CONFRONTING THE COLONIES

Confronting the Colonies

British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency

RORY CORMAC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cormac, Rory.

Confronting the colonies : British intelligence and counterinsurgency / Rory Cormac. — First edition.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-935443-6 (alk. paper)

1. Intelligence service—Great Britain—History—20th century. 2. Great Britain—Colonies—History—20th century. 3. Counterinsurgency—Great Britain—History—20th century. 4. Great Britain—Foreign relations—1945–I. Title.

UB251.G7C66 2013

327.12410171’24109045—dc23

2013025098

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in India on Acid-Free Paper

For Joanne (… an accidental expert)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This is my first book. I am indebted to the generous support, advice and input from a number of people who have helped me develop from PhD student to published academic. Firstly I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the doctoral thesis from which this book has evolved. I would also like to acknowledge the help and support of various archivists from around the country, including at the National Archives, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, the Churchill Archives Centre and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Permission to quote from private papers was kindly given by the Liddell Hart centre and the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies. Secondly, I would like to thank those retired practitioners who have spoken to me about the workings of the JIC. They have helped me place flesh on the archival skeleton and better understand the human side of committee life. Thirdly, I am grateful to the comments from academic colleagues around the country. Their comments have kept me aware that there was more to the years between 1948 and 1975 than the JIC.

I am particularly grateful to those who have read and provided feedback on sections or earlier versions of this work. Their comments have proved invaluable, although any mistakes are mine alone. Special thanks must go to Michael Goodman and Huw Bennett for supervising the PhD upon which this work is based. As official historian of the JIC, Michael Goodman was the ideal academic to oversee the project. His knowledge of the committee and the archives has proved invaluable. Moreover, Huw Bennett interpreted the role of second supervisor in an incredibly generous manner and his insights have certainly strengthened the quality of the work no-end. Combined with Richard Aldrich at the University of Warwick, they have provided the best training for which a young academic could hope.

Finally, I must thank my wife. She has put up with my incessant and excitable ramblings about government committees and cheered me up after long days buried in files and acronyms. She has (without meaning to) acquired a detailed, if somewhat random, knowledge of the British Joint Intelligence Organisation and must be the only musicologist who can list successive JIC chairmen! Thank you.

Rory Cormac, Northampton, Spring 2013

ABBREVIATIONS

AKEL

People’s Working Reform Party (Cypriot Communist Party)

AIC

Aden Intelligence Centre

BATTs

British Army Training Teams

BDCC(FE)

British Defence Coordination Committee (Far East)

C-in-C(ME)

Commander-in-Chief (Middle East)

CENTO

Central Treaty Organisation

CIC

Cyprus Intelligence Committee

CIGs

Current Intelligence Groups

CIGS

Chief of the Imperial General Staff

CCP

Chinese Communist Party

CoS

Chiefs of Staff

CSAF

Commander of the Sultan’s Armed Forces

DIS

Defence Intelligence Staff

DLF

Dhofar Liberation Front

EOKA

National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters

FCO

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

FIC

Federal Intelligence Committee (Aden and South Arabia)

FSA

Federation of South Arabia

HoS

Heads of Sections

IOR

India Office Records, held at the British Library

JAC

Joint Action Committee

JIB

Joint Intelligence Bureau

JIC

Joint Intelligence Committee

JIC(A)

Joint Intelligence Committee (A)

JIC(B)

Joint Intelligence Committee (B)

JIC(FE)

Joint Intelligence Committee (Far East)

JIC(ME)

Joint Intelligence Committee (Middle East)

JIG(Gulf)

Joint Intelligence Group (Gulf)

JIS

Joint Intelligence Staff

JPS

Joint Planning Staff

LIC

Local Intelligence Committee

MCP

Malayan Communist Party

MSS

Malayan Security Service

NLF

National Liberation Front (Aden and South Arabia)

NSC

National Security Council

PDRY

People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen

PFLOAG

Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf

PRSY

People’s Republic of South Yemen

PSP

People’s Socialist Party (Aden)

SAAG

South Arabia Action Group

SAF

Sultan’s Armed Forces

SAS

Special Air Service

SEATO

South East Asia Treaty Organisation

SIFE

Security Intelligence Far East

SIS

Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

SLO

Security Liaison Officer

TMT

Turkish Resistance Organisation

WRCI

Weekly Review of Current Intelligence

WSCI

Weekly Summary of Current Intelligence

WSI

Weekly Survey of Intelligence

1
INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT IN AN AGE OF COMPETING THREATS

The controversial invasion of Iraq in 2003 has become synonymous with intelligence. Widespread criticism has long stalked the so-called ‘dodgy dossier’ and the notorious claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction capable of being fired within 45 minutes of an order being given. Serious questions were asked about political pressure on the intelligence agencies and whether intelligence had been ‘sexed up’. A fierce debate ensued and potentially threatened the position of the prime minister himself.

A decade after the initial invasion, discourse about the role of intelligence is now widening. Probing questions are being put to practitioners by the likes of Sir John Chilcot and his inquiry. Not limited simply to the presence (or otherwise) of weapons of mass destruction, senior intelligence officials are now being asked about whether the intelligence agencies or the relevant political and military actors in Whitehall had adequately considered the aftermath of the invasion. What would happen after Saddam Hussein was overthrown? How likely was an insurgency? Was Britain prepared for a protracted and bloody counterinsurgency campaign?

Fascinatingly, British intelligence got it right. On 19 February 2003, the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the highest intelligence body in the land, offered the prime minister, Tony Blair, their view of the impact of invading Iraq in both the north and the south of the country. Their survey included the dusty and dangerous streets of Basra and the surrounding area in which British forces ultimately spent half a decade embroiled in vicious battles against Shia insurgents. They warned of the risk of serious disorder and tribal violence, and made the point that a post-Saddam regime would not necessarily enjoy popular support.

However, coming just four short weeks before the Americans began their assault on Baghdad, the British intelligence community’s warning was too little too late. Tony Blair’s government lacked not only a sufficiently thorough assessment on this subject but also an evolving or longer-term appreciation maintained throughout the planning stages prior to 2003. British intelligence had started with an assumption that Al Qaeda would not be a particular problem in Iraq, and it was not until March 2003, the month the war actually started, that intelligence warned the group may have established sleeper cells to be activated after the coalition operations. In the aftermath of the invasion, questions about the scope, nature and implications of the insurgency featured heavily in the intelligence agenda.¹

Owing to the simultaneous attacks on America in September 2001, the first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed a prolonged debate about terrorism. It has seen British armed forces embroiled in gruelling counterinsurgency operations not only in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan—whilst military operations in Northern Ireland ended as recently as July 2007. Moreover, British intelligence personnel and special forces have been involved in capacity-building operations against terrorism and insurgency in more than a dozen countries around the world. Meanwhile, the second decade of the century opened with a series of popular uprisings erupting across the Arab world, from Tunisia to Yemen. The so-called Arab Spring has resulted in a bloody civil war in Syria and the overthrow of a number of autocratic regimes across the region. Asymmetric warfare, irregular threats and non-state actors have therefore featured heavily in twenty-first century intelligence assessments as well as in the broader security discourse.

An Age of Competing Threats

Irregular threats to British interests are by no means new. In the decades following the Second World War, British forces faced a series of insurgencies. Owing to the overarching contexts of the Cold War and the management of British decline, these insurgencies took on a heightened significance centrally within Whitehall. This book explores the responses of British intelligence to insurgencies in the period from 1948 to 1975. It examines how intelligence impacted upon wider foreign, defence and colonial policy, and how assessments were shaped by competing understandings of broader international forces and threat frameworks.

This period was characterised by the dual contexts of the Cold War and decolonisation. The former played heavily on the minds of both the intelligence community and policy practitioners alike, providing a cognitive prism which dominated much official thinking, particularly in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. In May 1946, Labour’s bullish foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, warned his cabinet colleagues of the severe dangers posed by the Soviet Union. Shortly afterwards however, Clement Attlee, the new prime minister, voiced scepticism about the threat of Soviet expansionism and attempted to argue that the eastern Mediterranean was no longer defendable. In a highly instructive episode in contemporary British history, the prime minister was overridden by Bevin, who was backed by the chiefs of staff threatening to resign en masse if Attlee got his way. This was an important altercation. As the leading historian Anne Deighton has argued, from then on a Cold War mindset dominated Whitehall—‘even if some politicians were slower to grasp this’.²

By 1948 the Cold War was well and truly underway and increasingly dictated the intelligence agenda. It must not be forgotten that serious incidents relating to colonial security occurred at the same time as various important events relating to international communism. In the same week in June 1948 as the declaration of emergency in Malaya, the start of the Berlin Blockade understandably devoured Whitehall attention. Meanwhile, the early years of the Malayan violence temporarily overlapped with the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, in which Mao’s communist forces created the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Similarly, the Yemeni coup, which had dramatic implications for British interests in Aden, occurred in October 1962—the same month as the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened nuclear war. It is understandable that developments across the Atlantic took priority over those in the Gulf during those tense days. By dominating the agenda, it is unsurprising that the Cold War provided a framework in which other events were interpreted—yet this can (and did) have damaging ramifications for accurate intelligence assessment.

The Cold War context had important implications for assessments of colonial security and insurgency. As a former head of Defence Intelligence, Kenneth Strong, informed his American counterparts in the mid-1950s: the Cold War threat to colonial possessions ‘has brought a mass of attendant problems in the intelligence field’.³ British intelligence lacked the resources to monitor the entire globe. The JIC accordingly neglected colonial security at first, focusing instead on conventional defence matters relating to the communist threat, such as monitoring Soviet nuclear capability. Yet at the same time, the Cold War also raised the stakes of colonial security—albeit from a perspective which emphasised the external communist threat over internal issues. Colonial territories were increasingly perceived as a front line in the ideological conflict and thus susceptible to both externally-directed communist subversion and a Sino/Soviet military attack in the event of global war. Moreover, the Cold War presented an opportunity for nationalists to exploit the prevailing international system and, as Odd Arne Westad has explained, gain ‘support from their enemies’ enemies’.⁴ This led to an intriguing and intricate interplay between external Cold War and internal nationalist factors with which intelligence assessments had to grapple. As a result of external Cold War pressures, the JIC gradually interpreted its (admittedly vague) charter with a greater scope for examining irregular threats outside of Central and Eastern Europe. This extended to Britain’s shrinking empire—for which the committee held no explicitly enshrined mandate at the start of 1948.

It is vital not to view contemporary history solely through the Cold War lens. Doing so obscures what Matthew Connelly has described as ‘subtler but no less significant changes in the nature of international relations’.⁵ Of equal, if not of more, importance for Britain was the contextual framework of decolonisation, the strategic management of imperial decline and the projection of British power within this new context. Whether one looks to the fall of Singapore in 1942, the loss of India in 1947 or the Suez debacle of 1956 for a precise date, it is abundantly clear that Britain ceased to be a global power. Yet throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, policymakers remained in denial and ‘British defence policy, like her foreign policy, was designed to preserve as much as possible of Britain’s world power in increasingly adverse circumstances’.⁶

That said, the landslide election of Clement Attlee’s Labour Government in 1945 saw attention turned to various independence campaigns: most notably that of India which gained independence in 1947. A troublesome insurgency in Palestine also devoured much of the new prime minister’s attention before the state of Israel was created in 1948. Other colonies also achieved independence in the late 1940s, including Burma and Ceylon. Regardless of the subsequent Conservative Government’s views on the retention of empire, the limitations of Britain’s declining power and influence in the Middle East were exposed in 1956 as a result of the Suez Canal debacle—although Britain did maintain a regional presence until the ignominious scuttle from Aden in 1967 and military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971. By the end of the 1950s, however, decolonisation was creeping into Africa with Sudan and the Gold Coast gaining independence. At the start of the following decade, Harold Macmillan made his famous ‘Wind of Change’ speech in South Africa, and this was followed by a wave of decolonisation across the continent, including in Kenya (1963) and Northern Rhodesia (1964). By the early 1970s, much of Britain’s formal empire had been lost and successive governments faced the new challenge of how best to project influence and ensure British interests in the post-imperial world.⁷

A growing trend of global political hostility to traditional forms of imperialism emerged as the forces of decolonisation ate away at the British Empire. Within this context, a series of nationalist uprisings erupted across the empire including in Palestine, Kenya, Cyprus and Aden. Just like the Cold War, this violence also heightened the importance of colonial security in the eyes of Whitehall. Such widespread unrest forced British responses to each insurgency to be considered within a context of maintaining national interests against a trend of imperial decline. Combined with the ongoing Cold War threat, this led towards greater centralisation of the management of colonial security and intelligence. To clarify, the British system still utilised a decentralised approach in so far as a number of different departments and agencies were involved—but centralisation in terms of action taken in London as opposed to that taken locally increased dramatically. A symptomatic example of this was, as leading intelligence historian Richard Aldrich notes, that ‘the Colonial Office was reluctantly persuaded to join the higher-level intelligence and security committees in Whitehall’.⁸ In the post-1945 world, intelligence sought to aid policymakers navigate the difficult international climate, to promote British interests wherever possible and to project prestige. Understanding insurgencies was vital in order to achieve this.

Strategic Intelligence and the British Counterinsurgency Experience

This book examines insurgencies in the colonies of Malaya, Cyprus and Aden, and British involvement in the Dhofar region of Oman. It uses them as case studies to trace the evolution of the role and impact of strategic intelligence from 1948, when colonial matters were beginning to increase in Whitehall priority, to 1975—by which time Britain was adapting to life in a post-imperial world. Of course the British experience is far broader than the four case studies examined here and a state of near continuous counterinsurgency or internal security operations existed somewhere in the world from 1945. This book has been limited to four particularly important and instructive case studies owing to issues of both theme and space. Each is not merely a brief overview of the JIC’s role but is a detailed examination of the intelligence processes going on within Whitehall. Each chapter seeks to investigate beneath the surface of the central intelligence machinery and find out what made it tick. Indeed, the case studies serve as vehicles to explore broader themes and issues relating to intelligence assessment and threat conceptualisation.

As the United Kingdom emerged from the devastation of the Second World War, its forces became embroiled in countering violent and radical Zionism in Palestine until Britain withdrew in 1948. The JIC swiftly assessed the possibility of major Arab disturbances in Palestine along with the reactions of other Middle Eastern states to the violence. The second of these is particularly interesting in so far as it demonstrates the JIC beginning to internationalise local conflicts. This was to become a core aspect of strategic intelligence in counterinsurgency. By 1947, the JIC was pessimistically (but accurately) predicting that any settlement would be unacceptable to either the Jewish or the Arab community. Intelligence assessments also related to threats to the British mainland. Indeed, the Zionists undoubtedly posed a serious terrorist threat on the streets of London. The Security Service (MI5) warned Attlee in 1946 that he was a target for assassination, whilst a letter bomb campaign targeted other members of the cabinet. The following year, a powerful bomb was planted inside the Colonial Office but failed to explode.⁹

This book, however, opens with Malaya. It was not until 1948, in the aftermath of the declaration of emergency in Malaya, that the JIC gained Colonial Office representation. This formed a crucial moment in the context of the committee’s evolving role. Strategic intelligence was beginning to become interested in colonial threats overseas and their impact upon British global interests. Despite this, slow progress was made and the committee’s input into counterinsurgency initially remained negligible. 1948 and the outbreak of the Malayan campaign, therefore, forms a suitable starting point. Moreover, Malaya is a fascinating case study when thinking about the role of intelligence in Whitehall. It intersected Colonial Office, Foreign Office and military interests. Internal factors behind the uprising had to be considered against potential external factors, not least the Cold War and the emergence of Communist China. The situation on the ground provided a complex challenge for intelligence in London. Could the JIC, tentatively settling into its new peacetime role, rise to meet it?

Between 1952 and 1956, as the Malayan campaign was being brought under control, British forces faced a vicious insurgency in Kenya. This is an important and interesting event in its own right and raised some increasingly familiar challenges to British intelligence assessment. Who were the insurgents? What were their motivations? As Huw Bennett has recently written, ‘the rebellion was devolved and complex in organisation and motivation’. It involved a large number of grievances, from anti-colonialism to dissatisfaction with imposed agricultural techniques.¹⁰ Mau Mau was, however, an isolated insurgent group. It was alienated from widespread external support given its tribal appeal and the fact that Kenya was bordered by other countries controlled by colonial powers. The colonial authorities knew very well that there was no Soviet support for this particular uprising.¹¹ There was therefore less of a need for the JIC’s interdepartmental approach. Moreover, the JIC’s structure, function and role had not much evolved from the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency. The next big year in the committee’s history was 1955 when it gained extra power over colonial matters. Two years later, the JIC moved to the Cabinet Office, where it still resides today.

As a result, the second case study chosen is Cyprus. The insurgency between 1955 and 1959 forms a particularly fascinating episode in the context of the evolution of strategic intelligence. Firstly, the dates of the insurgency encompass key moments in the evolution of the JIC: 1955 and 1957. It is therefore possible to explore the impact the various reforms had on the effectiveness of the committee’s work. To what extent did the committee’s extra jurisdiction over imperial matters improve its performance? What impact did the move to the Cabinet Office have? Secondly, the Cyprus insurgency was a complicated tangle. Like Malaya, it posed challenges for interdepartmental intelligence in London and brought together Foreign Office, military, MI5, Colonial Office, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and GCHQ interests. This was especially the case given the international involvement of Greece and Turkey—both NATO countries. The overarching context of the Cold War complicated matters further. Cyprus is therefore highly instructive when examining how the JIC balanced a variety of competing interests and diverging understandings in its intelligence assessments.

Other colonial emergencies ensued. An emergency was declared in the Central African Federation (an ill-advised union of Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland) in 1959. The trigger was the apparent discovery of a plot to assassinate certain British officials. The Colonial Office, however, was sceptical and the head of its Intelligence and Security Department did not immediately forward a Special Branch report on the subject to the JIC. As a result, the JIC was criticised for not giving adequate detail on the so-called murder plot in its weekly intelligence output. The Colonial Office (and by extension the JIC) was right. The idea of a murder plot was subsequently debunked by an official government inquiry, known as the Devlin report. Although rejected by cabinet, the report damningly referred to Nyasa-land as a police state and heavily criticised the abuse of power by the local British officials. And yet, MI5 remained convinced that such a plot existed.¹²

The JIC was more interested a couple of years later when rumours of communist infiltration into Africa surfaced. The prime culprit of propagating this line was Roy Welensky, the prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1957.Welensky had hoped to deliberately portray his regime as a bastion against encroaching communism on the continent in the hope that the British government would quietly leave him to pursue his racist policies. MI5 did not buy this and reported so to the JIC in 1962. Roger Hollis, its director-general, informed the JIC that communism was not as much of a threat in Africa as first appeared. Downplaying the significance of African ministers travelling to the Soviet Bloc, Hollis told the JIC that the communists were ‘newcomers in Africa and had a lot to learn’.¹³

The third case study, therefore, is a different (but equally ill-fated) federation: the Federation of South Arabia. From 1963, British forces became embroiled in a vicious counterinsurgency campaign in Aden and South Arabia. Alongside this Britain grew involved in a covert campaign against Yemeni and Egyptian support from across the border. In what is generally remembered as a failure in recent British history, the United Kingdom was forced to withdraw in 1967 leaving behind a situation which was far from stable.

The JIC was heavily involved. The number of intelligence assessments on the subject greatly surpassed that of previous insurgencies, whilst the committee ambitiously attempted to directly manage local intelligence reform. On top of this, certain JIC members were involved in overseeing covert action. The JIC was growing in confidence and influence. Like Malaya and Cyprus, Aden was a complicated problem. It involved external influence from Egypt and the spill over from a protracted civil war in Yemen. Once again, it fell to the JIC to balance the internal and external factors driving the violence. Importantly however, the committee’s role was further complicated by acrimonious debates engulfing Whitehall about the nature of the threat. Amply demonstrating issues of political pressures on the intelligence process, the JIC was thrown into a minefield.

Just two years after withdrawal from Aden, British armed forces were again involved in low-intensity violence. This time it was closer to home on the streets of Northern Ireland. The escalating conflict rapidly rose up the JIC’s priority list. Interestingly, similar issues relating to colonial counterinsurgency arose. Intelligence was slow to grasp the significance of developments because of limited engagement with the area prior to 1969. As had so often been the case elsewhere, the JIC had been preoccupied with the Cold War and international communism. Once adequate attention was given, however, the JIC became involved in trying to reform the local intelligence system—just as it had attempted in Aden.¹⁴

Unfortunately, much of the JIC’s work regarding Northern Ireland remains classified. An absorbing and important tale will no doubt be written if and when historians acquire adequate access to those documents. In keeping with the broader theme of counterinsurgency overseas however, the final case study does not examine the ‘domesticisation’ of operations in Belfast. Instead it considers the covert campaign in Oman. At the same time as the intensification of violence in Northern Ireland, British forces were quietly involved in a successful counterinsurgency campaign against rebels in the Dhofari province of Oman until 1975. Oman, of course, was not a British colony, although the two countries had very close links. This case study is therefore particularly important, for it provides an interesting comparison to the role of British intelligence in the traditional colonial insurgencies. Did the JIC still have the power to try and reform local intelligence actors? Did the JIC still have a role at all? What new competing pressures were shaping intelligence assessment in the post-imperial context of the early 1970s?

Like the earlier colonial counterinsurgencies, the Dhofari campaign must be understood within the context of the management of British decline. Indeed, it was assessed through the prism of Britain’s withdrawal from east of Suez. However, Oman’s technically non-colonial status serves as a fascinating example of how the role of strategic intelligence had to adapt. As soon as the JIC had acquired some experience in colonial security, it had to evolve yet again. Whitehall’s central intelligence machinery had been overtaken by events. Its experience in Dhofar therefore serves as an instructive example of intelligence’s transition from colonial insurgencies to the type of post-colonial counterinsurgency which has recently been fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. From an administrative perspective, focus on Oman is also useful. The JIC underwent significant reforms in 1968 and it is important to determine the impact these had on the committee’s understanding of insurgencies. Inclusion of Oman in this study therefore allows comparative analysis of the JIC’s evolving counterinsurgency role.

Alongside and after Oman, the JIC was also involved in assessing the internal situation in Rhodesia. Seeking independence but insisting on maintaining white-minority rule, Ian Smith, Rhodesia’s new hard-line prime minister, issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. The messy aftermath of the decision was to linger for around fifteen years until the creation of Zimbabwe in 1980. Although the JIC swiftly predicted a ‘passionate reaction’ amongst neighbouring black African states, intelligence concluded that no immediate substantial threat to Rhodesia existed from either African nationalist organisations or from externally inspired subversion. There would, however, be a steady increase in externally-inspired terrorist operations. The JIC’s main involvement, however, related to sanctions. The economic sphere had long been neglected by the committee, but regarding Rhodesia intelligence considered the impact of sanctions against the regime. Such assessments demonstrate how the committee’s conceptualisation of security was becoming increasingly broad. In the 1950s it extended to incorporate political matters and by the mid-to-late 1960s intelligence had moved into the economic sphere. As JIC veteran Percy Cradock has noted, however, ‘intelligence had a relatively small part to play in the crisis’.¹⁵

The four locales chosen represent a coherent analytical field for the study of the JIC and British counterinsurgency. They are representative of the committee’s imperial and post-imperial role. When placed against the JIC’s administrative context, each case study allows detailed exploration of how the committee’s functions evolved. On top of that, each case study represents important themes prevalent across strategic intelligence during these years: from threat internationalisation to managing local intelligence structures.

It would of course be farcical to suggest that insurgencies dominated the agenda of British intelligence during this period. The conventional Soviet threat was obviously Whitehall’s primary focus. Yet irregular threats and colonial security did rapidly climb the priority list. Despite this, most scholarly literature focuses purely on intelligence in relation to the conventional threat, whilst imperial historians have tended to overlook issues relating to intelligence altogether. Few attempts have been made in the last ten years to plug this gap, with a notable exception being Philip Murphy’s groundbreaking work on Africa.¹⁶ Similarly, counterinsurgency literature focuses largely on the tactical or operational level, thereby neglecting intelligence assessment at the Whitehall level and its impact on broader policy. In order to provide a better understanding of such matters, it is important to consider how the British intelligence assessment machinery evolved to encompass irregular threats, the contexts in which such threats were understood and how intelligence impacted upon British policy. Owing to recent releases of top secret archival documents relating to the JIC, the Colonial Office Intelligence and Security Department, MI5 and secretive Cabinet Office committees, such a study is only now possible.

The JIC ‘muddled through’ and gradually adapted to find a role in counterinsurgency. In doing so, the committee became involved in three areas: warning, threat assessment and management of the overseas intelligence apparatus. This transformation of the JIC’s peacetime role reveals a great deal of new insight into intelligence assessment and counterinsurgency.

Firstly, the JIC’s role represented nothing less than a revolution in management of the empire. Widespread nationalist unrest and the overarching Cold War threat combined to create an important administrative context: it increasingly centralised the management of colonial security and intelligence, giving London an unprecedented role. This trend was aided by American security guarantees in Western Europe. Washington’s commitment to Europe ‘effectively freed Britain to concentrate its attention and resources on maintaining the imperial system’.¹⁷ American pressure in the aftermath of the post-war spy scandals also provided an impetus for London to cast its eyes over colonial security.¹⁸ Centralisation not only included the JIC, but also MI5, which too became increasingly involved in the affairs of empire. Decolonisation and counterinsurgency is not simply a story of local actors isolated from the imperial metropolis. This book is therefore not an account of local intelligence organisations fighting internal political violence in a variety of colonies. That is not to say that local factors were not important; quite the contrary. This book, however, examines them through the Whitehall prism and asks how they impacted upon London’s understanding of insurgencies. Neither is colonial intelligence and counterinsurgency simply a story of MI5 riding to the rescue from London. MI5 was not a rogue elephant operating outside of the political system. Accordingly, this book paints a more holistic picture of the rise and demise of Whitehall’s imperial central intelligence machinery.

The second theme involves understandings of the nature of security and what constitutes a threat. Between 1948 and 1975, the JIC was at the forefront of a fundamental re-conceptualisation of security. The Cold War context blurred traditional boundaries between military and political spheres, with broader political considerations relating to ideology and subversion becoming increasingly intertwined with military capabilities. From the backrooms of Whitehall, the British intelligence community quietly and gradually recognised the severity of irregular threats posed by non-state actors. In doing so, they facilitated an important shift in Whitehall’s strategic culture. Intelligence gradually challenged orthodox understandings of security as narrowly relating merely to the conventional military paradigm. Defining a threat to national security remains an important and relevant issue today. Debates about the inclusivity of the JIC agenda still resonate across Whitehall.

