Huw Dylan

Intelligence and National Security: A Century of British Intelligence

This is the first of two edited collections based on the contributions to the ‘Century of British Intelligence’ conference, organized by the Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies (CIISS) at Aberystwyth University. The conference, which occurred in spring 2009 at the Gregynog Conference Centre, was the fourth in a series of such events and attracted a wide range of attendees who enjoyed a great variety of papers, many on subjects relevant to Britain, many from an international perspective. Our thanks go out to the delegates who braved the trip to deepest Powys to present their research, and to those whose attendance and engagement ensured the stimulating and most friendly atmosphere, which was enjoyed by all. Some years ago our friends Len Scott and Gerald Hughes outlined the rationale behind the Gregynog series of conferences and their words have been reproduced in many of the edited collections based on past events. We see no need to break with this tradition:

Britain and the Missile Gap: British Estimates on the Soviet Ballistic Missile Threat, 1957–61

Between 1957 and 1961, American National Intelligence Estimates overestimated the Soviets’ capabilities to produce and deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles, creating the ‘missile gap’ controversy. This article examines the contemporaneous estimates of British intelligence on the Soviet ballistic missile program, which were based upon very similar, if not the same, raw intelligence. It demonstrates that British estimates of the Soviet ICBM program were more accurate. However, this success did not continue in the analysis of the medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile (M/IRBM) threat, which was relatively poor for most of the period. It concludes that the reasons for this lie in the different assumptions held by intelligence analysts on both sides of the Atlantic, and a degree of conservatism in both intelligence establishments.

Operation TIGRESS: deception for counterintelligence and Britain’s 1952 atomic test

Britain tested its first atomic weapon on the Montebello islands, off Western Australia, in October 1952. This test, known as HURRICANE, was supported by an elaborate deception operation, one designed to deceive the Soviets about the date and the true nature of the test. This article examines this deception. It introduces Britain’s post-war deception organisations, the London Controlling Section, later the Directorate of Forward Plans, and how they worked closely with Britain’s atomic scientists from early in the Cold War. Their plans were complicated both by the Soviets’ success in gathering intelligence on Britain’s nuclear programme, and by the West’s difficulty in gathering intelligence on Soviet dispositions. Nevertheless, they utilised a broad range of channels, both open and secret, to implement their scheme. The manner in which they operated suggests that the deception and intelligence machinery had clearly adapted their methods to the Cold War environment, but that the task was considerably more difficult than the one they faced in wartime.

Defence intelligence and the Cold War : Britain's Joint Intelligence Bureau 1945-1964

During the Second World War British intelligence provided politicians and soldiers with invaluable knowledge. Britain was determined to maintain this advantage following victory, but the wartime machinery was uneconomical, unwieldy, and unsuitable for peace. Drawing on oral testimony, international archives, and private papers, Defence Intelligence and the Cold War provides the first history of the hitherto little-known organisation designed to preserve and advance British capability in military and military-related intelligence for the Cold War: the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB). Headed by General Eisenhowers wartime intelligence man, Major General Kenneth Strong, the JIB was central to the mission to spy on and understand the Soviet Union, and the broader Communist world. It did so from its creation in 1946 to its end in 1964, when it formed a central component of the new Defence Intelligence Staff. This volume reveals hitherto hidden aspects of Britains mission to map the Soviet Union for nuclear war, the struggle to understand and contain the economies of the USSR, China, and North Korea in peace and during the Korean War, and the urgent challenge to understand the nature and scale of the Soviet bomber and missile threat in the 1950s and 1960s. The JIBs dedicated work in these fields won it the support of some politicians and military men, but the enmity of others who saw the centralised organisation as a threat to traditional military intelligence. The intelligence officers of the JIB waged Cold War not only with Communist adversaries but also in Whitehall.

The Joint Intelligence Bureau: (Not So) Secret Intelligence for the Post-War World

Abstract In 1946 veteran British intelligence officer Kenneth Strong undertook the Directorship of a new intelligence organization, the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB). The JIB absorbed the responsibilities of several wartime intelligence organs, and was responsible for economic, topographic, and aspects of scientific intelligence on an inter-service basis. Its responsibilities grew over the following 18 years; most notably, it absorbed atomic intelligence in 1957. When the Defence Intelligence Staff was created in 1964, absorbing the JIB and the individual Service agencies, JIB was at its heart and Kenneth Strong its first Director. The organization conducted key work in the early Cold War, was at the centre of an international network of Joint Intelligence Bureaux, and was an important stepping stone in the movement to centralize military and military-relevant intelligence in Britain – but the historiography pays it surprisingly little attention. This paper introduces the JIB and various aspects of its work, and demonstrates that its low profile in the historiography is unjustified.

Thinking about defence intelligence: Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, Denis Capel-Dunn, Kenneth Strong and the Joint Intelligence Bureau as foundation for the Defence Intelligence Staff

Abstract The Defence Intelligence Staff’s closest relative was the Joint intelligence Bureau. The Bureau was created in 1946 as part of the post war reorganization of the intelligence machinery, consolidating a number of wartime organizations. It was a centralized organization, providing defence intelligence to customers in the armed forces and government. The Bureau was founded with the objective of implementing several lessons that had been identified in the Second World War concerning the organization and management of intelligence. This paper examines the particular lessons the Bureau’s founders and its leader had learned, and the ideas they sought to ingrain in the organization. It asks what kind of foundation the Bureau provided for the DIS, when it merged with the service intelligence directorates in 1964.

Super-Weapons and Subversion: British Deterrence by Deception Operations in the Early Cold War

Abstract This article examines British deception operations in the early Cold War. It illustrates how, in the years before Britain could threaten atomic retaliation, Britain’s deception organisation, the London Controlling Section (LCS) was tasked with conducting operations to deter the USSR and China from starting a war or threatening British interests. It introduces a number of their ploys – some physical and military, others subversive and political. It argues that the LCS faced significant challenges in implementing its deceptions. Repeating the great strategic successes of the Second World War was extremely difficult; what remained for the Cold War were more limited deceptions.

Cover for Thor : Divine Deception Planning for Cold War Missiles

Abstract In the late 1950s, as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) replaced bombers, the development of Soviet ICBMs prompted fears of strategic vulnerability in the West. The Eisenhower administrations decision to deploy Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) on the territory of NATO allies sought to redress the perceived vulnerability until American ICBMs were ready. British deception planners considered how to enhance the threat posed by the IRBMs. An outline plan codenamed ‘Celestial’ was intended to persuade the Soviets that the otherwise vulnerable missiles could not be readily neutralised. This article explores this deception and how such planning also sought to convey accurate information alongside disinformation. It also suggests that deception planners appear to have given little heed to the potentially counterproductive consequences of such an operation.

SIS, Grigori Tokaev, and the London Controlling Section: New Perspectives on a Cold War Defector and Cold War Deception:

This article examines British deception during the early years of the Cold War, and how a Soviet defector named Grigori Tokaev contributed to British plans and operations. Tokaev provided valuable insights into the Soviet Union, allowing British intelligence to craft more intricate deception operations, political and military. The manner in which he was used, and the extent to which his idiosyncrasies were tolerated, underline the difficulties the British authorities faced as they attempted to apply the lessons of the Second World War deception to the Cold War environment. The case offers new perspectives on both the relatively under-examined subject of British deception operations against the USSR, and the history of one of the most prominent Cold War defectors.

Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance, and the Struggle to Reform the NSA

Timothy H Edgar notes in Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance, and the Struggle to Reform the NSA that at its height, the Stasi, the former East German state security service, collected intel...