likely, it would ‘be even m ore cocky’. ‘T he U.S. would not stand for this much longer.’ In March 1950, senior American officials in Europe called for a study o f the degree and timing o f pressure to brought to bear on Britain. Nevertheless, Douglas warned against acting during the British election, noting that Labour m ight derive advantage from posing as a defender o f the Com m onwealth against American pressure.45 CIA activity through ACUE did n o t challenge Acheson’s policy o f avoiding open pressure o n Britain over federalism. Nevertheless, D onovan and Braden preferred the leadership o f ECA in Paris, including Harrim an and Milton Katz, the ECA’s counsel. Personal connections were im portant here, as K atz had previously served as a senior officer in the secret intelligence branch o f OSS, overseeing operations in wartime Europe, while Bruce, the OSS chief o f station in wartime London, had been head o f ECA in Paris before becom ing ambassador.46 T he ECA, delighted to learn o f Spaak’s im pending leadership o f the European M ovement, offered its own discreet assistance to the E uropean Movement, which had been ‘previously withheld because o f concern over the leadership’, until then in British hands.47

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T he B raden-D onovan mission o f June 1950 also helped to confirm ACUE’s view o f Britain’s Labour Party as the big enemy o f European federalism.48 T hey witnessed the remarkable attack that the British dele­ gation launched on the French federalists at Strasbourg that summer.49 Labour leaders had been hostile to E uropean federalism from the outset. Some had seen it as a stalking horse for Churchill. O thers saw it m ore simply as a Conservative device to sow dissension and confusion in the ranks o f the Labour Party. E ither way, as early as January 1947, the Labour Party National Executive was advising m em bers to w ithhold support. Calls from some Party m em bers for a decidedly socialist vision o f a united E urope were studiously ignored. By 1949 Bevin had devel­ oped a particular hatred o f both Spaak and Harrim an, reflecting his ten­ dency to see things in personal term s.50 ACUE was not a m ere passive observer o f British anti-federalism. It sought to underm ine it by supporting leading pro-European federalist dissenters within the British Labour Party such as the M em ber o f Parliament for Hull N o rth West, Richard w. Mackay, w ho had devised a com prom ise route to federalism which became known as the 'Mackay Plan’, and w ho was admired, as we have seen, by Wisner. These activities were resented by the Labour leadership.51 Richard Mackay was undoubtedy som ething o f a zealot. O n his first trip to N ew York in February 1949 he was already urging American political intervention on the feder­ alist issue and warned, ‘If the United States does nothing but give m oney to E urope w ithout insisting on Europe creating for itself a real Union o f Europe, it is throwing m oney down the drain, and that is w hat is happen­ ing at the present time.’ Mackay exhorted ACUE to push the Europeans into federalism ‘so that trade and population in E urope can move as freely as they do in the USA’. He also identified L ondon as the main problem . Britain’s obsession with remaining a first-class power, rather than a mere state o f Europe, was the key issue. H e said that 'the obstacle at the present time is the British G overnm ent, and the only question is how to overcome this obstacle . . . Som eone has got to give the British a push.’52 T he CIA’s Frank W isner was immensely impressed by Mackay. Thom as Braden called him 'a m ost energetic worker for unity’. Letters between Mackay, Braden and Allen Dulles over m oney show how closely this group was working together. D uring the crisis period o f March 1950, Mackay visited the United States again and held extended conversations with ACUE. He stressed that ‘the creation o f a com m on currency and the abolition o f currency and custom barriers are the urgent tasks o f W estern E urope’. He also set out ideas for an inner com m ittee o f dedi­ cated European federalists w ho would prepare the detail o f such propo­ sals for further meetings o f the next Assembly at Strasbourg.53 This inner

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com m ittee, he continued, would be com posed o f people from five o r six E uropean countries: he suggested Maurice Schumann (a close associate o f de Gaulle) from France, F. Jacobson from D enm ark, von N atters from Holland. ACUE decided that he needed £10,000 to cover the expenses o f this sort o f work, £5,000 com ing from ACUE and £1,000 payable immediately, ỉn return ACUE would have the right to appoint a ‘liaison officer’ to his com m ittee, and Mackay would also agree that one or two m em bers m ight be drawn from the International Federation o f Trade Unions.54 But, as fast as W isner and Braden tried to build Mackay up, the Labour Party was cutting him down. He was dem oted from Labour Party Representative at the General Affairs Com m ittee o f the Assembly in Strasbourg to a m ere delegate to the Assembly.55 Although Hugh D alton, w ho was now Chancellor o f the Duchy o f Lancaster and a m em ber o f the Cabinet, liked Mackay personally, he warned Atdee in March 1950 that he was 'a lone w olf’, adding that ‘we shall have to keep an eye on him.’56 From January 1950 much o f Mackay’s activity was dependent on ACUE funding, assisting him in developing his plan and his inner committee. However, in 1951, the British and Scandinavians vetoed the presentation o f the Mackay Plan to the full Strasbourg Assembly.57 As Braden had cautioned, ‘T he British were suspicious o f the Assembly’ —they ‘will only go ahead step by step and . . . fear, above all, to be forced to give up any point o f their national sovereignty, no m atter how slight’.58 This was dangerous stuff. T he CIA was now engaged in a covert subsidy o f dissident British elements in the hope o f underm ining a key area o f British foreign policy. H ow far were the authorities in Britain aware o f the work o f the CIA and ACUE by 1950? It appears the British Foreign Office had noticed only ACUE’s overt publicity campaign in the USA, which had caused som e ừritation in London. In early February 1950 Joseph Retinger, Secretary General o f the E uropean M ovement, asked if Attlee and Bevin would state publicly their support for E uropean unification. D onovan desired these statem ents from all E uropean leaders, intending to publish them together as part o f an attem pt to persuade Congress to continue Marshall Plan aid. As m ost o f the statesm en o f W estern E urope had complied, Bevin was told he would have to say something. But Bevin’s message o f ‘support’ was so unenthusiastic that ACUE asked the Foreign Office w hether there had been some mistake, only to be told that Bevin had personally insisted upon the insertion o f the m ore offensive sentences.59 ACUE was further disap­ pointed when Churchill and Eden, returning to power in 1951, increas­ ingly set their face against federalist ideas. Accordingly, by Novem ber 1951, both Spaak in Europe and ACUE in the United States, had started to despair o f the elite route to federalism and turned to mass agitation.60

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This growing emphasis upon publicity and propaganda began in 1950 with the overt work that ACUE conducted within the United States from its offices at 537 Fifth Avenue, N ew York. It tried to persuade American elite opinion to support European federalism. To this end it organised and paid for a stream o f visits and lecture tours by prom inent E uropean figures, such as Churchill, Spaak and Paul van Zeeland. Robert Schuman, Paul Reynaud, K onrad Adenauer and G uy Mollet followed in their wake.61 Spaak’s visit in January and February 1951 attracted a great deal o f press and radio attention and during his six-week tour he addressed audiences in thirteen eines including N ew York, Palm Beach, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. T here was rarely a m om ent when ACƯE did n ot have a m ajor speaker in circulation around the U nited States and m ore and m ore it was to ACUE that student groups, colleges, radio and television in the United States turned for speakers on European issues.62 Congress received considerable attention during the crucial first hear­ ings on the new Marshall Plan appropriations o f February and March 1950. As we have seen, D onovan testified before the House o f Representatives' Foreign Affairs Com m ittee on the Marshall Plan in his capacity as chairm an o f ACUE, and Congress was continually bom ­ barded with federalist literature. More importandy, D onovan in N ew York and Spaak ỉn Brussels held simultaneous press conferences in which they released the text o f pro-unity statem ents carefully gathered by Rednger from fifty prom inent European statesm en, effectively dispelling lingering doubts about E uropean com m itm ent to progress and creating a very favourable atm osphere for the renewal o f Marshall Plan aid by the legislature. In June o f the same year the French Embassy in W ashington thanked D onovan for organising an open message to Prime M inister Schuman in favour o f the Schuman Plan signed by T 18 American big names', including form er Secretaries o f State Marshall and Stimson, and released at a press conference in N ew York by Allen Dulles. By 1951 ACUE had produced seventeen publications and was publishing a regular fortnightly newsletter for drculation in the USA.63 It now shifted its American focus away from elites towards a wider audience, arranging for radio broadcasts by D onovan and for his articles to be published in A tlantic Monthly and the San Francisco Chronicle. In April 1952 ACUE took o u t a full-page advertisem ent in the New York Times headed T h e Survival o f E urope’ and advocating European union.64 This use o f resources that were partly funded by the CIA for political campaigns and lobbying within the United States itself was highly unorthodox and alm ost cer­ tainly illegal. ACUE also comm issioned American academics to undertake research projects into the problem s o f federalism, begun at Harvard University in 1952.65 This project was managed by the leading European historian and

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propaganda expert Carl Friedrich, w ho was him self deeply com m itted to the federalist cause. For Friedrich, European unity was a stepping sto n e to world federalism.66 His work is also noteworthy because it illustrates the complex links between ACUE and liberation. T hroughout the 1950s, he also worked for the Free E urope Com m ittee as a consultant o n th e Soviet Z one o f Germany. In 1951, he urged a forward policy upon Allen Dulles and c. D. Jackson, describing Berlin as a base from which th e U nited States could support and expand a resistance network which he claimed was already ‘effectively harassing the Soviet authorities and their G erm an C om m unist stooges’.67 Although Dulles and Jackson agreed, other US officials in G erm any harboured growing doubts about the value o f general troublemaking.68 American academics played an im portant part in expanding the activ­ ities o f ACUE. In 1950 a Cultural Section o f ACUE was launched, directed by two American historians w ho had served in OSS, the President o f Bennington College Frederick H. Burkhardt and William L. Langer o f Harvard University. T he grants they distributed helped to establish the E uropean Cultural Centre in Geneva under D enis de Rougem ont and assisted the Inter-University Union o f Federalists.69 ACUE took an interest in the College o f E urope at Bruges, designed to provide a training for future E uropean officials. It also form ed links with Strasbourg’s Com m ittee on Central and Eastern Europe, providing fel­ lowships for Iron Curtain students. O ne o f the attractions o f the College was its leadership, which had played an active part in the wartime resis­ tance. T he Rector Henryk Brugm an and the D irector o f Studies H enri Van Effentere had both been active in the resistance during the war.70 Brugman was an im portant influence on the federalist ideas circulating within the wartime E uropean resistance movements, as expressed in clandestine newspapers such as the D utch H et Parmi and the French Combat and Résistance.7t In June 1951, ACUE offered scholarships for American students to attend the College.72 American cultural leaders and academics, they asserted, could offer a federalising E urope the benefit o f ‘our experience —good and bad - in the ffelds o f mass com m unication and intercultural assimilation’.73 Inside Britain, ACUE also moved away from a focus on individual figures, like Mackay, towards a wider publicity campaign. A key objective was to encourage a stronger British commercial and business interest in a federal Europe. T hroughout the 1950s ACUE commissioned studies by the E conom ist Intelligence U nit o f econom ic relations between Britain and Europe, hoping to persuade British industrialists to take w hat it called a m ore ‘realistic’ view. In 1959 alone, the Econom ist Intelligence Unit studies comm issioned cost ACUE $11,200.74 In 1960, when ACUE was wound up, staff from the Economist wrote to ACUE thanking it for its

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support. As others have shown, the Economist, Britain’s m ost serious current affairs weekly, was the staunchest critic o f the British opposition to federalism and one o f the originators o f the idea o f Britain’s ‘missed opportunities’ in Europe. ACƯE use o f the E conom ist Intelligence U nit is a good example o f how it hom ed in on those already enthusiastic for federalism. Each issue o f the Economist has traditionally opened with a proud statem ent o f its independence. However, on the E uropean issue the newspaper was com ­ m itted to a staunchly federalist line. Its staff in the 1950s - especially in the Intelligence U nit —was a haven for dedicated federalists and those prom inent in E uropean organisations, for example its D eputy E ditor Barbara Ward. A nother was C hristopher Layton, w ho served in the Intelligence Corps in the late 1940s. After a year with IC I in 1952 he joined the E conom ist Intelligence U n it In 1954 he transferred to the main staff o f the Economist and served as ‘Editorial writer — European Affairs’. Here in the paper's foreign departm ent he m et another ‘crusader for E urope’, François D uchêne, w ho had worked closely with Jean M onnet. Layton wrote m em orable pieces surveying the events which had split Britain from E urope and was active in prom oting the idea o f Britain's ‘missed opportunities’ in E urope.75 T hroughout the 1950s, in the face o f a British climate characterised by underlying hostility towards Europe, the Economist persistendy urged Britain to dem onstrate that it had undergone ‘a real and lasting change o f heart’.76 E uropean unity was a Layton family business. Lord Layton, C hristopher’s father, was E ditor o f the Economist from 1923 until 1939. Always a com m itted E uropean federalist, Lord Layton was vice president o f the Consultative Com m ittee o f the E uropean Assembly at Strasbourg between 1949 and 1957. ‘In addition’, as his biographer has observed, ‘he was chaứm an, vice-chairman o r treasurer o f all the m ore im portant U K bodies o f the E uropean M ovem ent which sprang up in such num bers from 1946 onwards.’ H e also remained influential on the Economist. Lord Layton was n o t only a m em ber o f various E uropean federalist groups but was also a crucial link between the British section o f the European M ovem ent and ACUE, the CIA’s parent American funding body for E uropean unity organisations.77 O ne o f Lord Layton's first actions was to encourage a relationship between key staff on the Economist and ACUE. O n 5 O ctober 1949, G eorge s. Franklin, Secretary o f ACUE, had written thanking him for briefing Barbara Ward, the Assistant Editor, about the organisation.78 In the same m onth, Layton’s close friend the diplom at Sir Harold Buder had warned him that ACUE thought E uropean M ovem ent activ­ ities were currendy ‘in the doldrum s’ and that it ‘will n o t part with any m oney unless it is convinced that the E uropean M ovem ent is an acdve

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body with a popular programme*. Layton responded energetically and by February 1950 had embarked on a mission to W ashington with Paul Reynaud, a form er French prime minister, to talk to ACUE. Thereafter they were accompanied on a speaking tour o f the United States by D onovan and Braden. They were introduced to many American luminar­ ies, and Braden assured Layton that his mission had done a great deal to ‘swell the coifers o f the European Movement*. Layton visited W ashington again at Braden’s request in the sum m er o f 1951.79 A fter Braden’s departure from the post o f ACUE executive director, Layton continued to work closely with his successor, Allan Hovey. In 1954, during a period o f concern about growing anti-Americanism in Europe, he set up and then chaired the E uropean-A dantic G roup, a council o f the good and great, designed to improve transadantic co-operation.80 As in the United States and Britain, ACUE’s work in continental E urope during the early 1950s also focused increasingly upon propa­ ganda and mass action. While the European M ovem ent was being reor­ ganised in 1950-1, as Frank W isner had suggested, it turned to the European M ovem ent’s m em ber organisations to prom ote federalism, including the French-dom inated E uropean Union o f Federalists. T he French proposed to stir Strasboutg into action by launching a grass-roots populist m ovem ent, the E uropean Council o f Vigilance, under the wartime French resistance leader Henri Frenay, which would m eet in a building adjacent to the Council o f Europe and shower it with local peti­ tions supporting federalism. ACUE gave the Council o f Vigilance project an initial grant o f $42,000.81 By the spring o f 1951, with Spaak’s new leadership, the European M ovem ent had been reorganised into an effective body. ACUE together with Spaak and Frenay threw themselves into an optim istic attem pt to generate mass support for federalism. In the short term they hoped to create backing for the Schuman Plan, for m ore authority for the Council o f E urope and for the idea o f a European Army. After ‘extensive talks’ in the Spring o f 1951 between D onovan and General Eisenhower, w ho was now N A T O Supreme Com m ander, ACUE also asked for increasing emphasis on integrating G erm any into W estern Europe, to quieten fears over rearm am ent and US worries about a G erm an drift towards neutrality.82 Mass propaganda was the key to expanded American covert funding in the 1950s. It coincided neatly with deep American concerns about the success o f Eastern bloc propaganda efforts in the area o f youth move­ m ents and international organisations generally. In the sum m er o f 1951 a growing crescendo o f organised com m unist youth activity was high­ lighted by a gigantic youth rally in East Berlin organised by the Freie D eutsche Jugend and attended by about two million youth representatives

The C L V s F ederalist O peration: A C U E a n d the E uropean M ovem ent

361

from all over the world. This single rally was estimated to have cost the Soviets over £20,000,000. British intelligence obtained film o f the rally and its scale alarmed senior W estern policy-makers including, John J. McCloy, the American High Com m issioner for Germany. McCloy, already heavily involved in American psychological and covert warfare, immediately decided that counter-action was imperative. Shepard Stone, a m em ber o f his staff, contacted Joseph Retinger, the Secretary General o f the European M ovement, and asked if it would be willing to organise a similar dem onstration in W estern Europe. Considerable additional funds would be provided by the American governm ent, again funnelled through ACUE, provided they were used specifically for youth work. Retinger readily accepted and together with Spaak and André Philip, they form ed a special com m ittee to m ap out w hat became the E uropean Youth Campaign.83 Accordingly, from 1951, the majority o f ACƯE funds for E urope were employed on a new venture, a unity campaign am ong European youth. Between 1951 and 1956 the European M ovem ent organised over 2,000 rallies and festivals on the continent, particularly in Germany, where it received the help o f the US Army. O ne o f the additional advantages o f deploying American funds on the large youth program m es was that it helped to disguise the extent to which the European M ovem ent was dependent on American funds. In May 1952 Spaak decided that funds from American sources that had previously been used in the O rdinary Budget o f the European M ovem ent would now be diverted for use in the Special Budgets used to support its growing range o f new programmes. This disguised the source and avoided any accusations o f American dependency. Again, in N ovem ber 1953, Baron Böel, the Treasurer o f the E uropean Movement, explained that it was essential to avoid a situation where opponents o f European unity could accuse the organisation o f being an American creation. For this reason, Am erican money, quite acceptable for the European Youth Campaign and certain restricted activities, could not be used for the norm al running o f the Movement*. T hrough the use o f Special Budgets, the Ordinary Budget o f the European Movement, which was employed for m undane administrative costs, revealed nothing unusual.84 By the end o f 1951, an International Youth Secretariat had been estab­ lished in Paris, with smaller offices throughout W estern Europe and a campaign youth newspaper in five languages. T he following year, repre­ sentatives were elected to a European Parliament o f Youth which was to help the E uropean M ovem ent ‘to inform the masses o f European youth o f their obligations to themselves and the free world*. By the end o f 1953, the campaign was costing ACƯE $200,000 a year.85 Although it is difficult to identify the extent to which these activities had an impact on