Thirdly, insurgencies posed specific challenges to strategic intelligence. If they were going to be relevant, the JIC had to adapt. Demonstrating a hangover from the Second World War, intelligence assessment was primarily geared towards conventional threats and a militaristic perception of the Cold War. Counterinsurgency involved a multitude of types of intelligence spanning the interests of an array of Whitehall actors. It transcended traditional departmental boundaries. As such, the evolution of an effective central intelligence machine was an essential development. It had to be able to generate all source intelligence output, which was aware of policy needs and which could objectively balance local and international factors. These challenges (involving organisational, structural and cognitive factors) remain relevant in countering current insurgencies and other irregular threats. Interestingly, however, intelligence to counter irregular threats was still subjected to the same analytical traps as regarding conventional threats. Epistemological issues of mirror-imaging, perseveration and cognitive dissonance applied just as much to the ‘new’ threats as they did to ongoing assessments of military confrontation.

Fourthly, accurately understanding local agency is crucial in counter-insurgency. Intelligence must assess the interplay between internal and external factors when appreciating the instigation and course of an insurgency. Mistakes will cause a fundamental misunderstanding of the conflict. If intelligence actors are looking the wrong way, vital warning-signs go unnoticed. Similarly, the all-important initial policy responses are likely to be deeply flawed if the wrong questions are being asked. Neglect of the international context resulted in a myopic and insular understanding of internal security. Yet over-emphasis of international factors underestimated the role of local agency in uprisings, thereby wrongly assessing the causes and nature of a particular threat. The internal-external tightrope is a difficult one for intelligence to tread, particularly during an era in which overarching external frameworks held so much sway. It was much easier for analysts to bend local developments into pre-existing mindsets than to question the legitimacy of each specific anti-colonial uprising.

Focus on the international also led to dangers of Cold War and imperial developments being conflated by policymakers and the intelligence community alike—although as Odd Arne Westad has shown ‘the history of the late twentieth century cannot be understood without exploring the ties that bind [the Cold War and decolonisation] together’.¹⁹ As such, perceptions of the relationship (or lack thereof) between the Cold War and decolonisation and between the external and the internal are key themes permeating this book. They presented intelligence assessments with a serious challenge and remain acutely relevant to today’s counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts, especially in determining how far a particular movement, such as Islamist terrorism, is internally or externally directed.

The JIC’s role in counterinsurgency serves as a useful vehicle to explore broader issues within intelligence assessment. A fifth, and particularly important, theme therefore is that intelligence does not start and finish with the JIC report. Intelligence assessments are not hermetic and it is overly-simplistic to talk of intelligence as a single unit. Instead, myriad fascinating processes and relationships whir away beneath the final product. These are vital, for they shape the intelligence assessment in numerous, but under-explored, ways. There is more to an interdepartmental intelligence assessment than simply ‘the facts’; whatever they may be. As Philip Davies has recently pointed out, unlike their American equivalents, British assessments primarily strive for agreement over authoritative truth.²⁰ JIC assessments are the product of their environment; they are shaped by the winds of Whitehall. Those involved in writing and scrutinising the reports were under the command of their various ministries, not the JIC. Understanding the messy process and competing pressures within the central intelligence machinery is therefore essential to understanding British interdepartmental intelligence assessments. Indeed, intelligence is a melting pot and JIC conclusions are the product of competing agendas, diverging threat perceptions and jealous departmental turf wars. By tasking and framing issues in a certain way, a dominant department within the drafting process can dangerously alter an intelligence conclusion. Likewise, intelligence assessment is impeded if a particular department is sidelined. It is therefore important to shine a light on the corridors and backrooms of Whitehall to reveal the processes underpinning JIC assessments. This book explores not just the evolution of the actual committee itself, but places it firmly in the context of the broader post-war Whitehall intelligence machine.

By looking beneath the JIC, it is possible to explore the competing conceptions behind a swathe of important issues since the Second World War. How, for example, did Whitehall (in all its complexity) understand imperial decline? How did Whitehall understand the international communist threat? These debates manifested themselves candidly (sometimes caustically) throughout the central intelligence machinery.

David French has recently argued that ‘the ways in which the British conducted their counter-insurgency campaigns was only partly determined by the reality of their enemies’ aims’. Far more important were two other factors: what the British thought were their enemies’ aims, and what strategies they believed would be effective in defeating them.²¹ This reasoning operated at the theatre level but also extended to Whitehall thinking. Disagreements over insurgents’ aims and the nature (and direction) of external support that insurgents received shaped the intelligence agenda and ultimately the assessments themselves. More broadly, understanding how Britain’s changing place in the world was debated, constructed and experienced by those setting the intelligence agenda, composing assessments and reading the product can be particularly insightful—and indeed just as relevant as ‘objective’ accounts of counter-insurgency within the broader international context.

Finally, no examination of the JIC would be complete without discussion of its relationship with the policy community. What role did intelligence play in governments’ responses to political violence? The committee faced a difficult dilemma. Enjoying increasingly close relationships with policymakers, the JIC evolved to acquire ever greater impact. With such status came prestige and policy relevance. This, however, had a negative flipside. Reminiscent of some Faustian pact, input brought with it the perils of politicisation. As the committee ascended the hierarchy, it became subjected to pressures from across Whitehall. Its conclusions were more likely to be manipulated to support a pre-conceived policy idea—or deliberately overlooked if they went against the grain. The JIC walked a fine line.

These interlinked themes tie together to form a central claim of this book. In practice, strategic interdepartmental intelligence is a fluid process. It is almost a battleground, encompassing debates about the nature of security, perceptions of threats, diverging departmental understandings, jurisdictions and inevitable (albeit usually subtle) political pressure.

The Joint Intelligence Committee and the Importance of Strategic Intelligence

Public knowledge of, and media interest in, the JIC has been transformed by Britain’s post-9/11 adventures. Unprecedently thrust into the public limelight during the prelude to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the JIC is a vital body within the British central intelligence machinery. Operating at the interface between intelligence and policy, it has been involved in many of the most important foreign and defence policy decisions taken by the British government since 1945. Its workings there fore serve as a constant throughout the fascinating post-war period of trials and tribulations as successive governments sought to promote British interests and influence in a changing world.

The JIC is an interdepartmental committee. It is currently part of the Cabinet Office but was originally housed within the chiefs of staff committee structure until 1957. The committee has grown considerably in strength, prestige and influence since its creation in 1936 to become the apex of the British intelligence process. It has broadened its focus to deal with a proliferating number of issues; it has acquired representatives from various political departments; it has strengthened its assessment drafting body; and most importantly it has played an increasingly active role at the foundations of the policymaking process.²²

The JIC by no means has an unblemished record, however. Between 1947 and 1951, the committee found that thirty-three different assessments had either proved to be correct (or had not yet proven to be incorrect). Three had proved to be wrong, including a failure to forecast the blockade of Berlin in 1948 and the attack on South Korea in 1950. A further review prior to the Falklands War found that ‘the JIC has been able to assess the military capability of the potential aggressor with a fair degree of accuracy’, but had twice drawn the wrong deduction. The committee’s assessment that Egypt would not attack Israel in 1973 forms one example. Similarly, the Franks Report in the aftermath of the Falklands War criticised the JIC for being too passive and for overlooking relevant political and diplomatic developments.²³

A fundamental feature of the JIC is its ability to bring together key personnel responsible for intelligence collection, intelligence assessment and policymaking in a regular weekly forum. The British system therefore involves an element of fusion between the intelligence and policy communities. While potentially increasing the susceptibility to politicisation, this allows intelligence assessments to be sensitive to the policy context and thus be timely, relevant and useful. Throughout the Cold War and the end of empire years, meetings were chaired by a Foreign (and Commonwealth) Office official.

At the time of the Iraq war, JIC meetings were apparently robust and were ‘never formulaic’.²⁴ Even today, they can include much vigorous and occasionally heated debate. A picturesque account given by Chester Cooper, the CIA’s representative on the committee in the mid-1950s, gives a flavour of the earlier workings of the rather stiff British intelligence and policy communities. He remembers how at his first meeting the Brits (who were apparently very tall) all wore identical dark suits from Savile Row and matching blue striped ties revealing their shared Etonian backgrounds. Identical pairs of spectacles sat aboard their noses—all National Health issue of course. Even at the height of the Cold War, the British amateurs sometimes had their minds on other things. They handed around sections of Greek verse alongside that week’s intelligence documents and apparently translated them into Latin whilst debating the pressing security issues of the day. Committee members also kept up-to-date with the latest cricket score during meetings. Groans around the table were just as likely to emanate from a lost wicket as anything more serious.²⁵

It was not all Greek verse and absorbing conversations about pressing intelligence matters, however: sometimes JIC meetings could be occasions of ‘unsurpassed dreariness’.²⁶ Describing Cooper’s recollections as only ‘partly caricature’, former JIC chairman Percy Cradock remembers that the atmosphere of the committee tended to be austere and scholarly. Bowler hats were common until the 1960s and some of the older men remembered life before the First World War. Others had fought in the Second World War or had enjoyed personal experience of the empire.²⁷ The director of military intelligence in 1946 struggled with JIC meetings: ‘they used to go on for hours’ and ‘very nearly drove [him] insane’.²⁸

Different members of the committee performed different roles. Broadly speaking, representatives from the three intelligence agencies scrutinise the wording of draft assessments. They ask whether any extra intelligence could be added and whether the secret intelligence included is being misused or misunderstood. Representatives from the policymaking departments act like publishers’ readers and scrutinise whether a passage is properly justified, inspect for inconsistencies and ask if a certain section is weak and could be stated more strongly.²⁹ Meetings often deviated from the proposed agenda and a whole range of matters were discussed. At one point in the late 1940s, Guy Liddell, of MI5, expressed concern about his boss attending the JIC alone. Liddell had little faith in the director-general being able to perform well when presented with an array of unforeseen matters.³⁰ Whatever the topic of discussion, committee meetings served (and still serve) as an institutionalised means of contact, dialogue and personal rapport between intelligence and policy-making communities. Regardless of output, this is important in itself to ensure that everyone is working from the same page.

Product, however, is of course central. What then does the JIC actually do? Its roles include providing consumers with coordinated intelligence assessments on a range of matters. These were originally defence-specific but incorporated broader topics as the committee evolved, expanded and gradually challenged traditionally narrow conceptualisations of security. The JIC is also charged with keeping threats to security under review.³¹ Its output broadly aims to inform policy discussions, build situational awareness, provide accurate analysis behind current trends and (to an extent) predict future developments. The JIC and its supporting staff bring together the various strands of the intelligence system into an agreed whole.

How then did the drafting process work? How did departments get their views across? It is a common misconception that the JIC drafts its assessments. The committee does not. Members merely review them and make last-minute alterations before approval and dissemination. Production of the assessments was done by the Joint Intelligence Staff (JIS), which was later replaced by the Assessments Staff. The JIS was composed of three teams, each of which had representatives from the armed services, the Foreign Office and the Joint Intelligence Bureau. Each member made a departmental contribution and papers were then drafted collectively. Assessments were then sent out for departmental review, before being revised by the JIS and sent to the JIC. Committee members had the final say, and one former chairman has described the JIC as ‘the final arbiter of intelligence’.³² A similar process continued from 1968 in the Assessments Staff, although there was a greater role for the intelligence agencies and raw intelligence.³³ The central intelligence machinery takes raw intelligence, comments from the intelligence agencies, contribution from the intelligence analysts and input from the relevant policymaking departments, and places it into the bigger picture by assessing what it all actually means.³⁴ GCHQ veteran Michael Herman has argued persuasively that relevant intelligence disseminated to policy practitioners in a timely manner is an ‘indispensable component of decision-taking’.³⁵

JIC product reflects two characteristics that are central to the British ‘way’ in intelligence: all-source assessment and consensus. Intelligence assessments draw on all available sources in order to provide consumers with comprehensive and coordinated information, from which informed policy decisions can be made. This includes open source material, diplomatic reporting and secret intelligence acquired from the British collecting agencies, or via the Americans with whom London has a long history of sharing information. There is no tradition of dissenting minority judgements within the British system. Indeed, the quest for consensus (as well as the committee system on which it operates) has evolved out of the Whitehall culture of government and its emphasis on collective decision-making. As such, the desire to seek an agreed view has its origins in the creation of the centralised cabinet system in 1916.³⁶

JIC output rests on the foundation that those formulating policy should be provided with one universally-agreed assessment. This differs to the American system of National Intelligence Estimates, which allow dissent via a system of footnotes. At the same time, however, the JIC is (and has always been) a group of individuals representing a range of departments with competing interests and agendas. Divergences had to be overcome within the intelligence assessment process outlined above. As the committee’s official historian, Michael Goodman, has put it: ‘the organisation of British intelligence is a microcosm of the political system within which it operates’.³⁷ Consequently, intra-committee relations and relations between the JIC and other political, intelligence or military actors are crucial. They significantly impacted upon threat assessment and understandings of the broader international framework within which insurgencies broke out.

Operating at the apex of the British intelligence system, the JIC’s assessments are often strategic in nature. Indeed, the British government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010 emphasised a key role of intelligence as ‘providing strategic insight and understanding to inform policy and decision-making’.³⁸ Much of the committee’s output relating to insurgencies dealt with high-level assessments of violence within the regional context which potentially affected British strategic policy. It is important to note that its intelligence assessments therefore did not centre on local details and updates on daily battles. These were, for obvious reasons, conducted by tactical units on the ground close to the action.

By contrast, the JIC operates at the strategic level which is often determined by ministerial objectives. Linking the operational level with the wider context, strategic intelligence considers how trends in violence impact upon broader regional and international factors. This was crucial because unrest not only threatened British interests in one particular territory, but also impacted upon broader and more serious issues relating to the management of imperial decline, the projection of British power overseas and the containment of communism. Conducting strategic intelligence assessments, the JIC therefore aimed not only to ascertain the intentions or capabilities of an adversary (be it a state or a non-state actor) and to consider how a situation may unravel, but also to determine a situation’s strategic implications within a broader policy or international framework.

Over time, the JIC also increased its current intelligence output. By 2004, the committee’s ‘main function’ as outlined by Lord Butler was to provide assessments on issues of both ‘immediate and long-term importance to national interests’.³⁹ The JIC should not therefore be perceived solely as some cumbersome long-term body unable to respond to crises and short-term problems. Like the longer-term assessments, current intelligence output also evolved to cover insurgencies. What the committee added, however, whether looking at short-term or long-term insurgency threats, was an extra layer of strategic intelligence assessment. This was not detailed in terms of tactical updates but considered all available sources, complemented local or departmental-specific intelligence and considered the broader implications of a specific threat. It was ultimately designed to aid policymaking.

Naturally the distribution of intelligence assessments varies depending on the subject of the report. However, recipients generally include relevant military officials and civil servants such as the policy staffs who brief the most senior decision-makers. This serves an important function. As Sir David Omand, himself a former intelligence and security coordinator and JIC member, points out, a ‘strategic appreciation of what is going on, and why, is essential for the formulation of policy advice, and having available up-to-date all source assessment is important as the background against which policy options can be put to ministers, senior officials or service commanders, or be incorporated into briefs written for meetings and negotiations’. Consumers therefore have long included defence planners, the chiefs of staff, the cabinet secretary, ministers’ private secretaries, officials and policy staffs in relevant government departments and certain cabinet committees dealing with the issues at hand. Regarding the ministers themselves, busy senior cabinet members did not eagerly await JIC papers as is perhaps the perception perpetuated by the media. In practice, relevant ministers received ‘a mixed diet by their Private Offices, who [flagged] up any JIC assessments on subjects of interest’, together with a range of other material.⁴⁰

Counterinsurgency is a strategic matter and therefore requires intelligence at the very top level of government. This, however, was no easy task. Irregular warfare, with its inherent fluidity, speed and unpredictability, presents unique challenges to strategic intelligence assessment. Accordingly, the intelligence community has, over a lengthy period, had to adapt to understand and counter these difficult threats. Perhaps surprisingly given Britain’s much proclaimed experience in this form of warfare, it is only very recently that the role of strategic intelligence actors in countering insurgent threats has been considered. As a result, academics and the policy community remain unaware of the important dimension of intelligence in centralised responses to insurgency and political violence. Moreover, they have not recognised the complex challenges which insurgencies pose to strategic intelligence assessment; nor have they absorbed the crucial lessons generated from the British experience during the end of empire.

It is widely acknowledged by scholars and practitioners alike that defeating an insurgency requires a successful combination of military and political action, underpinned by effective intelligence. In the decades following the Second World War, this not only applied at the tactical level, but also centrally in Whitehall. Strategic intelligence played, and continues to play, a number of important roles. It informs decision makers in Whitehall when considering local requests for funds, equipment and the authorisation of counter measures. More broadly, strategic intelligence inputs into wider civilian and military planning on important issues with ramifications beyond the specific theatre of conflict, such as global or regional troop deployment. Finally, it is valuable in informing broader foreign and defence policy which needs to take counter-insurgency progress into account. Insurgencies cross departmental jurisdictions and strategic considerations in Whitehall sought to balance local developments against the broader trends which dominated British policy throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Such trends included firstly managing imperial decline; secondly, the thorny issue of Britain’s global status; thirdly, the international communist threat; and fourthly, severe cuts in British defence spending.

2
UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL

MALAYA, 1948–1951

The Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 is often regarded as an example of successful counterinsurgency strategy from which lessons for later conflicts could be learnt. It remains an important case study regarding the evolution of British counterinsurgency, the response from Whitehall to guerrilla warfare and the nascent role of strategic intelligence. High Commissioner Edward Gent declared emergency regulations in June 1948. In doing so, Gent was responding to unrest and violence led by the Malayan Communist Party’s (MCP) armed wing, the Malayan Races Liberation Army.

In 1947, the MCP had just under 12,000 members, the overwhelming majority of whom were ethnically Chinese. Indeed, around thirty-eight per cent of the population as a whole was of Chinese ethnicity, with the majority having been born in China itself. Fifty per cent of Malaya’s population was ethnically Malay and predominantly Muslim, whilst the remainder were Indian. Given the make-up of the MCP, it is hardly surprising that, as Calder Walton has noted, British officials saw the words ‘Chinese’ and ‘communism’ as synonymous.¹ This was a dangerous conceptualisation, however, as it underplayed local grievances, internal agency and a more nuanced sociological profile of the rural Chinese labourers. Some joined the MCP for ideological reasons, but others had economic motives or saw it as an organisation through which they could realise their frustrated ambitions for a better life. A further particularly important motivation underlying recruitment was that local people saw themselves as ‘refugees’ from the heavy-handed government. Meanwhile, cultural bonds of loyalty between the Chinese should not have been underestimated by the security forces, for they could not be easily severed by the government’s labelling of people as communist or criminal.²

Relatively autonomous units began an unauthorised campaign of robbery and extortion in 1948 which culminated in the murder of three European planters on 16 June. The public were outraged and forced Gent to swiftly impose a ‘State of Emergency’. The insurgency quickly escalated and the number of guerrillas rose from roughly 2,000 in 1948 to nearly 8,000 by the end of 1951. This surge was matched by an increase in British forces, which nearly doubled from ten infantry battalions to nineteen by October 1950. Numbers of police also proliferated in an attempt to quell the violence. In the early years of the insurgency, however, the security situation deteriorated dramatically. In 1951 alone, over 1,000 insurgents, 500 members of the security forces and 500 civilians were killed.³

It was not until the appointment of the talented Harold Briggs as the director of anti-bandit operations in the spring of 1950 that the government launched an effective coordinated counterinsurgency strategy. The Briggs Plan included measures to improve intelligence and aimed to increase cooperation between the military and civil administration. It began slowly but started to see results by late 1951. In the autumn of that year, Henry Gurney, who had replaced Gent as high commissioner, was assassinated. The event was recorded incredibly bluntly by Guy Liddell, deputy director-general of MI5: ‘Gurney has been assassinated in Malaya which will complicate matters very considerably there, although I believe that he has not been regarded as a particularly successful Governor’.⁴

The appointment of the now-legendary ‘Tiger of Malaya’, Gerald Templer, as combined high commissioner and director of operations, revitalised the situation in Malaya from 1952. He built on the foundations laid by Briggs, improved intelligence, enhanced civil-military cooperation and is often associated with the kind of approach now referred to as ‘hearts and minds’—although he was by no means afraid to use the stick as well as the carrot. By 1953, the insurgents were on the defensive and Chin Peng, the MCP leader, was forced to retreat into Thailand. From then on fewer civilians and members of the security forces were killed, whilst the government’s strategy proved increasingly effective. The numbers of guerrillas hiding in the dense jungle began to drop significantly in the mid-1950s, with more and more surrendering or being eliminated. Malaya achieved independence in 1957. This milestone naturally further increased the surrender rate and the emergency was formally ended in 1960.⁵

Despite the war lasting a long twelve years, this case study focuses exclusively on the opening four years of the Malayan conflict, in which ministerial responses, policies and strategies were shaped. According to a former National Security Adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, the early stages of a conflict require more policy decisions by ministers than after violence settles down into a medium- or long-term pattern. Therefore, strategic intelligence becomes particularly useful—although clearly some tension between operational and strategic demands will surface.⁶ Furthermore, the end of 1951 saw the darkest period in the entire emergency and by the start of 1952 the conflict was slowly beginning to turn in Britain’s favour.

Following the demands and horrors of the Second World War, Clement Attlee’s Labour government inherited a country on the verge of bankruptcy. It was militarily overstretched, declining as a global power with worldwide commitments and faced voluminous crises at home and abroad. The twin contexts of imperial decline and the Cold War loomed large. In terms of a broader colonial context, 1948 was a significant year. It witnessed a crisis of imperial rule, with uprisings, strikes and riots across the British Empire, from Burma to Accra. This created a more active and centralised response to colonial security as a whole. In March 1948, for example, the governor of the Gold Coast frantically wired MI5 and SIS in London. He desperately wanted an intelligence officer to come out to the colony to investigate his ‘troubles with the negroes’ whom he thought were involved in a communist plot. MI5 disabused the governor’s mind,⁷ but the episode reveals a new trend in imperial management.

Regarding strategic policy, it was Attlee’s overall intention to transform the empire to a Commonwealth and to aid the route to self-governance. This, however, was subject to practical considerations dictated by short term and Cold War developments, thus decreasing overall cohesion.⁸ Aiding self-governance broadly applied to Malaya, yet strategy was certainly prey to the exigencies of the Cold War.

After initial Whitehall disagreement, the JIC and policymakers acknowledged the ominous threat of Soviet communism. The increasing reality of the Cold War soon overshadowed former priorities and altered the nature of others. It shaped the perspective from which the government viewed the world. By the late 1940s, a consensus had emerged amongst senior politicians and military planners that the Soviet Union represented a long-term threat to the security of the United Kingdom and its overseas possessions. International communism became the overriding defence policy priority. Clement Attlee (who was initially sceptical of the threat) and Ernest Bevin faced a wide variety of Soviet-inspired and -led challenges, including in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia and Berlin. Such challenges swiftly became a priority. Furthermore, the manifestation of the Cold War in the Far East and South-East Asia, generally perceived as an area of British responsibility, presented a host of dilemmas for the government. It impacted greatly upon the appreciation of the situation in Malaya.

Owing to the export of tin and rubber, Malaya was economically important. This was a factor not to be underestimated given the economic pressures on the Attlee government. The war had decimated the British economy and the currency crisis of 1947 served only to stress the significance of economic matters. Politically, the colony was also an essential cornerstone of the British Empire. As South-East Asia became a Cold War battleground, the desire to contain communism, which cannot be separated from British colonial or counterinsurgency policy when examining Malaya, grew increasingly important. In an echo of the Truman Doctrine, James Griffiths, Attlee’s colonial secretary, argued that potential British withdrawal from the federation would result in ‘the subjugation of the Malayan people by a ruthless minority, and the subjugation of their country into a docile satellite’.⁹ Such fears were combined with aspirations of upholding the British position and prestige in the region; the maintenance of which would require victory in Malaya. This fact was not lost on the chiefs of staff, who reported that ‘the British position in the Far East necessitates internal security being restored in Malaya’.¹⁰ As the conflict worsened throughout late 1949 and 1950, it became clear that the British had to modify their response or face defeat.

The JIC in 1948

The year 1948 was a year of intelligence reform in Whitehall. By the end of it, owing largely to wartime successes and the 1947 review into the post-war British intelligence machinery by Air Chief Marshal Sir Douglas Evill, the JIC had gained influence within the Whitehall hierarchy. Illustrating its enhanced reputation, the committee was upgraded from sub-committee to full committee status. The chairman was promoted to the rank of under-secretary in the Foreign Office. This was a contrast to the start of the war when Victor Cavendish Bentinck was JIC chairman. Younger than his colleagues, Cavendish Bentinck began his term at both first secretary and acting counsellor level. These diplomatic ranks placed him problematically below other members of the committee. The powerful directors of intelligence sitting around the JIC table outranked their chairman and patronisingly felt that war was no place for a civilian. To remedy this, Cavendish Bentinck at one point suggested that he be replaced by someone more superior. This fell on deaf ears as the chiefs of staff unsympathetically told him to ‘soldier on’. As a result, Cavendish Bentinck had to rely on his personality and leadership to get by. In this he was in fact very successful and ascended the diplomatic ranks throughout the war.¹¹

Building on its performance in the Second World War, the JIC maintained its network of subordinate sub-committees. The Joint Intelligence Staff (JIS), the committee’s report drafting body, was expanded to reduce further the burden on the JIC.¹² The committee was also aided by, and oversaw, several out-stations that were originally set up during the war, but which had survived and continued to liaise with the JIC in London. Such regional outposts included JIC (Germany), JIC (Middle East) and most significantly for this chapter, JIC (Far East). The JIC in London worked closely with the JIC(FE): London helped set its agenda and offered advice on its reports. Regional JIC(FE) assessments often formed the basis of final JIC reports.

Despite Foreign Office chairmanship and (belated) Colonial Office representation, the JIC in 1948 was a predominantly military committee. It was part of the chiefs of staff system, thus giving it a de facto military nature, whilst the inclusion of the three service directors of intelligence created a military dominance in terms of personnel. Indeed, the records show that it was the military members who tended to most dominate discussion. Despite this, certain military figures feared that the Foreign Office was becoming too powerful within the JIC machinery.¹³This was premature but hinted at future tension regarding the direction of strategic intelligence and the nature of security. The militaristic set-up reflected British priorities and perceived threats at the time. The security system had only recently moved from wartime to peacetime and was only beginning to face up to the emerging Soviet threat which would overshadow the next four decades.

The JIC’s charter was adapted. The committee was now instructed to ‘give higher direction to operations of defence intelligence and security, and to keep them under review in all fields and to report progress’. Similarly, it was to ‘assemble and appreciate available intelligence for presentation as required to the Chiefs of Staff and initiate other reports as the Committee may deem necessary’.¹⁴ Chaired by the Foreign Office, its remit, however, remained wider in practice and this potential to stray into the realm of politics created tension—especially whilst the JIC was existentially chained to the chiefs of staff. Such tension impacted upon how the intelligence agenda was framed and how intelligence assessments were used. Moreover, this dual yet predominantly militaristic nature created some confusion amongst consumers. It hampered the JIC’s role. The JIC, then, was supposed to be the crucial nexus between the diplomats and the military, but this was not without its friction.

