Len Scott

Lessons of October: historians, political scientists, policy-makers and the Cuban missile crisis

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has been accorded unique status in the history of the Cold War, generally supposed to represent the occasion on which the superpowers came closest to nuclear war and also to demonstrate the benefits offirmness and control in crisis management. Drawing on evidence made available only recently, through a series of conferences involving both scholars of and participants in the crisis, and through newly accessible archive material, the authors of this article call the received wisdom about the crisis into question, highlighting very different implicationsfor current and future policy. Theyfurther challenge the very possibility of arriving at any one definitive version of the events of the crisis period.

Espionage and the cold war: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban missile crisis

Oleg Penkovsky spied for SIS and the CIA during a crucial phase of the Cold War. Acclaimed as one of the most important spies of the century, his role in the Cuban missile crisis has been portrayed as of pre‐eminent importance to the outcome. Other historians have challenged this interpretation, while some believe that far from working for the West, Penkovsky was an instrument of Soviet strategic deception. This article draws upon CIA records and recent scholarship on the missile crisis to adjudicate on these various claims, and to show where, how and why much of the literature exaggerates and distorts Penkovskys influence and importance. Avenues for further research are also identified.

Intelligence and the Risk of Nuclear War: Able Archer-83 Revisited

Abstract  The study of the Cold War has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, with new critical perspectives, sources and debates. The nuclear history of the Cold War has begun to yield new insights on fundamental questions about the stability and dynamics of the confrontation. Recent evidence about the events of 1983 provides an opportunity to explore the risk of nuclear war and the role of misperception in Soviet–American relations during the ‘Second Cold War’. Central to this is the study of intelligence. This article examines episodes in the autumn of 1983, notably the Able Archer ‘crisis’ of November 1983. Attention focuses on aspects of Soviet, American and British intelligence. Political and diplomatic consequences are also considered. A principal aim is to emphasize that we are at an early stage in researching and understanding events, and that a number of assumptions about the crisis require further exploration. Broader lessons about the role of intelligence in the Cold War are nevertheless explored and provisional conclusions reached about the performances of intelligence agencies and communities.

Reflections on the Age of Intelligence

Intelligence has never been more important in world politics than it is now at the opening of the twenty-first century. The terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, along with the politics and diplomacy of the Second Gulf War, have brought intelligence issues to the forefront of both official and popular discourse on security and international affairs. The need for better understanding of both the nature of the intelligence process and its importance to national and international security has never been more apparent. The aim of this collection is to enhance our understanding of the subject by drawing on a range of perspectives, from academic experts to journalists to former members of the British and American intelligence communities.

Sources and methods in the study of intelligence: A British view

Since September 2001, jihadist attacks on the West and the war on Iraq have focused public attention on intelligence and invigorated academic interest in intelligence studies. Once neglected in academia, the subject is now increasingly firmly established in British and American universities. Common interest in understanding the value as well as the limitations of intelligence nevertheless disguises differing epistemological foundations. Until the late 1980s official British attitudes to secrecy, including opposition to any form of public accountability, inhibited and distorted public understanding. The last two decades have seen changing attitudes to both archival disclosure and parliamentary accountability, though the significance of these is contested. This article outlines these changes as well as how various authors have used various sources to represent the secret world. Two specific areas are explored: covert action and the joint intelligence machinery. The former presents particularly interesting challenges to academic and public scrutiny (in some contrast to the United States) while the latter has received unprecedented illumination in the wake of the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. While opportunities for understanding British intelligence remained constrained they are nevertheless more propitious than they have ever been.

Learning to love the bomb: The command and control of British nuclear forces, 1953–1964

The command and control of nuclear forces has emerged as an important concern in strategic studies. Yet the study of British command and control has been sparse. This article provides the first archive‐based outline of the development of command and control of British nuclear forces in the period 1945–64. It examines the British response to the emerging Soviet ballistic missile threat: by appointing a designated deputy Prime Minister with the authority to launch Britains nuclear forces; by establishing an alternate government headquarters outside London for authorising nuclear retaliation; and by delegating nuclear authority to the military. This article documents for the first time how nuclear release authority was delegated to Bomber Command, in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack and the destruction of Britains political leadership.

Eyeball to Eyeball: Blinking and Winking, Spyplanes and Secrets

The role of American intelligence in the Cuban missile crisis is crucial to understand perceptions and judgements of key actors in October 1962. Dino Brugioni’s Eyeball to Eyeball provides a detailed ‘insider’s’ account that combines memoir and history. It focuses on the role of aerial intelligence, which was vital to how the crisis was managed in Washington. Brugioni’s account also provides a representation of events that explores both military/operational aspects and political decision-making in Washington, most importantly that of President John F. Kennedy. Brugioni argues that it was a victory for Kennedy and for America. Twenty years of scholarship and revelation has challenged this conclusion, which this article examines. Likewise, the idea that the crisis marked a notable success for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is revisited in the light of new information and assessments.

Should We Stop Studying the Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban missile crisis remains one of the most intensely studied events of the twentieth century, and which engages the attention of scholars from a variety of disciplines. Lessons learned by American practitioners and academics contributed to the conduct of American foreign policy in the 1960s and to academic understanding of nuclear deterrence, nuclear crises and crisis management in general. Nearly 50 fifty years of scholarship have generated new insights and understanding. From the 1980s, study of what in Moscow was termed the Caribbean crisis was informed by access to Soviet officials and Soviet archives, and became the forefront of the ‘new historiography’ of the Cold War. This collection reviews how various texts inform our understanding and how new interpretations and/or new sources of information have overtaken (or indeed validated) the original analysis. This article provides an overview of this endeavour and an answer to the question of whether we should continue to study the Cuban missile crisis.

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.

The spy who wanted to save the world

Jerrold Schecter and Peter Deriabin, The Spy Who Saved The World (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1992). Pp. 489.