362

The C o ld W ar T urns H o t, 1 9 5 0 -1 9 5 6

mass opinion, senior Europeans, eager for m ore funds, attributed their recent successes to the mass campaign. Jean M onnet’s letter to D onovan in O ctober 1952 was typical: . 51. Ruane, ’Containing America’, 142-62; Lowe, Containùỵ, 215-18. Chapter 14 Coid War Fighting in Asia 1. SD-JCS 11th mtg, 4 Apr. 1951, Box 77, PPS Lot Files 64 D 563, RG 59. 2. Directorate of Intelligence and Research to Dean Rusk, *What Now for Britain? Wilson’s Visit and Britain’s Future’, REU-1 \ ,1 Feb. 1968, Kaiser papers. Box 8, HSTL. 3. Ruane, 'Containing America’, 142-62. 4. Foot, Practice of Power, 76-84; Schalter, Untied States and China, 126-56; Zhai, Dragon, 84-96; Singlaub, Hazardous Duty, 180-1 5. Mtg of Attlee and Truman, 7 Dec. 1950, Box 17, PPS Lot Files 64 D 563, RG 59. 6. Strong memo, *Support of China Mainland Resistance and Use of Nationalist Forces on Formosa', 24 Jan. 1951, Box 29, Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, Lots 56 D 625,57 D 633,58 D 395, RG 59. 7. China Handbook, 1953-4, *Coastal Raids’, 197-9.1 am indebted to Gary Rawnsley for this reference. 8. Holobcr, Raiders, 58-9,87. 9. McGehce, Dtadiy Deceits, 25; Holber, Raiders, 3,182; 'Instructions to U.S. Ambassador to the National Government of the Republic of China’, 14 Jul. 1952, Box 11, Records of PPS1947-53, Lot Files 64 D 563, RG 59. 10. Lecture at the Naval War College, 7 May 1953, File: Donovan: 53-6, Allman papers, HIWRP. 11. JCS 1735/224, *Coastal Raiding and Maritime Interdiction Operations (China)’, 5 Apr. 1954, CCS 385 (6-4-46), Sec. 81, RG 218. 12. Halpem interview in Weber, Spymasters, 119. 13. McGchee, Dtadhf Deceits, 26-7. 14. JCS-SD 15th mtg, 8 Jun. 1951, Box 77, PPS Lot Files 64 D 563, RG 59; JCS 1992/154, Tripamte Intelligence Conference held at Singapore, 21-23 Feb. 1952*, 5 May 1952 092.Asia (6-25-48), Sec. 28 RG 218. 15. Convcrs. memo, 31 Jul. 1951, Box 29, Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs Lot Files 56 D 625,5~ D 633,58 D 395, RG 59. 16. Halpem interview in Weber, Spymastm, 123. See also Powers, Man Who Kept the Secrets, 50. 17. Burma: Monthly Summary, 16 Jan. 1954, DEFE 7/369. 18. Entries for 16 Jan., 5 Feb., 16 Nov. 1953, Sebald diary, HIWRP. 19. Mins Joint Committee on Evac., 22,26 and 28 O ct 1953, PSA: Office i/c Burma Affairs, Lot Files 58 D 321, RG 59. 20. u Nu to Eisenhower, 15 Mar. 1954, Box 5, Ann Whitman Int. Series, DDEL. 21. Ambassador Arthur w. Hummel Jnr transcript, 13 Jul. 1989, FAOHP, 25; Cline, Cbiang Chingkm. 62-79. 22. Convcrs. memo, 23 Sept. 1953, INPOLCO, Box 4, Bureau of FE Affairs, Lot Files 33 D 388, RG 59. 23. Convers. memo, ‘Arms Aid for Tibet*, 24 Jul. 1950, Box 18, Office of Chinese Affairs, \ja t Files 110. RG 59. See also Shakya, Dragon, 19,75-6; Smith, Tibetan Nation, 507.

N o te s

667

2 4 . Acheson to Henderson, 27 Oct. 1950, F R I /.S’, 1950, vol. 6,545-6. 2 5 . Ali, "South Asia’, 259-68. Ali dates American assistance to 1950, somewhat earlier than Shakya. 2 6 . Ibid. O n British attitudes see Zhai, Dragon* 50-1. 2 7 . Marchetti and Marks, C L \, 128-3; Robbins, Invisible A ir Pone, 96-100; Singlaub, H azardous D uty, 154; S m ith, Unknown C L 4 , 86-71; Schaller, M acArthur, 179; Lowe, O rpins, 53. 28. Strong memo, "Support o f China Mainland Resistance and Use o f Nationalist Forces on Formosa', 24 Ja n . 1951, Box 39, Records o f the Office o f Chinese Affairs Lots 56 D 625, 57 D 633, 58 D 395, RG 59; Convcrs. with General I i Tsing-jen, 26 Jan. 1951, ibid.; Jessup memo, ‘CIA Appraisal o f Chinese N ationalists’, 22 Jan. 1951, ibid. Sec also Holober, Raids, 182. 29. Philby, Silent War, 117. 30. Smith, Portrait, 147-8. 31. Aldrich, Intelligence and the F ar Hastem IWar, 269,281,288; "Chinese Communists’, appendix to CP (49) 3 9 ,4 Mar. 1949, CAB 129/32. 32. Colby, Honorable Men, 103. Also Richard R. Johnson transcript, 30 Jan. 1991, FAOHP, 7. 33. US Army LO, Hong Kong, to G-2 Washington, 13 May and 6 Jun. 1952, ACS (G-2 Army Intelligence) Files, TS Incoming and Outgoing Cables, Box 189, Rntry 58, RG 319; de Silva, Snb Rosa, 194. 34. Colby, Honorable Men, 103: McGehee, Deadly Deceits, 21-2. 35. JCS 2118/17, "Courses o f Action Relative to Communist China and Korea - Anri-Communist Chinese’, 7 Mar 1951 (3-14-57), RG 218. 36. CIA Report 00-B-14066, "Prediction and Causes o f Unrest in Kwantung Province*, 27 Mar. 1950, Frame. 32, Red I, C IA Research Reports on China, BRO. 37. JIC 551, ‘Rsrimatc o f Kffcctivcness o f Anti-Communist Guerrillas Operating in China*, 12 Feb. 1951 (3-14-57), RG 218, estimated numbers o f c.622,000; CIA Report RSS No. 0035/69, T h e Political Security Apparatus', 20 Feb. 1969, Frame 186, Reel IV, C IA Research on China, BRO. 38. NSC 6007/1, cited in Lombardo, ‘American Consulate’, 51; Ambassador Edwin w . Martin transcript 3,17 Mar. 1988, FAOHP, 1-5. 39. Ball, "( )ver and ( >ut\ 74-96. 40. Richard R. Johnson transcript, 30 Jan. 1991, FAOHP, 7-8; de Silva, Sub Rosa, 192. 41. Martin memo, "Use o f Hong Kong USIS as Cover for Covert Operations', 17 Dec. 1952, Box 38, Office o f Chinese Affairs, p Files, 1953-5, Ijot 56 D 625, RG 59; (draft) NSC 4 8 /2 ,9 Feb. 1950, Box 17, Office o f Chinese Affairs, I/)t Files 110, RG 59. 42. Ambassador Arthur w . Hummel Jnr, transcript, 31 Jul. 1989, FAOHP, 15-16. 43 Press Summary, Thurs., 20 Nov. 1958, F1695/1, FO 371/13337. 44. Iiombardo, "American Consulate’, 64-81. 45. Graham to Lennox-Boyd, 20 May 1955, PRRM 11/1309. 46. Peking to FO, 14 Aug. 1955, PRRM 11/1309. 47. PM (55) 72, Ijcnnox-Boyd to Hden, "Air India Crash’, and Rden min., n.d., PRF.M 11/1309; PM (56) 4, "Air India Crash’, I^ennox-Boyd to Kden, 7 Jan. 1956, PRHM 11/1309. Sec also Lombardo, "American Consulate*, 72-3; Tucker, Taiwan, 206-7. 48. dc Silva, Sub Rosa, 194—5. 49. Foot, IWrong War, 77-84. 50. Zhai, Dragon, 114. 51. 18 Feb. 1955, Dulles-I letter convers. microfilm, Reel 3, LL. 52. Zhai, Dragon, 162. O n the role o f ideology in American policy sec I*ucas, Freedom's War, 1-15,184-7. Chapter 15 Thề Struggle to Contain Liberation 1. N ID 7956, Dmgley-Cook (DNI) memo, ‘Where Are Wc Going?’, 6 July 1951, PRKM 11/159. 2. Rudgers,‘Origins’, 257. 3. I entries for 6 Jul. and 6-8 Dec. 1950, Bright-Holmes (ed.), U k e It Was. 4. R C /1 9 /5 0 ,7 Feb. 1950, N S 1053/5/G , FO 371/86762. 5. "Ukrainian and Baltic language Broadcasts’, 9 May 1950, N S1052/47/G , FO 371/86754. 6. NSC*68, "United States ( )bjectivcs and Programs for National Security’, 14 Apr. 1950, F RU S, 1950, vol. 1,237-92. 7. MOM (51) 2, "Defence Policy and Global Strategy’, J un. 1951, CAB 21/1787. 8. Roberts to Strang, 19 Nov. 1951, z s / 19/60, FO 371/124980; "Russia Committee Rc-oiganisarion*, 13 Nov. 1952, R C /62/52, FO 371/125005; interviews with former members o f OPS, 1998. 9. c o s (51) 97th mtg, 13 Jun. 1951, DF.FR 11/275. T h e place o f these committees including the elusive OPS sketched in Appendix B ‘Position o f IRD in the Foreign Office’, Oct. 1951, DHFR 11/275. 10. Note by ACAS (P), Chairman, (PSW) 3 (Final), ‘Psvwar - Policy for Provision o f Psychological Warfare’, AIR 20/9599.

668

N o te s

11. la m indebted to G ulnur Aybct for guidance on abandonment-entrapment. 12. Ross, Interests o f Peace, 52. 13. Chester H. Opal transcript, lOJan. 1989, FAOHP. 14. Annexe No. 5 to NSC 68 /3 in Nitze ct a]., ‘Newly Declassified Annexes*. 1 am indebted to E rik J o n e s for this reference. 15. lid ward Alexander transcript, n.d., FAOHP, 8. See also Roosevelt, F or IjiS t, 300-11. 16. Harrison min., 1 Jul. 1951, Z P 2 7 /1 8 /9 , FO 371/124970; W T N /B rief/6 ,3 Sept. 1951, Z P 2 7 / 2 / G , ibid. 17. Falla min., head o f OPS, 3 Apr. 1951, N SI052/30/G , F 0 3 7 1 /100842. 18. Kovrig, M yth o f liberation , 65-78. 19. Berger, AFSC Staff Study, ‘Use o f Covert Paramilitary Activity’, 16. 20. Simpson, Biowhack, 210-21; Colby, Honorable Men, 84—109; Tamnes, High N orth, 76. 21. Intcll. and Evaluation Branch, Psy War, ‘Planning and Effective Use o f Soviet Prisoners o f W a r’, 6 Dec. 1951,091 Rs. Case 46, Box 43, c i 3 TS 1950-1, RG 319. 22. Staff (Conférence, 22 Oct. 1951, in Warner (ed.), C IA under H arry Truman, 434-6. 23. Mins o f the JC S-SD Co-ordinating Committee, 12 Mar. 1952, Box 77, PPS Records, Lot Files 6 4 D 563, RCf 59; also private information. 24. Young, Winston ChurchiWs ỈẨẳSt Campaign, 107-8. 25. PUSC (51) 16 (Final), ‘Future Policy towards Soviet Russia’, and Annexe B, 'lib eratio n o f th e Satellites', 17 Jan. 1952, Z P10/4, FO 371/25002. This is reproduced in full and discussed by Jo h n Y oung, who secured its declassification, in ‘Cold War Fighting'. 26. JC S-SD mtg, 12 Mar. 1952, Box 77, PPS Lot Files 64 D 563, RG 59. Throughout the 1950s the U nited States produced a stream o f high-level estimates on this subject, see for example N IE 10-58, ‘A ntiCommunist Resistance Potential in the Sino-Sovict Bloc’, 4 Mar. 1958, F R U S 1 9 5 8 -6 0 , vol. 10, part 1, pp. 7-11. 27. N ID 7956, Longley-Cook (DN1) memo, m e r e Are We Going?’, 6 Jul. 1951, PRKM 11/159. 28. Churchill to First b>rd o f the Admiralty, 9 Jan. 1952, PREM 11/159; Churchill to Private Office. 12 Apr. 1952, ibid. O n the visit to Washington see Young, Winston Churchills I ju t Campaign, 84-5. 29. Young, Winston ChurchilPs Ỉ MSt Campaign, 78-81. 30. Slessor min. to VCAS, 1 Oct. 1951, AIR 75/107. 31. Garrod to Tedder, 2 4/4/A IR , 18 Mar. 1948, AIR 75/116. 32. Kenney to Vandcnbetg, 29 Apr. 1950,212900, Box 49, D o f 1 records, RG 341. 33. T h e Chairman said the J1C team had not yet come back from the US’, RC mtg, 12 Sept. 1950, N S1053/26/G , FO 371/86762; AI2, ‘An Estimate o f the Period in Which Hostilities Arc Most likely to Commence between the USSR and the Western Powers’, 28 Aug. 1950, CCS 337 (8-16-49), Sec. 3, RG 218. Washington tabled an alternative paper to London’s JIC (50) 77. 34. Landon memo, ‘U.S.-U.K. Conversations on the Present World Situation’, 7 Aug. 1950, 21890, Box 56, D o f I records, RG 341. 35. General Charles p. Cabell, ‘Memoirs o f an Unidentified Aide’, ch. 32, TSS, Reel 33080, IRIS 1025 p “7, 168.2026.33080, CAFH. 36. FORD paper, ‘Internal Stability o f the Soviet Regime*, NS 1030/50/G , FO 371/100842. 37. Memo by R.P.2 to OPS, 29 Feb. 1952, NS 1053/29/G , FO 371/100842. 38. Holher memo, ‘Soviet Internal Stability’, 1 Jul. 1952, NS 1052/27/G , FO 100842. 39. OPS memo, ‘Criticisms by M.I.6 - FORD paper on the Internal Stability o f the Soviet Regime’, JuL 1952, N S1052/30/G , FO 371/100842; interviews with former OPS members, 1998. 40. SD-JCS 7th mtg, 15 Mar. 1951, PPS Records, Box 77, Lot 64 D 563, RG 59. 41. JCS-SD 16th mtg, 27 Jun. 1951, Box 77, PPS Lot Files, 64 D 563, RG 59. 42. Slim, ‘Address to SHAPE Staff, 22 Aug. 1952, Box 24, Ridgway papers, USMHI. Newly opened Czech archives reveal ‘sharply rising foreign infiltration* into Czechoslovakia during 1951-3, Mastny, C old War, 118. 43. litre s , ‘Preserving I AW and O rder’, 320-50; Marchio, ‘Resistance Potential and Rollback*, 219-41; Osterman, ‘United States', 7-15. 44. Bank, o x s, 188; ‘Use o f Soviet Troops in Aid o f the Civil Power’, Berlin, 16 Jun.-10 Jul. 1953, Brigadier Mcadmorc, BR1XMIS, wo 208/5002. 45. CIA O Ci No. 4491, ‘Comment on East Berlin uprising’, 17 Jun. 1953, Box 3, c . D. Jackson records, DDEL 46. D r Robert R. Bowie transcript, 15 Mar. 1988, FAOHP, 22-4. See also Kovrig, W alls and Bridges, 66-9. 47. Kennan to Jackson, 15 Sept. 1953, Box 4, c . D. Jackson records, D D E L 48. ‘Concept and ideas for psychological warfare in Europe developed by the Chief o f Mission meeting at Luxembourg on Sept. 18-19,1953’, Box 14, PSB Central Files Scries, NSC Staff Papers, W IIO , D D E L