In terms of distribution of output, strategic intelligence reports were officially disseminated to the chiefs of staff. Then, subject to approval, they were forwarded on to the minister of defence and, depending on the nature of the report, to the Foreign Office and occasionally to the Colonial and Commonwealth Relations Offices. However, reports generally stayed within the hands of the civil service, as government ministers were not formally on the distribution list until reforms in 1957.¹⁵Strategic intelligence assessments were also distributed to military planners, with whom coordination became increasingly necessary as the Cold War intensified.

By 1948, the JIC included the three directors of intelligence of the service ministries; a chairman from the Foreign Office; the director of the Joint Intelligence Bureau (dealing with scientific and economic intelligence); and the heads of MI5 and SIS. Two other levels of the committee also existed. These included deputy directors and less senior officials and discussed matters of lesser importance. A Foreign Office chairman presided over all three levels. At the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency in 1948, the JIC was chaired by the youthful William Hayter. Coming from a family of empire administrators, Hayter was a scholar-diplomat and upon retirement from the Foreign Office became warden of New College, Oxford. He was certainly more of a thinker than his bustling predecessor as chairman, Harold Caccia. Whatever the instructions, Caccia was primarily a man of action. At the start of 1950 Hayter was replaced by Patrick Reilly. A borderline-workaholic with much influence over Britain’s covert affairs in the early 1950s, Reilly fell more into the Hayter mould. He too went on to enjoy retirement in academic environs of Oxford.¹⁶

Importantly in the context of counterinsurgency, the Colonial Office joined the JIC from October 1948. The move was largely as a result of ongoing security issues within the empire, in which Malaya can certainly be included. Fearing encroachment on their jurisdiction however, the colonial officials were rather reluctant to join and were more or less forced by the prevailing security climate to attend top-level intelligence and security committees across Whitehall.¹⁷ Attendance of the JIC was by no means the Colonial Office’s idea, but was the suggestion of Ernest Bevin and was approved by Attlee himself.¹⁸ Clearly imperial security was becoming a priority as colonial territories became perceived as a front line in the Cold War. MI5 agreed. Percy Sillitoe, for example, on becoming director-general in 1946 quickly recognised the connection between the Cold War and imperial security, and travelled extensively accordingly. Occasionally adorning farcical disguises in an attempt to avoid the press, Sillitoe travelled as far afield as Canada, Africa and New Zealand.¹⁹ Furthermore, George Seel, the first Colonial Office representative on the JIC, had previous experience of the Colonial Office’s South-East Asia desk. This was surely no coincidence and demonstrates the growing importance of security in the region.

All interested departments needed to be represented. It was vital to ensure integrated intelligence assessments took all available sources into account and the Colonial Office’s absence from the apex of the central intelligence machinery at the outbreak of the insurgency is therefore significant. Although Seel’s addition came too late to be of use at the outbreak of violence in Malaya, it proved to be the first step towards greater coordination between the JIC and the Colonial Office, which was integral to accurate strategic intelligence assessment.

However, in 1948 relations between the two remained seriously underdeveloped. This sorely impeded the JIC’s coverage of imperial security. As General Sir Gerald Templer noted in his 1955 report on colonial security, in an era when colonial security was becoming increasingly vital and unstable, it was ‘significant that neither in the JIC Charter, nor in the discussions connected with its production in 1948, nor in the Evill Report on Intelligence of 6th November 1947, was there any mention of Colonial Territories or the Colonial Office, which was not then represented on the JIC’.²⁰ Even after the Colonial Office was dragged grumbling to the committee’s table, no change was made to the JIC’s charter. Moreover, the Joint Intelligence Staff still lacked a full-time Colonial Office representative. The JIC had little input in colonial affairs and held no formal responsibility for overseas territories. Similarly, the Colonial Office had little input into the JIC’s agenda.²¹ Colonial security, therefore, remained under-represented within the central intelligence machinery. This had severe consequences for Whitehall’s understanding of insurgencies. The limited liaison that did exist was generally passive and retrospective, involving brief updates provided by Colonial Office officials. It was with these responsibilities and within this organisational framework that the JIC faced the insurgency in Malaya and its broader regional implications.

Warning and Assessment

Warning of the Emergency

Violence and rioting escalated in early 1948. Culminating in the murder of European plantation managers, it forced the high commissioner to declare a state of emergency on 17 June. A striking feature of the declaration was that the violence took the government by surprise, thereby attracting much criticism of the Malayan intelligence and police organisation. Neither the JIC nor its regional outpost in Singapore foresaw the violence and both failed to warn British authorities about the serious situation. Coming out of the Second World War, the committee had no explicitly defined warning role enshrined in its charter.²² Interestingly however, such a function was informally becoming increasingly expected by the JIC’s military consumers. In fact, William Hayter was forced to defend the performance of the joint intelligence network to his bosses in the chiefs of staff.

Setting intelligence requirements and agendas is vital in ensuring the means to provide warnings. Identifying an emerging insurgency is, however, a particularly difficult task. Carl von Clausewitz famously claimed that identifying ‘the kind of war on which they are embarking’ is ‘the most far-reaching act of judgment that a statesman and commander have to make’.²³ This is problematic when it comes to insurgency and low-intensity operations. As the historian Charles Townshend argues, the beginnings of insurgencies are characterised by low-level action and resistance. They therefore contain ambiguity and obscurity, which makes the intelligence analysts’ job of identifying the conflict more difficult than in conventional warfare.²⁴

Monitoring irregular non-state actors and providing warning of impending violence pose other challenges as well. For example, time pressure is more important than regarding conventional threats, which are characterised by arms build-ups and mass troop movements. When facing a state threat the joint intelligence organisation has time to gradually acquire detailed knowledge of that state, its leadership, hierarchy, military and strategic culture. By contrast, irregular actors and non-state threats can be fluid, less stable and fast moving. Intelligence analysts lack the time to develop comprehensive understanding. Secondly, given the amorphous and uncertain nature of irregular threats, it can be especially difficult to describe a brewing problem to policymakers. As such the danger of mirror-imaging becomes amplified. One is more likely to project one’s own state-centric norms and frameworks onto non-state actors. For example, intelligence analysts (and policymakers) may want to know issues of hierarchy and organisation of groups threatening trouble, when in reality even the potential insurgents themselves may not know such information. Similarly, intelligence and policymakers may be keen to understand non-state actors in a state-centric context by looking for an external state with which to identify the non-state actor. A further difficult issue relating particularly to colonial security was that the actual declaration of emergency was ultimately a political act. It was designed to restore the status quo of British authority over the colonial population. This therefore placed extra pressure on intelligence assessment in terms of the plausibility of objective analysis in a highly politicised colonial context. It is therefore perhaps questionable whether an objective warning could or should have been provided in these circumstances—especially as conflict was arguably inevitable given the natural inequality enshrined in the model of imperial rule.²⁵

The impecunious British government lacked resources to monitor every part of the globe for potential threats. Officials therefore had to make difficult decisions about which of its increasingly numerous priorities warranted attention. The Far East theatre certainly gained importance in the early Cold War years. It hosted a number of communist insurgencies (including in Malaya), the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War, and as such rose rapidly up the intelligence priority list. However, at the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency, the region was not yet considered a priority by either the chiefs of staff or the intelligence authorities. In fact, Hayter complained that the theatre ‘had been accorded low priority for the provision of intelligence personnel’.²⁶

The provision of warning requires a collective effort. The JIC was a potentially useful body to perform such a role—even if the committee did not realise it at the time due to its vague charter. This was particularly the case for strategic warnings of impending insurgencies, which impacted upon the longer-term management of empire, and which therefore required a policy response at the ministerial level. As a result, whilst the declaration of emergency is ultimately a political act, intelligence was expected to warn of the broader rising trends of violence which pre-empted the declaration. That is to say, strategic as opposed to tactical warning.

The British central intelligence organisation is theoretically well-suited to this. It can collate all relevant information and properly evaluate the various and sometimes contradictory sources and departmental interpretations thereof. Moreover, military consumers expected to be notified of any emerging threats to British strategic interests. This could largely be justified through the JIC’s ability to initiate its own reports, its responsibility of keeping under review intelligence as a whole and its responsibility for coordination with the JIC(FE). The JIC provided its outpost with guidance to ‘enable them to plan ahead and allot the necessary effort to subjects on which they might be called upon by London to furnish appreciations’.²⁷ This relationship provided strategic guidance and coordination from London, but also allowed the JIC(FE) to preempt London and have some freedom in setting its own agenda. Moreover, one could have expected some level of warning from the JIC(FE) given that its chairman (along with the regional head of MI5) sat on a Special Planning Committee created in early 1948. This was supposed to report to the British Defence Coordination Committee (Far East) on ‘communistic activities’ in Malaya and how best to counter them.²⁸

William Hayter met with the chiefs of staff in April 1949 to address the lack of warning provided. Hayter acknowledged that the British Defence Coordination Committee (Far East) had ‘a lack of confidence’ in the regional JIC ‘on account of the fact that no warning had been given by the intelligence authorities of the recent disturbances in Malaya’.²⁹ The chiefs of staff in London had lost confidence in the committee too.³⁰ This reveals two insights into the JIC’s evolving counter-insurgency role: firstly, that the joint intelligence organisation was expected to alert the relevant authorities of potential developments; and secondly, Hayter’s subsequent defence of the JIC(FE) before his committee’s military masters indicates the position, and accompanying responsibilities, of the JIC in London. It was the apex of the British intelligence organisation, including overseas. Whilst the emphasis remained on local actors, it was the JIC chairman who was summoned to explain the failure to the chiefs of staff. This meeting therefore possessed a significant legacy. It can be seen as the beginnings of the committee’s warning role regarding irregular threats—a role that continues today.

In his defence of the JIC(FE), Hayter unsurprisingly laid the blame squarely at the feet of hapless local actors. In an argument indicative of traditional concepts of local responsibility in imperial matters, Hayter criticised the ‘the poor intelligence organisation of the Malayan police’.³¹ It would of course be extremely naïve to automatically take Hayter at his word, as it is natural that he would absolve himself of responsibility and direct blame towards local sources. This, however, was a fair point and the intelligence that London received was certainly flawed. Historians have since revealed a catalogue of examples of local intelligence failures,³² which would have fed into the central intelligence system and spread misunderstandings and complacency. To give the most famous example, John Dalley, the unpopular head of the Malayan Security Service (MSS), argued just two days before the start of violence that ‘there is no immediate threat to internal security in Malaya although the position is constantly changing and is potentially dangerous’.³³ Dalley’s outfit was woefully understaffed, short of translators and lacked the necessary resources for the task at hand. Similarly, the Special Branch had just twelve officers in 1948, divided between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Compounding the problem, local records on communism had been decimated as a result of the Japanese occupation during the war, whilst the MSS and Special Branch lost their prize agent within the MCP, Lai Tek. Operational intelligence therefore sharply declined.³⁴

Even when Dalley provided some limited warnings to the Colonial Office, his presentation of that intelligence was so poor that the warnings lacked any impact. His Political Intelligence Journals swiftly became notorious amongst the consumers in the Colonial Office. They were long, detailed and lacked focus. Accordingly warnings were lost in a mass of detail, verbose ramblings and ‘random gossip’. Indeed, recipients acknowledged that the reports contained ‘some most valuable and interesting material’ but lamented that ‘it certainly is rather difficult to see the wood for the trees’. After the violence had broken out, officials scoured past issues of the ‘voluminous journal’ for missed clues but ‘searched in vain’.³⁵ This was despite Dalley’s highly defensive protestations that warnings had been issued.³⁶ It was not all Dalley’s fault however, and the consumers must also receive some blame. For example, one Colonial Office official complacently dismissed a political intelligence summary of May 1948. He argued that its discussion of potential subversion amounted to near ‘melodrama’. It conjured up ‘pictures of hordes of people burrowing mole-like in the interstices of Malayan society or scurrying hither and thither on their mischievous errands, so that one may almost wonder whether that society is not about to rock its fall’. According to this particular consumer, the real threat came from ‘mere bandits’ rather than the communists.³⁷

It is worth remembering that the JIC was not a collection body and merely collated and assessed intelligence. It was therefore somewhat hostage to the quality of information it received. Therefore, given local intelligence weaknesses in terms of collection and presentation, Hayter’s view can be perceived as legitimate to an extent. The blame, however, did not lie entirely on decentralised local factors. Hayter’s proclamations of innocence are legitimate only to an extent. Centralised confusion emanating from structural and bureaucratic weaknesses severely impeded any warning function. Bureaucratic problems, which the JIC was charged to oversee, served to exacerbate local intelligence failures. Tensions among the Malayan security services, extending to the JIC, heightened the inability to predict the violence by decreasing the efficiency with which intelligence was relayed to London. These factors became prominent as the local violence impacted on, and overlapped with, wider strategic matters, thereby inviting the involvement of regional actors such as Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE), which was responsible for the collation and dissemination of security intelligence affecting British territories, and the JIC(FE).

This was problematic. As Richard Aldrich has shown, the ‘intelligence and security services in Malaya and Singapore had never been team players’ and indulged in ‘backbiting’ before and after the Second World War.³⁸ A notable example was the power struggle between SIFE and the ambitious John Dalley. Dalley was a man apt to make enemies. Aside from his difficult personality, rumours of cowardice were rife. Senior members of the intelligence community both locally and in London believed that Dalley had ‘run away’ at the time of the Japanese occupation during the war. This may have been unfair, however, as others have argued that Dalley bravely fought with the communists in the Malayan jungles against the Japanese.³⁹ That he was an unpopular eccentric is, however, undeniable. On top of this, it appears that MI5 Director-General Percy Sillitoe ran an underhand campaign from London to undermine Dalley’s Malayan Security Service in favour of expanding SIFE. The two certainly did not get on well and Dalley at one point referred to Sillitoe as being ‘only a policeman from Glasgow without any security experience’. Sillitoe found the comment ‘grossly offensive’ and demanded an explanation from Dalley, who duly apologised.⁴⁰

As a result of this infighting, Dalley was denied permission to sit on the JIC(FE) despite requests for his attendance from authorities in Malaya. The tension rippled to the very apex of the central intelligence organisation and the request was also vetoed by the JIC. Incidentally, the committee made this decision just one week before the declaration of emergency regulations. Hayter argued the inclusion of Dalley would ‘divert the attention of the Committee away from its main purpose of considering strategic matters towards parochial affairs’.⁴¹ Sillitoe was not present at this meeting and his input in the decision is unclear. In any case, this was a mistake as the ‘parochial affairs’ of Malaya soon became interlinked with broader strategic matters. Indeed, the JIC’s role swiftly became to apply local developments to the broader strategic context. In fact, exasperated local authorities struggled to find a role for Dalley at all. Nobody wanted to be ‘given the baby to carry’ and one official even suggested letting Dalley chair the JIC(FE)—a suggestion dismissed as startling by MI5’s colonial expert Alex Kellar,⁴² but perhaps revealing dismissive attitudes that the JIC(FE) was not deemed a particularly important body. In some quarters at least it appeared suitable for housing an ineffective personality.

The organisation and structure of the JIC(FE) continued to present further bureaucratic problems, hindering any ability to predict and react to the violence. The year 1948 witnessed widespread reform of the regional intelligence body, including a new charter; however, reform left the committee feeling overburdened and confused as to its responsibilities and its chain of command. Alex Kellar, a rather flamboyant character with a penchant for sharkskin dinner jackets as part of his tropical kit,⁴³ was sent out to temporarily head SIFE. Reflecting on the JIC(FE), Kellar complained to his colleagues in MI5 that the committee was too bulky, unable to discuss top-secret matters, and needed reform to improve efficiency. Meanwhile, the chairman of the JIC(FE), Patrick Scrivener, complained of a lack of manpower. He lobbied the JIC in London for some sort of full-time staff. This lingered until 1949, when in February steps were taken to create a full-time Joint Intelligence Staff (FE). In March, Hayter flew out to Singapore to inspect the set-up for himself. Two months later the JIC, the chiefs of staff and the Foreign Office finally agreed, after initially denying, the appointment of a full-time JIC(FE) chairman—although departments continued to bicker about whom that might be.⁴⁴ The increasing importance of the Far East to British interests was belatedly being acknowledged.

The JIC(FE) was confused by its charter and requested clarification from London in the weeks before the outbreak of the insurgency. Not long before the guerrillas struck, intelligence officials admitted to being unclear about lines of responsibility and even ‘certain matters of function’.⁴⁵ Staggeringly, regional intelligence officials, supposedly overseen by London, did not know what they were supposed to be doing and to whom they were supposed to be reporting. This was compounded by similar confusion amongst senior figures in London, including within the JIC, which were not resolved until September 1948.⁴⁶ Such functional confusion and preoccupation with reform and structural issues in the weeks preceding the violence must have diverted attention away from security matters. Although the committee’s minutes are currently unavailable, it would be astonishing if it did not hinder the JIC(FE) in dealing effectively with Malaya.

Centralised structural factors impeded the performance of the JIC itself. There existed no formal system of warning of colonial unrest by the time of the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency in 1948. Culturally, the committee had an inherent dislike of systems. Members preferred instead to rely on ad hoc informality, itself a product of both broader Whitehall culture and a lack of resources to monitor the entire globe. Indeed, Philip Davies has pointed out that what prevailed in the JIC was ‘a sense of quintessentially British “muddling through” (much like the rest of British politics and government)’.⁴⁷ Indicative of this, archival evidence suggests that the JIC did not even realise that a warning role was expected. At one point in the spring of 1949, William Hayter moaned to his colleagues sitting around the JIC table that there appeared to be a ‘vague idea’ amongst the chiefs of staff that the JIC(FE) should have provided warning of the uprising the previous year.⁴⁸ There appears to have been confusion over responsibility. As a British territory, there were already a great number of British officials in the colony who would have been expected to inform Whitehall of emerging threats. In fact the JIC(FE) charter stated that the responsibility for detailed papers on British territories lay with those very local authorities.⁴⁹ Therefore what should have been a great advantage of imperial insurgency as opposed to today—having personnel on the ground in advance—did not pan out as planned.

More importantly perhaps, the JIC had insufficiently developed and integrated relations with the Colonial Office. Remarkably, the latter was not even represented at intelligence’s top table at the outbreak of the violence. Moreover, the committee was not explicitly responsible for overseas colonial territories and lacked a specific jurisdiction over local colonial intelligence matters. Meanwhile, the Colonial Office itself did not have what Templer called an ‘intelligence-mindedness’—hardly surprising given that they were not represented on the JIC.⁵⁰ For example, in 1948 the Colonial Office Defence Department began to prepare monthly intelligence reports, and coordinated with the Foreign Office on content, yet these were considered ‘embarrassingly superficial’.⁵¹ This created something of a vacuum regarding the provision of warning and channels of its reporting, with the central intelligence machinery expecting such a function would be carried out locally and reported through traditional colonial channels.

Similarly, problems existed regarding the Political Intelligence Journals. As mentioned above, issues of presentation seriously impeded the impact of any warnings. They were, according to one exasperated official, ‘a tangled mass of unspun fibres’ and anyone able to draw coherent conclusions from them deserved ‘unstinted admiration’.⁵² Compounding this, it took far too long for the reports to even reach London. For example, the report covering the first week of March was not received by the Colonial Office until 29 April. Even when the journal reached London, lack of centralised integration hindered the intelligence community’s role. The Political Intelligence Journals could not reach the JIC via the Colonial Office, as the latter was not yet represented on the committee. They were, however, also sent to MI5, but this did little to help matters either. Given their vast length, Sillitoe’s animosity towards Dalley and his criticism of the MSS, it is unlikely that they were taken seriously. Moreover, the reports only reached the JIC(FE) indirectly. They were sent to the Governor-General (later Commissioner-General) Malcolm Macdonald in Singapore, whose deputy for colonial affairs sat on the JIC(FE).⁵³ Even if Political Intelligence Journals did reach the JIC system, they would have arrived too late and been too dense to be of use in aiding the committee to provide strategic warnings.

Overall, structural issues and bureaucratic confusion in London compounded by local intelligence failure in Malaya prevented advance warning of the insurgency by the JIC system. Even when Colonial Office papers did reach the JIC, conclusions optimistically dismissed a communist uprising. Instead they stated that communists would work patiently and covertly and that ‘it would be unwise to paint too dark a picture’ of the situation.⁵⁴

On the other hand, the JIC organisation can be exonerated to an extent. Perhaps warning was impossible. There is evidence suggesting that the outbreak of violence was conducted by relatively autonomous units and therefore took even the unprepared MCP leadership by surprise.⁵⁵ If it began from the bottom up, how could intelligence have been expected to warn of an MCP plot? One could argue that the chiefs of staff were guilty of retrospectively transposing state-centric frameworks of top-down organisational hierarchies onto a fluid non-state actor. Regarding insurgencies, consumers must have a realistic expectation of intelligence. That said, a more strategic warning of the mood of discontent among the population could have realistically been expected. Intelligence could have asked whether conditions were ripe for a spontaneous revolt or an autonomous campaign of violence, which had the potential to be exploited by Chin Peng.

From 1951, the JIC did begin to develop a warning capability. This came in the form of the weekly Review of the Situation Round the Soviet and Satellite Perimeter. These reviews, which eventually became the JIC’s Weekly Review of Current Intelligence in the mid-1950s, examined indicators of forthcoming aggression. This important development in the committee’s peacetime role, however, came too late for the outbreak of violence in Malaya. Yet even if the JIC had produced these reports in 1948 it is unlikely that indicators of violence in Malaya would have been adequately provided. Reviews of the Soviet perimeter focused predominantly on Soviet- and Chinese-led and inspired activity, local intelligence in Malaya was weak and the reviews lacked integrated Colonial Office input until 1956. Colonial territories were initially considered as an afterthought to JIC business. Potential insurgencies slipped under the radar.

Assessing the severity of the threat

Strategic intelligence was slow to react to the severity of the threat. This was unsurprising given its reliance on flawed local intelligence and its constraints within an agenda and structure focused on other matters. Authorities initially downplayed the situation in Malaya and possessed an unintentionally optimistic tone; they often implied the conflict would be short-lived. In August 1948, for example, Brigadier Val Boucher, a JIC member representing the director of military intelligence, criticised a JIC(FE) report for being ‘unduly pessimistic’. The following year the JIC opined that ‘the Government’s present campaign should be sufficient to deter new sympathisers from joining the Communist gangs’. Similarly, the Colonial Office representative on the JIC assured the committee in 1949 that the situation in Malaya was improving.⁵⁶

This optimistic outlook was caused by complacency from both below and above. Intelligence received from the colony was weak and based on flawed assessment in that it possessed a tendency to justify the authorities’ own performance and ongoing strategy.⁵⁷ Complacency from above, however, amongst those setting the JIC agenda also figured heavily. The chiefs of staff received optimistic briefings from local authorities too, thereby reducing the need for the situation to feature on the JIC’s agenda. Combined with the lack of Colonial Office input into the JIC’s agenda, Malaya was neglected in a vicious cycle.

The inherent nature of colonial intelligence and security also posed challenges to accurate intelligence assessment in London. The committee did receive some warnings from Malaya alerting them to the severity of the situation, but responded dismissively. For example, the JIC received a copy of a security report from December 1948 to March 1949, which warned that ‘the present conditions may carry on for years’ and that ‘the long term prospects are even less rosy’. The source, an estate manager of a rubber plantation, accused the Malayan government of being out of touch and overly optimistic. Yet the JIC secretary advised committee members to dismiss it.⁵⁸

It would be easy to criticise the JIC for acting with complacency by deliberately ignoring this warning. Yet colonial intelligence was a hugely politicised process presenting a difficult problem for a detached body such as the JIC to ascertain ‘objective truth’. As the imperial historian Martin Thomas has convincingly argued, ‘at every stage of the intelligence cycle, threat assessment was inherently politicised by the dominant ideology of imperialism […] The identification of whom or what constituted a danger to the colonial state stigmatised certain individuals, political parties, tribes, religious communities, or even entire ethnic groups’. Intelligence officers and colonial administrators shared these biases, thereby reinforcing political intelligence throughout the cycle.⁵⁹ The struggle for influence between competing political groups in the colony further politicised security issues. European business interests, for example, were keen to portray a deteriorating security situation so as to push for further draconian measures to be implemented. The JIC would likely have viewed this report in such a context and responded accordingly. Such local pressures made the task of the centralised intelligence assessment mechanisms in Whitehall all the more challenging and vital. Strategic intelligence must be able to step back from local fallacies or biases and use all available sources to offer a balanced assessment. When it came to the politicised world of imperialism, this was particularly tricky.

The JIC was faced with a triumvirate of challenges covering complacency, local politicisation and lack of structural integration with the Colonial Office. Therefore, it was not until the threat became sufficiently serious so as to attract Foreign Office and cabinet attention that the JIC devoted more time to it. In March 1949 the committee explicitly drew the attention of the chiefs of staff to Malaya and warned them of the ‘danger of concentrating on long term plans for Europe and the Middle East to the detriment of plans to ensure that the Communists do not gain control of … Malaya’.⁶⁰ Little action was taken, however, and JIC requirements in the region remained focused on the South China Sea. As the security situation in Malaya deteriorated, the JIC again lobbied the chiefs of staff in February 1950—this time to broaden its regional requirements to include Malaya. Captain Baker-Cresswell, representing the director of naval intelligence, argued that ‘it was considered that the “Cold War” in areas of South East Asia such as French Indo-China and Malaya was now of equal, if not greater importance, than the threat to Hong Kong’. And yet the chiefs of staff took Hong Kong very seriously indeed.⁶¹

The JIC was successful. The chiefs eventually broadened the committee’s requirements accordingly from regular reports looking purely at South China and Hong Kong to a wider examination of South-East Asia, including Malaya. This was clearly a retrospective and reactive response but it allowed the committee to better monitor the situation and deliver regular warnings and updates. Nonetheless, renewed focus on Malaya was fleeting due to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, which thereafter dominated the regional security and foreign policy agenda.