N o te s

669

49. Entries for 7 and 10 Dec. 1953, Moran, Winston CburchiU. See also Seldon, Indian Summer, 390-1, and Kovrig, Wads and Bridges, 52-5. 50. Entries for 12 Apr. and 4 May 1954, Moran, Winston Cburcbid. See also Young, Winston C burcbiirs Ija st Campaign, 306-8. 51. Crittenberger memo to OCB, Tim ing o f the Implementation o f the V FC , 11 May 1954, Box 8, OCB Secretariat Series, National Security Staíĩ, W HO, D D EL; OCB, ‘Report on Activation o f a VFC (NSC 143/2), 3 Aug. 1955, ibid. 52. Kovrig, W'aJis and Bridges, 101. 53. Dc Silva, Sub Rosa, 87-96. 54. Private information; Anderson, Banner, 204-5. 55. Deletant, Communist Terror, 267. 56. Chester H. o p a l transcript, 10 Jan. 1989, FAOHP, 22. 57. Dulles to Goodpastcr, enclosing ‘Radio Free Europe*, 20 Nov. 1956, Box 7, AS/SS Office o f Staff Sec., W HO, DDEL. See also Kovrig, W'ads and Bridges, 93; Rawnslcy, ‘Cold War Radio in Crisis’, 197-217. 58. Peter Mod, Hungarian Permanent Representative UN, ‘Memo, on the Question o f Hungary in Connection with the Events on 23 Oct. 1956 and After’, N H 10110/150, FO 371/128670. 59. Crittenbcrger to Jackson, 29 May 1958, Box 44, CDJP, DDEL; Crittcnberger to Jackson, 5 Nov. 1956, enclosing ‘Report on Free Europe Press Operations’, 3 Oct. 1956, ibid. 60. Kovrig, Wads and Bridges, 93; Ranelagh, Agency, 306-7. 61. Jackson to Allen Dulles, 2 Jul. 1958, Box 40, CDJP, DDEL. Chapter 16 The CIA’s Federalist Operation: ACUE ami the European Movement 1. Action Items, 19 Oct. 1953, File: OCB special Staff, Box 1, c. D. Jackson records, D D EL. 2. Braden,,‘Birth o f the Cl A’, 1 3. 3. Gillingham, Coaỉ, 148-78; Milward, Reconstruction, 56-84; Pisani, C IA , 34-58; Warner, ‘Eisenhower’, 320. 4. Brief references to this have surfaced over the years: Bames, ‘Secret Cold War’, 666-7; Eringer, G iobai Manipulators, 19-20; Fletcher, Who w ire 7bey Travtllinị w ith?, 71; Melandri, Ijfs E tats l ĩnisface à runification de TEurope, 320,354-5; Thompson, ‘Bilderberg and the West’, 184; Zürcher, Struggle to Unite Europe, 71. There is now a useful and extended account in Dorril, M I 6 ,455-82. 5. Rebattet, iEuropean Movement’, PhD. 6. O n AFL-CIO efforts see Wall, U nited States, 99-104, 151-3, 211-15; Pisani, C IA , 99-100, 119, 145; Romero, U nited States, 12-17,88-95. 7. Coleman, I jb era l Conspiracy, xi. See also, Colby, Honorable Men, 51-107. 8. Thom e, ‘American Political Culture*, 316-20; Hogan, M arshall Plan, 213-14,332-3. 9. Meyer, Taring Reality, 110-39; Ranelagh, Agency, 133-8; Simpson, Blombach, 138-56; Bank, OSS, 138-89. O n stav-bchind sec Colby, Honorable Men, 51-107. 10. Miller, T aking Off the Gloves’, 35-46; Ellwood, ‘1948 Elections in Italy*, 19-35. 11. Romero argues that, while operations to support non-communist unions in Italy and France *were financed in large measure by the CIA’, the role o f intelligence agencies should not be exaggerated, U nited States, 94—6. 12. Coleman, U ỉĩera l Conspiracy, passim; Meyer, Earing Reality, 66-7. 1V Braden’s own recollections are recounted in Barnes, ‘Secret (-old War’, 666-7, and in Braden, ‘Birth o f the (HA’, 4-13. See also Copeland, R eal spy World, 230. 14. Zürcher, Struggle to Unite Europe, 24; Rebattet, ‘European Movement*, PhD, 294-6. 15. Sandys to Beddington-Behrens, 11 Oct. 1948, and ‘Report by Chairman o f Finance Sub-Committee*, 8 Dec. 1948, E X /P /5 3 , European Movement Archives, cited in Rebattet, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 195. Rctinger had undertaken a previous unsuccessful trip to the United States in Nov. 1946, ibid., 299. 16. Coudcnhove-Kalcrgi to Donovan, 24 Nov. 1949, Box 38, Allen w. Dulles papers, Mudd Library, Princeton University; mins o f the Second Mtg o f the Executive Committee, 1Jul. 1949, Folder 90, ACUE records, 1JL; Churchill to Donovan, private, 4 Jun. 1949, folder 90, ACUE records, LL. 17. Churchill, W'ar Speeches, vol. 2, 427-8. 18. Young, trance, 210—14; Young, Britain and European l ỉnìty, 4 -6 ,2 2 -3 . 19. NSC 5430, ‘Status o f US Program for National Security as o f 30 Jun. 1954, Part 7, USIA Program’, 18 Aug. 1954, ERU S, 1 9 5 2 -4 , vol. 2,1780; Bank, OSS', 186-7. 20. Darling, C L Í , 267-8, 301-45. Thomas w. Braden appears to have ceased to be executive director in the spring o f 1951. He was succeeded by William p. Durkee and then by Alan Hovcy in 1953. Durkee had served in OSS with Braden and later became vice president o f Free Europe Inc. with special responsibility for Radio Free Europe. O n Braden’s departure see Braden to Sandys, 30 Mar. 1951, and Sandys to Braden, 17Apr. 1951,9/1/10, Duncan Sandys papers, ccc.

670

N otes

21. list of ACUE Directors attached to details of a visit by Robert Schuman, 20 Sept 1950, Folder 5, ACƯE records, LL; Filipelli, American Ijtbor, 112,134-5,211. 22. ‘Report to the Executive Directors of the American Committee on United Europe* by William p. Durkec, May 1952, WBS, DDEL. 23. Churchill to Donovan, private, 4 Jun. 1949, Folder 90, ACUE records, LL. 24. Meyer, Facing Reality, 63-6; Pomian {cả.), Joseph Retinger, 237; Aldrich, ‘European Integration*, 163—1. 25. Churchill to Donovan, private, 4 Jun. 1949, Folder 90, ACUE records, LL. 26. Address by Churchill to the ACUE, New York, 29 Mar. 1949, Folder 2, ACUE records, LL 27. Mins of a discussion between Kennan and Hayter QIC Chairman), 26 Jul. 1949, W627/2/500G, FQ 371/76383. 28. Braden to Bedell Smith, 28 Dec. 1949, WBS, DDEL. Some initial funding in 1949 appears to have come from private sources, 'Report to the Directors of the ACUE’ by William p. Durkee, May 1952, 7 -8 , WBS, DDEL. 29. Confidential memo enclosed in Braden to Bedell Smith, 27 Jun. 1950, WBS, DDEL. 30. ‘Report to the Directors of the ACUE*, by William p. Durkee, May 1952,7-8, WBS, DDEU Rebattct. ‘European Movement’, PhD, 49,186; Aldrich, ‘European Integration’, 165. On Sandys in 1945 see Young. Britain and European Unity, 19-20. 31. Wisner (CIA) to Harriman (ECA), ‘Western European Political Integration’, 15 Feb. 1950, CIA, FOI A. 32. Report by Braden, 'Activities of ACUE, Part V, Summary Program for the Future’, Apr. 1950, File 20. Box 1, ACUE records, LL. 33. ‘Report to the Directors of the ACUE’ by William P. Durkee, May 1952,9-10, WBS, DDEL 34. Memo enclosed in Braden to Bedell Smith, 27 Jun. 1950, WBS, DDEL. 35. Retinger to Sandys, 31 Mar. 1950, European Movement Archives, quoted in Rebattct, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 408. 36. Rebattet, ‘European Movement*, PhD, 198-9. Hitherto the ACUE had offered litde specific direction as to precise use of the funds, remarking in January 1950, ‘up to now all funds have been sent to the European Movement to use as it sees fît’, mins of the mtg of the Executive Committee, ACUE, 20 Jan. 1950, WBS, DDEL. 37. 'Report to the Directors of the ACUE*, by William P. Durkee, May 1952,7-8, WBS, DDEL Braden, confidential memo on ACUE to Bedell Smith, 6 Jul. 1950, WBS, DDEL. 38. Gillingham, Coal, 147. Another historian has identified a long American intTÌgue to make him “direc­ tor-general" of the OEEC*, Milward, European Rescue, 324. 39. Memo enclosed in Braden to Bedell Smith, 27 Jun. 1950, WBS, DDEL. 40. Memo of the tripartite preliminary meetings on Items 5 and 8, M IN /TR/P/4,9 May 1950,I’R l'X 1990, vol. 3,1081; Elscy to IJoyd, 16 May 1951, enclosing special Guidance memo by Policy Advisory Staff. The Concept of Europe’, 8 May 1951, DDRS (1979), 1,3, p. 176D. Lloyd noted, '1 agree, it sounds very good.’ 41. Miscamblc, Kennan, 284-5; mins of a discussion between Kennan and Hayter, 26 Jul. 1949, W627/2/500G, FO 371/76383. 42. Memo of a convcrs. between Acheson, Kennan, Spaak and Silvercruys, 19 Jan. 1950, FRUS, 1950, vnl. 3,613-14; mins of the 7th mtg of the PPS, ibid., 617-20. See also Gillingham, Coal, 134-7,147-8. 43. Statement of Donovan on ERP, 3 Mar. 1950, and subsequent discussions in the House Foreign Affairs Committee between Donovan, Congressman Richards and Chairman Kee, Folder 20, Box 1. AGUE records, LL 44. Acting SoS to Donovan, 29 Sept. 1950, Exhibit 6, Appendix IV, May 1952, WBS, DDEL. 45. Mtgs of US Ambassadors in Paris, 21 Oct. 1949, FRUS, 1949, vol. 4,490-3; memo of a convcrsaoon between Harriman, Bruce and McClov, 20 Jan. 1950, FRUX 1950, vol. 3,1608-9; mtgs of L’S Ambassadors in Rome, 22-24 Mar. 1950. FRUX 1950, vol. 3,809. 46. Braden confidential memo on the ACUE to Bedell Smith, 6 Jul. 1950, WBS, DDEỈ« 47. Ibid. 48. Ttcport to the Directors of the ACL E’, by William p. Durkee, May 1952,6-7, WBS, DDÏ I U Aldrich. ‘European Integration’, 168-9. 49. Braden to Bedell Smith, 28 Dec. 1949, WBS, DDEL. On Britain’s ‘obstructionism* at Strasbourg in the summer of 1950 sec Anderson to State Department, 31 Jul. 1950, FRUX 1950, vol. 3,777-80. 50. N.E.C. mins. (K.C.6.1946-47), 22 Jan. 1947, in Grantham, ‘Labour Pam*, PhD, 168-9. 51. A copy of the Mackay Plan is available at File 2, Group 7, Mackay Papers, BLPES; ‘Report to the Directors of the AC11E, by William p. Durkce, May 1952, 6-7,10-11,14-15, WBS, DDEL mins of the mtg of the Executive Committee, AC11E, 20 Jan. 1950, WBS, DDEI^ entry for 11 Sept. 1948, Pimlott (ed.\ Dalton Diaty.

52. Mackav, ‘Memo on the ERP and European Political Union*, New York, 1 Feb. 1949, fol. 8, File 2, Group 7, Mackay Papers, BI.PKS.

N o te s

671

53- Report by Braden, ‘Activities o f ACUE*, Apr. 1950, Folder 20, Box 1, ACUE records, I X 54. Mackay to Allen Dulles, 21 Jan. 1950, Folder 20, Box 1, ACUE records, IX. See also Mackay to Braden, 29 Mar. and 8 Apr. 1950, ibid. 55. Report by Braden, ‘Activities o f ACUE', Apr. 1950, Folder 20, Box 1, A CUE records, IX. See also Mackay to Allen Dulles, 21 Jan. 1950, Folder 20, Box 1, AGUE records, I X 56. Report to Attlee, Mar. 1950, Subject Files ‘Council o f Europe*, Dalton papers, BLPES, cited in Grantham, ‘Labour Party’, PhD, 254. 57. Aldrich, ‘European Integration’, 168-78. Mins o f Annual Mtg, 24 Apr. 1951, WBS, D D E X 58. Presentation by Braden, 18 Jan. 1951, Folder 6, Box 1, ACUE records, IX. 59. Rctinger to Cripps, 7 Feb. 1950, UP3117/2, FO 371/88643; H ooper mins, 8 and 10 Feb. 1950, Makins and Jebb mins, 9 Feb. 1950, ibid. See also Curtins to Retinger, 1 Jan. 19 5 0 ,9 /1 /1 0 , Duncan Sandys papers, CGC. 60. Donovan report from Strasbourg, 5 Dec. 1951, Folder 58, ACUE records, LX 'Report to the Directors o f the AGUE’ by William P. DurkccJVlay 1952,6-7,14-15, WBS, D D F X 61. E.g. address by Paul’Henri Spaak, 1 Apr. 1952, New York, Folder 9, AGUE records, I X 62. Rebattet, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 308. 63. ‘Statement o f G encrai William J. Donovan, AGUE to Committee on Foreign Affairs, House o f Representatives’, 3 Mar. 1950, Folder 56, ACUE records, LX Bonnet to Donovan, 26 Jun. 1950, and attached note to Bedell Smith, W’BS, DDEL; AGUE newsletter, nos 1-20, Folder 64, AGUE records, I X 64. ‘Report to the Directors o f the AGUE’ by William p. Durkee, May 1952,19, WBS, D D E X Appendix IV, exhibit 4, ‘material published by the AGUE and Publications Distributed’, ibid. 65. Braden, ‘Activities o f the AGUE’, p. 13, Apr. 1950, Folder 20, ACUE records, IX; ‘Report to the Directors o f the AGUE’ by W'illiam p. Durkee, May 1952, 19, WBS, D D EL. The AGUE planned to allo­ cate S62,500 to research on federalism at Harvard I .aw School in 1952. 66. See for example Friedrich’s studies, Vederalism: Trends in Theory and Practice and Europe: A n Emergent N ation O n his ideas see Tormcy, M aking Sense o f Tyranny, 67. T h e Soviet Zone o f Germany’, cd. Carl Friedrich (Subcontractor’s monograph, HRAF-34, Harvard-1, 1956); Friedrich to Altschud, 1 Jan. 1951, NCFK File, Box 28, Friedrich papers, HUG (FP) - 17,12, HU A. 68. Allen Dulles to Friedrich, 11 Jan. 1951, NGFE File, Box 28, Friedrich papers, HUG (FP) - 17, 12, HUA; (Jay to Friedrich, 15 Jan. 1951, ibid.; Jackson to Friedrich, 31 Jan. 1951, ibid. 69. Braden to lin g e r, 12 Jan. 1950, File: AGUE, Box 9, Langer papers, HU A; Langer to Braden, 20 Jan. 1950, ibid.; Burkhardt to lin g e r, 24 Jul. 1950, File: B-Gcneral, Box 9, tanger papers, HU A. O n tangcr's career in ( )SS and subsequently G1A sec Winks, Cloak and Croo n, 79-82,495-6. 70. ‘Report on the College o f Europe* by P. G. Dodd, J un. 1951, Folder 1, Box 1, AGUE records, LX 71. Rebattet, ‘European Movement*, PhD, 34. 72. ‘Report on the College o f Europe* by P. c. Dodd, Jun. 1951, Folder 1, Box 1, ACUE records, IX 73. ‘Program and Budget for 1950*, 6, WBS, D D E X 74. White (American Committee on NATO) to Karp, 17 Sept. 1959, Folder 89, AGUE records, LX the cost o f the Economist Intelligence Unit studies for 1959 is given in ‘Report to the Directors’ by Foster, 13, Oct. 1959, Folder 100, AGUE records, I X 75. In 1962 Christopher I .ayton moved on to a number o f advisory roles for the EEC; he became an hon­ orary director general o f the EEC and later became its special adviser on technology, Who's Who 1986 ,1018; Edwards, Pursuit o f Reason, 923-5. 76. Sec Daddow’s path-breaking thesis, 'Rhetoric and Reality’, PhD, 9 -12,111-77, discussing Pinder and Mayne, T'ederal Union, 168. Sec also Daddow, H arold Wilson and European l forty* 1-15. 77. Hubback, N o Ordinary Press Baron. 205-6; Who's Who 1959 , 1765. 78. Franklin to tayton, 9 Oct. 1949, Box 82, tayton Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge. 79. Butler to Layton, 19 Apr. 1950, Box 142, tayton Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge; Braden to tayton, 4 Feb. 1950, ibid; Braden to tayton, 24 Feb. 1950, ibid; See also Allen Dulles to Layton, 2 Feb. 1950, ibid.; Braden to Rebattct, 15 Jan. 1950, ibid.; Braden to tayton, 6Jun. 1951, Box 136, ibid. 80. Hovcy to tayton, 6 Apr. 1953, Box 135, Layton Papers, Trinity College, Cambridge. The records o f the European-Atlantic G roup are at Box 144, ibid. 81. Mins o f the mtg o f the Executive Committee, ACUE, 11 Oct. 1950, wus, D D E X memo concerning the International Campaign for the Creation o f a European Council o f Vigilance, 1950, ibid.; mins o f the mtg o f the Executive Committee, AGUE, 11 Oct. 1950, ibid.; ‘Report to the Directors o f the AGUE’ by William p. Durkee, May 1952,11-12, ibid. 82. Donovan to Bedell Smith, 25 J ul. 1951, WrBS, D D E X German activities included an ACU E-sponsored G crm an-Europe conference at Hamburg in Nov. 1951, mins o f the mtg o f the Executive Committee, AGUE, 11 Oct. 1950, 12, 17-18, W'BS, D D F X O n worries over Germany sec Ixffler, Preponderance, 318-19,323.

672

N o te s

83. ‘Report by M. Moreau, Secretary General o f the European Youth Campaign, to the International Executive Bureau o f the European Movement', B E /P /6 0 , European Movement Archives and interview with G. Rebattet, cited in Rebattct, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 449-50. O n McCloy’s interest in co v e n activities sec Bird, Chairman, 345-58. 84. Đ E /M /8 , ỈAixemburg, 21 May 1948,2, European Movement Archives, and B E /M /1 4 , Paris, 23 N ov. 1953,3, ibid., quoted in Rebattet, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 201. 85. European Youth Campaign, 1953, C C S/P/2, box 1, AGUE collection, HIWRP. Much o f the youth cam ­ paign material has survived in the archives at Stanford, see for example. Bulletin đ Information des Jeunesses Europẻenes fédéralistes, Dec. 1951, Box 2, ibid. Monnet to Donovan, 3 Oct. 1952, Folder 61, AC UE records, I J 86. ‘Reports to the Directors o f ACLJE’ by William p. Durkee, Jul. 1951 and May 1952, WBS, D D E E Rcbattet suggest that all the resources for the European Youth Campaign came from the AGUE, which acted as ‘a covering organisation’ for the United States government, and that £444,080 was transferred for this purpose between 1 May 1951 and 31 May 1953. O n this see F IN /P /6 , ‘European Movement: European Youth Campaign, Treasurer’s Report’, 1 Sept. 1953, European Movement Archives, cited in Rcbattet, ‘European Movement’, PhD, 206-7. 87. Page to Kennan, 11 Oct. 1948, 865.00/10/1148, RG 59; American Ambassador to Lovett, 11 O ct. 1948, 865.00/10/1148, RG 59; both quoted in Filipelli, American l Jibor, 150-1. Nevertheless, G edda also appears to have had ACUE associations; sec for example The Union o f Europe: Declarations o f European Statesmen, p. 5 7 ,9 /1 /1 0 , Duncan Sandys papers, c c c . 88. Rcbattct reports that European Movement’s international review, Europe Today and Tomorrow, was ‘almost completely financed by subscriptions from the Mutual Security Agency and ACUE’, ‘E uropean Movement’, PhD, 201,302. 89. Pomian (ed.), Joseph R etingr, 237; retired American official in correspondence with the author, 15 Jul. 1993. 90. USIA memo, Caldwell, and Hulley, ‘United European Federalists’, 17 Dec. 1953, ƯSIA, FOIA ; L’EF memo, ‘Plan o f Action, B) External Activities, b) Great Britain’, USIA, FOI A; U EF memo, ‘Plan o f Action: III Financing o f the UEF’s Activities’, USIA, FOI A; memo o f a convcrs. with Altiero Spinclli, ‘American Interest in European Federalist Union*, 31 May 1955, USIA, FOI A. I am indebted to Xiomara G eorge o f the USIA Office o f the General Counsel for processing my very extensive FOIA requests with speed and good humour. 91. Coleman, IJberal Conspiracy, 38. 92. Brady (Paris) to Clark, 2 Apr. 1955, USIA, FOI A; Washburn to USIS Rome, ‘Projects in Support o f Adantic Community and European Unity’, 20 Mar. 1956, US1A, FOIA. 93. Warner, ‘Eisenhower*, 320-3. Allen Dulles succeeded Bedell Smith on 26 Feb. 1953. 94. Bcddington-Behrcns, Ijook Back, 184. Also Beddington-Behrens to Jackson, 13 Aug. 1955, Box 25, CDJP, D D E E 95. Chipman (HICOG) to State Department, ‘Eastern Propaganda o f the Nadonal Committee for a Free Europe’, 15 Jan. 1953, 540.40/1-1953, RG 59. 96. Vilis Mosens (Chairman ACEN) to Philips, 13 Mar. 1956, File: Eastern F.uropc/Nationalism in Europe, la b o u r Party International Department records (post-1947), NMLH; ‘Proposed West European Advisory Committee’, 1 Feb. 1959, Box 44, CDJP, DDEL. 97. For an example o f associated publicity materials SCC, t'A c tio n T'édéraliste européenne, J un. 1957, Box 6, AGUE collection, HIWRP. 98. Mins o f a mtg o f the Board o f Directors, 6 Jun. 1956, Folder 91, ACUE records, LL. 99. O ne o f his closest assistants, his principal private secretary, recalls that ‘He made it plain on many occa­ sions that CIA or quasi-CIA funds must be avoided because o f the political risks to his prestige,’ correspon­ dence from François Duchẻne to the author, 3 Feb. 1995. I am most grateful to François Duchènc for sharing his recollections with me. 100. Pisani, C I A , 47-52. 101. Rebattet, ‘European Movement*, PhD, 315. 102. Bird, chairm an, 416-17; 471 -2 ; Duchênc,/ndon, see mins o f J1C 177th mtg, 13 Jan. 1949, CCS 334 J 1C (5-27-48), RG 218. 14. ‘Replies to Questions Asked by the PM o f the J 1C in the Course o f his Minute to the MoD N o 630/57*, 24 Jan. 1958, D E FE 7/970. 15. Alexander to Churchill, 10 Feb. 1954, D E FE 13/352. 16. Brief for Watkinson, ‘Warning and Timing o f Soviet Attack on the West in Global War up to 1965’, 22 Nov. 1960, DKFE 13/342; Scott and Twigge, Planning Armageddon, 254—5. 17. JIC Sec. to Chairman c< )S, ‘Comments on Various Militär)' Factors Affecting Soviet Capabilities and Intentions over the Next Five Years’, JIC /2291/57, Limited Cire., 31 Oct. 1957, and Annexe, CIA Memo No. 1416446,22 Oct. 1957, DER-: 13/342. 18. Brundrett to Minister o f Defence, F B /483/55, ‘Note on Military Potential Section o f Annexe to DC (55) 46’, 28 Oct. 1955, D E FE 13/342. See also Scott and Twigge, Planning Armageddon* 245. 19. Ridgway t o j e s , 18 Jul. 1953, Box 28, Ridgwav papers, USMHI. 20. Slessor to VCA SJCS 3 7 /1 ,2 0 Sept. 1949, AIR 75/92. For American examples sec Mescal!, T rium ph o f Parochialism’, 127-34. 21. Ridgwav to JCS, 18 July 1953, File: COS Jul.-Dee. 53, Box 28, Ridgway papers, USMHI. 22. Oral history o f Colonel Herron w . Maples, SHAPE Intelligence and D1A, Box 1, Oral History Collection, USMHI. The classic realist statement on intelligence is MeGarvey, ‘D l A; Intelligence to Please’, 318-28. 23. N ote for Dickson by Strong (IIB), summarising f ie (58) 4 (Final), ‘Soviet Strategy in Global W'ar up to the End o f 1962’, 6 Feb. 1958, ỈÍSĨ* 5.9. See the thorough discussion o f this issue in Twigge and Scott, Planning Armageddon* 256-8. 24. Strong (JIB) to Watkinson, 8 Feb. 1960, D E FE 13/342. 25. Roman, Hisenbower, 40-6. See also Andrew, l or the President's liyes* 223-4; Freedman, U S Intelligence* 67, 82; Prados, Soviet Ustim ate* 49-50. 26. Roman, hisenhower* 44-5. 27. ta m b , M acmillan, 340; memo o f a convers., 29 Mar. 1960, DDE-M acmiỉlan mtg 1, Box 5, McCone papers, DDEL. 28. Strong (JIB) to Watkinson, T h e Soviet Atomic Energy Programme*, 25 Jan. 1961, UK Eyes Only, DHFE 13/342. 29. JIC /1 7 1 3 /6 0 ,21 Oct. 1960, D E FE 13/342; Twigge and Scott, Planning Armageddon* 52. 30. Potts min., ‘Chinese Interest in Nuclear Weapons’, 1Jun. 1960,1AE410/8G, FO 371/149546, and dis­ cussion o f JIG (AUST) (60) 21 Final, Apr. 1960, ibid. 31. McCone, Oral History, 19JF K L ; CAS memo, ‘Chinese Nuclear Test’, 15 Oct. 1964, D E FE 13/403. 32. Strauss to SoS and Secretary o f Defense, 13 Nov. 1957, ‘Sharing o f Atomic Energy Information with Certain Allies’, Box 16, BNS, NSC Series, OS AN A, W HO, D D E L See also Twigge and Scott, Planning Armageddon* 237. 33. Gdpastcr, ‘Memorandum o f Conference with the President’, 21 Aug. 1958, 10.50 a.m., File AEG vol. II (4) Aug.-Sept. 58, Box 3, AS/SS, ( )flicc o f the Staff Sec., WHO, D D E K

686

N otes

34. Elkins (JSM) to Mountbatten, 24 Sept 1958,1/478, Mountbatten papers, HL. 35. Mofgan to Brownjohn, 21 Sept. 1953, DEFE 7/2105; ‘C to Parker, 8 ()ct. 1953, ibid.; cos (54) 101. ‘Atomic Energy Intelligence*, 31 Mar. 1954, ibid.; cos (57) 7th mtg, 22 Jan. 1957, ibid.; Dean to PowelL, 31 May 1957, ibid. 36. Memo by CAS, ‘Missile Intelligence’, 7 Mar. 1961, AIR 8/1953. 37. Memo by ACAS (I), Bufton, to CAS, Templer Report: The issue of “principle”*, 20 Mar. 1961, AIR 8/1953. 38. Cole, ‘Brìdsh Technical Intelligence*, 83-91. 39. Hunt (JIQ to Bufton (ACAS (I)), 9 Sept. 1960, J lC /t482/60, AIR 8/1953. 40. Mountbatten memo, ‘Missile Intelligence’, 15 Mar. 1961, AIR 8/1953. 41. Memo on JCS 2031/166, ‘Establishment of a Defence Intelligence Agency', 11 Apr. 1961, CCS 2010, RG 218. 42. Twigge and Scott, Planning Armageddon, 25-7; Ziegler, Mounthatten, 633. Chapter 25 Cyprus: The Last Foothold 1. Philpott to VCAS, ‘RAF Requirements in Cyprus’, 27 Apr. 1959, AIR 20/10328, quoted in Kvriakidcs. ‘British Cold War Strategy*, PhD, 285. 2. COS 70 (55) 7, ‘Cyprus - military arguments against a leased base*, 30 Aug. 1955, Kent (ed.), B D E E ,. Middle East, B, 4, Part II, 329. 3. COS (48) 70 (0), ‘Cyprus - Strategic Requirement for Development of a Very Heavy Bomber Airfield’, 2 Apr. 1948, DEFE 2/1654; JA P/P (48) 16 Final, ‘Cyprus - Administrative Implications of Development ofVHB Airfield’, ibid. 4. Kyriakides, ‘British Cold War Strategy*, PhD, 285; Richelson and Ball, Ties That Bifid 335. 5. Canine (AFSA) to CNO, ‘Evacuation of APPLESAUCE Personnel in an Emergency', 9 Jan. 1952, Box 270, SPDR (Series XVI), O AB, WN Y. 6. Maddrell, ‘Britain’s Exploitation’, PhD, 315, citing Mathams, Sub-Rasa, 27-8; Bamfocd, PuqyỊe Palace, 158-9. 7. Ackerman to D of 1,21 Sept. 1951,219900, Box 58, D o f 1 records, RG 341; MoD to GCHQ Middle East Land Forces, 15 Apr. 1953, AIR 20/7028. 8. ‘Report of Working Party on Broadcasting in the Middle East', Mar. 1957, and mins of 1st mtg, 22 Feb. 1957, DỈO 35/9645. 9. Grivas, Memoirs, 13-14; Melshen, Tseudo Operations*, PhD, 115. 10. Woodhouse, Something Ventured, 133-5; Kyriakides, ‘British Cold War Strategy’, PhD, 135. 11. Clark, ‘Colonial Police’, PhD, 370-1. 12. Dorril, M Ỉ6 ,550-1 ; Durrell, Bitter IJtmons, 196-7; Holland, Britain and the Revoit in Cyprus, 49-50; West. Friends, 70-1. 13. Carver, Harding 203-5; Clark, ‘Colonial Police’, PhD, 311; West, Friends, 72-3. 14. Melshen, *Pseudo Operations’, PhD, 116-17. 15. Grivas, Memoirs, 57-8; Holland, Britain and the Revoit in Cyprus, 151; Craig and O’Malle)', Cyprus Conspiracy, 35. 16. Holland, Britain and the Revoit in Cyprus, 151-3; Lapping, E nd ofEmpire, 336-7. 17. Mclshcn, ‘Pseudo Operations’, PhD, 121-2; Kyriakides, ‘British Cold War Strategy*. PhD, 214-16. 18. Carruthers, Hearts and Minds, 198-9; Holland, Britain and the Revoit in Cyprus, 133; Kyriakidcs, 'British Cold War Strategy’, PhD, 214-16. 19. Melshen, ‘Pseudo Operations’, PhD, 125; Clark, ‘Colonial Police*, PhD, 328. 20. Clark,‘Colonial Police’, PhD, 326. 21. lapping, End of Empire, 338-9. 22. Carruthers, Hearts and Minds, 210-11. 23. There is no documentary evidence for this assertion, which is based on private information. On resis­ tance to a public enquiry see Carruthers, Hearts and Minds, 238-9. 24. Melshen, ‘Pseudo Operations’, PhD, 114. 25. The most reliable account of Operation Sunshine has been beautifully reconstructed from Darlings papers by Holland in Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 312-13. 26. Dorriỉ, M Ỉ6, 555-7; McDermott, Eden legacyy 174—7; West, Friends, 76-7; Lapping, End of Empire, 343. 27. Sandys to CDS, 27 Nov. 1958, DEFE 13/6; Sandys to Foot, 5 Nov. 1958, DKFK 13/97. 28. Foot to Lennox-Boyd, 9 Nov. 1958, ESI, 12.5. 29. lapping, E nd of Empire, 334—5. 30. The definitive account is Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 312-13. 31. lapping, E nd of Empire, 349.

N o te s

687

32. Briefing N ote for NSC Meeting, 1 Dec. 1959, ‘US Policy toward Cyprus’ (S. E. Bclk), Box 6, Briefing N otes Subserics, NSC Series, OS AN A, W HO, DDF.L; Bclk (NSC) to Gray, 10 Nov. 1959, ibid. 33. Middle East Defence Secretariat memo, 30 Apr. 1959, C O 926/978, cited in Craig and O ’Malley, Cyprus Conspiracy. 82-3. 34. Grandy to MacDonald, 9 Sept. 1960, AIR 20/12222. Chapter 26 Working Groups: special Operations in ike Third Worid 1. COS (62) 304,21 Aug. 1962, D E FE 11/158. 2. Eisenhower’s Record o f the Bermuda Conference, 21 Mar. 1957, DDRS 456/1992. 3. Eisenhower to Macmillan, 26 Mar. 1957 and Macmillan to Eisenhower, 29 Mar. 1957, Eyes Only, DDRS, 1997/518 and 1997/745 4. Alien Dulles to Gray, 22 Nov. 1956, Box 7, AS/SS, Office o f the Staff Sec., W H O , DDEL. 5. TSS, ‘Ropes o f Sand', 66-7, Box 1, Eveland papers, HIWTtP. 6. Andrew, President's L yes Only. 225-33; Dulles (CIA) to SoS, 10 Nov. 1956, Box 7, AS/SS, Office o f Staff Sec., W HO, DDEL. 7. Allen Dulles to Goodpaster, 22 Mar. 1957, enclosing, *Situarion Report on Syria’, Intel. Matters (2), Nov. 1956-Mar. 1957, AS/SS, Office o f Staff Sec., W'Ho T d DEL. 8. John Foster Dulles to Macmillan, 5 Sept. 1957, File Syria (3), Box 43, Ann Whitman ỉnt. Series, DDF.L. 9. C( >s (57) 74th mtg, 25 Sept. 1957, D E FE 32/5. 10. Eisenhower to Allen Dulles, 5 Nov. 1957, File: Allen Dulles (2), Box 13, Admin Series, Ann w hitm an File, DDEL. 11. N ote for the Prime Minister, ‘Propaganda/Counter-Subversion*, 8 Jun. 1958, PRF.M 11/2324. Sec also Jones, ‘Maximum Disavowable Aid’, 1196. 12. O IR Report No. 7527, T h e Subversive Threat to Indonesia’, 13 Jun. 1957, RG 59. 13. O IR No. 7902, ‘Rebellion in Indonesia’, 18 Dec. 1958, RG 59. 14. See especially Jones, ‘Maximum Disavowablc Aid', 1189-93. 15. Allen Dulles to wollte House (Cutler), 31 Jan. 1958, Box 11, Briefing Notes Subscries, NSC Scries, OS AN A, W HO, D D E L 16. Macmillan min. to Bishop, ‘Points discussed with Foreign Secretary last night’, 4 Mar. 1958, E SI, 16.3; H Q FEAF to AC AS (P), 26 Apr. 1958, AIR 8/1954. 17. Jones, ‘Maximum Disavowablc Aid*, 1200-1; cos (58) 34th mtg, 15 Apr. 1958, D E FE 32/6. 18. Copenhagen to Washington (signed Dulles), Dulte 15,7 May 1958, L S I y 16.4. 19. Grose, Centieman Spyy 454; Halpem interview in Weber, SpymasterSy 127. 20. N ote for Macmillan, ‘Indonesia’, 8Jun. 1958, PREM 11/2324. 21. Donnelly to CoS USAF, T h e Role o f Air Power in the Indonesian Civil W'ar’, 4 Jun. 1959, Box 29, WTiite Papers, I.C. 22. OIR No. 7902, ‘Rebellion in Indonesia’, 18 Dec. 1958, RG 59. 23. Higgins and Higgins, ‘Indonesia’, 156-65. 24. ‘Brief History o f the Allen Pope Case’, 14 Mar. 1961, Box 114, PSF Files, JFKL. Also Andrew, President's Eyes Onlyy 250-1; Phillips, DeviPs Bodyguard. 306-9. 25. Elder (CIA) to Bundy, 8 Apr. 1961, Box 114, PSF Files, JFKL; Kennedy to Sukhamo, 21 Jun. 1961, ibid.; Pope to Kennedy, 11 Jul. 1962, ibid. See also Conboy and Morrison, Feet to the Firty 160-5. 26. Jones to SoS, 4 Nov. 1963, Box 114, N S F JF K L . 27. Smith, Unknonm C l Ay 90-1; Smith, C old Warrior. 104—15, Landsdale, M idst o f WarSy 35-120; FRUSy 1951, Asia Pacific, 1566-7. 28. Hohler (Saigon) to I^ord Home, 5 Nov. 1960, Z P14/40, FO 371/159673. AD o f para. 11 o f this docu­ ment is sanitised. 29. Brief for talks between Caccia and Rusk in Washington, Nov. 1960, Z P14/40, FO 371/159673. 30. UK Assistance to South Vietnam, mins o f mtgs on 13 and 15 Jun. 1961, D O 169/109. 31. Ibid.; Beckett, ‘Robert Thom pson’, 49-51 ; Thompson, M ake fo r the HilỉSy 123-5. 32. De Silva, Sub Rosa. 210-11. 33. Thom pson to Ngo Dinh Diem, 28 Feb. 1962, Landsdale papers, Box 60, File 1570, HIW'RP; BRI AM memo, idenrificarion o f Individual Communists’, 2 May 1963, ibid. 34. Thom pson, M ake fo r the H ills. 128; Colby, Honorable Men. 148, 175-8; Beckett, ‘R oben T hom pson’, 52-3; Freedman, Kennedy*s Wars. 85-93. 35. Landsdale to W ally, 30 Nov. 1962, File 1373, Box 49, Landsdale papers, H1WRP. 36. Thom pson, M ake fo r the HillSy 140-1. 37. Ibid.; Helms interview in Weber, SpymasterSy 307; de Silva, Sub Rosa. 205,215. The most cogent review of the evidence is Short, G riffnSy 263-71. 38. Thom pson to Lodge, 26 Feb. 1964,76951/64, FO 371/175536; Beckett, ‘Robert Thom pson’, 50-2.