The JIC’s warnings of deterioration in Malaya were distributed to the chiefs of staff and occasionally to the Foreign and Colonial Offices. Meanwhile, as Donald Mackay has written, ‘In some quarters [of Whitehall] … the realisation had finally struck home that matters in Malaya were serious, that there was a strong chance of defeat, and that it was no longer possible to treat the violence as an irritating local problem to be solved by people on the ground without discommoding those in Whitehall with their minds on higher things’.⁶²

It would, of course, be naïve to argue that JIC assessments directly created the simultaneous and subsequent concern with Malaya across Whitehall. Firstly, JIC warnings were far outnumbered by those received by the chiefs of staff and policy practitioners directly from Malaya. Secondly, visits by ministers themselves to Malaya shaped Whitehall assumptions far more than the JIC could ever have hoped to. For example, it was not until June 1950, after James Griffiths accompanied the Secretary of State for War, John Strachey, on a visit to Malaya that the cabinet’s Malaya Committee truly began to feel a sense of apprehension and despondency about the conflict.⁶³ Thirdly, JIC warnings of the worsening situation in Malaya were generally tucked away inside broader reports on the spread of communism in the region. They failed to attract significant consumer attention. Therefore, whilst Malaya rose up government agendas, the JIC served passively to gradually build up the background knowledge of the chiefs of staff and policy practitioners, to facilitate coordination between departments and to supplement local sources.

Broadening Assessments

JIC ‘regionalisation’ and the Cold War prism

In terms of threat assessment, the JIC’s most prominent function was bringing events in Malaya into the wider regional political and strategic context. This was of course utterly dominated by Cold War considerations. Historians of decolonisation acknowledge the importance of external pressures on British imperial policy. Ronald Hyam, for example, rightly emphasises how ‘the British empire rose, flourished, and declined in a particular set of international contexts’.⁶⁴ Similarly, Lawrence Butler has written of the changing geopolitical context in which attempts to manage Britain’s empire were made. Shifts in international relations during the ideological hostility of the Cold War ‘introduced a new set of global conditions to which […] the British imperial system was obliged to respond and adapt’.⁶⁵ Such exigencies increased centralisation and it became the role of the metropolis, aided by the JIC, to help coordinate policy through these extraneous constraints.

Theoretically, the JIC system was well placed to apply developments in Malaya to broader political trends for an interdepartmental audience in Whitehall. Firstly, the committee could liaise with local officials and with the JIC(FE). Secondly, it brought together military, political and intelligence representatives. Thirdly, although JIC members were unable to quibble with specific details handed to them by the experts, they supposedly had the judgement and experience necessary to examine the bigger picture. JIC assessments therefore, compiled by departmental specialists and overseen by the committee, allowed consumers to be aware of broader implications when making decisions.

Percy Sillitoe was a fan. He urged the JIC to take further control over interdepartmental issues such as the spread of communism outside the Soviet orbit. Sillitoe recognised that the JIC offered ‘the most efficient way of collating all relevant material on this specific subject’. ‘The JIC machinery’, according to the director-general, ‘is well fitted furst [sic] to harness all resources […] and in the last analysis to edit their [SIFE and SIME] products with the assistance of the necessary Foreign Office and other specialists available in London’. Greater JIC control was intended to increase consideration of all intelligence sources and enhance the attention paid to overseas territories.⁶⁶ In theory such an approach aided British policymaking in so far as Cold War considerations, colonial policy, foreign policy, defence planning and counterinsurgency strategy were closely intertwined. However, the ultimate utility of internationalising the insurgency wholly depended on the accuracy of threat assessments in determining the relationship between internal and external factors.

From the outbreak of insurgency, external Cold War dimensions impacted upon understandings of the conflict. The JIC perceived the violence as being internationally influenced and the committee accordingly conceptualised Malaya as part of the broader Cold War. Tellingly, there exist very few JIC reports with ‘Malaya’ specifically in the title.⁶⁷ The JIC was far less interested in assessing the evolution of the insurgency between 1948 and 1951. This was the job of authorities on the ground. Accordingly, the committee only commented on the progress of the counterinsurgency campaign as part of broader assessments on the spread of communism.

There is ongoing debate regarding the extent to which international communism directed the outbreak of the insurgency, with early historians arguing in favour of a ‘Cold War orthodoxy’. This traditional account attested that Malaya was part of a worldwide Soviet-inspired communist campaign, initiated by a joint conference of the International Union of Students and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (both groups were controlled by Moscow) in Calcutta in early 1948.

Since the 1970s, however, historians have generally preferred a revisionist account. This suggests that the MCP’s central committee launched (or stumbled upon) the uprising internally in March 1948.⁶⁸ More recently, Karl Hack and Geoff Wade have posited a ‘post-revisionist’ thesis in which they emphasise the international element but as part of a dynamic two-way relationship with internal factors. They argue that ‘Zhdanov’s “two camp” line [the idea that the world was divided into two camps—that of Western imperialism and Soviet anti-imperialism—and that conflict was inevitable] was being disseminated amongst Asian parties by late 1947, causing […] by February 1948, a widespread and dramatic reappraisal of policies in parties across much of Asia’. Therefore, MCP decisions ‘were firmly anchored in, and justified by, the changing international communist line’ which had moved away from past optimism and united front policies.⁶⁹ The role of external Soviet-led communism was not clear-cut but was certainly subject to nuances and complexities.

Despite such intricacy, it swiftly became accepted within Whitehall that the conflict was inseparable from wider considerations. Malaya became heavily bound up with the spread of communism across China and South-East Asia. State-centric focus on externalities began as soon as the violence erupted. This view was put particularly grandiloquently by Bernard Montgomery, the outspoken former chief of the Imperial General Staff. In 1951, he described Malaya in the context of: ‘the contest between East and West, between Communism and Democracy, between evil and Christianity’. He further proclaimed that the Cold War was ‘approaching its climax [and the] main objectives of Stalin are today in the East’.⁷⁰ Whatever the nuanced intricacies of the situation, they clearly did not appeal to ‘Monty’.

International communist patterns were also stressed by the Foreign Office. Placing Malaya in the regional (or even global) and state-centric Cold War context, diplomats argued that Cominform ‘must have’ had a plan for South-East Asia. Despite having no direct evidence of Soviet involvement, diplomats also played up the links between the MCP and Chinese communists.⁷¹ It is more difficult to generalise about the Colonial Office view, as different officials expressed different interpretations. On the one hand certain colonial papers were stating that it was not possible to single out any one incident as leading to the change-over of the policy of the Communists from indirect to direct action.

On the other hand the colonial secretary was quick to point to communism. Two weeks after the declaration of emergency he informed the cabinet that ‘the trouble is almost certainly communist-instigated, though direct connection between the gangsters and the Communist Party cannot always be traced’.⁷² He later warned all colonial governors that ‘the sources which have inspired the outbreak in Malaya […] are on the look-out for similar opportunities elsewhere’.⁷³ Elsewhere, the rather sedate figure of Marston Logan, an official in the Colonial Office’s Defence Department, was busy compiling fortnightly reports on communist activities in the colonies for the Foreign Office. These reports quickly recognised the role of international communism and traced the direction of the uprising back to Cominform headquarters.⁷⁴

The broader Cold War did gradually impact upon colonial thinking as the year drew on. According to Frank Furedi, ‘government departments such as the Foreign Office and the War Office bombarded imperial mandarins with warnings about the threat of subversion’, and ‘Foreign Office pressure in particular boosted Cold War thinking in the Colonial Office’.⁷⁵ The archives support this claim. For example, Reginald Hibbert, then a rigorous and straight-laced junior official in the Foreign Office, later admitted as much. He stated that: ‘On one or two occasions we have entered into correspondence with the Colonial Office to try to impress on them our view of the communist threat in south east Asia and the part which the Malayan Communist Party plays in it. I think we should continue to impress our views on the Colonial Office whenever we can’.⁷⁶

As the year progressed, Colonial Office reports increasingly recognised links between the MCP, China and the Cominform. Logan was convinced and, in October 1948, pointed to ‘the evidence of direct connection between the Cominform and the present outbreak of lawlessness as organised by the Malayan Communist Party’. He added that ‘the presence in Bangkok of an unnecessarily large Russian embassy, the contacts in Calcutta a few months ago of Communist representatives from Europe and Asia, [and] the close similarity in experience between Cominform directive and Malayan Communist Party publications form together substantial grounds for regarding the outbreak as stimulated by Moscow’.⁷⁷ Even before the outbreak of violence, the Colonial Office informed the JIC that ‘there is no evidence of direct Russian influence’ amongst communism in Malaya, but interestingly warned that ‘there are signs that increasing attention is to be paid to Asia as a field for spreading communism’, and pointed to the forthcoming Calcutta Conference as evidence.⁷⁸ By 1950, the agreed line was that the MCP was ‘part of the Kremlin’s worldwide campaign against western powers’.⁷⁹ Despite this, certain sections of the Foreign Office continued to accuse their colonial counterparts of downplaying international trends.⁸⁰

MI5 also appear to have emphasised the external origins of the Malayan violence. Percy Sillitoe even argued that it predated the Calcutta Conference. In October 1948, he sent an interesting note to the head of SIFE which is worth quoting at length:

there is little doubt, in our opinion that the Malayan Communist leaders must have received some direction from Moscow, either directly or through the Chinese Communist Party or some other channels, such as the Soviet Embassy in Bangkok, which led them, at the beginning of [1948?] to start preparations for action. Sharkey’s [leader of the Australian Communist Party] visits to Malaya and the proceedings of the Congress of the Communist Party of India and the Calcutta Youth Conference in February and March, 1948, added fuel to their flames.⁸¹

In the same month, an SIS document highlighted the importance of ascertaining the extent to which local communist parties were directed by Moscow. The priority was re-iterated in a memo circulated by Dick White, then a senior officer at MI5, in February the following year.⁸² Such thinking clearly featured prominently on the intelligence agenda.

The JIC is a product of its constituent parts. Given the predominance of the Cold War mindset amongst its member departments, the committee unsurprisingly followed suit and blamed external communist forces for influencing the Malayan violence. This perception was significant in shaping the policymaking context. In July 1948 the JIC warned cabinet members and local authorities that ‘the fundamental aim of the Soviet leaders is to hasten the elimination of capitalism from all parts of the world … [through] aggressive promotion of Communism in all parts of the world’.⁸³ Intelligence blamed the outbreak of violence in Malaya on the aforementioned Calcutta Conference. The JIC, which at the time assumed ‘an identity of interest between Peking and Moscow and tended to treat China almost like a Soviet possession’,⁸⁴ asserted that the conference ‘should probably be regarded as evidence of the higher priority given by the Soviet leaders to the promotion of Communism in the Far East and South-East Asia in particular’. According to the committee’s intelligence, ‘these meetings were closely followed by a marked intensification of Communist activities including strikes and terrorism in Burma and Malaya’.⁸⁵

This was a mistake. Recently released Soviet archival documents undermine the theory, at least in terms of direct instruction. No orders from Moscow were passed to local communists to rebel. Instead, Soviet involvement leading up to the Calcutta Conference involved a desire for increased information and links but also caution about the prospects of Asian communist parties. Chin Peng and the MCP were aware of outside influences but did not receive specific instructions from outside the colony including from the Soviet Union or China, to instigate an insurgency. Instead it was driven by local grievances and small town loyalties.⁸⁶ Whilst the committee was correct in looking to a broader international trend to an extent—by 1948 armed communist uprisings had occurred in Malaya, Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia—intelligence assessments did not go far enough in emphasising the relationship between external and internal factors. Whilst the insurrection was portrayed as being inspired by forces in Moscow or Beijing, local colonial authorities later admitted that evidence for this was scant.⁸⁷ By 1950, John Strachey, the secretary of state for war, was informing cabinet that ‘there seems to be little evidence that either Russia or China is giving much direct assistance to the Malayan uprising’. If so, Strachey argued that this was simply following communist precedent: ‘only a minimum amount of help, except in exceptional conditions, has been given to Communist Parties who have entered into armed struggle in various parts of the world’.⁸⁸

The JIC further concluded that Soviet-driven communism would aim to exploit nationalist grievances. This idea became a trend regarding intelligence assessments during the first fifteen years of the Cold War. It was, for example, repeated seven years later in relation to the Cypriot insurgency. The JIC reaffirmed its stance at the end of 1948. Leaving little doubt, intelligence stated that in Malaya, as well as Burma and Indonesia, ‘there is a strong reason to believe that the change in policy was occasioned by factors in the international, rather than the national, situation’. Soviet strategy, according to the JIC, aimed to forge ‘a militant Communist front in the Far East’, including in Malaya, which would include aggravating conflicts between imperialism and oppressed colonial peoples. When solely discussing Malaya, the committee did show some awareness of changes in local MCP policy, but emphasised how it was ‘clearly based on Zdhanov’s review of the international situation’.⁸⁹

In fairness, the committee did attempt to demonstrate awareness of the complexities of the situation. Intelligence tried not to conceptualise the violence solely as an order issued directly from Moscow. But such discussion lacked detail. For example, the JIC acknowledged that international communism ‘offered the general guidance which the Asian Communists had lacked […] and was partly responsible for the subsequent re-orientation of Communist policy in […] Malaya’. This was tantalisingly close to the truth. Having noted only general guidance and partial responsibility however, the assessment failed to elaborate on the interplay between this and other internal factors.⁹⁰ Perhaps it was the utter inadequacy of local intelligence that prevented the more sophisticated discussion of internal factors. As is often the case in insurgencies (and was to happen in Cyprus and Aden), intelligence started to dry up as police informant networks were targeted by the guerrillas.

Painting the bigger picture as the violence progressed

The JIC not only looked to international factors when assessing the causes of violence. As the conflict progressed, intelligence assessments continued to internationalise events in Malaya. However, by 1949, the JIC’s state-centrism began to focus more on China than the Soviet Union. This shift perhaps reflected growing doubts about the monolithic nature of world communism following the Soviet-Yugoslav schism in June 1948. The JIC inserted caveats into the standard line that Mao was a loyal disciple to Moscow, speculating ‘whether Chinese Communists will remain loyal to Moscow when national interests and the policy of the Kremlin are in doubt’.⁹¹ Focus on China also reflected Foreign Office thinking, where officials had since reappraised views of the Calcutta Conference. According to Reginald Hibbert, any suggestion that the MCP was controlled by Moscow via Calcutta ‘seemed very farfetched;’ it was far more connected to Chinese communism.⁹²

Greater divergences between Foreign Office and Colonial Office thinking were more prevalent and increasingly acrimonious when it came to external links with China. Criticising the latter’s inexperience in dealing with communism, Hibbert argued that the ‘Colonial Office underestimate the MCP, misunderstand the relationship between overseas Chinese and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], and draw the wrong conclusions about the relative positions in communist strategy of the MCP and CCP’.⁹³ For its part, MI5 officials also moved towards the Chinese assistance, if not direction, thesis. In 1950 MI5’s security liaison officer for Malaya confirmed that the Chinese were ‘training repatriates’ from Malaya with a view to infiltrating them into the colony. Not wishing to totally dismiss potential Soviet influence however, he added that ‘whether the Soviets will be prepared to stand by and watch the C.C.P. attain this theatre leadership, or whether it will once again intervene in an attempt to link the M.C.P. to itself […] time alone will show’.⁹⁴

Owing to a lack of Colonial Office input into the intelligence process, it was the Foreign Office and MI5 view that influenced JIC assessments. The committee argued that Russia had delegated ‘at least some measure of responsibility’ to the Chinese Communist Party, which, it claimed had overseas branches in Malaya.⁹⁵ The JIC echoed Foreign Office and MI5 concerns of CCP support and their belief ‘that there is an identity of interest and purpose’ between the Malayan and Chinese parties.⁹⁶ Accordingly, the committee further warned that there were signs of the beginnings of direct assistance from the overseas branches of the CCP to indigenous communist parties, including in Malaya.⁹⁷

Interestingly, however, an annex attached to the JIC report gives a detailed breakdown of communism in Malaya. Unlike the main section of the assessment, the Malaya discussion better reflects Colonial Office views that ‘so far as we know, the Chinese Communist Party did nothing to promote, and is doing nothing to perpetuate, the present campaign of violence in Malaya’.⁹⁸ Consequently there is no reference to links (even merely at the level of moral support) between the MCP and CCP. This is a fascinating case of intelligence disconnect within a JIC report. It is likely that the Colonial Office wrote the section on Malaya and had it inserted into the JIC assessment without integrated interdepartmental analysis at the JIS level, on which the Colonial Office lacked a full-time representative. This explains why the main section of the report, drafted by the JIS, differed starkly from the annex. This is not to argue necessarily that either the Foreign Office or Colonial Office was right or wrong, but that without Colonial Office integration into the centralised assessment machine, reports could never be truly interdepartmental, coherent and consensus-based. From late 1949 onwards, after the CCP had gained power in China, JIC reports more explicitly warned of Chinese links with the MCP, including in the country-specific annexes. This illustrates more interdepartmental agreement brought about by the changed international circumstances since September 1949.⁹⁹

Despite the flaws, such regionalised assessments played an important role. They helped policy practitioners coordinate Malaya-specific policies with broader Asian foreign and defence policy. Conversely, they also offered an extra layer of understanding for those responding directly to Malaya. Regarding the Chinese Civil War for example, strategic intelligence assessments argued that communist successes would increase the security threat in Malaya, as government forces would obtain less assistance from the local population. Similarly regarding Korea, the JIC assessed that ‘as a result of United Nations reverses in Korea, the moral [sic] of the indigenous Communists in Burma, Siam and Malaya will be raised considerably, and a deterioration in the situation in these countries must be expected’.¹⁰⁰

Interestingly early enunciations of domino theory were also prevalent in strategic intelligence assessments. As early as December 1949, Malcolm Macdonald argued that if Indo-China were lost, Siam and Burma would shortly follow, and international communism would then be on the borders of Malaya.¹⁰¹ As fears of such a scenario mounted, officials in London viewed Indo-China as the key to South-East Asia and this was regularly reflected in JIC assessments that placed Malaya firmly in the context of Indo-China. The committee wrote that ‘the weakness of the French in Indo-China has increased the threat to Siam and Malaya’, and in an explicit articulation of domino theory emphasised that ‘if Communists gain control of Indo-China, Siam and Burma will quickly fall and our chances of holding Malaya would then become slender’.¹⁰² The JIC believed that the conflict could not be treated in isolation, and that policy practitioners needed to consider regional developments in order to fully appreciate the local situation.

As the conflict progressed, fears of an impending conventional war in the region became entrenched in the agendas of the chiefs of staff—and by extension the JIC. The JIC continued to view Malayan developments in the broader regional context, but from late 1950 and throughout 1951 this was more in relation to broader hypothetical conventional warfare than in counterinsurgency terms. Fear of communist invasion caused the chiefs of staff to examine grander scale defence planning, thus diverting JIC attention away from irregular threats. Driven by the military’s agenda, the role of the JIC to internationalise local security fundamentally remained—but the external developments themselves were ominously changing. For example, the JIC wrote that an enemy advance would certainly be considerably assisted by the guerrilla warfare, and that the threat of an advancing communist army would cause a ‘steady increase in the internal security problem in Malaya’.¹⁰³

As early as January 1949, the chiefs of staff began to plan for a conventional attack on Malaya. They encouraged the JIC to do the same by assessing the scale of potential communist attacks on British colonies. These intelligence appreciations, which were not initially a priority for the committee, had an impressive dissemination list. They reached the chiefs of staff, the colonial secretary, and Henry Gurney, who had since replaced Gent as Malayan high commissioner. As the Cold War intensified, intelligence warned that Malaya would be in danger of an air attack at the outbreak of a potential conventional war and such fears remained on the JIC agenda throughout the early years of the Malayan conflict.¹⁰⁴ Issues were conceptualised within a state-centric militaristic framework. This was a regular pattern in JIC assessments of counterinsurgencies and was not broken until the JIC moved to the Cabinet Office in 1957, by which time it could broaden the scope of its reports to better include political and non-defence-specific threats.

With the Cold War intensifying, there was a tendency to exaggerate international involvement in the Malayan Emergency. Intelligence viewed the conflict predominantly through a Cold War prism and simplistically conflated imperial developments with Cold War developments. Moreover, owing initially to a lack of informants and records, analysts faced a poverty of local intelligence. With little accurate intelligence emanating from the region, JIC assessments were prone to look towards the international framework. This was obviously an important factor; however, local intelligence failure was compounded by three more central interconnected forces to help explain why the JIC adhered to the Cold War orthodoxy: cognitive closure, agenda setting, and structural and organisational factors.

Intelligence assessments were faced with increasing global complexities, a delicate interplay between internal and external factors and the lack of a counterinsurgency model to aid deductive analysis. As a result intelligence forced these ambiguities into a pre-existing, stable and structured framework—that of the Cold War—so as to reduce uncertainty. Recent research into the psychology of intelligence assessments indicates that there is often a desire for a definitive and fixed answer (even if flawed), over ambiguities and confusion. Such cognitive closure can provide succour in a complicated world.¹⁰⁵ This persuasive argument builds on CIA veteran Richard Heuer’s seminal research, which argued that ‘when evidence is lacking or ambiguous, the analyst evaluates hypotheses by applying his or her general background knowledge concerning the nature of political systems and behaviour’.¹⁰⁶ That the threats facing Britain in the years following the Second World War were complicated and ambiguous cannot be denied, as they involved a mixture of nationalist uprisings, traditional imperial defence, external communist subversion and the threat of conventional warfare.

Similarly, it has been argued that ‘to experience anti-colonial disorder as a consequence of the Cold War was to flatter the self-image of the imperial mind’. It was therefore understandable for policy practitioners and intelligence analysts to interpret unrest as a consequence of external subversion, ‘not as an explosion of spontaneous, and indigenous, anger’.¹⁰⁷ Recognising the local roots of colonial rebellions would have entailed acknowledging serious grievances. This was likely to have been unacceptable to the official mind as any such recognition would have implied serious flaws in Britain’s imperial model. Neither of these cognitive flaws in intelligence assessment necessarily resulted from the deliberate manipulation of evidence to support the overarching policy and strategic context: such politicisation can be subconscious and a result of cognitive closure. Interestingly a JIC(FE) report of 1950 appeared to rule out local agency altogether. It concluded that ‘owing to the importance of external factors and the impossibility of predicting developments in surrounding territories further ahead, it was not considered that an attempt to forecast the course of events in Malaya in 1951 and 1952 would be of any use’. Perhaps proximity to the colony heightened this strand in JIC(FE) thinking. The assessment was, however, very favourably received by MI5 in London.¹⁰⁸

The Cold War mindset impacted upon the intelligence agenda and the manner in which issues were framed. Although the JIC did possess some scope to set its own agenda, intelligence assessments were predominantly commissioned by the chiefs of staff, who were gravely concerned about international communism. Accordingly, their strategic appreciations were understandably dominated by the Soviet threat.¹⁰⁹ As an interdepartmental committee, the JIC was not expected to issue detailed reports solely on Malaya—that was the job of the Colonial Office. The JIC therefore was expected to place developments in Malaya into a broader political context: a context that was dominated by the Cold War and fear of the spread of communism, thereby creating a politicised cycle in which the dominant view was continually reinforced. To offer just a few examples, the JIC was commissioned to write reports on topics such as communist influence in the Far East in April 1949 and again a year later. The committee wrote a regular series of reports monitoring ‘The Chinese Communist Threat in the Far East and South-East Asia’ throughout 1950. The answers received depended heavily on the questions asked and issues were framed in such a way that any discussion of Malaya would naturally emphasise external communism.

JIC assessments followed a similar pattern until the end of the Malayan Emergency in 1960. The committee’s attention did gradually turn elsewhere, however. The Korean War dominated the agenda in the early 1950s and as the violence in Malaya was increasingly brought under control, the JIC focused on other insurgencies, such as Cyprus. When considering Malaya in the mid-1950s, the JIC continued to place assessment within the broader context of South-East Asia as a whole and against the backgrounds of international communist intentions. The committee continued to offer brief updates of the counterinsurgency campaign, but only as part of its annual reviews of international communism. In doing so, the JIC noted in 1952 and 1953 that the government was gaining the upper hand. Demonstrating much evolution from 1948, it also acknowledged the importance of winning over the local population in Malaya.¹¹⁰

The committee increasingly saw Indo-China as the key to the region, fearing that if it fell to the communists then Siam might follow. Between 1952 and 1956, Malayan security was predominantly assessed in this light.¹¹¹ Moreover, intelligence continued to examine Malaya in the context of a potential global war. The JIC was concerned about the impact of the security situation on the UK’s ability to play its full part in the regional South-East Asian defence plan. Intelligence commented on SEATO papers, considered possible air threats to Malaya and assessed the form of a potential (if unlikely) Chinese attack.

Policy impact

In spite of regular output, JIC threat assessments on Malaya often lacked policy impact. Between 1948 and 1951, the JIC remained a relatively young committee and was inexperienced in its peacetime role. Although committee reports were later used as an interdepartmentally agreed foundation for policy discussions, the committee’s assessments of irregular threats during the years after the Second World War were somewhat neglected. This was a result of the committee’s constraint within the chiefs of staff military structure, lack of integration with the Colonial Office and confusion both amongst consumers and within the JIC itself about the committee’s role.

Despite Foreign Office chairmanship, the JIC was ostensibly a military committee with wartime experience, but by 1948 was constrained by its military shackles as it sought a peacetime role. Dominance of military personnel around the intelligence top table caused the committee to be pulled in a military direction at the expense of broader interdepartmental assessments. For example, in August 1949 the JIC was coordinating with the Foreign Office on a report covering the implications of Chinese communist successes. However, Charles Packard, the director of military intelligence, criticised the report for not being militaristic enough and for not being of enough use to military consumers such as the Joint Planning Staff (JPS) and, by extension, the chiefs of staff.¹¹² Similarly, the next director of military intelligence, Arthur Shortt, again tried to pull the JIC in a military direction the following year. In an attempt to reduce the volume of JIC work, he argued that the JIC should not ‘undertake the preparation of reports of a political character’.¹¹³ This was a continuing theme amongst military members of the JIC.

Chairman Patrick Reilly swiftly overruled Shortt’s suggestion. Illustrating tension within the committee about threat prioritisation and the nature of the JIC’s peacetime role, Reilly rightly stated that ‘political considerations were tending to become more and more closely related to military affairs and, from the planning point of view, the political aspect was an important factor in dealing with a large number of current factors’.¹¹⁴ Reilly’s comments emphasised how the Cold War had blurred traditional political and military intelligence boundaries, including regarding insurgency in Malaya. Despite laying the conceptual foundations for later reforms, the comments were met with hesitance from military representatives.

Regardless of Reilly’s rhetoric, as part of the chiefs of staff system the JIC was deemed too military-heavy to conduct appreciations involving political implications. It consequently lacked direct input on certain interdepartmental issues, such as the presence of Chinese consuls in Malaya.¹¹⁵ Perhaps its most notable impact on non-defence matters related to the JIC’s brief—but ill-fated—advice regarding nomenclature. JIC suggestions to refer to the insurgents as Chinese bandits (the committee thought the term ‘terrorist’ held connotations with British defeat in Palestine and that the Soviets would exploit any reference to nationalism) were briefly mirrored by the Foreign and Colonial Offices.¹¹⁶ Ultimately, however, they proved short-lived as Attlee began to recognise communist China at the end of 1949, rendering official reference to Chinese bandits politically infeasible.