688

N o te s

39. Colby, H onorabk A lm , 148,175-8,276; Spector, A d r ia and Support, 240-1. 40. Clarridge, sp yfo r A ll Seasons, 67. 41. CỈA Report, 23 Apr. 1959,‘Desire o f the Dalai Lama to Continue the Struggle for th e F r e e d o m and Independence o f Tibet', Box 44, Ann Whitman Int. Series, D D EL. Sec also Alexander, Strange Conreectsoa, 181-2; Shakya, D ragon 170-3,207. 42. All, 'South Asia', 259-68; Shakya, Dragon, 286; Smith, Tibetan N ation, 506-10. 43. Watson min., copy for IRD, 9 May 1958J1431/1, FO 371/131226. 44. Brook to Macmillan, T op Secret and Persona], 16 Dec. 1959, enclosing SIS memo, ‘N o tes o n a V isit to Africa', 11 Dec. 1959, PREM 11/2585. I am indebted to Keith Kyle for drawing this d o c u m e n t CO mv attention. 45. Meyer to Bundy, 5 Feb. 1962, Box 106, POF, JFK L 46. sv (65) 4, ‘Progress Report - Terms o f Reference', 1 Mar. 1965’, CAB 134/2544; sv (65), ‘R evised Composition and T. o f R .\ 17 Mar. 1965, ibid. 47. sv (65) 9, ‘Report on the Activities o f Working Groups’, 18 May 1965, CAB 134/2544. 48. Elliott, W ith my U ttle Eye, 56. 49. Thom pson, M ake fo r the H ills, 134-5. 50. CFR, ‘Intelligence and Foreign Policy’, 3rd mtg, 8 Jan. 1968, in Frenev, A ustralian Connection, 81—91. 51. McGehec, D eadly Deceits, 50-1. Chapter 27 The Hidden Hand Exposed: From thề Bay o fPigs to Pmfitmo Bruce to Kennedy and SoS, 15 Jun. 1963, E SI, 11.6. Short, Origins, 240-2; Rabe, M ost Dangerous A rea, 3-15. Andrew, President's Eyes Only, 251; Bisscll, Refections, 157-8; Freedman, Kennedy's W an, 151—2. Andrew, President's Eyes Only, 255; H om e, Macmillan, 1 9 5 7 -1 9 8 6 ,298. Meers, ‘British Connection’, 425-9; Young, ‘G reat Britain’s Latin American Dilemma', 584—92. Scott, M acmillan, 17-18. Andrew, President's E yes Only, 255. Gray, memo o f mtg with the President, 3 Jan. 1961, Box 4, PS/SAS, OS AN A, D D EL. Andrew, President's Eyes Only, 263-5. Phillips, N ight Watch, 107-fo; Wyden, Bay o f Pigs, 173-288. Wydcn, Bay o f Pigs, 251-6; Freedman, Kennedy's Wars, 141-5. Willoughby to Allen Dulles, 2 Jun. 1961, Willoughby papers. Series 1, CIA corresp. 1951-67, M M L McGehec, D eadly Deceits, 54-5. Ibid., 58-9. Andrew, President's Eyes Only, 253; Bissell, Reflections, 140-5,253. Secretary o f Defense Staff Meeting, 17 Jul. 1961, Box 46, Lansdale papers, HIWRP. See also A ndrew , President's Eyes Only, 275. 17. See the excellent account in Pagedas, Anglo-American Strategic Relations, 151-4. 18. Gavin papers quoted in ibid., 172. 19. Home, Savage War, 484—5; Kumamoto, International Terrorism, 104-9. 20. Van Houten, ‘British and American Policy’, PhD, 154. 21. Ibid., 146. 22. Mangold, C old Warrior, 95—104. 23. Van Houten, ‘British and American Policy', PhD, 186-9; Twigge and Scott, Planning Armageddon^ 235. 24. Fursenko and Naftali, ‘Soviet Intelligence’, 73-5. 25. Van Houten, ‘British and American Policy’, PhD, 198-9; private information. 26. Dc Salute to Macmillan, 29 Aug. 1961, PREM 11/5084; Rogers (LCESA) to de Salute, 2 Jan . 1962. ibid.; dc Salute to Macmillan, 25 Feb. 1962, ibid. 27. Dc Zulueta to Bundy, 14 Jun. 1963, PREM 11/4460. 28. Macmillan, A t the E nd, 335, quoted in Van Houten, ‘British and American Policy’, PhD , 203. 29. Nunnerley, President Kennedy, 127-61. 30. JIC (62) 81 discussed at COS (62) 58th mtg, 25 Sept. 1962, D E FE 32/7. 31. Scott, ‘Espionage and the Cold War’, 26-30. 32. May and Zclikov, Kennedy Tapes, 2-13; Schecter and Deriabin, spy, 3,420-1. The state-of-the-art assess­ ment is Scott, ‘Espionage and the Cold War', 29-36, which confirms Freedman’s earlier observations in L 'S Intelligence, 73-5. 33. Schecter and Deriabin, spy, 115-272. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

î^ e^.U.n* ^ ° ‘ L °nn, 28 Jul. 1961, para. 31, quoted in Schecter and Deriabin, spy, 212-13. 35. Dc Silva, Sub Rosa, 61 36. Garthoff, ’US Intelligence’, 24.

N o te s

689

37. PFIAB memo for the President, 4 Feb. 1963, McAulifTc (ed.), Cuban M issile Crisis, 365-9; McCone m em o for the President, 28 Feb. 1963, ibid., 373. 38. Scott, 'Espionage and the Cold War*, 30. 39. McCone memo o f a mtg with the President, 22 Aug. 1962, in McAuliifc (cd.), Cuban M issile Crisis, 27-9. T h e value o f French intelligence is questioned bv Porch, French Secret Sendees, 409-11, but convincingly asserted by Scott, Macmillan, 33. 40. S cott, Macmillan, 50-1,81-3,117-18. 41. There are arguments that it would have been disastrous in Johnson, Secret Agencies, 183-5, o r that M cCone's judgement was 'sound’ and there would have been no major rcacdon, Garthoff, 'US Intelligence’, 32. 42. Scott, Macmillan, 8,184-5; Nunnerley, President Kennedy, 71-90. 43. Kennedy, Thirteen P ays, 91-100; Freedman, Kennedy's Wars, 180-1. 44. The outstanding account, from which this information is drawn, is Sagan, U m its o f Safety, 135-41. 45. Underlined by Scott, T h e O ther O ther Missiles’, 2-11. 46. Thom eycroft to Butler, 22 Sept. 1964, D E FE 13/403. 47 . Schectcr and Deriabin, spy, 261-4,336-50. The KGB surveillance film o f the CIA officer servicing o f the d ead -d rop has been released. Earlier in his career as a Western agent, Penkovsky had asked his handlers for miniature atomic bombs, so that he could lead a devastating surprise attack on Moscow. 48. Twiggc and Scott, Planning Armageddon, 87-8; Andrew and Gordicvsky, K G B , 433-6; I^ansdale to Riley, 'Special Forces, West Germany’, 18Jul. 1963, File: D oD /O S O , Lansdalc papers, HIWRP; private informa­ tion. 49. GarthofT, *l’S Intelligence’, 53,55. 50. Foote, Hand!wok for Spier, Stewart, Cloak and ! 'hilar War, Anders, M urder to Order, Philby, Silent War. 51. This point is well made in I*amb, Macmillan, 452-3. 52. The I PD file on Philby’s disappearance is at FO 953/2165; Knightley, M aster spy, 215-18; Evans, Good lim es, 19-83. 53. First revealed in Vi'cst, M atter o f Trust, 91-8; l.amb, Macmillan, 457-8. 54. Denning Report, Cmnd 2512, Sept. 1963, dissected in Scott, Macmillan, 100-7. 55. Knightlev and Kennedy, A ffair o f State, 144-5; I>ld War’, / , o f American Studies, 2 6 ,4 (1992): 316-30. Thorpe, A., ‘Comintern Control o f the Communist Party o f Great Britain, 1920-43*, English H istorical Review, CXII, 452 (1998): 637-62. Trevor-Roper, II., T h e Philby Affair Espionage, Treason and Secret Services’, Encounter, 30, 4 (1968): 3-26. Tripp, c , ‘Egypt, 1945-52: The Uses o f Disorder*, in Cohen and Kolinsky (eds). Demise, 112-41. Tsang, s., ‘Strategy for Survival: The Cold War and Hong Kong’s Policy towards the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Activities in the 1950s*,/. o f Imperial and Commonwealth H istory, 25, 2 (1997): 294-317. van der Meulcn, M., ‘Cryptologic Services o f the Federal Republic after 1945*, paper to the Fifth Annual Meeting o f the International Intelligence History Study Group, Tutzing, Bavaria, June 1999. Varsori, A., ‘II Congrcsso dell’Europa dell’Aja (7-10 maggio 1948)*, Storm Contemporanea, XXI, 3 (Iun. 1990): 364-80. Voltaggio, F., ‘O ut in the Cold: Early ELINT Activities o f Strategic Air Command’, / , o f Electronic Defence, 10, 2 (1984): 127-40. W'addington, G., ‘Ribbentrop and the Soviet Union, 1937-1941*, in Erickson and Dilks (eds), Barbarossa, 7-33. Wark, w \ K., ‘Great Investigations: The Public Debate on Intelligence in the United States after 1945*, Defense A nalysis, 3,2 (1987): 119-32. -------, ‘Coming in from the Cold: British Propaganda and the Red Army Defector’, international H istory Review, IX, 1 (1987): 48-73. -------, ‘In Never Never I .and? The British Archives on Intelligence’, H istorical/., 35,1 (1992): 196-203. -------, ‘British Intelligence and Operation Barbarossa, 1941: The Failure o f FOES’, in Peake, H. D. and Halpem, s., In the N am e o f Intelligence: Essays in Honor o f W illiam Pfor^heimer (Washington: NIBC Press, 1994), 499-512 -------, ‘Cryptographic Innocence: The Origins o f Signals Intelligence in Canada in the Second World W’ar’, / . o f Contemporary H istory, 22, 3 (1997): 639-65.

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Acknowledgem ents Many have given generously o f their time to assist me in understanding the workaday life o f those engaged in secret service during the Cold War. O ver the last decade I have been privileged to speak to many w ho were engaged on intelligence operations, o r who were in regular receipt o f their dividends. Sadly, not all o f those individuals have survived to see the com pletion o f this project and m ost would perhaps prefer not to be named here. Their insights, sometimes breathtaking, have changed the way I think about not only the history o f secret service, but also the prac­ tice o f history. I should like to acknowledge this debt first and foremost. Many other individuals and institutions have offered kind support or com m entary on early findings. I would particularly like to thank M atthew Aid, Sue Carruthers, Ian Clark, Michael Coleman, Michael Cox, Oliver Daddow, Philip Davies, Andrew Defty, Anne D eighton, Saki Dockrill, Stephen Dorril, David Easter, Paul Elston, Ralph Erskine, Rob Evans, M. R. D. Foot, Anthony G orst, Michael Handel, E. D. R. Harrison, Peter Hennessy, Michael H erm an, Michael Hopkins, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Matthew Jones, Sheila Kerr, Dianne Kirby, Paul Lashmar, Julian Lewis, w. Scott Lucas, Paul Mercer, Kate Morris, James Oliver, David Painter, Tilman Remme, E. Bruce Reynolds, Len Scott, Anthony Short, Bradley F. Smith, Michael Smith, David Stafford, Stephen Twigge, Wesley K. Wark, D onald Cam eron Watt, Hugh W ilford, Neville Wylie and John w. Young. Responsibility for interpretation and errors, however, remains with the author. Armies o f archivists, librarians and departm ental record officers - tire­ less in their efforts — have extended their kindness and cannot all be named here. Pat Andrews, Richard Bone, D uncan Stewart and H eather Yasamee in L ondon deserve a special m ention, as does John E. Taylor in Washington. Above all it is the staff o f the Public Record Office, over­ worked and often confronted with an irascible researcher, but unfailingly courteous and helpful, w ho have facilitated this book. T he School o f Politics at the University o f N ottingham has provided a wonderfully friendly environm ent during the decade over which this study was

718

Acknowledgem ents

written. Georgetown University offered a happy home for a visiting research fellow and I would like to thank Rosamund Llewellyn, D avid Painter, Nancy Berkoff Tucker and Aviel Roshwald for all theừ kindness. Permission to quote from private papers was given by the Liddell H art Centre for Military Archives and by Lady Avon. Parts o f Chapters 11 and 17 appeared in an earlier form in the journal Diplomacy and Statecraft and I acknowledge its placet here. Early research was begun under the auspices o f an ESRC project in 1992-3. The American dimension was made pos­ sible by an American Studies Fellowship supported by the American Council o f Learned Societies, the British American Studies Association and the Fulbright programme. Most importantly, a year of study leave supported by the British Academy allowed its completion. There are a few individuals to whom I owe a particularly heavy debt o f gratitude. Andrew Lownie offered crucial encouragement at the outset. Grant McIntyre and his colleagues have been especially supportive and forbearing during a process that has taken longer than we had hoped. C.W. Haigh offered remarkably generous and painstaking advice at a later stage. Christopher Andrew and Wesley Wark have offered continuous encouragement and inspiration. I owe an enormous debt to my family for their forbearance over the years. My children, Nicholas and Harriet, deserve special thanks for theữ patience when they discovered that theừ father was again spending the weekend tapping away in the study. As ever my wife Libby offered boundless love, support and sound advice on a project that seemed to have no end.

Index Abwehr, 3 Achcson, Dean, 134,163,291,295,353 Adams, Alee, 287 Addison, Air Vice Marshal Edward Barker, 165 Adenauer, K onrad, 197 Africa, 600-4 agent casualties, 284 Agreed British-American Intelligence, 555 Air Intelligence, American, 83,206-17; British, 206-17, 397 Aircraft: Lincoln, 374; B -28,465, 589; B-29, 465; Canberra, 3 9 6 -7 ,4 8 9 ,4 9 0 ,5 3 3 ,5 4 4 ; Com et 543; Hcinkcl, 26; MiG lighter, 218; P-51 Mustang, 588; RB-45C, 394; RB-47, 36,532; RB-50G, 254; RB-57D, 531,533; R F -84,489; Sea Fury 609,611; Tem pest, 465; T S R -2,545; U -2 ,486-7, 489,526, 532-7,579; V-bom bers, 439, 543 Airey, General Terence, 307 Akers, w . A., 382 Alafiizov, Captain, 33 Alaskan U-2 flight, 623 Albania, 152-4; 160-6,333 Alexander, A. V., 150,157,265 American Com mittee on United Europe, 342-70 American Federation o f Labor, 137 Amery, Julian, 401 Amery, Leo, 206 Amoty, Robert, 557,604 Ampersand Books, 458 Anders, General Wladyslaw, 166 Anders, Karl, 170,627 Anderson, General Orville, 329 Anderson, General s. E., 231,374 Anderson, Major Ellery, 282-4 Angleton, J ames, 616,621 Anglo-American Atomic Energy Intelligence Com mittee, 222

Anglo-American relationship, 9 ,8 1 -7 , 15 8 -9 ,4 1 3 ,5 5 0 ,6 3 6 ; abandonm ententrapm ent, 65; after Suez, 493; exchange o f JIC papers, 84-5 Anglo-Egyptian base agreement, 477 Anti-Bolshevik Nations, 143 appeasement, 20,295 Aquatone flights, 530 Arab League, 136 Arab News Agency, 482-3 Archangel, 34 A rchbishop o f Canterbury, 134 archives, 1 -1 5 ,6 3 8 -4 0 Arlington Hall, 110 arms, arms racing, 640; arms-traflficking, 265 Ashraf, Princess, 473 Asia Foundation, 371,462 ASIO, 111-3 assassination, 132,144,479, 502,612,633 atomic deception, 371-6 atomic intelligence, 218-32; 564-6; Atomic Intelligence Com mittee, 377; reform , 419-20 Attlee, Clement, 6 5 ,7 9 ,9 1 -2 ,1 0 5 -6 , 1 1 6 -1 7 ,1 1 8 -1 9 ,1 4 4 ,2 5 9 ,2 6 4 ,2 6 6 -7 , 2 9 4 -5 ,3 1 9 ,3 5 6 ,4 2 5 ,4 5 7 Australian Secret Intelligence Service, 540, 586 Austria, 2 0 ,7 6 ,8 4 ,9 5 ,1 8 5 -2 0 5 ,4 0 9 -1 0 ,4 3 2 Averoff, Angelos, 578 AVH, 338 Axis alliance, 45; records, 2 -3 Ayios Nikolaos, 243 Azerbaijan Crisis, 135 Baghdad Pact, 303,376,582 Baling talks, 510 Ball, George, 369 Balli Kom betar, 162 Ballistic Missile Early W arning System, 562

720

In d e x

Baltic states, 142; missile tests, 213, Baltic language broadcasts, 317 Bandera, Stephan, 144,170-1 Barbie, Waus, 181,199-205 Barbiéri, Major, 240 Barnes, Maynard, 172 Barrett, Edward, 372,444 Bateman, Charles, 163 Battle News Press, 505 Bay of Pigs, 607-13 BBC, 94,118,136,474 Beddington, Brigadier E. H. I-*, 1,49 Begin, Menachem, 260-1 Ben-Gurion, David, 261 Bennett, Stemdale, 156 Benson, Lieutenant-Colonel w . K., 224 Beria, Lavrenti, 174,218 Berkeley Street, 17,28, 37 Berlin 59; Crisis, 1948,148,216; East Berlin riots 1953,153; Youth Festival 1951, Berlin crisis and Donald Maclean, 423 Bemie, Frances, 111 Bessedovsky, Grigory 96 Beuve-Mẻry, 140 Bevan, Colonel, 374 Bevan school, 390 Bevin, Ernest, 79,92,105-7,114-15,119, 128-31,134,144,150-9,163,392,447, 464 Bidmead, Captain, 99 Bildeberg Group, 344,369 biological and chemical warfare, 64,109,227 Bissell, General Clayton, 35 Bissell, Richard, 87, 526; on CIA future, 676 black aircraft, 589 ‘Black Friday’, 250 black market, 205 ‘Black Saturday9, 260 Blackett, P.M.S., 119,219,419 Blake, George, 276,418,433, 549 Bletchley Park, 1-3,91,233-7; Hut Five, 239; Hut Six, 234; reads German sigint on Soviets, 27, 38 Blount, Dr Bertie, 223,419 Blue Book report, 106-7 Bluejackets, 541 Blue Streak, 565 Babenko, Major, 169 body-snatching, 192 Bolshevism, 22 bomber gap, 212, 560 Bonnet, Ambassador, 240 border raids, 77 Bowie, Robert, 335 Braden, Thomas w ., 342-70,453,605,642

Braden-Donovan mission 1950, 355 Bradley, General Omar, 277,294,326, 333, 398 Brickman, Carmel, 125 Bridges, Sừ Edward, 116,524 Briggs, General Sir Harold, 500-3 Brimelow, Thomas, 101 Britain: British Control Commission, 96; model o f intelligence, 82; overflights, 217, 393 British Council, 126 British Festival of Youth 1952,457 British Joint Services Mission, Washington, 325,528 British Petroleum, 407 British Rayon Federation, 189 British Security Co-ordination, 72, 104, 382 British Society for Cultural Freedom, 450 Brixmis, 415 Broadway Buildings, 29,68,83 Brooke, Field Marshal Sir Alan, 35,43,48, 62 Brooke, Sir Norman, 525 Brooke, Brigadier Robin, 202 Broome, Richard, 498 Bross,John A., 83,167 Brown, George, 541 Brown, Irving, 458 Bruce, David, 350,354,622,630 Bruce Lockhart, John, 412 Bruce Lockhart, Robert, 107,146,459 Brundrett, Frederick, 377,405,557, 563 Bryanston Square, 220 Buchenwald, 198 Bufton, Air Vice Marshal Sydney, 564—6 bugging, 405-8 Bulgaria, 132 Bulganin, Nikolai, 523 Burgess, Guy, 250,384,421-42 Burkhardt, Frederick H., 358 Burma, 290-302 Bush, Vannevar, 374 Busk, Douglas, 603 Butcher, Captain Harry, 4 Buder, Sir Harold, 359 Buder, Rab, 624; and funding o f WAY, 460 Butterfield, Sir Herbert, 4 Buzzard, Rear Admiral Anthony: and clint flights from Norway, 398, 523 Byrnes, Jimmy, 82 Byroade, Henry, 478 Cabell, General Charles, 85,206,232,330, 390,557 Cabinet Committees, Defence Committee, 115; GEN 183,117; on Subversive

In d ex Activities, 116; Cabinet C ounter Subversion Com mittee, 603-4; Cabinet Egypt Com mittee, 485; Cabinet Security Com m ittee, 546 C accia, Harold, 7 9,486,493 C ad o g an , Sir Alexander, 25,50; com m unist agents, 91; M Ỉ5 ,93; on planning, 128; at P otsdam , 61; on race, 37; on the Soviet U nion, 45; on SO E , 75,79; on Stewart Menzies, 68; on secret service control, 6 7 -8 ,7 3 Caffery, Jefferson, 477 C aim cross, John, 39 C alvert, Horace, 224 Cam bodia, 515 C am eron, Jam es, 287 C am p X, 105 Cam pbell, l^aughlin, 194 Canada, 102-8,112; intelligence, 104-8 Canine, Ralph, 568 C annon, Cavendish, 163 Camreỉl, R , 214 Carew -H unt, Robert, 458 Carver, Major, 76 Casde, Barbara, 427, 575,627,630 Castro, 607-13; assassination plots, 608-9 Catholic Church, 340-1 Catroux, General Georges, 240 Cavendish, Anthony, 170 Cavendish-Bentinck, Victor, 1 ,3 7 ,4 3 ,5 3 -5 , 6 7 ,7 5 ,7 7 ,7 9 Cecil, Robert, 70 Central Interpretation Unit, 208 Central Personality Index, 196 Central Signals Establishment, 252 centralisation o f intelligence, 2 20-1,420 Chamberlain, Neville, 24 Chappie, Frank, 547 Chatichai Choonhavan, 301 Chcrwell, Lord, 381-2,386 Chetniks, 163 Chiang Ching-kuo, 606 Chiang Kai-shek, 2 8 ,2 7 6 ,2 9 5 ,3 1 3 Chifley,Joseph, 111 Chin Peng, 495,502-13 China Lobby, 106 China: atomic test, 562, fighting with, 294-314; PLA, 272-92,599; secret service, 311-14 Chinese Affairs D epartm ent, 509-10 Chou Chu, 312 Chou En-lai, 305 Chou Tse Ming, 312 Christie, Major, 215 Chudoh, Admiral, 239

721

Church Com mittee, 173 Churchill, Sir Winston: Anglo-American relations 9; atomic protests, 388; and bugging, 405; enthusiasm for intelligence, 65; on the French, 241 ; G estapo speech, 94; hatred o f Dulles, 491 ; and internal security, 440; and Jo h n Foster Dulles, 336; illness, 491; and K G B defections, 433-4; and Longley-Cook Report, 328; on m odus vivendi, 336; on Nasser, 478; and overflights, 394; and Palestine, 258; post-war planning, 50; and R.V. Jones, 219,419; sits in H ider’s chair, 61; vetring, 91; wartime strategy, 46 CIA: in Africa, 601-2; in Albania, 162-5; anri-British operation, 12; China, 293-314; in Cuba, 607-13; and defectors, 415; first London station, 83; in France, 640-17; in Indonesia, 585-91; in Iraq, 583; in Iran, 137; Italian elections, 138; in Korea, 272-5; liberadon, 142-79; in the Middle East, 465-93; new headquarters, 634; origins, 83-7; and Penkovsky, 626; relations with O PC , 13,8 6 -8 ; relations with RAF, 398; relations with SIS, 149, 202-5; radio station in Britain, 165; records, 7; CIA and trade unions, 458-60; training, 9; and the Third W orld, 604-6; in Vietnam 595 Cilcennin, Lord, 524 Civil Air Transport, 296 Civil Service unions, 117; Captain, 21 Clark, General Mark, 285 Clarke, Dudley, 372 Clarke, William F. 236,422 Clark-Kcrr, Sir Archibald, 37, on N K V D , 42; o n Soviet front organisations, 124 Clay, General Lucius, 148,196 Clifford, Clark: on CIA governm ent within governm ent, 636 climate o f exposure, 626-7 Cline, Ray, 606,621 Clinton, Bill, 7 Clutterbuck, Sir Alexander, 106 Coates, Captain Jo h n , 75 Cockcroft, Sir John, 105,388 CO C O M restrictions, 310,609 Cohn, Roy, 429 Colby, william, 306,598 Cold War: architecture, 44; fighting, 10, 142—4 9 ,1 5 8 -9 ,2 9 4 -3 4 1 , organisation, 149-50, terminology, 316-17,641 Coldstream G uards, 25 Coleman, Peter, 344 Com bined Cipher Machines, 402

722

Index

Com bined C om m and for Reconnaissance Activities, Korea, 281-6 Com bined Intelligence Objectives Sub­ com m ittees, 187 Com bined Intelligence Priorities Com m ittee, 237 Com inform , 131 C om int Com m unications Relay Centres, 403 Com intern , 2 1 -2 ,2 8 ,1 3 0 ; traffic, 237 C om m on Market, 618 Com m onw ealth, 11; Inform al Com m onw ealth Conference on D efence Science 1946,109; Com monwealth Investigation Service, 109 Com m unications Branch o f the N ational Research Council, Canada, 246 com m unications security, 24 6 -8 ,4 0 2 Com m unist Parties: Australia, 112; France, 121; G reat Britain, 2 4 ,9 2 -1 2 1 ,4 4 3 -4 ; India, 112; Germ any, 176; Spain, 40 com partmentalisation, 15 Conferences: Bermuda, 387; Geneva, 429; L ondon Foreign Ministers 1945,83; L ondon Foreign Ministers Conference 1950,352; Pans 1946,131; Potsdam 1945,61; Yalta 1945,102 Congo, 612 Congress for Cultural Freedom , 139,449 Congress o f Industrial Organisations, 137 containm ent: o f the Soviet U nion, 19-21; o f the U nited States, 10; o f a ho t war, 10-11; as coercion, 317 control o f secret service, 73 Coon, Carieton, 464 Cooper, Chet, 622 Cooper, Gary, 81 Coote, Com m ander Joh n , 527-8 Copeland, Miles, 477 Cort, D r Joseph, 451 C otton, P. F., 241 counter-force targeting, 254 covert air power, 589-91 Cowgill, Colonel Felix, 69 Cox, Al, 301 Crabb, Com m ander Lionel Duster*, 521, 523-4 Crankshaw, Edward, 34,234 Creech Jones, A rthur, 497 Crick, Francis, 220 Cripps, Sừ Stafford, 2 5 -6 ,3 1 ,3 4 ,4 7 ,1 2 7 , 214 C roft, Joh n , 237 Crosland, Anthony, 633 Cross, Charles T., 511 Crossm an, Richard, 630

Cuba, 607-13; Cuban missile crisis 1962, 539,618-25; and French intelligence, 621; U-2 flights over, 620 Cultural Relations D epartment, 122-8 Cunningham, Admiral Andrew, 244 Cunningham, General, 261 C urrent Affairs Unit, 452 Curries, Sam, 49,69 cyanide bullets, 434 Cyprus, 567-80 Cyprus Special Branch, 574 Czechoslovakia, 77; coup 1948,153 D a ily E xpress, 229 D affy H erald, 4 5 5 D a ily M ail, 183 D a ily Telegraphy 133 D a ily W orker, 287

Dalai Lama, 134,599-600 Dailey, Colonel John, 496-8 D alton, Hugh, 2 9 ,6 3 ,7 2 ,1 5 0 ,3 5 6 Daniel, Admiral Charles: review o f atomic intelligence 419,564 D arkness a t N oon, 133 Darling, Colonel Douglas, 319 Darling, General Sir Kenneth, 576 Davis, John, 498 D -D ay, 2 ,8 1 ,9 5 ,2 2 1 ,3 7 4 de Gaulle, General Charles, 120,613-18 de Rougemont, Denis: payments to, 358,363 D e Silva, Peer, 407,416,597 de Tassigny, General Jean de Lattre, 298,516 D ean, Patrick, 523,537,551,557,582 D eane, Major-General John, 35 deception: and provoking purges, 178; o f Americans, 485-7 defectors, 9 1 -1 2 1 ,1 2 2 -4 2 ,1 9 4 ,4 1 3 Defence Intelligence Staff, 221 ; creation, 564-6 Defence Research Policy Committee, 557-80 Defence Signals Bureau, Australia, 245 D efense Intelligence Agency, 13 Delestraint, General, 198 D ening, Esler, 153 D enm ark, 124 Denning, Lord, 631 D epartm ent o f Forward Plans, 504 Depuy, Colonel Bill, 294 Derbyshire, N orm an, 472-3 Deumling, D r, 477 D ừector o f Central Intelỉigẹnce, 522 D irector o f Naval Intelligence: American, 84; British, 188 ‘Dirty Bird* programme, 533 D ixon, Major, 71

In d e x Dixon, Pierson, 106,291,319 Dodderidge, Colonel R., 204 Dodds-Parker, Douglas, 392,485 Donovan, William j " 86-8,145,160,297, 342-53,464,540 Doolitde report, 1954,521 Dorran, Major Desmond, 264 Dosti, Hasan, 162 Doublecross system, 4,91 Douglas, Fred, 449 Douglas, Kingman, 210 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 4 Downey, John T., 296 D r Strangelovt%211 Drew, John, 504 Driberg, Tom, 93 Dubinsky, David, 345,459 Dulles, Allen, 86,204,472,522,552,584, 611; and China, 314; Dulles Survey Group, 87; on provoking the pufges, 177; views on Suez, 487 Dulles, John Foster, 477, 584; illness, 488; views on China, 313-14 Duncanson, Dennis, 593 Dunkeriy, Captain, 99 Dunn, James, 138 Dwyer, Peter, 105,164 Kaston, Air Commodore Jack, 374 Economic Co-operation Administration, 343 Economic Survey Detachment 44,273 Economist Intelligence Unit, 81,359,448 Economist, They 159; links to ACUE, 359; employs Philby, 437 Fide, Chuter, 127 Eden, Sir Anthony, 25,45, 54-6,61,63; Anglo-American intelligence relations, 521; atomic intelligence, 388; bombing of Air India airliner, 312-14; Cold War fighting, 318; and defectors, 435; funding of WAY, 461; and the ‘frogman affair’, 524; halts U-2 flights, 526; hatred of Dulles, 491; illness, 479; on John Foster Dulles, 292; lectures Nasser, 479; on MI5, 93; propaganda to the Middle East, 484; on secret service control, 67,73 Egypt, 465-7,477-93; Egyptian police, 100 Eichelberger, James, 476 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 3; Anglo-American reladons, 11,336; and the Bay of Pigs, 609; on intervention, 492; on liberation, 320-2,335; meeting with Macmillan 1957,530; and the ^nissile gap’, 558-62; review of American intelligence, 521; and Suez, 488; and U-2 programme 532-9

723

Electrical Trades Union, 546 electronic warfare, 542 elint, 251-5,538 Elkins, Admiral, 528,563 Elliott, Nicholas, 603,628 Elliott, T.S., 450 Elliott, Air Chief Marshal Sir William, 325 Elmhirst, Air Vice Marshal, 213 Encounter, 449-50 Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section, 189 EOKA guerrillas, 567-80 ‘espionage crises’, 641 EUCOM headquarters 182 European Council ofVigilance, 360 European Defence Community, 337 European Movement: and CIA funding, 342-70 European Union o f Federalists, 350 European Unity, 12,342-70 European Youth Campaign: and CIA funding, 361-4 EUSAK, 286 Evang, Wilhelm, 538 Evans, Harold, 628 Evatt, Dr, 111 EvettsJ.F., 110 Executive Order 12958,7 Executive Order 9621,81 Falla, Paul, 318-19 Farben, 1. G.: industry, 189 Farm Hall, 222 Farouk, King o f Egypt, 100 Farran, Roy, 262 FBI, 23,82-3,381-2,406,631 Feather, Vic, 452 Fecteau, Richard G., 296 federalism, 12,342-70 Felfe, Heinz, 432-3 Fergusson, Brigadier Bernard, 262,490 Ferret flights, 251-5,536-7 Ferret Force, 497-8,593 feuding between SOE and SIS, 75 Field, Herman, 175 Field, Noel, 174-5 Field Intelligence Agency Technical, 187 Field Security Units, 185 fifth column of freedom, 145-59 Finland, 24; signals intelligence, 212 Fischer, Eugene, 197 Fischer, Harry, 500 ‘fixing the date for war’, 327 Fleet Street, 628-36 fly-fishing, 393 Foot, Sir Hugh, 575

724

In d ex

Foot, Michael, MP, 575 Foot, M.R.D., 79 Foote, Alexander, 97-10 2 ,1 1 1 ,1 3 9 Ford Foundation, 365,371,454 FO R D , 332 Foreign Affairs^ 173 Foreign Office: veto on secret service, 80 Forrestal, Jam es, 87,147 Foster, Reginald, 629 Foundation for Y outh and Student Affairs, 462 France, 11; com munism , 138-40; and Egypt, 482-93; Foreign Legion, 181; General Staff, 120; rejects participation in U-2 programme, 530; secret service, 93,204, 616; security, 120; Trade U nion Council, 138; youth organisations, 124 ‘Frankenstein’s m onster’, 9 Franklin, G eorge s., 359 Franks, Sir Oliver, 304,469-70 Free Albania Com mitee, 163 Free E urope Com m ittee, 162,370 Freedom and Independence M ovement, Poland, 166 Frenay, Henri, 351 Friedman, William, 245 Friedrich, Lieutenant-Colonel, 238 friendly spying, 9 ,605 front organisations, 124-41 Fuchs, Klaus, 378-80,383 Fulbright, Senator J. w ., 346 Fulton, Jam es, 319,430,515 Fumival-Jones, Martin, 114 ‘Future Defence Policy’ and intelligence, 67 Future O peradons (Enemy) Section o f JIC , 55 Future Planning Section, 108 ‘Future Policy Tow ards Soviet Russia’, 324-6 Fyfe, David Maxwell, 426 Fylingdales, 562 Fyvel,T. F .,449 Galicia Division, 142-4 Garreau, Roger, 241 G arrod, Air C hief Marshal Sir Guy, 329 Garthoff, Raymond, 561 G aussm ann, William G , 448 G avin, General, 614 G C H Q , 2 ,7 0 -1 ,1 1 0 ,2 2 6 -7 ,2 3 3 -5 5 ,2 5 6 -7 , 3 9 4 ,3 9 8 -4 0 0 ,4 0 1 -3 ,4 8 9 ,5 2 2 ,5 2 9 -3 0 , 540-4, 550,567-9, 5 79-80,616-17 G ehlen organisation, 430; penetrated, 433 general election 1945,66 G eneva Convention, 185, 590 G eorge, Lloyd, 273

Germany, 416; Air Force intelligence, 190: army signals intelligence, 238; atomic scientists, 222; front line o f Cold W ar, 84, 95,185-205; nerv e gas, 190; O K L . 212; O K W , 211; revival, 43, 52-4; scientists, 187-8; security service founded, 4 3 0 -2 G estapo officers: re-employment, 197; in Egypt»477 _ G ibson, Colonel Harold, 170 G L A D IO see stay-behind agents G lazebrook, George, 244 Global Strategy paper, 318 G lubb, Sir Jo h n , Pasha, 479 G o e b b e lsjo se p h , 182 G oldbetg, A rthur, 347 Golikov, General, 33 Golitsyn, Anatoli, 621 Gollancz, Victor, 100 G oodpaster, Mr, 526 Gorodevich, General, 142 Gottw ald, Klement, 175 G ouzenkou, Igor 1 0 2 -8 ,1 1 1 -1 2 ,1 1 6 ,372 G overnm ent Code and Cipher School, 28 G PU , 47 ,9 6 G raham , Sir Alexander, 311 Gray, G ordon, 446 Gray, Colonel Nicol, 260,497 Greece, 163; Civil War, 78 Greene, Graham , 81,133,516 Greene, Hugh Carlton, 512 G reenw ood, Arthur, 60

P * J ’ 93

Grivas, Colonel George, 514,570-80 Groves, General Leslie R., 106 G RU , 97,612 G rubb, K enneth, 134 G ruenther, General, 140 Guatamala, 476 G ubbins, Major-General Colin, 57,75, 144 guided missiles, 109 guidelines for intelligence operations, 524-7 G u lf OÜ, 476 G urney, Sir Henry, 502 Gusev, Feodor, 47 G X photo cover, 206-17 Haganah, 257 Hankey, Robin, 76 Harding, Field Marshal John, 574 Harriman, Averell, 353-4 Hart, Liddell, 145-6 H arvard University, 72,357 Harwell, 229