Conversely, the JIC, chaired by a Foreign Office official, was deemed too political and interdepartmental for many of the narrow military tasks involving Malaya. It therefore floundered; suspended between two spheres. Consequently, the JIC’s limited policy impact was twofold: coordinating intelligence for the chiefs of staff in an attempt to gradually build up consumers’ background knowledge thus making them better informed to fulfil their duties, and secondly in intelligence-related input into broader defence planning. The former was an important JIC peacetime role: the cumulative influence of regular and accurate intelligence increases background knowledge, shapes understanding and helps create well-informed policies.¹¹⁷ There was little direct policy impact, however. The JIC received, and commented upon, local reports from the theatre and ensured that such intelligence was coordinated and disseminated to the chiefs of staff. Indicating the military dominance within the committee, it was often the service directors of intelligence who passed such intelligence on to their respective chief of staff. It was thus the military personnel who provided an important link with the primary consumers.

Regarding defence planning, JIC input became more important as the chiefs of staff increasingly feared a conventional war. In a merging of boundaries symptomatic of Cold War thinking, a combination of threat assessment and defence planning was now required. Therefore, the JIC had to liaise effectively with the Joint Planning Staff, whose role it was to advise the chiefs of staff on defence planning matters. Despite the potential for overlap and role confusion, the two bodies worked effectively together and held regular meetings that fostered personal contact and liaison. The Joint Planning Staff occasionally asked the JIC for specific input and often successfully incorporated JIC conclusions into their own reports, which regularly strayed into the JIC’s realm of threat assessment. This allowed the JIC’s ideas to be applied to strategic planning considerations and helped the planners assess the specific action required.¹¹⁸ Such coordination allowed the JIC and the Joint Planning Staff to complement each other’s roles and expertise, and illustrates how consumers used JIC reports to bring intelligence aspects into broader defence planning appreciations.

Confusion regarding the best use of the JIC reigned, however. It resulted in an underused source with unfulfilled potential and created an ultimate lack of coordinated strategic intelligence reaching the primary consumers. Gerald Templer, then vice chief of the imperial general staff, declared in May 1949 that ‘the Chiefs of Staff were not at present in a position to give an immediate and coordinated appreciation of the situation in the Far East’. He also admitted that ‘although factual information was available in Whitehall, the situation was constantly changing and it would at any time be difficult to assemble all the available information into a composite appreciation at short notice’.¹¹⁹ This appraisal was significant for this was precisely the role of the JIC: to assemble and appreciate all available intelligence as required to the Chiefs of Staff. It was the JIC’s role to take intelligence, including that from Malaya, and appreciate it into a unified and coherent assessment, bringing disparate developments into a regional strategic and political context. It therefore becomes apparent that when it came to setting agendas the JIC was underused, and perhaps under-appreciated by the chiefs of staff.

Intelligence ‘Management’

Intelligence reform was vital from the very start of the Malayan insurgency. Weak intelligence from the theatre severely hampered the ability to predict and respond to the violence. Government officials in the theatre, and by extension in London, received little information about the guerrilla bands and local loyalties. The JIC’s involvement in colonial affairs following the Second World War was negligible and, despite increased centralisation, the committee remained passive observers during the all-important formative years of the violence in Malaya. Local actors were clearly of paramount importance, however, and intelligence reform was recognised by Harold Briggs, the new director of operations, as being a crucial aspect in the fight against the guerrillas. He created a Joint Intelligence Advisory Committee at the federal level and appointed a new director of intelligence, William Jenkin (who had enjoyed a distinguished career in the Indian Special Branch and the Indian Intelligence Bureau).¹²⁰

As a result of the overarching communist threat, reforms became increasingly centralised. Officials in London sought to ‘give Colonies the lead which they now required’.¹²¹ Regarding colonial security and intelligence, both a lead agency (MI5) and a lead department (the Colonial Office) existed to implement and oversee reform from London where necessary. For example, MI5, whose jurisdiction included British colonies, aided reform by pressuring the Malayan Security Service to disband and by setting up the new Special Branch, whilst Alex Kellar, MI5’s leading colonial expert, was sent out to head SIFE.¹²²

Similarly, the Colonial Office adopted a more active and centralised approach to colonial security following the various imperial crises of 1948. For example, Arthur Creech Jones, the colonial secretary, dispatched William Nicol Gray to Malaya as commissioner of police. Gray had been inspector general in Palestine and, according to some, came with a brusque manner and a dangerous tendency to militarise the police.¹²³ More broadly, Creech Jones also attempted to coordinate a review of colonial security and intelligence organisations in the summer of 1948. Following the violence in Malaya and unrest in the Gold Coast, this came about as a result of pressure from Bevin and Attlee at the very top of government. In August 1948 he sent a circular despatch to governors stressing the need to review the efficiency of intelligence and security structures. He also took steps towards an appointment of an inspector general of colonial police to advise on police and intelligence matters.¹²⁴

Thinking about imperial security brought with it an increased focus on interdepartmental coordination. Creech Jones liaised with his counterparts in the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, whilst other ministers also impressed upon the Colonial Office the need to enhance its own internal intelligence organisation. Senior colonial officials thus discussed, in October and November 1948, measures to ‘improve the machinery […] for the collation of political intelligence, and for advising ministers on the political, economic, and other repercussions in Colonies of events in Foreign and Commonwealth countries’. This was to include ‘some kind of central intelligence department’ designed to ‘forecast probable developments’ and ‘draw attention in advance to the possible effect in colonies of outside events which on the surface have no direct relevance to Colonial Affairs and prepare “appreciations” for Ministers’ information and guidance’.¹²⁵

How then did the JIC fit into this framework? Once again there existed confusion over the committee’s role and supposed level of input. The JIC’s charter instructed the committee to ‘keep under review the organisation of intelligence as a whole and in particular relations of its component parts so as to ensure efficiency, economy, and a rapid adaptation to changing requirements’.¹²⁶ This has management and oversight connotations but is vague in terms of the committee’s actual role, particularly given the lack of explicit jurisdiction over colonial territories—where the Colonial Office and MI5 were active and understandably took the lead role. These managerial functions were a lesser priority than the production of intelligence assessments and, as Michael Herman has explained, the JIC’s responsibility for the ‘review of intelligence as a whole’ was interpreted with some tacit limitations, resulting in cultural rather than direct management.¹²⁷

Potential reforms to centralised Colonial Office intelligence structures recognised the need for interdepartmental coordination regarding the impact of external events on colonial territories. But surprisingly they ignored any use of the JIC. There was no mention of greater liaison with the committee, which was already in existence to enhance interdepartmental coordination of intelligence, except for the possibility of showing Logan’s fortnightly reviews on communism to the JIC. Instead, the Colonial Office looked towards internal (and somewhat insular) changes such as the possible creation of a broader intelligence and research department within the Colonial Office.¹²⁸ Clearly, the Colonial Office’s reforms did not enhance interdepartmental intelligence liaison adequately enough as an Intelligence and Security Department was deemed necessary seven years later along with further integration with the central intelligence machinery.

Despite the marginalisation of the JIC machinery by the Colonial Office, the joint intelligence organisation was expected in some quarters to suggest reform in Malaya. Exhibiting parallels with the committee’s perceived warning role, local authorities, this time Malcolm Macdonald, staunchly criticised London actors (probably including the JIC) for failing to appreciate the inadequacy of intelligence regarding communism and colonial territories in the Far East.¹²⁹ Yet both the JIC and JIC(FE) did point out a number of weaknesses regarding Malayan intelligence. The problem, however, was that the JIC lacked the authority and legitimacy to implement changes and the committee’s calls fell on deaf ears. Conscious of the dangers stemming from lack of continuity in intelligence analysis, the JIC(FE) criticised the short terms of office of intelligence appointments that hampered ‘efficiency and continuity’.¹³⁰ Demonstrating the importance of all source assessment, the JIC(FE) further warned that political intelligence must be balanced against information received from military or security sources. Concerned that the JIC(FE) was not receiving enough intelligence, particularly from the MSS and police, chairman Patrick Scrivener urged an increased coordination of the activities of the police and Criminal Investigation Department and advocated the setting-up of a Local Intelligence Committee (LIC) in Malaya to supply intelligence to the JIC(FE).¹³¹

These JIC(FE) recommendations ran coeval with Creech Jones’s security and intelligence review. It is unclear, however, whether Whitehall authorities specifically charged the JIC(FE) with recommending reform or managing intelligence. Creech Jones’s review acknowledged that the JIC(FE) did have a role in reforming Malayan intelligence, noting how the committee was ‘considering urgently what steps can be taken to improve our intelligence system, including collection of what may be described as “Battle-Intelligence”’.¹³² At the very least, this suggests that the JIC(FE) worked in parallel to the colonial system. At most, however, it suggests that the colonial secretary utilised the intelligence management functions of the regional JIC system as part of his imperial review—but this did not apparently extend to the JIC in London.

In London, the JIC itself also recommended reforms and was aware from the outbreak of the Malayan violence that ‘the overriding requirement was an efficient intelligence organisation’. At the same time as Creech Jones’s imperial security review, the committee drew attention to ‘the non-existence of a Combined Intelligence Organisation capable of providing adequate warning of the present Communist campaign, and intelligence on which the prosecution of counter measures could be based’.¹³³ Discussion of this issue arose out of JIC(FE) minutes, however, and it appears that the JIC itself was not tasked with involvement by the Colonial Office in the imperial security review.

In October 1949 the JIC commented on intelligence in Malaya and on imperial security more broadly. This time, however, it was invited to do so by the cabinet’s Oversea Defence Committee as part of a memorandum covering guidance for colonial governors facing ‘Cold War’ threats. The JIC passed comment on the appraisal of political intelligence, the role of regional JICs and the role of Local Intelligence Committees. On the former point, the JIC disagreed with Gurney’s view that Special Branches should appraise political intelligence, and instead recommended that when such appraisal is required for the formulation of policy, responsibility should rest with the governor advised by the colonial secretariat and LIC (if established). On regional JICs, the committee suggested that where such a regional committee covered colonial territories, its membership should include somebody ‘competent to advise on and to assess political intelligence collected from these territories’.¹³⁴

The JIC advised colonial governments to set up a Local Intelligence Committee. Echoing JIC(FE) advice from eight months earlier, the committee argued that an LIC would allow improved coordination of all intelligence and would be a body with which the JIC and its regional outposts could exchange views.¹³⁵ Although marginalised by Creech Jones in 1948, with hindsight it is apparent that this invitation by the Oversea Defence Committee formed the beginnings of the committee’s attempts at a nascent overseas intelligence management role, yet given its structural constraints and lack of authority, the committee struggled to rise beyond a passive observer to local intelligence reform.

It would, however, be difficult to determine whether or not the JIC’s recommendations directly influenced any reforms. Back in the theatre, Henry Gurney was sceptical of the JIC’s proposals and resisted creating an LIC. He feared that ‘arrangements for the collation of political intelligence from Colonial territories are in some danger of becoming confused with the Joint Intelligence Committee functions’, and gave three arguments against its implementation.

Firstly, the high commissioner argued that the JIC(FE) was too much a militaristic ‘inter-services body’. He was critical of its lack of representation of the ‘Government or Police Forces of the Colonial territories in its area’. Although political representation did occur on the JIC(FE), it is fair to say that, as in London, the committee was dominated by military personnel. Secondly, Gurney argued that an LIC would be too formal in its fixed membership. This would ‘appeal to the tidy mind’, but would, according to Gurney, reduce the efficiency of intelligence analysis, which should be done on a flexible basis by those best qualified in each particular subject. Thirdly, he feared that an LIC would naturally be subordinate to Malaya’s Local Defence Committee, and would thus include ‘unofficial representation’.¹³⁶

Gurney thus dismissed the JIC’s proposals. His reasoning, however, reveals two interesting factors. It firstly demonstrates consumer conceptions that the JIC was overly militaristic. The committee was militarily dominated, but Gurney’s argument that it excluded political representation is unfair, and perhaps illustrates ongoing consumer confusion about the JIC’s role. Secondly, Gurney’s dismissal reveals the JIC’s lack of authority to effectively implement and execute its management design as far as colonial intelligence was concerned. Even with future reforms to the JIC structure, this lack of practical authority was to plague the committee throughout the end of empire era. Despite Gurney’s rejection however, and despite there being no mention of an LIC in the Briggs Plan of May 1950, Briggs did create a Joint Intelligence Advisory Committee. This performed similar functions to the JIC’s Local Intelligence Committee proposals in that it ‘coordinated the collection, analysis, and distribution of intelligence on insurgent locations, activities, and plans from whatever source’.¹³⁷ It was not until 1956 that the Colonial Office finally insisted that all colonies were required to establish a Local Intelligence Committee.¹³⁸

Broader Reflections

The JIC’s tentative role in Malaya is indicative of a committee finding its feet after the successes in the Second World War. Although the JIC’s wartime achievements were recognised and its status was enhanced accordingly, the committee had yet to acquire an understanding of what its peacetime role was to be. This was certainly the case regarding colonial territories, on which the charter was vague and relations with the Colonial Office were underdeveloped. As a result, this chapter portrays a committee in its relative infancy struggling to be heard and to make a tangible impact on these issues at a time when colonial security was beginning to be taken more seriously across Whitehall.

Integration, collegiality and the dangers of bureaucratic confusion

It was becoming clear that given the broader and overlapping interests at play, a more coordinated and integrated interdepartmental approach in Whitehall was needed to better consider Malayan security and its wider implications. Yet the machinery was not yet in place to make this happen. The JIC and its regional outpost, the JIC(FE), failed to provide warning of the violence in Malaya. Despite not being an official role of the committee, such a warning was informally expected by certain consumers. Indeed, warning of strategic trends in violence, particularly in arenas that cross departmental jurisdictions, requires a collective effort bringing together all source intelligence and ensuring that every avenue is thoroughly assessed and exploited. However such a system is only effective when the central body, lacking in executive function, has the mechanisms available to ensure coordination with all relevant parties. Regardless of the quality of local intelligence (which was flawed structurally, cognitively and in terms of both presentation and dissemination), the centralised intelligence system lacked the required integration with necessary actors to do this effectively.

The ability to provide strategic warning was also impeded by a lack of clarity regarding channels of communication and bureaucratic function. Meanwhile, infighting and accusations of empire building made the situation worse. Something of a vacuum of responsibility regarding monitoring and warning was generated by actors and departments being unaware of responsibilities, jurisdictions and channels of communication from the periphery to the centre. These issues were particularly important in counterinsurgency warfare, which transcended the traditional regional-central divide. It often takes recognition of the severity of a threat to pull together those involved and focus the mind—but by which time it can be too late. It is vital that all actors know their own roles and that their responsibilities are clearly defined.

The internal/external balance

JIC assessments did not consider the evolution of the insurgency in isolation. Local violence impacted upon broader policy thinking and vice versa. Therefore, an important role of strategic intelligence assessments was to conceptualise events in Malaya as part of a broader context, involving Cold War geopolitics and strategy. This was a potentially useful function in providing all source assessments for an interdepartmental audience that brought together all relevant factors involved, thereby aiding an understanding of the interplay between internal and external forces and placing the violence in a bigger picture to aid policy-making at the ministerial level.

However, any utility depended on accurately assessing this interplay. Ultimately, the approach of internationalising Malayan security into a Cold War framework overestimated the links between the internal violence and external Soviet-driven communism. A tendency to view the world through a Cold War prism and to conflate imperial with Cold War developments emphasised external factors at the expense of considering both a more nuanced interplay between external and internal factors and the role of local agency in an uprising. Parallels exist here, with the desire to blame local intelligence structures for the lack of warning, as officials emphasised external conspiracy and subversion over spontaneous uprisings against legitimate grievances—marginalising local agency and suppressing questions about the weaknesses of imperialism in the process. This was not necessarily a deliberate distortion of intelligence, but a natural response to the overarching mindset that pervaded Whitehall and to the composition and nature of the JIC at the time. It was, and remains, important therefore to ensure that all relevant actors are sufficiently integrated into the joint intelligence system so as to allow for thorough assessments of sources against those provided by other departments at an early stage. An awareness of institutional mindsets and the possibility for cognitive closure would also have been beneficial, as would the placement of the JIC system within the Cabinet Office away from the interests of one particular department.

Agenda-setting and issue framing

The committee’s agenda was predominantly set by the chiefs of staff (although the JIC did have some scope for freedom of action) and the manner in which issues were framed impacted upon the output. It was hardly surprising that if the military consumers were concerned about the Cold War, then the JIC would be commissioned to place insurgent violence within this broader framework. This, however, creates a vicious and self-reinforcing cycle of agenda, output and requirements. The intelligence machinery ran the danger of delivering flawed assessments owing to flawed requirements and biased issue framing by partisan military planners. This was not necessarily conscious, but a result of the manner in which the agenda was set.

As the conflict progressed, the JIC continued this contextual role, but with the Cold War intensifying emphasis shifted to assessing Malaya in the state-centric context of future conventional warfare. Again this illustrates the impact of the agenda and of the military nature of the committee. As a chiefs of staff committee, issues were framed in a manner appropriate to military interests and thus increasingly focused on conventional warfare at the expense of the irregular threats. Non-state actors were very much seen through a state-centric prism: it was not until the JIC moved to the Cabinet Office in 1957 that this balance was addressed.

The apex of the system?

Local intelligence failures impeded any warning of the insurgency and hampered government responses once it was underway. Indeed, they were a factor behind the JIC’s incessant desire to look towards international factors when assessing the threat. As colonial security became increasingly perceived as important, the management of the overseas intelligence and security machinery became ever more centralised. Yet in 1948, the JIC, at the apex of British intelligence, was overlooked during Whitehall’s attempts to reform colonial intelligence. Even when members were invited to comment by the Oversea Defence Committee in 1949, their recommendations were rebutted by local colonial figures, fearing an encroachment of the militaristic JIC onto Colonial Office territory. It was, of course, difficult for a predominantly military committee to exercise management or oversight over civilian bodies and again the JIC struggled to implement its duties, despite offering some sensible suggestions. Perceptions of the JIC were therefore important, as the committee’s military nature and consumer confusion about its exact role both counted against it.

Overall events in Malaya have shown the beginnings of the need for coordinated intelligence assessment bringing together all relevant actors, to ensure that all sources were exploited and balanced against competing interpretations, and that all implications were considered. Such functions evolved to become vital in strategic intelligence assessments of insurgencies. Between 1948 and 1951, however, the JIC was still in its infancy and both consumers and committee members were unsure about the committee’s post-war role. This left the JIC lacking impact to the extent that the chiefs of staff were unable to offer the cabinet combined all-source assessment of the situation in South-East Asia.

3
TURF WARS AND TENSION

CYPRUS, 1955–1959

By the mid-1950s, near-continuous insurgencies had forced the British government to recognise the importance of imperial security. Responses became increasingly centralised, thereby affording a greater role to actors such as MI5 and the Joint Intelligence Committee. Although the violence in Malaya had been brought under control by the middle of the decade, it had been superseded by the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya—which began in 1952. Other potential trouble spots across the empire also flared up, including unrest in Nyasaland and apparent communist subversion in British Guiana. Correspondingly, the JIC in London increasingly acknowledged the growing importance of non-defence intelligence, irregular threats and popular discontent regarding British security. Challenging orthodox conceptualisations of a ‘threat’, the committee urged greater coordination with the Colonial Office in order to ensure that colonial intelligence and security were no longer neglected. It was not long, however, before the intelligence system was seriously tested. On 1 April 1955 an uprising began on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.

This time the insurgents were EOKA (the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), a right-wing rebel group seeking enosis, or union with Greece. EOKA was led by the wiry moustached figure of George Grivas. Nicknamed Digenis after a mythical hero of Byzantine legend, Grivas was a retired colonel. A steely character renowned for his strict discipline, he was politically extremely right-wing. This formed a stark contrast to the communist insurgents battling the British from the dense jungles of Malaya. Indeed, Grivas had made his name fighting the communists during the Greek civil war. He quietly arrived in Cyprus in late 1954 and quickly began to organise EOKA cells around Nicosia.¹ They launched the first attacks in spring 1955.

The insurgents had links with the Cypriot Orthodox Church. Its charismatic leader Archbishop Michail Christodoriou Makarios III was a keen supporter of enosis and aided EOKA in terms of funding and protection. The archbishop, who went on to become president of an independent Cyprus, relented to pressure from Grivas in agreeing to an armed campaign against the British. Naïvely, Makarios hoped the violence would last only six months and that few people would be harmed. He was wrong.

As the bombings and assassinations intensified, the new governor, John Harding, declared a state of emergency in November 1955—the delay owing to reluctance in Whitehall where officials feared alienating Greece in preliminary talks.² Harding, a former chief of the Imperial General Staff was a ‘strong-minded soldier’. He had been planning for retirement when Anthony Eden, the new prime minister, sounded him out about the governorship of Cyprus owing to his experience as commander-in-chief (Far East) during the Malayan conflict. Out of a sense of duty, Harding reluctantly accepted.³

During the violence, there were numerous political attempts, ranging from conferences to constitutions, to resolve the issues. Negotiations developed alongside an often-vigorous counterinsurgency effort which extended from the mountains to the towns. Accordingly, the numbers of British forces increased dramatically and by 1956 there were 12,000 troops and 2,000 police officers crowding the small island in an attempt to quell just 1,000 guerrillas. By the start of 1958 there was a staggering one member of the security forces for every Greek Cypriot household.⁴

Hugh Foot, a long-time colonial official with service in Jamaica and Nigeria, replaced Harding as governor in late 1957. His appointment illustrated the desperate need for a political solution to the conflict. The overly military approach was clearly not working and served only to alienate the population, many of whom supported Grivas. Foot prioritised the use of intelligence to capture the elusive EOKA leader and invited MI5 to send someone out to assist. The subsequent efforts were impressively successful and by February 1959 Grivas’s hiding place had been tracked down, only for Harold Macmillan to refuse permission to capture him. The prime minister had been warned that eliminating Grivas would have thrown into disarray the delicate peace negotiations which were simultaneously progressing in London.⁵

Communal divisions within Cyprus seriously complicated the counterinsurgency effort. Eighty per cent of the island’s population were of Greek ethnicity, and sought enosis. The rest of the population were Turks and strongly opposed any links with Greece. Although there had been a strong communist trades union movement that had the potential to span the ethnic divide, by the mid-1950s issues of communalism dominated local politics. The ethnic balance of the security forces became a crucial issue in undermining intelligence gathering and in the development of the insurgency more broadly. Grivas initially sought to target the underfunded police system. EOKA hoped to recruit Cypriots from the police to act as informants, whilst other policemen were left under no illusions that interference with the EOKA campaign was a crime punishable by assassination.⁶

The police, however, had very poor relations with the local population. By 1956, thirty-seven per cent of the Cypriot police force was Turkish Cypriot. By 1958, the recruitment of over 900 more Turkish Cypriots swelled the size of the police force and left Greek Cypriots outnumbered by a ratio of five to three.⁷ EOKA initially avoided targeting the Turkish Cypriot community, instead targeting British installations and then Greek ‘traitors’. Aware that he could not fight everyone at once, Grivas forbade victimising the Turks. Attitudes slowly shifted, however, and a gradual ethnic polarisation meant that from 1957, rising inter-communal violence between the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus characterised the campaign. The first Turkish policeman to be killed, Ali Riza, died in January 1956.⁸ His death was followed by protests and riots, which became a familiar pattern for the British authorities. Underground Turkish movements became more active and intercommunal violence flared (although not all the violence was linked to attacks on the police).

It was quite a tangle and inter-communal divisions extended to the level of international diplomacy. That all three nations involved, Britain, Greece and Turkey, were part of NATO further complicated matters and shaped perceptions of the violence. The insurgency lasted until spring 1959, after eventual agreement was reached at Lancaster House in February of that year. It was agreed that Cyprus would have a Greek president, but a Turkish vice president and that a House of Representatives would be composed of thirty per cent Turkish membership. Cyprus gained independence from Britain in August 1960.

1955 was also the year the Warsaw Pact was established. The Cold War was well underway. Dominating the international agenda, Cold War considerations certainly shaped British thinking and Cyprus was deemed important in terms of the external pressures impacting upon British policy. For example, the Cypriot violence threatened to affect Cold War calculations. Not only did it tie up British troops, who arguably could have been preparing to be deployed in potential Cold War operations, but it also involved NATO countries: Greece and Turkey. Instability on NATO’s south-eastern flank heightened the importance of the Cyprus Emergency.

Meanwhile, decolonisation, nationalist unrest and growing transnational networks hostile to imperialism also influenced policy formulation. Although there was no grand design, by the mid-1950s decolonisation was in progress. The tide was turning and a string of colonies were being swept away from London’s control on a wave of nationalist fervour. Against this loss of imperial authority, Whitehall policy unsurprisingly sought to navigate the stormy seas and somehow preserve Britain’s role as a global power. Owing to its importance, Cyprus was an exception to broader decolonisation. In allowing British forces to cover the Soviet bloc and the Middle East, the island was perceived as strategically vital, particularly in the context of British decline when other assets were being lost. Independence, therefore, was not forthcoming. Cyprus became home to the general headquarters for British land and air forces in the Middle East, and was thus an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ from which Britain could fulfil its duties under the Baghdad Pact.⁹ Additionally, Cyprus was significant in terms of intelligence. It was host to eighty per cent of British signals intelligence facilities in the region, including covert facilities and listening stations. The island also provided the regional headquarters of SIS from 1950.¹⁰ Moreover, black radio stations disseminating British propaganda were broadcast from Cyprus. Aiming to undermine the nationalist Egyptian president, a covert station known as SCANT operated from the island throughout 1957. It broadcast for six hours a day (the same two-hour programme was broadcast three times) and officials in London were confident that the locals were listening.¹¹ The colony also housed the JIC’s regional outpost, the JIC (Middle East).

Both of these overarching frameworks intersected defence, colonial and foreign policy matters, and it was against this background that the Cypriot violence emerged. Within this international context, colonial security rose up the priority list and, for the JIC at least, the late 1950s and early 1960s proved the high point for a centralised focus on (and intervention in) colonial affairs.

The JIC, 1955—1959

By 1955, the JIC was well established in its post-Second World War form. And yet it underwent a number of important changes during the years of the Cyprus Emergency, which changed the nature of the JIC forever and significantly impacted upon its ability to assess insurgencies. By the mid-1950s, it had become clear that intelligence was covering a variety of fields outside of those that were purely military. Concepts of security were changing as the traditional divide between military and political spheres blurred. This recognition, implemented via Gerald Templer’s influential ‘Report on Colonial Security’, laid the foundations for considerable reform of the committee’s structure, function and place within Whitehall. Consequently, the practice of having the chiefs of staff as principal consumers became outdated and reforms to the central intelligence machinery culminated in the JIC’s move to the Cabinet Office in the autumn of 1957.¹²

The committee continued to be supported by an array of subcommittees and remained assisted by its drafting body, the Joint Intelligence Staff (JIS), and the Heads of Sections, who met weekly to compile hebdomadal reviews and aid the JIS in drafting the reports. The Heads of Sections were ‘the main conduit for current intelligence information to be fed into the Joint Intelligence Staff drafting process’.¹³ Surprisingly, despite the move away from the chiefs of staff, the composition of the JIS (and the Heads of Sections) continued to reflect a military dominance in terms of its personnel. The body of the joint intelligence organisation was slow to catch up with the head. Yet overall, the transition into the Cabinet Office slowly allowed the committee to engage with a broader range of requirements and reflect the shift in global threats since 1945. British intelligence was slowly coming to terms with insurgency.

Patrick Dean, assistant under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, chaired the JIC between 1953 and 1960—a remarkably long time. A lawyer by training, Dean’s keen analytical mind allowed him to quickly become a high-flyer at the Foreign Office. He was ‘detached, cool, and highly intelligent’, and a man of strong nerves. Whilst chairman of the JIC, Dean was promoted to deputy under-secretary of state and knighted, although he is perhaps most remembered for his role in the collusion with Israel regarding Suez in 1956.¹⁴ Other members in 1955 included a representative from the Colonial Office, the director of naval intelligence, the director of military intelligence, the assistant chief of air staff (intelligence), the director of the Joint Intelligence Bureau and the heads of MI5, SIS and GCHQ (the latter became a member in 1951). Other officials, such as the Ministry of Defence’s scientific intelligence advisor, attended when required.

In May 1956, Dean and his colleagues reluctantly accepted Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO) membership. Interestingly, the JIC was not keen on permanent and formal association with the CRO and initially rejected its request for membership back in 1955. The CRO had argued that it could offer political intelligence and background material regarding the Commonwealth, which would help in intelligence analysis and evaluation. The Commonwealth was, however, a different entity to the empire and its intelligence arrangements were understood differently. Dean argued that the CRO was ‘already very closely associated’ with the JIC and that it would have been unable to contribute much given that its function was one of intelligence liaison rather than production. Other committee members put the case more forcefully, arguing that the CRO ‘had nothing to offer in the way of intelligence’.¹⁵

The JIC also feared that inclusion would threaten existing liaison with individual Commonwealth countries. CRO membership threatened to undermine the channels of communication between the JIC and British intelligence agencies on the one hand, and their opposite numbers in the Commonwealth on the other. There was a danger that the intelligence branches of Commonwealth countries would be ‘upset’ if they thought that discussions of intelligence matters had been influenced by the CRO. Commonwealth countries were ‘free agents’ and, according to the director of military intelligence, ‘it was not right that it should even be suspected that they were being represented on the J.I.C. by a political department in London’. At the very least, CRO representation might have created a ‘feeling of inhibition’ amongst Commonwealth intelligence officials visiting the JIC. The CRO did have an interest in the committee’s business, however, in so far as it was progressively assuming responsibility for colonies acquiring independence. The CRO therefore needed to be kept fully aware in advance of any intelligence problems involved. This, Dean strongly argued, could however be catered for simply by CRO attendance at the appropriate JIC meeting. As a result, Anthony Eden denied CRO membership in October 1955 and it is unclear why the JIC reversed its stance on the matter less than a year later.¹⁶

The functions of the JIC evolved in order to match its changing requirements and threat perceptions. In November 1955, the JIC charter was withdrawn and re-issued jointly by the foreign secretary, the minister of defence and the colonial secretary.¹⁷ This represented a significant development: it aimed to ‘regularise and facilitate close cooperation between the Colonial Office and JIC’.¹⁸ In doing so it allowed the department greater ability to frame the JIC agenda and define issues in a broader manner. Despite this, the JIC’s functions in 1955 remained similar to those in 1948. A couple of subtle changes did, however, afford it greater powers to deal with broader matters—again reflecting the perceived priorities of the day. For example, the 1955 charter instructed the JIC to ‘give higher direction to, and to keep under review, intelligence operations and defence security matters’. This represented an understated yet important development from the 1948 charter, which referred only to ‘defence intelligence’.¹⁹

Although the JIC’s links with Whitehall changed during this period of reform, the transition to the Cabinet Office by no means served as a direct break from the chiefs of staff. The chiefs remained keen consumers of intelligence products, but the reforms did indicate closer liaison with the political departments, specifically the Foreign, Colonial and Commonwealth Relations Offices. The JIC hoped that its products would become more relevant to consumers and consequently more widely used. Whilst the 1955 charter confined the JIC to ‘assemble, appreciate and present intelligence as required by the Chiefs of Staff’, post-1957 JIC requirements could be set by cabinet or individual ministers as well as by military figures. Similarly, JIC reports were passed directly to the cabinet secretary, with whom the decision to circulate them to cabinet or individual ministers rested.²⁰

How did these reforms affect the colonial sphere, which was integral to considering insurgencies? The JIC recognised in 1957 that ‘it is the Colonial Office, and not the JIC, who are ultimately responsible for intelligence in the colonies’. Despite this acknowledgement, the JIC did profess an increasing interest in colonial territories, and thus attempted to extend its influence by fashioning an imperial role for strategic intelligence. Members argued that the chiefs of staff needed warning of insurgencies to help plan troop movements and that, during the Cold War, communist-inspired insurgencies needed to be considered as part of a broader global or regional picture. Strategic intelligence was therefore necessary. Additionally, the JIC sought a greater hand in overseeing reform to colonial intelligence structures.²¹

Despite attempted integration, relations between the JIC and the Colonial Office were somewhat strained in the years preceding the transition. Tensions and suspicion also lingered long after 1957. Hostility, as is so often the case, can be traced back to bureaucratic rivalries and turf wars. The Colonial Office feared JIC encroachment—and, by extension, encroachment by the chiefs of staff—onto its traditional territory of internal security in the colonies. Fighting back, angry colonial officials consequently attacked the very nature of the JIC, the quality of its product and its performance. Evoking bizarre images of the Wild West manifesting itself in the stuffy corridors of Whitehall, the Colonial Office threatened a ‘showdown’. Even the prospect of the JIC’s move to the Cabinet Office did little to alleviate Colonial Office frustration. Officials feared that the JIC would become a competing voice that undermined Colonial Office departmental judgements and ministerial advice.²²

Frustrated colonial officials argued that the JIC simply could not adequately consider political matters whilst constrained by the chiefs of staff framework. Despite the committee beginning to identify the increasing importance of political threats and the relevance of the colonies in early 1955, it conceptualised the Cold War from a military perspective.²³ Even after the shift away from the military, however, the Colonial Office continued to resist proposed integration into the joint intelligence structure. Concerned officials still feared JIC encroachment onto their territory—although perhaps this was unsurprising given that vast swathes of the empire were being swallowed up by the march towards independence. The entire raison d’être of the Colonial Office was under attack. Aware that such territorial thinking would have held little sway within Whitehall, colonial officials also pointed to more practical reservations, such as a lack of manpower to offer full-time representation in the central intelligence machinery. For its part, the JIC continued to stress the importance of integration of colonial matters into JIS and Heads of Sections reports. This, according to the committee, ‘was the essence of “Joint” intelligence’.²⁴ The JIC had growing ambitions to cover intelligence as broadly as possible.

Intelligence Advice

It is widely acknowledged that the Cypriot intelligence organisation was ‘in decay’ prior to the revolt.²⁵ The police were poorly paid and unmotivated, whilst higher ranks were inexperienced, inefficient and failed to effectively monitor the situation within the Greek community after the Second World War. Meanwhile, there was little intelligence coordination in Cyprus prior to the violence. British intelligence at the outbreak of the insurgency was once again wholly unsatisfactory. According to Richard Aldrich, intelligence initially saw EOKA as ‘bearded mountain-dwelling variants of Chin Peng’s MCP [Malayan Communist Party] guerrillas, which they most certainly were not’.²⁶ As in Malaya, such inadequacy created complacency in London, where it was assumed that the Cypriot governor was ‘satisfied that the police and military available in the island are sufficient to quell any riots on a scale that can at present be considered even remotely possible’.²⁷ Reform of local intelligence was clearly necessary.

During the early years of the Malayan Emergency, the Joint Intelligence Committee demonstrated some attempt at offering advice on intelligence reform. In doing so, it laid the foundations of a theoretical overseas intelligence management function. Building on this, the committee’s 1955 charter stated that it was the JIC’s responsibility ‘to keep under review the organisation and working of intelligence and defence security at home and overseas […] and to advise what changes are deemed necessary’.²⁸ This is perhaps illustrated by a 1956 JIC directive seeking to strengthen local intelligence committees across the empire in an attempt to prevent further uprisings and insurgencies.²⁹ Cyprus was an opportunity to put these newfound ambitions into practice.

By 1957, JIC operational procedure had tacitly further enhanced the committee’s overseas managerial role. For operations mounted by commands overseas, it was assumed that the ‘intelligence organisation required […] will be within the capabilities of the Command concerned’. Officials naïvely presumed that such operations would be against small and disorganised forces. With local forces able to take care of themselves, it was therefore assumed that the role of the JIC would be limited to simply considering whether ‘any new requirements should be placed on the collecting agencies’.³⁰ In practice however, this was not necessarily the case and counterinsurgency was more difficult than the planners assumed. As the intelligence organisation required grew beyond the capabilities of the local command, the JIC expanded its managerial role. More active input from London was deemed necessary.

However, the committee had to operate within an area dominated by a lead agency (MI5) and a lead department (the Colonial Office). This created a delicate balance between a department taking the lead and the need for interdepartmental coordination. Demonstrating increased centralised input, MI5 was undoubtedly active. It sought to raise imperial security standards in order to safeguard the circulation of intelligence as well as for purposes of preventative security. Accordingly ‘in the late 1940s and early 1950s, MI5 helped to overhaul security agencies in every major imperial and commonwealth territory’, and, as Christopher Andrew suggests, the ‘pre-war vision of a great imperial security network dominated by the Service [MI5] began to become a reality’.³¹ Percy Sillitoe had earlier created an Overseas Service within MI5, headed by an experienced colonial administrator, John Shaw. Owing to his slight frame and amount of time spent jetting around the empire, Shaw earned the unflattering nickname of ‘the flying pencil’. However, his division had been abolished by the time of the Cypriot violence by Dick White, the incoming director-general, in 1953. Many within MI5 resented Shaw’s interference in the channels of communication between security liaison officers and intelligence departments. Meanwhile, at the start of the conflict in Kenya, the ‘first XI of MI5’ was despatched to face the Mau Mau.³²

Regarding Cyprus, MI5 had taken the lead on police reform from 1954, prior to the outbreak of violence, by loaning the Colonial Office personnel to take up such posts as the security intelligence advisor (SIA). It was the SIA’s responsibility to assist the Colonial Office regarding imperial aspects of intelligence and to advise local administrations on the effective organisation of intelligence and security organisations. Alex MacDonald, who was the first incumbent from summer 1954, pressured the local authorities on the island into belatedly creating a Special Branch towards the end of 1954. Similarly, a director of intelligence, Donald Stephens, was appointed from MI5 in spring 1955. Slow progress was made, however, and Harding lamented that the inadequate intelligence services relied on gossip and lacked any clear information about EOKA’s strength, tactics, or anything else for that matter.³³ Intelligence gathering was particularly undermined by EOKA’s penetration of the nascent Special Branch, Grivas’s targeting of the police, and inter-communal tensions relating to the composition of the various police forces. As Calder Walton has recently written, MI5’s recommendations for intelligence on the island ‘followed its usual formula’. Special Branch was separated from the rest of the police and attempts were made to recruit more Greek Cypriots to its ranks. As usual however, the reforms were ‘too little too late and only produced meagre results’.³⁴

Perched on top of the intelligence pyramid, the JIC aided MI5 but was left with a largely coordinating role. The committee provided a forum for interdepartmental cooperation, facilitated the lead agency and ensured interdepartmental agreement on the foundations of discussion. It oversaw the British and imperial intelligence structure as a whole and sought to provide strategic direction. Before the outbreak of violence, however, it amounted simply to a passive role. The JIC was merely updated by MI5 on intelligence reforms, perhaps more out of a polite formality than an indication of active oversight. Whilst MI5 engaged in reforming intelligence collection through, for example, setting-up Special Branches, the JIC focused instead on other stages of the intelligence cycle, including intelligence assessment and dissemination. Again, however, the JIC only had the power to comment and suggest. It could not give orders, and so was never going to be able to execute a managerial function particularly well.

Patrick Dean, the committee’s influential chairman, and Val Boucher, the director of military intelligence, flew out to Cyprus in October 1955. Inspecting the poor state of affairs, they swiftly recognised the local intelligence deficiencies. Dean and Boucher lamented that ‘it was not felt that the Colonial administration had the knowledge or the power necessary to deal with the situation’. Boucher complained that ‘up till the arrival of the new Governor [Harding] very little had been done to stop the rot’, that ‘the situation deteriorated rapidly’, and that ‘the past history of administration in the island has been deplorable’. Furthermore, they criticised the slow creation of the Special Branch, which despite first being raised as a possibility by Thomas Lloyd, the permanent under-secretary in the Colonial Office in 1953, was not operational until February 1955.³⁵ Awareness of the local deficiencies gradually worked its way throughout Whitehall. It was a real problem hindering counterinsurgency efforts and Harold Macmillan later recalled that ‘the intelligence and security system was certainly inadequate’.³⁶ The outbreak of violence and its intensification throughout 1955 clearly rendered the intelligence requirements beyond the capability of the local command. Once it became apparent that local actors were not up to the job, the JIC began to advise on intelligence organisation and to coordinate action for reform.

Despite MI5 input, Dean and Boucher concluded that intelligence requirements had grown beyond the local capability by late 1955. They argued that the newly reformed intelligence services could not keep up with the intensifying insurgency. Intelligence was still understaffed and underfunded. At the start of the conflict, Special Branch had only twenty-one gazetted officers whilst the police districts on the island could not communicate securely owing to a poverty of scrambler telephones.³⁷ Consequently, the JIC continued to provide a mechanism for intelligence coordination between MI5 and the Colonial Office without becoming directly involved itself. In this sense, the JIC managerial function of providing a higher direction for intelligence can be interpreted in terms of the committee being kept updated by the intelligence agencies, rather than having a more active approach. As former JIC secretary Michael Herman writes, ‘managing the secret intelligence activities of civilian agencies probably did not fit easily into the operation of a Chiefs of Staff committee’.³⁸

Ultimately, the JIC commended MI5-Colonial Office coordination. Members agreed that ‘the appointment of a security intelligence advisor to the Colonial Office has fully proved its worth’ and had apparently resulted in a ‘marked improvement’ in intelligence from the colonies.³⁹ Yet use of the JIC machinery also allowed the Colonial Office and MI5 to better coordinate with military actors. This was highly necessary. According to Charles Jeffries, a former deputy under-secretary of state at the Colonial Office, internal emergencies meant that the department had to be in ‘constant touch’ with the chiefs of staff, in order to ensure that the chiefs had all the relevant information.⁴⁰ Whilst MI5 and the Colonial Office took the lead regarding Cypriot intelligence, the JIC importantly allowed interdepartmental coordination between all interested parties.

The provision of interpreters and interrogators to Cyprus is a good example demonstrating JIC input. From London, the committee coordinated and directed complicated reforms involving the Colonial Office, the chiefs of staff and MI5. Cypriot authorities had drafted in officials with counterinsurgency experience from Malaya and Kenya in an attempt to learn from previous experience. But simply picking the same people up and moving them from one colony to another took the idea too far. They lacked detailed local knowledge, including language skills. This was vital in understanding conditions on the ground, in interrogating prisoners and developing psychological operations. Considering the issue a priority, Dean and Boucher expressed concern about ‘a considerable lack, at all levels, of people who can speak Greek or who know anything about the island’, and therefore expressed an ‘urgent need’ for people with a knowledge of Greek, in order to improve intelligence gathering capabilities through translation and interrogation.⁴¹

The JIC responded by emphasising the importance of Greek speakers to translate volumes of captured documents. This was particularly important regarding the EOKA campaign, for Grivas was quite the diarist. In June 1956, security forces recovered 250,000 words of the leader’s verbose musings and somebody had to translate them.⁴² Demonstrating the committee’s capacity as a forum for interdepartmental coordination, Dick White used a JIC meeting to suggest establishing a ‘task force of Greek translators from all Departments’. Initial Colonial Office scepticism of the idea was rebuffed by JIC members who urged MI5 and the Colonial Office to ‘consult together’.⁴³

The issue rumbled on throughout the year and the JIC continued to provide a useful forum for managing efforts to recruit Greek speakers. JIC recognition of the ‘great urgency’ of the situation helped to overcome certain obstacles such as low wages, which were increased by the Treasury. Additionally, the JIC suggested that Charles Carstairs, the Colonial Office representative, should send someone to scour Roman Catholic schools where ancient Greek was on the syllabus. Whitehall was getting desperate. The committee saw success regarding interpreters, but despite the chiefs of staff taking the issue seriously little progress had been made regarding interrogators. Harding continued to complain about the lack of Greek speakers available to him. Military departments informed the JIC that they had done all they could and, after a year of JIC coordination, Harding ultimately had to settle for a ‘second-best’ solution in relying on interrogation through interpretation. Eventually, the JIC unceremoniously declared that ‘this was not an intelligence, but primarily a manning problem’ and subsequently passed the buck to the Colonial Office.⁴⁴

Assessing the Internal Threat

Warning

The regional British military headquarters moved from the turbulence of Egypt to the relative tranquillity of Cyprus in 1954. However, as Richard Aldrich notes, ‘planners in London and Washington were wrong to think they had at last found a trouble-free outpost for strategic installations’.⁴⁵ Organised violence broke out on the island at the start of April 1955, yet it is widely acknowledged that, as regarding Malaya, there was little advance warning of the impending troubles. Once again the British were unprepared. In fact, the Colonial Office exuded complacency prior to the violence when officials wrongly advised Alan Lennox-Boyd, the colonial secretary, that ‘it seems inconceivable that the Cypriots should become vicious like the Egyptians’.⁴⁶ Similarly, Panagiotis Dimitrakis quotes a passage from a House of Commons debate in January 1955 in which it was expressed that enosis ‘was all a paper agitation. There is no need for us to do anything about it […] They [the Greek-Cypriots] will never do anything violent or drastic. They do not really mean all this agitation about enosis’.⁴⁷ Clearly this was wrong. There was, however, some limited awareness. The British government was apparently conscious from mid-1954 of an underground movement being planned, but felt that it was on a minor scale. Despite this, there was no specific warning of the impending violence.

Strategic intelligence paid closer attention to the potential unrest than it had done prior to the Malayan Emergency. The JIC was once more expected to provide the chiefs of staff with warnings of threats to British interests, particularly those which might require military action or the movement of forces: the ‘Service Directors of Intelligence are responsible for providing their respective Chief of Staff with world-wide intelligence and particularly so far as the Colonies are concerned, for warning them of anticipated outbreaks of trouble which may necessitate troop movements’.⁴⁸ Cyprus was on the agenda. This is unsurprising given that it was considered strategically vital by the military. The chiefs of staff recognised that ‘stable conditions in Cyprus were essential in order to avoid our forces there being committed to internal security tasks’,⁴⁹ as opposed to seemingly more important tasks involving external Cold War operations. Given the perceived threat of the Soviet army marching across Central Europe, British forces could not afford to get bogged down in colonial policing operations.

Accordingly, the JIC attempted to appreciate the threat to Cyprus during the period of relocation from Suez. Hugh Stephenson, the outgoing chair of the JIC (Middle East), met with the committee in May 1954 and warned that the situation in Cyprus ‘would be very different [from that in the Canal Zone base] and […] there would have to be a considerable tightening up of our security once we moved there, and probably also of the Cyprus Criminal Investigation Department’.⁵⁰ Stephenson’s warnings did not go unheeded. Coordination between the Colonial Office and MI5 resulted in recommendations to establish the Cyprus Intelligence Committee (CIC), District Intelligence Committees and a Special Branch in 1954. It may, therefore, be reasonably assumed that as reform was underway from mid-1954, authorities in London initially deemed Cyprus to be within the local command’s capabilities.

Cyprus remained on the JIC’s radar throughout the remainder of 1954. Intelligence was broadly aware of the potential for some unrest, but this was expected to be low-level.⁵¹ The JIC was certainly aware of a potential threat from the end of January 1955 (just over two months before the outbreak of violence). Local intelligence had successfully led to the interception of an arms cache being smuggled into Cyprus, and Charles Carstairs, the JIC’s Colonial Office representative, used a committee meeting to ‘place on record the thanks of the Colonial Office for the information […] which led to the interception and capture of the caique and smuggling party’.⁵² Moreover, at the end of March 1955 the committee listed Cyprus as one of five colonial territories in which ‘trouble liable to involve the commitment of Imperial forces is likely to occur in the next few years’.⁵³ Yet despite the intelligence success and the broader long-term warning, the committee issued no further assessments in the immediate weeks prior to April. The success in January may well have led to false complacency that the Cypriot revolt had been swiftly quashed.

It was not until a week after violence began that the JIC next discussed the colony. Carstairs vaguely updated the committee that the identity of the attackers was not certain, but that incidents were certainly an extreme right-wing manifestation thought to be known as EOKA. Carstairs added that the violence was unlikely to render the base at Cyprus untenable.⁵⁴ Before then, however, the local Special Branch had known nothing of the threat, other than that an organisation they blankly called ‘X’ was planning attacks. Intelligence did not know who or what ‘X’ was, or later whether the mysterious Digenis was a man, a group or a committee.⁵⁵

Although broadly aware of some sort of brewing threat, the JIC was unable to translate this information into a specific warning. Echoing problems experienced in 1948, a combination of three factors explains this: structural, cognitive and local. In structural and organisational terms, little progress had been made since the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency. The informal nature of the JIC system continued to rely on initiative in order to provide warning. This proved difficult in the absence of fully integrated relations with the Colonial Office, as the outbreak of violence came too early for Templer’s reforms to have yet made any tangible difference. As an interdepartmental committee, the JIC relied on input from its member departments. The fact that there was no mention of Cyprus in the JIC’s weekly output in either March or April 1955 indicates a lack of intelligence reaching the joint assessment machinery from the Colonial Office. This is surprising given that on 16 March alone (before the campaign had even begun in earnest) sixteen bombs exploded on Cyprus targeting pubs, power plants and police stations.⁵⁶

Cognitive weaknesses compounded those of a structural nature. They impacted upon the ability to set requirements and provide warning. The Cold War thinking that dominated Whitehall diverted attention away from the real threat of violent right-wing nationalism. Exactly as had happened regarding Malaya, intelligence producers and consumers, in the face of global complexities and lacking a counterinsurgency model to aid deductive analysis, sought to reduce ambiguity by conceptualising events within a stable, ordered and existing narrative. History was repeating itself. This problem was also linked to the setting of agendas in the first place. As Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow have written, ‘problem identification is crucial in setting agendas. The chances of a proposal’s appearing on an agenda are dramatically increased if it is persuasively linked to a problem already considered important’.⁵⁷ Therefore, although the JIC recognised the growing right-wing nationalist threat, the committee was guided by the prevailing political climate. The JIC remained geared towards the activities of Cypriot communists and the extent to which they were externally directed. Moreover, given that since 1949 Cypriot authorities, unable to fight on two fronts, felt that AKEL (the Cypriot communists) were better mobilised and organised than the right and thus chose to ‘confront AKEL, and not engage the nationalists’.⁵⁸

By 1954, a year before the violence in Cyprus, the JIC Perimeter Review (the forerunner to the Weekly Review of Current Intelligence) warned that AKEL had ‘reconciled Communism with Enosis’.⁵⁹ Intelligence feared an exploitation of nationalism by communism. Placing nationalism firmly within the communist context also potentially signifies an imperial arrogance that nationalism was mere agitation and that local actors lacked agency. Crucially, it suggests that nationalism and local grievances would not become a serious threat to Britain unless exploited by the real danger: the communists.

According to Allison and Zelikow, ‘definition of the agenda […] can be pivotal’ as individuals may define a problem in radically divergent ways.⁶⁰ Being part of the chiefs of staff structure, the military often defined the JIC agenda with a communist focus, thus influencing the committee’s output prior to the insurgency. For example, Gerald Templer, soon to become chief of the Imperial General Staff, commissioned a report specifically asking for intelligence on the communist problem in colonial territories where it may get beyond the control of local resources. The JIC dutifully complied and warned that the communists aimed to ‘turn all colonies and dependent territories into “People’s Democracies” wholly subservient to Soviet and Chinese interests’. This was to be achieved via exploitation of local grievances (particularly nationalism and racial discrimination) and use of international front organisations such as the World Federation of Trade Unions.⁶¹

To its credit however, the JIC did note that the report referred only to communist aims: It ‘should not be inferred either that Communism is everywhere the chief, or even the major danger’.⁶² This was a wise caveat but its impact was negated by the fact that it was briefly inserted at the end of a lengthy discussion of communist intentions. Consequently, the overall tone of the assessment overwhelmingly emphasised the communist threat. This laid open the possibilities of politicisation through self-inflicted consumer delusion: consumers interpreted such intelligence that had been influenced by their own perceptions as confirmation of those very same perceptions. As former CIA analyst Paul Pillar insightfully argues, ‘it is easy for a policymaker to react to the flow of intelligence he receives on a particular topic by thinking “there must really be something there”, while forgetting that it was his own interest in the topic that stimulated the flow’.⁶³ The JIC asked the wrong questions and looked the wrong way.

Finally, it must also be remembered that JIC output depended to an extent on the information it received from local intelligence sources. The poverty of Cypriot intelligence has been discussed in the previous section, but it is worth reiterating that deficiencies left authorities lacking detailed and specific information. Indeed, the local Special Branch initially thought that the mysterious ‘Organisation X’ was communist rather than right-wing nationalist.⁶⁴ It is therefore hardly surprising that JIC assessments followed suit. Moreover, weaknesses in local intelligence created complacency on the island. For example, Governor Robert Armitage at one point protested to Lennox-Boyd that although it was known that arms had been smuggled into Cyprus, ‘there was no indication from any source that they were about to be used’.⁶⁵ Such comments, driven by a paucity of intelligence, created the impression that the brewing trouble remained within the capabilities of the local command until it was too late. Local intelligence failures were however very much compounded by the aforementioned weaknesses at the Whitehall level. Consequently, the outbreak and intensity of the campaign as it unfolded throughout 1955 took authorities by surprise.