Index H aydon, General Charles, 223 H aynes, Erie 238 H aynes, George, 126 H a y ter, William, 349 H ealey, Denis, 129,448, 556 H ea th , Edward, 628 H eisenberg, Professor W erner, 223 Hemblys-Scales, Roger, 111 H enderson, Arthur, 266 H enderson, Loy, 471 H enderson, Sir Neville, 41,215 H eroes o f Telemark^ 222 H erter, Christian 551 H eskcth, Roger, 3 H euser, Beatrice, 639 hidden hand, 15,607-36 Hill, Brigadier George, 29-31 Hill, Jim , 111-12 H illenkoctter, Admiral, 87,110,147,165, 225,228,271 Hillgarth, Captain, 158 Hinslcy, Harry, 234 Hitler, Adolf, 186; Alpine redoubt, 186; bunker, 61—2 H o Chi Minh, 23,494, 516 H odos, George, 179 Hoffman, Christoff, 199 Hoffman, Paul, 6 Holden Agreement on naval sigint, 27 Hollis Committee, 256 Hollis, General Leslie, 91,373, 383,452 Hollis, Roger, 105,111,116, 549; on wartime com munism , 41: in Canada, 111; on youth organisations, 124 Hollywood, 81 Hong Kong, 293,306-14; special Branch, 312-16; signals intelligence, 400-1 Hoofnagel, Jim , 338 H ookham, Kuttv, 125 Hooper, Joe, 543 Hoover Commission on American Intelligence Activities, 528 Hoover, H erbert Jnr., 488 Hoover, J. Edgar, 82 ,4 2 8 -9 hot war, 152,290-1 House Un-American Activities Com mittee, 106 Houston, Larry, 147 Hovey, Allen, 360 Hoxha, Enver, 152 Hughes, Colonel Robert D., 245 Hungary: signals intelligence, 249; Revolution 1956,153,337-40,554 Hurley, General Patrick, 106 hydrogen bom bs, instability', 550

725

IB, 302,599 ICBMs, 3 1 6 ,5 5 7 -8 Iceland, 141 ID , 180-205 Ignadeff, Nicholas, 36 Imperial D efence College, 146-7 incendiary attack, 213 India, 114 Indonesia, 585-90 Inform ation Policy D epartm ent, 569 Inform ation Research D epartm ent, 128-34, 4 4 3 -6 3 ,5 1 3 -1 4 ,5 4 7 Inglis, Admiral Jo h n , 527 Inglis, Admiral Tom , 84,214 Intelligence and Security D epartm ent, Colonial Office, 517 Inter-Agency D efector Com mittee, 194 International Confederation o f Free Trade Unions, 455 International Court o f Justice, 161 International Democratic Federation o f W omen, 140 International Federation o f War Veterans Organisations, 140 International Organisations Division, 321, 443-63 Internationa] organisations, 122-41 International Student Congress 1946,125 Iran, 134-6; 467-76; Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 135 Iraq, 582 Irgun, 256-67 Isaacs, George, 443 Iscott sigint traffic, 31 Ismay, Genera] 4P u g \ 54, 5 8 ,9 4 ,2 0 6 Israel, 11; Air Force, 266; Israeli intelligence, bugging, 406 ‘Issue o f Principle* 1961,564 Italy, elections, 137-8 Ivanov, Captain Yevgeny, 628 Jackson, c . D ., 3 2 2 ,3 4 0 -1 ,3 7 0 ,4 4 6 ,4 5 4 , 4 6 9 ,551,658 Jacob, Sir Ian, 151 Jansen, Helen (née Rado), 99-102 Japan: biological weapons, 227; signals intelligence, 239 Jebb, Gladwyn, 5 1 -5 ,1 5 2 ,1 7 8 Jellicoe, Earl, 164 Jenkins, Roy, 239,453 Jentzen, Bob, 550 Jewish Agency, 259 Jewish underground, 257-67 Jodi, General Alfred, 211 Jo h n , O tto , 431-2

726

In d ex

Johnson, G eneral Leon, 291 Johnson, Lyndon, 308,644 Johnson, Colonel Pat, 300 Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, 209 Joint Armistice Com mission, Korea, 280 Joint Intelligence Bureau, 213,559; inherits beach intelligence, 221, railway intelligence, 417 Joint Intelligence Com mittee, American, 85 Joint Intelligence Committee, British, 1-3; and Canada, 108-9; and the Com monwealth, 114; and Cuban missile crisis, 621; danger o f U-2 flights from Britain, 537; and the eastern front, 26-7; Inter-Services Guided Missiles W orking Party, 193; and preventative war, 326-8; scientific intelligence, 220; Soviet A-bom b predictions, 224-5; on Soviet missile programme, 556-8; team in Washington, 555; Whitehall batdes, 51-63; shadow Politburo, 55; future o f S O E , 79 Joint Planning Staff, 61 Jo in t Scientific and Technical Intelligence Com mittees, 188 Jones, Eric, 488 Jones, Howard, 531 Jones, Professor R.V., 219,419 Jordan, 164,487,583 Joyce, Robert, 161,172 ‘K Bay’, 210 Khalil, Squadron Leader, 482 Kapitza, Professor Peter, 224 Keat, Wing Com m ander G eofge, 19 Keeler, Christine, 628-32 Kellar, Alex, 98 K ennan, George, 1 1 ,2 1 ,8 6 -7 ,1 4 1 ,1 4 7 -9 , 1 5 8 ,1 7 2 ,3 3 5 ,3 9 4 ,4 0 5 -8 ,5 3 5 ,6 3 9 Kennedy, Jo h n F.: o n Africa, 602; on Allen Pope, 590; assassination, 7 ,6 3 2 -3 ; and Cuba, 607-13; and Cuban missile crisis 618-25; and de Gaulle, 614; on Diem , 597; inspects new CIA building, 634; and Profum o crisis, 630 Kennedy, Robert, 631 Kenney, G eneral G eorge c , 330 K ent, Tyler, 250 Kenya Special Branch, 578 K G B, 8 ,5 7 ,1 9 5 ,4 1 2 ,4 1 5 ,6 1 2 ,6 2 0 Khokhlov, Nikolai, 433-4 K hrushchev, Nikita, 174,521,523-4; and Generals, 620; on intelligence, 640; on missile production, 534,551; Paris summ it 960, 536

Killeam, Lord, 7 6 ,1 0 0 -2 ,2 5 8 Killian, D r James, 445,526 King David Hotel, 260-1 King, Mackenzie, 104-8,246 Kirkman, General John, 421 Kirkpatrick, General Lyman, 300 Kirkpatrick, Ivone, 129 ,1 4 4 ,1 5 0 -1 ,1 7 8 , 1 8 5,243,462,481,573 Kirwan, Celia, 133 Klemme Generalmajor, 238 Klugmann, Jam es 98 KMT, 296-302 Knight, Maxwell, 95 Koenig, General, 148 Koestier, A rthur, 133 Kolchak, Admiral, 23 K orean War, 11,271-92; Korean Labour Organisation, 280; Pusan perimeter, 288 Kostov, Traicho, 175 Kovrig, Bennett: on purges, 177 Kravchenko, Victor, 9 6 -7 ,1 0 7 Krivitsky, Walter, 96 Kruk, Major, 199 Kupi, Abas, 162 Kyprianous, Spyros, 579 KY9 system, 617-18 L e M onde, 140

labour organisations, 137-8 Labour Party, British, 107; anti-communism, 454-6; purges, 456-7 Ladd, Alan, 81 Lai Tek, 23,496 Lang-Brown, Alan, 227,413 Langer, William, 358 Lansdale, General Edward, 591 Lashmar, Paul, 531 Laski, Harold, 98,101 Layton, Lord (Walter): work on behalf o f ACUE, 359 leaflet dropping, 307-8 Lebanon crisis, 585 Lee, Jenny, 575 LeMay, General Curds, 207,531 Lemnitzer, General, 544 Lend-Lease, 3 4 -5 ,6 5 Lenin, V. I., 99 Lcnnox-Boyd, Alan, 577 Lethbridge, Major-General J o h n s ., 181 Li Mi, General, 298 liaison, 35,81 liberation, 1 4 2 -5 9 ,2 9 4 -3 4 1 ,5 5 1 -4 Liddell, Guy, 94,430 Lie, Trygvie, 140 Lindsay, Franklin, 161

In d e x Lindsay, Michael, 305 line-crossing agents, 284 Little Sai Wan, 308 Lloyd, Sclwyn, 291,487 Lockhart, General Sir Robert, 494 Loehnis, Sir Clive, 543,579 London Controlling Section, 4,256 London Signals Intelligence Board/Committec, 2,233,257,400, 569 Ijondon University: surveillance o f students, 463 Long Range Detection Flights, 228-9 D>ngley-Cook, Vice Admiral, 215 I» s Alamos, 379 I-ovestone, Jay, 345,458 L-Pill, 408,535 Lumumba, Patrice, 612 Lundhal, Arthur, 486 Lydford, Air Vice Marshal H. T., 465 Lyttelton, Oliver 503; funding of WAY, 461 Ml 3c, 48 Macarger, James, 161 Mac Arthur, General Douglas, 57,109, 272-92; on British spies, 427 McCarthyism, 289,328,369,428-9,452 McCloy, John, 86,361,454,561,562,611, 621,634 MacDonald, Alex, 571 McDonald, A.N.,517, 530 McDonald, General George, 211 McDonald, Malcolm, 499 McDonald, Air Vice Marshal William, 438 McDonald-Elmhirst agreement, 214 Mackay, Richard, MP: CIA funding, 350, 355 Mclachlan, Donald, 159 Maclean, Donald, 57,98, 250,421-42 McLean, Fitzroy, 145 McMahon Act, 103 MacMichael, Sir Ronald, 258 McNamara, Robert, 617; on errant U-2 flight, 624 McNeil, Hector, 127,263,422 Macmillan, Harold: on Anglo-American relations, 493; on atomic intelligence, 388; and Cuban Missile crisis, 622-4; and East European ‘bandits’, 364; and Eisenhower meeting, 1957, 581-2; and Paris summit 1960, 536; and the press, 436, 582; and the Profumo Affair, 629-32; resignation, 632; on risk of U-2 flights, 582; and SIS report on Africa, 601; on Soviet missiles, 556; on *Wind of Change’, 580 Magic, 27,105 mail censorship, 95,196

727

Maisky, Ivan, 27,47 Makarios III, Archbishop, 570-1,573,576-7 Makins, Roger, 153 Malayan Communist Party, 23 Malayan Emergency, 494-518; 585; Malayan Scouts, 507; Malayan Special Branch, 501-2 Manhattan programme, 105 Mann, William, 224 Marr-Johnston, Colonel, 252 Marshall, General George, 40,147 Marshall'pian, 12,130,137-9,447 Martel, General Sir Gifford, 35,43,55 Martin, Cliff, 261 Martin, Edwin, 308 Martin, William, 549 Mason-McFarlane, Genera] Noel, 29,34, 43 Massachusetts Institute o f Technolog)', 320, 445 Masterman, J.C., 4 Mastny, Vojtech: on purges, 177 Matthews, H. Freeman, 333 Mau Mau rebellion, 540 May, Allan Nunn, 105-7,116,378; release from prison, 438 Mayhew, Christopher, 448 MCP, 494-518,571 Meany, George: for London, 59 Menon, Krishna, 114,600 Menwith Hill, 403 Menzies, Robert, 503-4 Menzies, Sir Stewart, 29; 49; on Albania, 161; in Canada, 105; in Clubland, 68; communist agents, 91; on control of Germany, 181; deputies, 49; 67; and GCHQ, 234—6; on Hong Kong, 305; private office, 69; resists special operations, 146,156,319; end o f SOE, 79-80; White’s Club, 68 Mercius Foundation, 310 Meyer, Cord, 321,428-9,602 MGB, 142-3,167-71,218 MI5, records 3,6; control, 80; atomic matters, 382-3; and CPGB, 41-2; dislikes vetting, 431; in Germany, 182; in Malaya, 496-7; 506-7; NATO’s security, 430; overstretched, 432-3; and Palestine, 259-60; and SIS, 49; and s s u , 84; and subversion, 91-12; and the Third World, 517-18; watches Maclean, 436-7; and youth organisations, 125 MI6 see SIS Michela, General, J. A., 35 Miles, Admiral, 33

728

In d ex

Military Intelligence: American, 34,96, 272-6; British, 26-3 4 ,4 1 5 Military Mission N o .3 0 ,2 7 -3 4 ,4 8 military-diplomatic divide, 14 Milner, Frederic, 480 Milner, Ian, 111-12 Mindszenty, Cardinal, 340 Ministry o f Defence: creation 564—6 Ministry o f Econom ic W arfare, 74 Ministry o f Supply, 220 ‘missile gap*, 212,5 5 0 -6 6 ,6 4 0 missile intelligence, 5 5 0 -5 6 ,5 6 4 ,5 6 8 -9 Mitchell, D em on, 549 Mitchell, G raham , 383 Mitchell, Squadron-Leader J. R., 254,399 mobile telephone interception, 196 M odin, Yuri, 423 Moir, G uthrie, 460-4 moles, 10,421-42 M olotov, 63,98,131 M onnet, Jean, 344,368 M ontagu-Pollock, William, 123-8,452 M ontgomery, Field Marsha] Bernard, 13,91, 108, advocates special operations, 145-8, 156-7,209; K orea, 315; Palestine, 259, 261 ' Morgan, G eneral Freddie, 229 Morkhill, A.G., 463 M orrison, H erbert, 92,108; o n Philby, 437 M orton, Jack, 501,505-6 Mossadegh, D r M ohamed, 468-77 Moulin, Jean, 198 M ountbatten, Admiral Lord Louis, 7 1 ,7 6 -7 , 7 9 ,9 4 ,1 8 1 ,4 9 5 ,5 8 8 Moyne, Lord, assassination, 258 ‘Mr X ’ article, 173 Muggcridge, Malcolm, 7 0 ,1 3 2 -3 ,1 4 9 ,3 1 5 , 4 5 0 -C 5 1 6 Muire, D avid, 99 Muller, K urt, 176 MulhoUand, Brendan, 629 Miinsenburg, Willi, 21 Murphy, Robert, 205 Museum o f M odem Art, 453-4 Music program m e, 231,387 Muslim B rotherhood, 466-7 M y Silent W ary 234,627 N asser, Colonel Gama] Abdel, 444,581 N ational Council o f Social Service, 126 National Student Association, 633 National Union o f Students, 124—5; 633 N A TO , 120; security, 429,614-20 Naval Intelligence: American, 538-9; British, 21,524, 538-9; Italian, 240

Nazi-Soviet Pact, 24 N ear East Arab Broadcasting station, 570 Neguib, General Mohammed, 467 N ehru, Pandit, 119,600 N ehru, Vijaylakshmi, 303 Nelson, Steve, 441 N ew Viỉlagẹs, 502 N ew s Chronicle, 107 Ngo D inh Diem, 591-7,633 N go D in h N h u , 593-7,633 Nicholl, Douglas, 245 Nicholls, John, 460,603 Nichols, Sir Patrick, 126 Nitze, Paul 86,326,353 Nixon, Richard, 293 N K V D , 26-7,394; bodyguards for Stalin, 62-3; and defectors, 96; Singapore and Rangoon missions, 29-31; arrest S O E , 40; and religion, 47; in the Ukraine, 168-9 N oble, Sừ Arthur, 57 N oone, Dick, 577 N orsk Hydro plant, 221 N orstad, General Lauris, 231 N o rth ro p p Corporation, 476 Norwegian Intelligence, 525,538 NSA, 3 9 8 -4 0 0 ,4 8 7 ,5 1 5 ,5 2 2 ,5 4 2 -5 ,5 4 8 -9 , 637 NSC 6 8 ,3 1 7 -1 8 nuclear weapons: and Churchill, 59; and G ouzenkou, 102-8; nuclear projections and planning, 226 Nutting, Anthony, 435,479 N V D A guerrillas, 303,599 OAS rebels, 614-18 Office o f W ar Inform ation, 137 official history, 4—5 oil, 1 3 5 -6 ,4 6 4 -7 7 O ’Malley, Sir Ow en, 51,60-1 O PC , 13; budget, 87,171; and China, 294-5; relations with CIA, 8 6 -8,299 O perations Co-ordinating Board, 476 Operations: Barbarossa, 15,25; Bismuth, 229; Chianti, 530; Claret, 530; Dick T ra ọ . 206-17; D inner Part)*, 223; Dragonfly, 396; Dragon Return, 190-3; Dry Martini, 200; G arnet, 539; Gold, 410-2; Grand Slam, 535; Grape, 526; Hurricane, 377, 380; Matchbox, 188; Moselle, 530; Musketeer, 481-93; Nocturnal. 229; Nursery, 196; Pontiac, 527; Profit, 505; Project, 170; Rattle, 505; Rhine, 433; Scrum-Half, 222; Selection Board, 183; Sherry, 530; Stockade, 616; Straggle, 482, 583-5; Sunshine, 576-7; Surgeon, 189;

729

Index Tiara, 539; Unthinkable, 58-9; Valuable, 161-6, 333; Zapata, 610; Zitadelle, 35 ‘O p tio n B \ 178 o rd e r o f battle intelligence, 33,36 O rw ell, George, 133-5; 1984y 133; A n im a l fa rm , 133 O ’Sheel, Patrick, 448-9 O slo Report, 222 O SS, 1 3 ,72,79,143; X -2 ,8 1 ,8 4 ,2 0 2 -3 ( )ssipov, Colonel, 31 O ttaw a Journal\ 103 O U N , 168-9 overflights: clearance of, 215, 530,537 O verseas Planning Section, 157 Pahlavi, Mohammed Rcza, Shah o f Iran, 472-7 Paice, Mcrvyn, 261 Pakistan, 115 Palestine, 85,256-67, 567 Palmer, D esm ond, 593 Pan African Congress, 601 Param ount Committee, 486 Param ount Studios, 81 Paris summ it cancellation, 1960, 536 Park Report, 81 Patterson, Robert T., 347 Pearl Harbor, 27,271,331 Pearson, Drew, 105 Pearson, Mike, 292 Pendred, Air Vice Marshal I^awric, 211 Pcnkovsky, Colonel Oleg, 619-20,625 Penney, William, 94, 561 ‘Percentages Deal’, 63,160 Perkins, Colonel Harold, 264 Perrin, D r Michael, 222,381 Petrie, Sir David, 2 ,4 1 ,9 5 ,2 5 8 Petrov, Vladmir, 435 Philby, Kim, 4 ,4 9 -5 0 ,6 9 ,8 1 ,8 4 ,9 8 ,1 5 4 , 2 5 0 ,3 0 5 ,4 2 4 ,4 4 0 ,6 0 8 ,6 2 7 Phoenix Program, 512 PHP, 50-63; basic assumptions, 44—63; on Germany 53-5; and Vcnona, 249 ‘Pickaxes’, 32 Picture Post, 287,449 Pioneer Corps, 166 Pius X llth , Pope, 134 ‘Pixies’, 162 Plan Offtackle, 330 Plan Torchw ood, 141 Plowden, Sir Edwin 563 Poland, 20,142; Polish governm ent in exile, 53,74; Polish H om e Army 93; Polish Security Ministry, 176 Polaris missile system, 565,618