To inform and update

After the violence had broken out, it was important for intelligence assessments to ascertain the perpetrators and the source of the threat. This was true not only at the tactical and operational level, but also at the strategic level. Senior policymakers and ministers needed this information in order to guide broader responses and regional policy. In contrast to the focus on communism prior to the violence, the JIC, informed of internal developments by the Colonial Office, recognised that the main threat was from the right-wing and EOKA relatively quickly (even if the severity was not initially grasped). Shortly after the first attacks, Carstairs informed his JIC colleagues that AKEL was not to blame and pointed his finger instead towards EOKA.⁶⁶ However, the JIC remained wary of possible communist agitation. They worried, for example about links between Makarios and communism despite local intelligence reporting a widening rift between the nationalists and AKEL.⁶⁷ Yet overall, JIC weekly output recognised the right-wing threat and regularly reported EOKA violence patterns.

The JIC’s intelligence assessments of the internal situation throughout the remainder of 1955 reflected those of the Colonial Office and local intelligence authorities, both of which downplayed communism. The JIC therefore did in fact successfully recognise local agency to a far greater extent than had happened in Malaya. The main exception seems to have been Governor Harding who, on proscribing AKEL in December 1955, assessed that even though ‘AKEL have so far watched their step fairly carefully and we cannot produce solid evidence connecting them with acts of violence other than promotion […] of strikes which ended in rioting, the Communists are our real enemies and that we must tackle them sooner or later’.⁶⁸ Harding was not willing to let the communists off the hook. Similarly, certain elements within the Foreign Office, such as the secretive Information Research Department, dealing with propaganda, also emphasised a communist threat to Cyprus. These political warriors in the Foreign Office were ‘disappointed’ by the lack of use of propaganda material on the island and criticised the Colonial Office’s attitude towards communism as ‘dilatory and complacent’.⁶⁹

The Cypriot violence became a regular fixture on the JIC’s agenda following the declaration of emergency in November 1955. As the fighting intensified, the JIC began to inform and update consumers of trends in the patterns and scale of violence via the Weekly Review of Current Intelligence. Throughout 1956, the committee linked fluctuations in violence to internal political developments, particularly including constitutional negotiations, counter-terrorist measures and intercommunal relations on a near-weekly basis. For example, in October 1956, the JIC linked a rise in the intensity of the terrorist campaign to a visit to Cyprus by Lord Radcliffe, Britain’s constitutional commissioner for the island, to discuss constitutional proposals. A ‘lower level of violence’ subsequently followed in order to allow EOKA to reorganise ‘for the next major effort, which may be timed to coincide with the publication of constitutional proposals’.⁷⁰

The JIC also distributed appreciations of EOKA’s capabilities and intentions via its weekly output. In terms of capabilities, the JIC made regular but brief assertions such as that most of the violence was conducted by ‘a small group of skilled gunmen’. Likewise regarding intentions, the committee again issued regular summaries, including that ‘EOKA is making a determined bid to show itself as a factor still to be reckoned with’, and that ‘EOKA is expected to seek and exploit its recent gains in men’.⁷¹ Although vague, JIC weekly intelligence reviews indirectly aided departmental thinking. The cumulative influence of regular assessments and updates should not be overlooked and formed an important part of the committee’s peacetime role.

Overall, the JIC’s weekly output, influenced by Colonial Office assessments regarding internal threats, was broadly accurate. By 1956, the committee clarified that there was no united front between communists and nationalists and that AKEL was not a particular threat as it had been ‘preoccupied with the problem of playing an appropriate role in the Enosis campaign led by Right-wing nationalists without sacrificing its own principles’.⁷² By April 1958, discussion of AKEL was relegated behind longer appreciations of EOKA and Turkish resistance. The committee had by this time dismissed AKEL, concluding that ‘they are not believed to be equipped to conduct a terrorist campaign on the lines of EOKA’.⁷³

Weekly intelligence—value-added?

The role and purpose of strategic intelligence in such weekly reporting is interesting and not immediately obvious. As a body which sat in London far removed from operational and tactical developments in the theatre, it is important to ask what can be gained from regular updates issued under the JIC banner. This is especially the case when the central intelligence assessment machinery added little itself to local appreciations. Some context on the weekly product is, however, first necessary.

In 1955 the weekly summaries of current intelligence did not adequately cover the colonies. Colonial officials bypassed the Heads of Sections meetings and so imperial security was covered patchily at best. Indeed, by October 1955 Patrick Dean was arguing for important colonial developments to be included.⁷⁴ This initial neglect seems not to have been a conscious decision, but rather because the reviews were an evolution from the previous JIC ‘Review of the Situation Round the Soviet and Satellite Perimeter’ which began in 1951. Weekly summaries were replaced in June 1956 with two new weekly products: the ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’ (WRCI) or Grey Book, and the ‘Weekly Survey of Intelligence’ (WSI) or Red Book, compiled by the Heads of Sections and issued by the JIC. As part of this development, the Colonial Office reluctantly agreed to work with the Heads of Sections, but refused full-time permanent membership. This meant that internal issues were now adequately considered, but that external matters not obviously or immediately relevant to the colonial sphere (such as events in Egypt or Greece) were overlooked.

Both weekly products reviewed developments of the past week. They aimed to produce a document giving an ‘intelligence evaluation of important information received and trends revealed’, thus keeping ‘other interested parties abreast of current intelligence’. The Red Book was more highly classified than its counterpart, with the Grey Book having a far wider circulation. The former was issued to an exclusive clientele in London, including the private secretaries to the minister of defence and prime minister, whilst the latter catered ‘for the broad mass of officials’ in London and overseas.⁷⁵

The level of joint intelligence organisation input into the actual information disseminated is important. It reveals a number of instructive issues: firstly, the purpose of current intelligence at the strategic level; secondly, the nature of the intelligence assessment process; thirdly, the amount of integration between the JIC and its constituent departments; and fourthly, the impact this all had on the intelligence product issued. JIC weekly output drew heavily on weekly reports sent from local officials in Cyprus to the Colonial Office. These reports included detailed updates, analysis, appreciation and forecasts and were then processed and summarised by departments ready for the JIC weekly review.⁷⁶

Consequently, there exists ample evidence of information from weekly updates being repeated almost verbatim in the following Grey Book. To give just one example: a weekly report from Cyprus stated in September 1956 that ‘grenades have been used more extensively during the past week than for some considerable time’. It then provided a detailed discussion on grenade use including a description of the eighteen incidents that week. The Colonial Office received this report, summarised it and handed it to the Heads of Sections for inclusion in the weekly Grey Book. As a result, the version issued by the JIC the following week lacked any of the detail contained in the original, but consisted only of the exact phrase quoted above along with a one-line summary of the rest of the original paragraph.⁷⁷ This pattern is striking. It was repeated regularly, with many JIC threat assessments of violence patterns coming directly from the most recent weekly report from Cyprus. The central intelligence machinery added surprisingly little, apart from an occasional shift in emphasis or tone.

Inserting local updates verbatim worked well regarding assessments of the internal situation. They required minimal interdepartmental assessment and cross-analysis (which was just as well given the lack of Colonial Office integration). Consequently, JIC weekly output reflected local thinking more than the broader and more detailed intelligence reports (which had gone through the interdepartmental assessment process) could manage.

What then was the point of the JIC and its strategic current intelligence? The central intelligence machinery in Whitehall drew on departmental representatives and contacts to collate, summarise and distribute information to consumers in London and beyond. The Grey Book was a useful vehicle for this, particularly once colonial security was included. However, the Grey Book’s utility was only relevant to internal security and was limited when discussing the impact of external events on colonial security, especially when relevance may not have been immediately apparent. It was relatively straightforward for the Colonial Office to insert an update on Cyprus into the JIC’s weekly output, yet lack of full colonial integration into the joint intelligence organisation—in the form of full-time representation at Heads of Sections meetings—rendered interdepartmental discussion of broader regional developments more problematic. It created tension between the Colonial Office and the JIC.⁷⁸ This goes some way to explaining why, on internal threats at least, JIC weekly reports highlighted EOKA over AKEL. Furthermore, it raises important questions about levels of integration in all source intelligence assessment and the impact this can have on the balance of conclusions in potentially favouring one department or viewpoint.

Disseminated as part of the Grey Book, the updates on Cyprus (and other colonies) formed part of a broader and coordinated intelligence output. They added value to the updates from the theatre despite contributing little extra information. The format allowed a range of consumers to keep up to date with global events easily and efficiently. It allowed consumers to consider broader trends across time and subject. Moreover, assessment and dissemination through the JIC machinery served as a useful interdepartmental point of reference ensuring that the various players approached the issue from as similar a foundation as possible and reduced duplication.

Intelligence memoranda

In February 1958, nearly three years into the conflict, the JIC issued a thoroughly comprehensive assessment of insurgent capabilities and intentions. Shortly after his arrival in office, the new governor, Hugh Foot, feared a recrudescence of terrorist activities. In response, Patrick Dean commissioned the Colonial Office to conduct, on behalf of the JIC, an appraisal of the ‘trouble sources’ in Cyprus. This was to include the relative strength of EOKA, TMT (the Turkish resistance organisation) and the communists, as well as an assessment of inter-communal violence.⁷⁹ That this report formed the first comprehensive JIC assessment of the situation demonstrates the impact of the committee’s transition into the Cabinet Office. In distancing the committee from military conceptualisations, the transition subsequently broadened its agenda and improved JIC relations with the Colonial Office, although it should be noted that relations still fell short of an integrated drafting process.

Meanwhile, the intelligence assessment’s impressive level of depth perhaps reflects the improving local intelligence organisation. Specificity was now possible. In fact, according to Dimitrakis ‘since mid-1956 British intelligence had had very good information about the Greek-Cypriot group, covering critical anti-guerrilla tasks and EOKA’s communications networks, concealment practices and financing’.⁸⁰ As such, the JIC were able to offer a detailed assessment of EOKA, including its ideology, control, capabilities and intentions. On the latter point, however, intelligence prematurely concluded that EOKA was ‘moving against the resumption of all out violence’. Although it opined that the prospect of British withdrawal had brought instability to the surface, the JIC did not predict the increase in tension witnessed a few months later.⁸¹

As the conflict persisted into late 1958 and early 1959, the JIC became aware of ameliorative developments and successfully predicted the end of the violence. The important caveat here, however, is that such a prediction came so late on as to be of little use to policymakers. Indeed, Alan Lennox-Boyd was taken by surprise at the decline in violence, revealing shortfalls in intelligence.⁸² Prospects for peace in Cyprus improved when, in early 1959, Greece and Turkey began to work together over a settlement. Shortly afterwards an SIS representative on the JIC accurately informed his colleagues that, based on reports from Athens, ‘there appeared to be a degree of cautious optimism regarding the possibility of a Cyprus settlement’.⁸³ This proved accurate: Greco-Turkish discussions in Zurich in early February 1959 moved further towards a settlement, before tripartite talks in London in mid-February culminated in the Lancaster House Agreement.⁸⁴ The agreement was swiftly followed by a JIC assessment which argued that ‘there will be a general acceptance of the results of the London conference by the Greek Cypriots, including both Grivas and the left wing [and that] the Turkish community will abide by the decision of the Turkish Government and their leaders’.⁸⁵ Although the JIC later feared a rise in ‘extreme militant nationalism’ amongst the youth,⁸⁶ the February assessment was broadly accurate. Violence wound down by March 1959 and Cyprus achieved independence in 1960.

Internationalising Insurgencies

External pressures frequently buffeted colonial policy. Cyprus proved no exception and the JIC was quick to latch on to the impact of international developments. Demonstrating similarities with intelligence assessments of events in Malaya, Cyprus was conceptualised within a broader context as an international rather than colonial dispute. Aware that events rarely occur in isolation, Harold Macmillan, then prime minister, often tried to frame the issue in complex international terms, and stressed that Cyprus was ‘not a colonial problem but a great international issue’.⁸⁷ This inevitably created the usual tension in Whitehall, with territorial Colonial Office officials predictably reluctant to allow insurgencies to become distorted by international politics. Moreover, Lennox-Boyd had to defer to the view of the foreign secretary and the prime minister in a climate in which the ‘conventional bargaining process between the Government and colonial nationalists had to be subordinated to a broader set of international considerations’.⁸⁸ Colonial officials loathed playing second fiddle on imperial issues.

Macmillan’s international framing of the issue resonated with the JIC agenda. Any JIC value was, however, once again subject to whether intelligence assessments could accurately pick apart the internal and external intricacies. Indicative of the difficulties of achieving interdepartmental consensus in an area in which one department felt it should take the lead, tension soon flared up within the JIC. On the one hand Colonial Office sources were inherently insular, whilst on the other hand, intelligence assessments needed to examine the wider impact of international events on the Cypriot threat, so as to formulate broader foreign and defence policy. As mentioned in the previous section, this dilemma was overcome regarding assessments solely on the internal situation when Colonial Office sources took obvious precedence. By contrast, regarding the bigger international picture, the intelligence process became much more complicated.

The Cold War agenda

When assessing Malaya, the predominance of Cold War thinking across Whitehall engulfed intelligence. The exact same thing happened half a decade later regarding Cyprus. It has already been demonstrated that focus on the Cold War affected warning capabilities, but this continued to impact upon agenda-setting throughout the campaign, particularly until late 1957. Within this context, the JIC recognised that committee members ‘are interested in Communist-inspired disorders wherever they may break out, since these all form part of a larger picture and cannot be considered merely in isolation’. Therefore the JIC was also interested in ‘the external Communist threat to British interests’,⁸⁹ which, as a front line in the Cold War, certainly included the colonies.

When the chiefs of staff came to discuss the Cyprus insurgency in July 1955, they perceived communism to be the principal threat. They believed that AKEL aimed to exploit the enosis ‘agitation’ and had the ‘greater potential power’ than their right-wing rivals.⁹⁰ Similarly, Ministerial Committee on Cyprus directly quoted Templer’s report on colonial security (which itself was based heavily on a JIC paper) and argued that ‘the communist menace in Cyprus was at least as great as that of nationalism’.⁹¹ Whilst a legitimate concern, the communist danger was overestimated at the expense of the right-wing nationalists, with whom the real threat lay.

In contrast to the internal assessments, Colonial Office input was marginalised when it came to appreciations of the external threat. Owing to its place within the chiefs of staff structure, the JIC was driven by fears of conventional warfare with the Soviets. Taking a familiar state-centric approach, the JIC considered the possibility of an atomic attack and potential Soviet targets in Cyprus, whilst in late 1956 the committee examined the air threat in the Eastern Mediterranean. Similarly, in early 1957 the JIC argued that in a global war ‘attacks with nuclear weapons are likely by a small number of medium bombers […] on the air base at Akrotiri and possibly the Headquarters at Episkopi’.⁹² At one point a hapless JIC secretary was summoned before the chiefs to explain himself after the allied commander-in-chief had criticised a JIC report on the air threat to Cyprus for being too optimistic. In response, the committee agreed to send a full report every night to Allied Force Headquarters providing them with up-to-date intelligence.⁹³ This was all going on at the same time as the security situation in Cyprus was rapidly deteriorating.

By 1955 disgruntled figures inside the Colonial Office were fighting back. During the outbreak of violence in Malaya (generally speaking) colonial officials had allowed the insurgency to be conceptualised as part of the broader Cold War; but no longer. Officials were prepared to offer some leeway to Cold War understandings during a communist uprising, but when it came to nationalism, EOKA and Cyprus, they were far less generous. This created further distance between the Colonial Office on one side and the central intelligence organisation on the other. Ironically, such self-imposed exile served only to further propagate the Cold War dominance. It was a vicious cycle of discontent, distance, and further discontent. Dismissing the JIC merely as a military mouthpiece perpetuating flawed Cold War orthodoxies, the Colonial Office refused to cooperate. Demonstrating a lack of Whitehall harmony, which undermined the British intelligence assessment system, colonial officials argued that the JIC had failed to appropriately conceptualise the Cold War by seeing it as simply ‘something soldiers fight’. Damning the joint intelligence organisation, colonial officials further blustered that the Cold War ‘has been pursued and interpreted in such a way as to make the JIC completely myopic and almost to ignore the essential field of political developments unconnected or only indirectly connected with the Cold War, but vitally affecting HMG’s position in the world’. The fanfaronade continued: the Colonial Office ‘had much trouble with the dangerous misconception favoured by the Ministry of Defence and the Chiefs of Staff, and in no way questioned by the JIC, that practically all our difficulties in the Colonies (as in the world as a whole) can be attributed to the Cold War, that is to say to Soviet and/or Communist subversion’.⁹⁴

Patrick Dean, the straightforward JIC chairman, was not amused. And yet his pressure on the Colonial Office to play ball was to no avail. Colonial officials continued to deride JIC output as being of ‘very debatable value’. Furthermore they refused requests for full-time attendance of the Heads of Sections meetings where intelligence was integrated and assessments were composed.⁹⁵ As a result, the JIC continued to frame Cyprus within a paradigm of broader communist subversion or an impending conventional global war with the Soviets.

NATO and the United Nations

Strategic intelligence assessments regularly addressed the impact of activity within international institutions. One such context was the relationship between Cypriot violence and the efficient workings of NATO. Drawing on three and a half years of violence patterns, the JIC noted in 1958 that ‘as so often happens, the turn of events in Cyprus is again waiting on things happening outside the Island—in this case, the current negotiations in NATO’.⁹⁶ According to the committee, such discussions added an extra dimension to the patterns of Cypriot violence. Indeed, the JIC shared British policymakers’ concern that international tensions caused by the conflict had negative implications for the workings of NATO. For example, in September 1955 the committee’s intelligence expressed apprehension regarding the deterioration of Greco-Turkish relations and informed consumers that ‘following anti-Greek riots in Turkey, the Greek Government withdrew from NATO exercises during September’. NATO swiftly criticised the Greek action, leading the JIC to warn that ‘while Greek public opinion continues to be excited over Cyprus, there will remain a danger of friction which might impair the working of NATO’. Such concern was not, however, extended to Turkey, as the committee believed that Turkey’s allegiance to NATO was ‘unlikely to be affected by any differences with Greece over Cyprus’.⁹⁷

Greece and Turkey were both strategically important countries on NATO’s eastern flank. The JIC was consequently concerned about worsening diplomatic relations between them and in 1956 advised the Foreign Office to keep ‘a look out’ for deterioration.⁹⁸ As with other Cold War implications, concern over Cyprus and NATO was likely to have been emphasised by the chiefs of staff for whom the integrity of NATO was naturally a big priority. In fact, a few months before reaching the JIC’s agenda, the chiefs of staff warned Patrick Dean that ‘the breakdown of negotiations in Cyprus might also exacerbate relations between Greece and Turkey, thus still further weakening NATO’.⁹⁹ It is hardly surprising, therefore, that when Dean asked the Foreign Office to merely keep a look out for deterioration, the director of naval intelligence frantically lobbied instead for a more detailed examination to be commissioned.¹⁰⁰

A second influential international forum impacting upon Cypriot events was the United Nations. Relating less to the Cold War, the debates within the UN were highly relevant to that other dominant strand in British thinking—imperial pressures and Britain’s global role. Greece had hopefully assumed that UN debates on Cyprus would inevitably result in enosis. When this failed to materialise, a highly charged atmosphere was created. The JIC quickly cottoned on and intelligence assessments emphasised a correlation between patterns of violence and international discussions of the Cyprus question, a precedent perhaps set by the termination of the December 1954 UN session, which resulted in riots in Greece and Cyprus.¹⁰¹ In fact the JIC believed that the UN debates were more influential in determining violence patterns than their NATO equivalents. For example, in 1955 JIC intelligence reports predicted that ‘no substantial change is to be expected in the situation until the week-end, when the inscription of the Cyprus question on the agenda of the General Assembly will have come up for discussion in New York. […] At this point further demonstrations may well be staged in the island, with the attendant threat to public order’.¹⁰²

Assessments evolved as the insurgency intensified. Intelligence began to predict an increase of violence directly before the UN debate, so as to ‘keep Cyprus well to the fore in the news’. To its credit, the JIC was often correct in this. For example, in February 1957 the committee stated that an ‘intensified terrorist effort in anticipation of the United Nations debate is developing as expected’. Correspondingly, the JIC linked falls in violence after UN debates to the failure of EOKA to successfully ‘exploit the UN debate as they had intended’.¹⁰³ Similarly, in 1958 the committee assessed that ‘a resumption of violence immediately after the United Nations debate is unlikely [because] a short period, at least, will probably be needed by Makarios, Grivas, and the Greek Government to reassess their problems’.¹⁰⁴ The JIC’s treatment of both the UN and NATO usefully demonstrates how strategic intelligence places developments in the bigger picture.

The Arab-Israeli conflict

If the military took the lead within the JIC regarding NATO and the Cold War, then the Colonial Office finally took charge regarding the impact of a potential Arab-Israeli war on Cyprus. This was in marked contrast to events during the Malayan Emergency when military members framed and dominated most discussions. It indicates the initial impact of the 1955 reforms designed to better integrate the Colonial Office with the joint intelligence organisation. The Colonial Office was at last beginning to make its mark. Treaty obligations dating back to 1948 stipulating British defence commitment to Jordan worried policymakers towards the end of 1955. Of particular concern was the threat of a Jordanian conflict with Israel and the implications for British intervention. Consequently, the chiefs of staff brought the issue to the JIC’s attention in November, initially under the broad banner of ‘The Likelihood of War between Israel and the Arab States’. Signifying the Colonial Office’s newfound ability to frame the intelligence agenda, however, Charles Carstairs narrowed the main JIC discussion to ‘Possible Israeli Action Against Cyprus’.¹⁰⁵

Carstairs emphasised the impact of foreign developments on colonial matters. He argued that ‘if the Israelis were intending to start a war, it would be in their interests to make it as difficult as possible for us to meet our commitments to Jordan. This could be done by tying troops down in Cyprus: It might, therefore, be in Israel’s interest in these circumstances to stimulate the activities of EOKA in Cyprus by sending money’. Carstairs did admit that the Colonial Office ‘had no evidence that this was being done’, but ‘wondered if other Departments had any information’.¹⁰⁶ This is an intriguing and instructive episode in the history of the JIC and the empire. The meeting firstly demonstrates how the insurgency engulfing Cyprus was considered as part of a broader context. Secondly, it reveals how the Colonial Office began to shape the central intelligence machinery when Cold War issues were not at stake. And thirdly, it conveys the benefits of the joint intelligence machinery: an integral role of the JIC was to provide a forum where different departments could discuss intelligence-related concerns and where integrated analysis of problems allowed committee members to understand cross-departmental implications of ongoing developments and then take the necessary action. In this case, the JIC ‘invited Departments to watch for signs of Israeli assistance to EOKA’.¹⁰⁷

Consequently an informed interdepartmental discussion could take place when the committee next discussed the issue under the narrower colonial header. For his part, Carstairs continued to argue that ‘it seemed at least possible that, in the event of UK intervention against Israel in an Arab/Israeli war, Israel might see advantage in exploiting the situation in Cyprus to tie up British forces’. The options available to Israel, according to Carstairs, were to directly assist EOKA or to inflict air attacks on Cyprus in order to ‘cause panic and to induce civil disturbances’. An unnamed representative of SIS confirmed that ‘there was no doubt some elements in Israel, particularly the IZL [Irgun Zvai Leumi], would welcome any opportunity to foster anti-British activities’, and it was well-known that the IZL had ‘approached Cypriots in the Levant’. The SIS intelligence appears to be at odds with reality. The Irgun were a Jewish militia operating during the British mandate of Palestine. They had, however, disbanded or merged into the Israeli Defence Force long before 1955. Perhaps SIS was referring to some unofficial remnants of the group or to dissident elements within the Israeli state. Either way, according to SIS, it was possible that Israelis (not necessarily with the knowledge of the government) ‘were training a few of the Cypriot terrorists, but so far there was no firm evidence to support this’. Again illustrating interdepartmental coordination, the SIS officer closed by reassuring the Colonial Office that they would be informed as soon as more evidence appeared.¹⁰⁸ Ultimately, these concerns were irrelevant as there was no war, but nonetheless the discussions illustrate not only the JIC’s internationalisation of insurgencies, but also the greater role for the Colonial Office in terms of framing the agenda and the beginnings of a more integrated departmental discussion—so crucial for accurate intelligence assessment in the British system.

Egypt and the Suez Crisis

The Suez misadventure of 1956 was a vital episode in the recent history of Britain’s role in the Middle East. Serving as a fascinating case study, it demonstrates not only an international event impacting upon an insurgency, but also relations between the central intelligence machinery and a constituent Whitehall department. Once again colonial officials were initially marginalised within the joint intelligence assessment organisation, before then asserting themselves and strongly criticising the JIC for neglecting colonial interests. The Suez Crisis, and the JIC’s role within it, has been covered elsewhere and lies beyond the focus of this book.¹⁰⁹ Specifically regarding Cyprus however, Operation Musketeer demanded many British forces be transferred from internal counter-insurgency duties for use against Egypt. Harding lost five ‘of the best units in the island’, thereby giving ‘the sign for Grivas to step up EOKA’s efforts’. It is, therefore, no coincidence that Operation Musketeer coincided with the largest EOKA offensive of the conflict.¹¹⁰

Intelligence assessments had long linked events in Egypt to those in Cyprus and as early as March 1956 warned of arms trafficking into Cyprus via Egyptian ports and airfields. Connecting these developments to the Egyptian authorities, intelligence further warned that ‘it has recently been reported that the Egyptian Government recently formed a “front” of Greeks living in Egypt to help the Cypriot resistance movement’.¹¹¹ Similarly, the JIC investigated the impact of Cairo Radio, Nasser’s notorious propaganda outlet, on the colony. By the late summer, the JIC confirmed that ‘Cairo Radio has been transmitting every evening a Greek programme of one hour’s duration directed at Cyprus and including a fifteen minute commentary on Cyprus affairs partly derived from Greek sources. Some of these programmes (which are audible in Cyprus) have contained violent attacks on British policy in Cyprus and expressed support for the enosis movement’.¹¹² The JIC was clearly aware of connections between Egypt and Cyprus. It is therefore surprising that the implications for the Cypriot insurgency of the Suez Canal nationalisation were so badly underestimated.

Nasser famously nationalised the canal in July 1956. The following month, the JIC predicted the situation that might arise if diplomatic measures resulted in deadlock but short of war. Assessing the impact on Cyprus, it concluded that ‘The EOKA terrorist campaign is already dying down and may soon come to an end altogether. The local Communist Party has a considerable following in the Island, but even so, the dispute over the Suez Canal is unlikely to have any significant repercussions and we do not foresee any need for further troops’.¹¹³ Whilst the conclusion that there would be no need for extra troops in conditions short of war was accurate, intelligence grossly underestimated the strength of EOKA.