Policy Planning Staff, 1 1 ,8 6 -8 ,1 6 1 -2 'Political Approval for Certain Intelligence O perations' 1955, 525 Political W'arfare Executive, 7 3 ,1 3 4 -6 Pontecorvo, D r Bruno, 384 Pope, Allen, 589-91 Portal, Lord, 381 Porton D ow n, 480 Poston, Ralph, 485,490-1 post-w ar planning, 44-63: leaks, 110-11,

114 Potts, Archie, 564 Poulden, Com m ander Teddy, 245 Powell, I Jeu tenant-Colonel Lewis, 210 Powell, Sir Richard, 563 Powers, Francis Gary, 535-6 Pownall, I jeutenant-G encral Sir Henry, 48 POW s, 176 Prendergast, Jo h n , 578 President’s Board o f Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, 521 Preston, James, 92 pre-strike reconnaissance, 624 preventive war, 1 0-11,216-17 Priestley, J. B., 133 Profum o Affair, 284,608 Project: Abstract, 211, N anook, 252, Troy, 445 provocation o f purges,178 Psychological Strategy' Board, 638 Public Safety Division, 197 Pulliam, Colonel H. E., 275 purges, 24,45 PU SC /PU SD , 157-8,179,271,324-5,332, 471,551; c Com mittee, 324 Q -Patrols, 574 Quesada, Major General, 83,208 Q uinn, General, 83 RadcUffe, Lord, 436,627 Radford, Admiral, 397-8, 544 Radio Free Europe, 320; exoneration, 339 Radio in the American Sector, 320 Radio Liberation, 320 Radio W'erwolf, 183 Rado, Alexander, 97-103 RAF bases: Bram pton, 209; Lakenheath, 526; M oleswoith, 391; G atow , 252; Medmenham, 209; N uneham , 209; W atton, 252 RAF units: 13 Squadron, 489; 192 Squadron, 489, 543; 51 Squadron, 543; 90 G roup, 209,505, 530; 100 G roup, 252 Rajk, Laszlo, 174—5

730 Ransome, Henry Howe, 604 Rebattet, F. X., 343 Rebattet, George, 344 Red Cross, 100 Red O rchestra, 97,424 Redmayne, Brigadier Jo h n 628 Reilly, Patrick, 68,493 religious propaganda, 134 Rennie, Sir Jo h n , 3 4 ,1 3 4 ,4 6 3 ,4 8 4 reparadons, 186-9 residual empire, 293,645 Retinger, Joseph H., 346-9,351 Reynaud, Paul, 357,360 Rhodesia, 601 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 24,45 Richardson, John, 194,594 Rickover, Admiral, 563 Ridgway, Genera] M atthew, 285 Ritchie, G eneral Sir Neil, 497 Robert Hale, 107 Roberts, Brigadier D ouglas, 99 Roberts, Frank, 2 ,1 2 8 ,1 5 4 Robertson, N orm an, 104 roll-back see liberadon Rolls-Royce, 116 Rom e Treaty, 369 Roosevelt, Archie, 137,321 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 123 Roosevelt, Franklin D ., 34,46 Roosevelt, Kermit, 467,491 Rosbaud, Paul, 222 Rosenberg, D r W erner, 187 Rosenbergs, 451,454 Rositzke, Harry, 172 Rostow, Professor Walt, 581 Royal Canadian M ounted Police, 103 Royal Geographical Society, 209 Royal Marines, 281-2 Rubowitz, Alexander, 263 Rusk, D ean, 304,604,644 Russell, Bertrand, 451 Russell, Bryan A shford, 240 Russell, Sheridan, 239 Russia Com m ittee, 128-30,178 Ryan, Allan R., 198 Ryder Street, 81 SAM missile battenes, 625 Sampan rules, 545 Sanders, Air Vice Marshal Sir A rthur, 316 Sandys, D uncan, 348-52,577 sanidsadon, 85 Sappers, 155 Sargent, O rm e, 4 7 ,1 2 8 ,1 4 4 Sarit, General, 515

In d ex SAS, 7 3 ,1 4 4 -5 ,1 5 4 -5 ,1 6 5 ,2 6 2 ,3 1 8 ,4 5 0 , 498 Saudi Arabia, 475 ‘say with docum ents’, 15 SCAP headquarters, 274-94 Schecter, Jerrold, 442 SchcUenbeig, W alter, 197 Schlesinger, Professor Arthur, 581,635 Schow, Colonel Robert, 165,223 Schuman, Robert, 357 Schumann, Maurice, 356 Scientific and Technical Intelligence Bureau. 192 scientific intelligence, 117-19,219-20, 419-21 Scott, Len, 550 Scott, Sir Robert, 586-91 Scott, W inston M., 84 SEA supply company, 298 Sebald, William, k x ) Second Front, 4 6-7 security classification, 56-7; confidential annexes, 56,114; information restrictions 113; Limited Circulation, 114; Specially Restricted Circulation, 114 Security Service see M15 seismic array, 389,561 Selbome, Lord, 79 Service Liaison Departm ent, 48,157 Seton-W atson, Professor, 339-40 SH A EF headquarters, 95 SH A PE headquarters, 158,262,315,333 Sharq al-Adna, 484—5 Shedden, Sir Frederick 111 Shepard, Sir G eorge, 141 Sheridan, Leslie, 455 Sherman, Admiral, 333 Shinwell, Emanuel, 418 Ships, stations and submarines: HMS Anderson, 243; HMS Comet, 571; HMS Grampus, 539; HMS Mercury, 523; HMS Sea U o n , 539; HMS Walrus, 539; HMS W hitesand Bay, 278; uss Cocbino, 253; USS H alibut, 528; USS IJberty, 541; uss Stickleback, 527; uss Tusk, 253 shoot-dow ns, 2 5 3 ,3 9 9 ,5 3 2 -9 ,5 4 1 ,5 7 9 Shorn, Genera], 194 Shultes, General Ernst, 191 Sibert, General Edwin, 36,203,208 Sienko, Joseph, 166 S1FE, 4 9 6 -7 ,5 0 6 Sihanouk, Prince, 550 silent killing, 434 Sillitoe, Percy, 9 4 ,1 0 9 -1 0 ,1 1 8 -1 9 ,4 2 6 SIM E, 9 9-101,260

In d ex Simpson, Christopher, 173 Sinclair, M ajor-General Joh n , 3 9 2 ,4 7 4 , 525 Singapore, 587 Singlaub, Major John, 273 SIS (MI6) 14,96; in Africa, 603-4; Berlin station, 417-19; D epartm ent o f Training and Development, 80; expulsion o f D utch station, 439; in Germany, 415-19; in Indonesia, 585-91; and IRD, 132-3; and Korea, 276-7; and liberation 142-79; in the Middle East, 465-493; Middle East headquarters, 567; new restrictions 1956, 524; and Palestine, 264; and Penkovsky 625; and preventative war dispute, 332-3; relations with Foreign Office, 474-5; in Singapore, 514; Soviet secdon, 49-50; special political action, 70; special questions, 71; in wartime, 49,68-71; recruitment, 68; relations with CIA, 202-5; relations with Military Intelligence, 71; requirements 5,17; Section V, 69,84, 202-3; Section IX, 49,69; takeover o f SOE, 77-81; and trawler operations, 523 Skardon,Jim , 112 Slansky Trial, 176 Slessor, Air Marsha] Sir John, 13-14, 377,405, 559,636; future o f war, 67; future o f SO E, 78; advocates special operations, 144-9,15 6 -7 ,3 1 6 ; nuclear detection, 229; preventative war, 329; Soviet sigint station in north London, 404 Slim, General Bill, 10,235,294,333 Smart, s. w , 214 smearing, o f Com m unist officials, 179 Smiley, Colonel David, 160-2,333 Smith, Joseph Buckholder, 305-6, 514 Smith, W alter Bedell, 1 3 ,8 6 -8 ,1 4 0 -1 ,

323-4,362-70,392-4,451,492,653 smuggling, 208 Sodalist Commentaryy448

SO E , 1; in Albania, 160; in Austria, 76; in the Soviet Union, 24-5,30-3; in Eastern Europe, 40; end of, 72-7,128; ex-SOE, 262; in Germany, 76; in Iran, 136-7; in the Middle East, 75-6; in neutral countries, 73; amateurs and professionals, 80; disaster in Holland, 439 soft liberation, 554—5 Solarium Exercise, 335 Somerville, Admiral Jam es, 73 s o s u s project 528 South Africa, 115 South K orean security, 286; signals intelligence, 289

731

South Vietnamese intelligence services: reform ed 594 Southern Region railways, 214 Soviet Union: Air Force, 19; Army, 19-42, 45; occupation o f Eastern Europe, 60-1; atomic programme, 216-17,220-32; biological programme, 227; citizens in the G erm an Army, 185; com int trawlers, 545; embassy expulsion, London 1971,626; missile complex, 215; nuclear programme, 218-32; paranoia, 48; religion, 47; sigint station in north London, 404; trade delegations, 115 Spaak, Paul-Henri: and ACUE, 343-50 spaatz, Major-General Carl, 207 Special Boat Service, 588 Special Branch Training Centre, 506 Special Forces Club, 145 special operations, 144—79,293-341 Special O perations V olunteer Force, 511 Special US Liaison Office, 245 Splinter Factor, 176 Sporborg, Harry, 7 6-8 Springhalt, Douglas Frank, 41,81 ss personnel, 180 Stalin, Josef, 21; British in Moscow, 37; death of, 334,638; G erm an attack, 25-7; imagẹ in Britain, 45; personality, 6 2-3 Stanford, General John, 390 state within a state, 635-6 stay-behind agents, 77, 583 Steering Com mittee, 554 Stella Polaris, 249 Stephenson, Sir Hugh, 621 Stephenson, William, 72,104 Steptoc, Harold, 70 stereotypes, 1 9 -2 1 ,3 9 -4 1 ,4 3 ,2 1 9 Stem Gang, 256-67; Stem , Colonel Abraham, assassination, 257 Steven, Stuart, 176 Steveni, Colonel Leo, 23 Stewart, c . B., 569 Stewart, G ordon, 627 Stillwell, Richard, 294 Stone, Admiral Earl E., 248 Stone, Shepard, 365,454 Strachey, John, 382 Strang, William, 3 1 9 ,474-5 Strasbourg Assembly, 356 Strategic Services Unit, 8 3 -7 ,1 4 3 , 202-3 Strauss, Admiral Lewis 228,388 Stripp, Alan, 243 Strong, Genera] G eorge 35

732

In d ex

Strong, G enend K enneth, 8 3 ,9 4 ,1 9 0 ,2 2 1 , 418,559 submarine intelligence operations, 253, 5 2 6 -8 ,5 3 9 -4 0 subversion o f trade unions, 444-5 Suez operation, 481-93,573; impact on intelligence operations, 529 Sukham o, President, 585-91 Sunday Express:. and deception operation, 375 Surrendered Enem y Personnel, 508-9 Svab, Karel, 176 Sweden: Com bined Intelligence Board, 213; photo-reconnaissance, 215-16 Swialto, Colonel Joseph, 456 Switzerland: and counter-espionage service, 98 Syria: plans for coup, 480 Taiwan, 1 1 ,2 7 6 ,2 9 5 -3 0 0 ,5 5 3 ,6 0 6 ; signals intelligence, 289; third force, 304 Taiwan Straits crises 313-14 Tangye, Yves, 95 Tardini, Cardinal, 341 target intelligence: G erm an, 206-17; target traces, 210 Target Study o n C ounter Atomic O perations, 397 Taylor, A. J. p., 450 Taylor, E dm ond, 638,645 T edder, Air C hief Marshal Arthur, 13,150, 172,290 Tem pler, Major-General G erald, 384-5,497, 591-2; Tem pler-B um s Agreem ent 1950, 385; T em pler R eport on Colonial Security, 577 terrorism: Air India airliner bom bing 1955, 311-15 Tew son, Sir Vincent, 546 T-Force, 187 The A n sw er M an , 452 T hom pson, Colonel Robert, 498, 592 T hom ycroft, Peter, 545 T ibet, 598-600 T ito, Marshal Josip, 160; operation against, 163; Tito-Stalin split, 148,324 liz a rd , Sir Henry, 66,91; report, 371 T ofte, Hans, 279-80 Tokaev, D r, 193,218 Tom linson, Sir Stanley, 587 totalitarianism, 133 translation rights, 133 Travis, Com m ander Edward, 244 trawlers for intelligence-gathering, 523 Treasury: British, 53,237 T rend, Sử Burke, 621,624

Trepper, Leopold, 97-102 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, 450 Trevor-W ilson, Arthur, 516-17 Tribune, 448 Trudeaux, General, 191 Trum an, President Harry s.: and A ustralia, 110; on elint flights, 399; on G o u zcn k o u , 105; on hydrogen bom b, 219; and K o re a, 274-5,295; liberation, 320-2; OSS, 81 ; attitude to O peration Barbarossa, 46, 4 8 ; summits, 333; Trum an Doctrine, 97 Trum an-Attlee meeting: reported by Maclean, 423-4 Truscott, General, 522 Tsarev, Oleg, 57 Tudeh Party; 135-6,470 Tulbovitch, Major, 34 Tunis, Earl Alexander of, 377 Tunku Abdul Rahman, 510 Tunnel operations, 410-12 Turkish security service, 97 Turkouski, Major, 29 Turney, Charles, 229 Twenty-first Army G roup, 76 Twiggc, Stephen, 550 Typex machine, 39,402 UB, 167,456 U-boats, 189 Ukraine, 142-3 UKUSA signals intelligence agreement, 213, 398 Ultra, 1-2; passed to the Soviets, 34-5 U N , 131,265 U nderw ood, Colonel, 136 United States o f Europe, 12,342-70 United States: bases in Britain, 115,390; isolationism, 65; propaganda in Britain, 447-53 _ United S ûtes: Air Force, 171,206-17; Air Force Security Service, 254; Air Force Target Analysis Division, 214; Air Technical Intelligence Centre, 211; .Air W ar College, 330; Armed Forces Securin Agency, 248, 568; Army Air Corps, 83; Army Security Agency, 246; Atomic Energy Commission, 563; AttorneyGeneral, 82; Communications Intelligence Board, 400; Department of D efense, 7; Information Service, 310-11; Naval War College 297; Orange Team (deception), 373; US National Student Association, 367,377 US Air Force-RAF Ịoint Agreement on Target Intelligence 1948,214

Index U n iv ersity Labour Federation, 125 U niversity o f Sydney, 107 U P A , 169 u ran iu m , 105 US C ounter Intelligence Corps, 143,421-22 US Jo in t Chiefs o f Staff, 108,317-19, 544 US National Security Council, 8 ,8 7 ,1 4 1 , 1 4 7 ,172,52 1,579,639 US Special Forces, 141,281,334 US Strategic Air Com m and, 207,390, 552 U S -U K Technical Committee o f Experts, 563 V -2 rockets, 39,190 v an Zeeland, Paul, 349 V andenburg, General Hoyt, 35 V anderpool, J., 278 V andervoort, Ben, 280 V enona, 92,11 0 -1 3 ,1 1 4 ,2 5 0 ; tracks Maclean, 436-7 vetting, 117-21,425-7, 547-8 V ietnam , 13; Vietnamese Security Intelligence Bureau, proposed, 595 V1STRE, 377 Vlasov, General, 32,323 Voice o f America 320 Voice o f Egypt, 484 Voice o f the Coast, 491 Voice o f the Gulf, 570 Vojoli, Philippe, 616 Volunteer Freedom Corps, 166, 552 vulnerability gap, 219,316,643 Vyshinsky, Andrei, 30 Waffen SS, 142-4 Walker, General, 288 war criminals, 184-5 ,2 0 0 -5 War Office, 43,118 Ward, Barbara: and ACUE, 359 Ward, Stephen, 629-32 Warner, Christopher, 46-7, 53, 5 5 ,7 6 ,7 8 , 129,158,319 Watson, Adam, 310,480, 513 Watt, Donald Cameron, 195 WAY, 459-61 Webb, James E., 347 Wehrmacht: Soviet citizens in, 32 Weisband, William, 250,409 Weisner, Jerom e, 320 Welchman, G ordon, 234

733

Welsh, Com m ander Eric, 2 2 1 -2 ,2 2 4 -5 ,3 7 5 W elton, Elizabeth (Violet), 123-8 Wenger, Captain J., 252 W estern Enterprises Inc., 296 White, Sir Dick, 4 ,7 1 ,1 4 9 ,3 1 5 ,5 2 1 ,5 2 5 , 530,619 Whitehall, 6; hawks and doves, 13 ,4 3 -6 3 Wigg, George, 5 4 8 -9,632 Wilber, D onald, 4 7 2 -7 ,5 8 3 Wilkins, T om , 259 Wilkinson, Ellen, 100 Williams, M ajor-General Bill, 329 Williams, Michael, 524 Willoughby, General Charles, 274-6 Wilson” Harold, 6 32,633,644 W IN , 166-7 Wingate, General O rde, 3 ,2 6 2 ,4 9 8 W innifrith, A. J. D ., 116,425 W interbotham , Frederick, 4 Wisner, Frank, 1 ,1 4 0 ,1 4 7 ,1 6 6 ,2 9 4 ,2 9 9 , 3 0 5 ,3 1 4 ,3 1 5 ,3 4 0 -1 ,3 5 5 -6 ,4 4 6 ,4 5 7 , 483,551 W oodhouse, Monty, 4 5 9 ,4 7 1 -2 ,5 7 0 W orking G roups, 585-606 W orld Assembly o f Youth, 128 W orld Council o f Churches, 134 W orld Federation o f Democratic Youth, 123-8,499 W orld Federation o f Trade Unions, 138, 458

Woriä Today, m World Youth Congress 1945,122-4 Wright, Peter, 480 Wyatt, W oodrow, 546-7 Yeaton, Colonel, Ivan, 34 Young Com m unist League, 117 Young, Courtney, 111, 139 Young, General Millard c , 390 Young, George c , 464,4 7 5 ,6 4 0 Yugoslavia, 148,185 Zaehner, D r Robin, 76,471 Zahedi, General Fazlollah, 473 Zander, Randolf, 36 Ziegler, Philip, 554 Zinoviev letter, 19,21 Zog, King, 162 Zuckerm an, Sir Solly, 624