More importantly, the JIC also considered the impact of the nationalisation in conditions of war, as was ultimately the case. The JIC boldly asserted that ‘we do not believe that war with Egypt would in itself lead to a worsening of the situation in Cyprus. It seems unlikely that there would be a requirement for further troops’.¹¹⁴ Although this report signifies the JIC’s attempts to place the insurgency into broader frameworks, the committee got it wrong. It may be easy with hindsight to criticise errors, but the fact that intelligence assessments had previously linked Egypt to Cyprus suggests that a logical deduction could have been made regarding Suez, whereby fewer troops (and more distractions) in Cyprus would lead to the theatre becoming vulnerable to EOKA attack. The question then is why the JIC overlooked this threat.

Firstly, problems in the intelligence assessment process left colonial implications initially neglected. The Grey Books, which were written largely by the Colonial Office, did include colonial developments but focused narrowly on internal matters. By contrast, the broader and more detailed JIC assessments included discussion of international aspects but lacked sufficient consideration of internal and local aspects. It was a difficult balance to strike and left colonial officials highly disgruntled at their lack of input into JIC assessments of Suez. Colonial governors, for example, were complaining that they were not being kept updated by the JIC.¹¹⁵

A particularly cantankerous and outspoken colonial official, Juxon Barton, strongly criticised the JIC’s first paper on the nationalisation of the Suez Canal for not including colonial implications at all. Described by colleagues in the intelligence and security world as ‘a bit of a character’ and a ‘livewire’, Barton was a bitter former colonial administrator who had been passed over for an exotic governorship.¹¹⁶ On the verge of retirement, he had unfortunately ended up back in cold and rainy London. His loss, however, has proved to be the historian’s gain, for his brusque and candid minutes liven up the archival files no end. Indeed, Barton labelled this particular intelligence assessment as ‘cowardly’ and neglectful of ‘the effects on the Dominions and Colonies’.¹¹⁷ By contrast, the JIC was far more successful in linking Suez to Cyprus in terms of conventional issues, such as war planning, conventional security and censorship.¹¹⁸ Incidentally, these issues were set and framed by the chiefs of staff, illustrating the continued military hold over the committee’s agenda.

Barton complained that ‘I’m glad to see that we are not down as one of the signatories to their [indecipherable word] and out-of-date paper. If it really reflects high Foreign Office and Service thinking then heaven help us’. In fact, Barton’s anger intensified throughout the week, culminating in a spectacular rant to his boss: ‘I have never seen anything so irresponsible, so dangerous to British interest in intelligence work. One almost suspects a “hidden hand”, but it is almost certainly stupidity’.¹¹⁹ Such disenchantment is interesting. On the one hand colonial officials deliberately distanced themselves from integration into the joint intelligence machinery, feeling the JIC misunderstood the complexities of colonial politics. Yet conversely, the same officials expressed anger when the committee neglected colonial implications. On this occasion the colonial officials did then assert their position in the discussion and the next JIC assessment did consider the impact on the Cypriot insurgency.

Secondly, local intelligence sources, which continued to portray EOKA as a dangerous organisation, were not adequately consulted by the intelligence assessment machinery in London. Just a month after the JIC described EOKA as ‘dying down’, the Cyprus Intelligence Committee warned that ‘the potential of EOKA as an armed force remains considerable’. Similarly, the JIC (Middle East) criticised the JIC’s Suez assessment as ‘optimistic’. Local intelligence actors added that EOKA was ‘still a factor to be reckoned with and terrorism is once again in full swing’. Directly linking events to Suez, the local intelligence committee then warned that ‘EOKA is likely to pay increasing attention to sabotage targets to demonstrate that the value of Cyprus as a military base is considerably reduced by hostility of local population’. Similarly, local intelligence further attacked the JIC’s naïve conclusion by warning that ‘EOKA [is] likely to intensify effort in [the] event of war with Egypt in belief that it could achieve greater successes while HMG is preoccupied’.¹²⁰ Such strong criticism by local intelligence sources of the JIC’s conclusions suggests either that they were not consulted in the drafting process or that their advice was overlooked. Time pressures were certainly a factor in explaining this. The optimistic sections on Cyprus were written by Juxon Barton. He again criticised the JIC—this time for not allowing him enough time to complete his assessment thoroughly and to discuss the issues with the departments concerned.¹²¹

Although former JIC chairman Percy Cradock applauds the committee for doing a ‘credible job’ regarding Suez,¹²² there were clearly deficiencies regarding the consideration of colonial matters. Cyprus was, however, mentioned in a later JIC report commissioned by the chiefs of staff on 9 October 1956 covering threats to UK overseas interests. Significantly, this was the same week that the ‘collusion’ was hatched. During a time of frustration over Suez, Nasser’s shadow hung ominously over the assessment despite not being explicitly acknowledged at the start. The report, according to the historian Gill Bennett, found that nearly all trouble areas identified (from the Middle East to Africa) were considered likely to be affected if matters were resolved in favour of Nasser.¹²³ Indeed, it argued that ‘any concessions made by the United Kingdom under pressure are likely to have repercussions throughout the world, encouraging further claims and exacerbating potential points of friction. Conversely a successful demonstration of resolution and firmness by the United Kingdom would have the effect of discouraging similar pressure throughout the world’. Specifically regarding Cyprus, the committee wrote that ‘if British prestige in the Middle East declines, the terrorists will be encouraged, and a political settlement made more difficult’.¹²⁴ By October therefore, and perhaps as a result of earlier colonial criticism, the JIC had implicitly linked Cypriot security and Suez—emphasising the importance of British regional prestige but without examining a more direct and short-term impact of the Suez campaign on Cyprus. Neither (in a separate report) did the JIC examine the impact on Cyprus if Nasser’s prestige remained undiminished, despite considering the impact on other colonial territories such as Kenya and Aden.¹²⁵

Ultimately, EOKA launched a devastating offensive whilst Britain was distracted by Suez. ‘Black November’ 1956 was the low point of the insurgency, with 2,500 violent acts and over two hundred deaths reported.¹²⁶ The JIC’s flawed assessment may well have played some part in the decision to redeploy forces away from Cyprus during Suez. It perhaps created a false sense of complacency in London that the counter-insurgency campaign would be unaffected. The JIC, however, got it wrong and was forced to concede, ‘this is the highest rate of casualties since EOKA commenced operations’.¹²⁷ Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing.

Broader Reflections

The mid-1950s can be characterised as a period of tentative progress regarding the JIC’s handling of insurgencies and irregular threats. It was also a period of tension. Yet these factors were not necessarily mutually exclusive: the debate over threat conceptualisation and the role of the JIC emanating from the 1955 Templer reforms helped drive the committee towards the Cabinet Office in 1957. As the Cypriot violence progressed, the joint intelligence organisation consequently grew better placed in terms of composition and structure to consider the insurgency. Enhanced jurisdiction over colonial insurgencies, however, brought with it predictable tension. It is not enough for historians simply to cite JIC conclusions when examining the impact of intelligence on policy. There is an important level underneath the final assessment that demonstrates how conclusions were reached and provides valuable insight into the workings of the official mind in all its complexity. The relationships between the central intelligence machinery and Whitehall departments were crucial. Whilst making historical analysis more complicated, this deeper level provides important insight into the workings of the British system and into interdepartmental perceptions and debates that shape the intelligence conclusions.

Operating within a lead actor framework

The JIC attempted to implement some sort of managerial function by offering advice and overseeing local intelligence reform. This raises important issues about the relationship between the interdepartmental intelligence assessment body on the one hand and individual departments that naturally take the lead in a certain policy area on the other. From October 1955, the committee acknowledged that the intelligence organisation in Cyprus could not meet the intensifying violence. Intervention from London was needed and the JIC complemented the Colonial Office and MI5 by taking a strategic view. It provided an institutionalised forum through which relevant departments could liaise and coordinate an effective interdepartmental response in recommending and implementing reforms.

In practice, however, the Colonial Office and MI5 took the lead role in employing these reforms. Operating within a lead agency/department policy area, the JIC’s theoretical managerial role was often limited to being kept updated by MI5 and the Colonial Office. Moreover, direct management of civilian agencies and departments by what was in 1955 a military committee would have been met with resistance. The committee lacked the status and authority to achieve meaningful reform itself. Although the JIC’s role was largely passive and coordinative, the committee did serve a useful purpose as an extra layer to facilitate interdepartmental cooperation. To its credit, there existed little tension regarding intelligence management between the JIC on the one hand and the Colonial Office and MI5 on the other. The committee seemed content to adopt a position of coordination rather than direct intervention. The JIC knew its place.

Agenda-setting

The issue of agenda-setting was, and indeed remains, highly important: whoever framed the intelligence agenda impacted upon the output of the reports. It was therefore potentially dangerous when the agenda was largely set by a narrow band of consumers with pre-conceived mindsets about the nature of the threat. Demonstrating evolution from the neglect prior to the Malayan insurgency, Cyprus was on the JIC’s radar before the outbreak of violence. However, the committee remained hampered by the same damaging structural and cognitive constraints reminiscent of seven years earlier. The JIC’s agenda was focused exclusively around the communist threat and neglected the impending right-wing violence. Cognitively, the Cold War mindset permeated Whitehall and especially the committee’s military masters—the chiefs of staff. Developments were considered through a Cold War prism.

Cognitive impairments were compounded by structural factors. The JIC remained housed in the chiefs of staff committee structure at the outbreak of the insurgency and continued to lack integration with the reluctant Colonial Office. To overcome these issues, the committee needed to evolve to become more truly interdepartmental and integrated with all relevant actors. Although coming too late to make a tangible difference regarding warning of the Cypriot uprising, reforms in spring 1955 aimed to improve intelligence coordination in Whitehall so as to aid warnings of future insurgencies.

The internal-external dichotomy in strategic intelligence

The JIC’s role in the Cyprus Emergency demonstrated a difficult task for strategic intelligence assessments: to balance internal and external developments so as not to skew conclusions. From late 1955, Cyprus became a regular item on the JIC agenda. Via its weekly reviews of intelligence, the committee kept consumers in Whitehall and abroad regularly updated about internal developments, EOKA violence patterns and counter-terrorist measures. The Grey Book proved a suitable vehicle to disseminate internal developments, the role of local actors, and local ideology to the broader audience. The Colonial Office was able to draft a separate annex and have it inserted into the broader JIC output. This was clearly lacking in assessments of the Malayan violence, which took an overwhelmingly internationalist view. In fact, the joint intelligence organisation added little to local weekly updates. Despite this, the Grey Book and the JIC played an important role in coordination and dissemination. The JIC machinery added value to local colonial assessments by disseminating them along with other developments in order to allow consumers to view strategic trends, to reduce duplication and to serve as an interdepartmentally agreed reference point.

This approach, however, proved inadequate for more detailed assessments of external threats to Cyprus or the local implications of seemingly unrelated international developments. The British intelligence model theoretically added value to local or tactical judgements by placing them in the broader strategic context, by considering external threats to colonial security and by aiding the formulation of broader foreign, defence and colonial policy. Yet this was not necessarily the case in practice. Owing to Colonial Office reluctance to participate in what it angrily perceived as a military-dominated exercise, there was not enough engagement between the colonial officials and joint intelligence machinery. The Colonial Office refused full-time representation at the report drafting level and only attended on an ad hoc basis. Such reticence reduced the opportunity for interdepartmental discussion and integrated analysis. As a result, JIC assessments fell into similar traps as had happened when assessing the Malayan uprising. Conventional Cold War conceptualisations initially dominated the committee’s agenda and output until the 1957 move to the Cabinet Office. Any apparent contradiction is therefore resolved: the Cold War mindset did not encroach on weekly assessments of the internal threat but did impact upon broader and more detailed considerations of Cyprus in its regional context.

Insurgencies were clearly an area in which the Colonial Office was the lead department. It could be argued that, given the JIC’s Cold War mindset, the Colonial Office were wise to keep their distance, thereby ensuring colonial reports were untainted. But this would have undermined the importance of consensus in the British system. The JIC had to achieve a subtle balance regarding Colonial Office input. Too little input rendered colonial matters neglected. This meant that the impact of some international developments on a colonial insurgency went unforeseen. Where external forces were considered, the roles of internal agency and ideology in uprisings were marginalised in favour of external forces. Yet too much Colonial Office input without room for interdepartmental discussion, such as in the Grey Book, gave JIC appreciations a narrow focus on internal developments, causing the committee to neglect its interdepartmental role and its ability to help guide broader strategic policy.

The importance of interdepartmentalism

Progress, however, was another significant theme during this period. The reforms of 1955 directly placed the importance of political and colonial intelligence at the forefront of Whitehall debate. They formed part of the committee’s evolution towards the Cabinet Office. Although the reforms undoubtedly led to short-term tension in that the Colonial Office was reluctant to cooperate, they did begin to see improvements in the committee’s willingness and ability to consider colonial affairs. Colonial territories began to be included in the weekly intelligence reviews and the period saw a gradual shift away from conventional military appreciations towards an acknowledgement that intelligence crossed departmental boundaries. It was finally recognised that non-defence intelligence was increasingly important in a world characterised by the twin policy contexts of the Cold War and decolonisation. This broadening of intelligence set the foundations for the scope required today. In the committee’s own words, the JIC had realised that

intelligence was no longer a purely military business; it was a matter of national concern spread over the political, economic, and military fields between which there was seldom a clear-cut dividing line […] Few problems fell wholly into the political or military fields; while the few purely political papers were dealt with by the appropriate political department, and purely military papers by the Chiefs of Staff, there was a great advantage in processing subjects of common interest through the Joint Intelligence Committee machinery, irrespective of the proportionate division of interest.¹²⁸

The JIC was at the forefront of the broader conceptualisation of security so prevalent in the post-Cold War world. Its agenda and output gradually reflected this shift over the course of the committee’s dealings with Cyprus. Indicative of increased political and colonial input, assessments of the conventional military threat to Cyprus evolved. Those commissioned and framed by the chiefs of staff gradually subsided to broader assessments including irregular threats and a more accurate balance between international developments and internal security. This reflected not only an expansion of the JIC, but equally the changed priorities within Whitehall itself. It emphasised an important truism which remains relevant today: intelligence assessments are heavily shaped by whichever interests frame the agenda and are involved in the drafting process. It is therefore crucial to think very carefully about which departments are being represented for each particular issue.

4
INTO THE WHITEHALL MINEFIELD

ADEN AND THE FEDERATION OF SOUTH ARABIA, 1962–1967

Cyprus gained independence in 1960. In the same year, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan delivered his famous ‘Wind of Change’ speech. In doing so he committed Britain to a ‘rapid process of decolonisation coupled with full political rights for the native populations’.¹ Like Cyprus five years earlier however, Aden was deemed an important British territory which, according to the government, ‘would remain essential to our defence interests as long as we could foresee’.² Sitting on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula, it overlooked a bustling natural harbour resting in the crater of a dormant volcano. Aden was a strategic port, vital in facilitating the flow of oil between the Mediterranean and the Gulf. The ancient city was also an important base from which to defend Britain’s client states elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. It was crucial in projecting power into the Indian Ocean and beyond towards Hong Kong. Indeed, southern Arabia, along with the emirates of the Persian Gulf, ‘represented the last bastion of British political and military influence in the Middle East’, and Aden therefore played a key part in preserving Britain’s role as a Middle Eastern power.³

This overarching strategic context of Britain’s global role framed policy discussions relating to Aden. The twin frameworks of Cold War calculations and the rise of nationalism, however, were never too far away—although the former was far less prominent than in previous insurgencies, as the superpowers moved towards a period of relative détente after the Cuban missile crisis. Despite the earlier rhetoric however, by 1967 Britain had withdrawn from Aden. London had relinquished the military base and cancelled defence commitments with the rulers of the adjoining South Arabian territories. This would have been utterly inconceivable just a few years earlier. As John Ducker writes, the withdrawal was anarchic, dispiriting and undignified. It ‘left everyone feeling betrayed except the NLF [National Liberation Front] who seized control’.⁴

In 1959, six states in the Western Aden Protectorate (an area which evolved in the hinterland of the Aden colony) formed a Federation of Arab Emirates of the South. They signed a treaty of mutual cooperation with Britain. By the end of 1962, the number of states in the federation had grown to eleven. This, the British authorities hoped, would increase regional stability, protect the Aden base and ensure British influence. Aden joined in January 1963 and the federation was subsequently renamed the Federation of South Arabia (FSA). This decision, however, outraged nationalists. The merger was followed by unrest and disorder, setting a tone that would last until British withdrawal.

To complicate matters, a revolution in Yemen overthrew the Imamate in September 1962. The country swiftly descended into a bitter and protracted civil war. The Egyptians quickly supported the nascent Republican government. Meanwhile, the Royalist opposition was assisted by Saudi Arabia, indirectly by British covert action and, to an extent, by British mercenaries. The events in Yemen were inextricably linked to those in Aden and the FSA, for British officials perceived the Egyptian presence as a significant threat to Whitehall’s interests in South Arabia. As a fiery champion of Arab nationalism, Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser supported Yemeni claims to sovereignty over South Arabia. Along with the United Arab Republic (a temporary union of Egypt and Syria), Yemen had been part of the United Arab States alliance from 1958. In allying with Nasser, the Yemeni imam had hoped to guarantee his country’s autonomy from British interests in the south.

It was a short-lived union, however, and was dissolved in 1961. Nasser’s foreign policy activism subsequently involved constant manoeuvrings between Egypt and other Arab states including Syria and Iraq, whilst his revolutionary rhetoric placed him in conflict with the more conservative Arab states—including Yemen. After the imam withdrew from the alliance with Egypt, Nasser sought to convert Yemen into a revolutionary republic similar to his regime in Egypt. The president’s adventures culminated in his foray into Yemen in 1962. Success in Yemen was important to Nasser. Following the breakup of the United Arab Republic (UAR), it formed a chance for him to expand his influence in the region and to challenge the British position in South Arabia. The British feared a domino effect: if Yemen fell to revolutionary Republican forces, so too would South Arabia and the Gulf as a whole.⁵ Egyptian and Republican incursions into FSA territory combined with Egyptian subversion in Aden itself brought about British retaliation.

Following the attempted assassination of the high commissioner in December 1963, a state of emergency was declared in Aden. Deteriorating security across the FSA swiftly followed. With the Egyptians increasingly perceived to be sponsoring the violence, British forces waged a counterinsurgency operation in the hilly Radfan area north of Aden. This was combined with a tricky urban counterterrorism campaign inside Aden itself.

A Labour Government was elected in October 1964. Harold Wilson’s foreign policy goals, however, demonstrated much continuity with his Conservative predecessors, seeking to maintain both the Commonwealth and the transatlantic alliance. Under Wilson, Britain continued to pursue a global role and regarded Nasser as a serious threat to the stability of the Middle East. Although the new prime minister initially reaffirmed Britain’s commitments east of Suez, Wilson swiftly realised the difficulties this posed given the UK’s diminishing capacities. The realities of maintaining the South Arabian base over the long-term were hitting home. Accordingly, the Cabinet Committee on Defence and Oversea Policy concluded the following year that withdrawal was to be Britain’s objective. Denis Healey, secretary of state for defence, recalled that ‘the cost of staying in Aden, with an increasingly hostile population armed and supported by Nasser’s agents from neighbouring Yemen was out of all proportion to the gain’.⁶

The British government issued a Defence White Paper in February 1966. Despite confirming that Aden would be independent by 1968, the move angered federal rulers by renouncing defence commitments. The violence escalated dramatically. It encompassed increased attacks on British targets as well as a brutal conflict between the various rebel groups who sought to gain control once Britain had withdrawn. Like Cyprus, inter-communal violence was problematic not just in creating a difficult counterinsurgency context but also in ensuring that local intelligence dried up. Ultimately, therefore, the British withdrawal in November 1967 was more a disorderly retreat than the planned scaling back of imperial commitments. Aden was decolonisation at its messiest.

Events in the region attracted a great deal of attention from the highest political authorities in London. Indeed, developments proved incredibly divisive across Whitehall. Tension bubbled to the surface most strikingly in fierce debates between the Foreign and Colonial Offices, as decolonisation increasingly muddied the boundaries between those two grand old offices of state.⁷ Sensitive issues included the nature and level of Egyptian subversion, whether to recognise the new Yemeni regime and the impact of Yemeni developments on Aden. Acrimonious altercations engulfed the backrooms of Whitehall and it is worth remembering that it was within this atmosphere, not one of hypothetical objective analysis, in which intelligence was assessed and disseminated.

The JIC, 1962–1967

The 1957 transition to the Cabinet Office ‘reflected the spread of our [the JIC’s] intelligence interest away from the purely military into other fields as well’.⁸ By 1962 the JIC had become an established Cabinet Office committee with access to high-level policymakers. The committee continued to be served by an array of sub-committees, ranging from the scientific and technical sub-committee to the missile threat coordination sub-committee. It also created its own ad hoc working parties to examine specific issues and recommend reforms. Furthermore, the Joint Intelligence Staff and Heads of Sections continued to support the JIC by drafting assessments and monitoring current intelligence.

The mid-1960s saw a period of further reform to British intelligence. Organisational changes in 1964 increased ‘jointery’ in defence management. Such reforms aimed to improve value for money and central control by reorganising the separate service departments into a single ministry. This was designed to increase the relative importance of the Ministry of Defence in relation to the individual armed services.⁹

Moves towards increased defence integration impacted upon JIC composition. They shifted the balance of the committee in the civilians’ favour. The three service intelligence branches were unified into a new Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and therefore, in line with the trend beginning in 1957, the JIC consisted of just two military representatives from the end of 1965. The first was Air Marshal Sir Harold Maguire, the deputy chief of the defence staff (intelligence). A jovial Irishman, Maguire served as the chiefs of staff spokesman. A skilled pilot, he was well-respected as a veteran of the Battle of Britain and had bravely endured three years in a Far Eastern prison camp during the Second World War. The second was the director-general of the DIS, Major General Sir Kenneth Strong. A multilingual and disciplined Scotsman, Strong had had an impressive career in intelligence. During the war, he served as General Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of intelligence and the two became firm friends.¹⁰ The JIC was further streamlined in August 1966 when the Colonial Office was absorbed into the Commonwealth Relations Office. This signalled the end of 18 years’ full-time Colonial Office representation on the JIC. From then on a representative of the Commonwealth Relations Office’s Dependent Territories Division attended JIC meetings only when necessary.

Bernard Burrows chaired the JIC for the majority of the South Arabian campaign. Tall and handsome, Burrows enjoyed an eventful diplomatic career and has been described as one of the five most powerful men in the Foreign Office. An old Etonian, the chairman radiated an air of natural authority but was kind and lacked any sense of self-importance. On arrival to the Joint Intelligence Committee, he was already well-versed in Arabian affairs having served in the Gulf for most of the 1950s before moving to Turkey in 1958. Outside of public life, Burrows cultivated an intriguing interest in crop circles and square dancing.¹¹ Burrows’s successful chairmanship was sandwiched by that of Hugh Stephenson and Denis Greenhill. The latter headed the committee between 1966 and 1968. Considered skilled in dealing with ministers, he was articulate in argument but avoided causing offence. Greenhill possessed a ‘lugubrious exterior which belied a jocular spirit’ and unexpectedly rose to the lofty heights of permanent under-secretary of the Foreign Office.¹²

The 1960s were an opportune moment for the JIC to reflect upon its own assessments. The committee’s membership was changing and there was a broader Whitehall consideration of intelligence requirements during a period of relative Cold War détente.¹³ Certain officials feared that, when compared to the American system, JIS personnel were too tied to their parent departments. This caused potential for intelligence assessments based on low-level interdepartmental consensus rather than independent thinking.¹⁴ In a compromise between the British and American systems, the JIS was strengthened in 1965 to involve longer-term membership, greater use of intelligence professionals, secondment of certain members to the Cabinet Office and a stronger JIS chairman. Similarly the Heads of Sections were also enhanced. They were renamed Current Intelligence Groups, their output was reformed to ensure readability for senior consumers and the chairman acquired full-time responsibility for the oversight of current intelligence. Organised around a range of geographical or functional divisions, membership of Current Intelligence Groups was more flexible than that of the Heads of Sections. It was accordingly hoped that all Whitehall departments with something useful to contribute would be represented and it was inside these groups where some of the most vigorous debate took place.¹⁵

The JIC’s functions remained broadly similar to those in 1957 and the intelligence agenda remained broad. The committee collated, appreciated and disseminated intelligence as required by the cabinet, cabinet committees, ministers or the chiefs of staff, as well as maintaining the ability to commission its own papers.

By the mid-1960s, the JIC’s status had increased and the committee enjoyed better links with policy practitioners. Helped by the JIS and ad hoc working parties, strategic intelligence output became increasingly prolific and developed a more direct input into policymaking with products reaching ‘very senior readers’.¹⁶ As such, the committee provided threat assessments that were used by civil servants to draw up recommendations for ministers. The JIC did not get directly involved with policymaking but did walk an increasingly fine line between objective assessment and policy recommendation. This was especially true of counterinsurgency specific policy. In addition, the JIC chairman regularly attended high profile cabinet committee meetings, such as those of the Defence and Oversea Policy (Official) committee. The JIC now enjoyed a direct link with policymakers. As a result of this higher profile however, the central intelligence machinery increasingly became caught up in debates between the various Whitehall departments. Increased influence and relevance was a double-edged sword: it left intelligence vulnerable to political manipulation.

Intelligence Reform

Organisation, assessment and dissemination

As had happened in Cyprus less than a decade earlier, an escalating insurgency left the Adeni intelligence requirements beyond the capabilities of local command. Once this became apparent, the JIC intervened in its capacity of keeping ‘intelligence as a whole’ at home and overseas under review. Through having specific jurisdiction regarding the organisation of intelligence, the JIC particularly emphasised reforming the regional intelligence assessment and dissemination system. This included overseeing the appointment of key personnel. During these years, the committee enjoyed increased confidence and assertiveness in attempting to exercise management of overseas intelligence more directly, perhaps inspired by chairman Bernard Burrows who had been a former political resident in the Persian Gulf and thus possessed a natural interest in the region. A Colonial Office official appropriately summed up the JIC’s role in late 1965 as ‘the body with final responsibility for reviewing the adequacy of our intelligence arrangements’.¹⁷ In practice, however, whilst this episode represents the high point of attempts to reform intelligence overseas during an insurgency, the committee continued to lack the authority to implement effective reform.

JIC members had been critical of the regional intelligence organisation long before the declaration of emergency regulations. As far back as 1959, the committee bemoaned local weaknesses in intelligence evaluation. Little progress was made, however. By March 1964 therefore, members soon realised that the intelligence system ‘might not be adequate’, causing the JIC to intervene from London. Expressing his ‘considerable concern’, Bernard Burrows recommended the creation of a JIC working party to urgently examine the situation. Reliant on accurate and timely intelligence, the chiefs of staff agreed. They lamented that ‘the intelligence resources [as a whole] in Aden were not adequate for the command structure’. This prompted Burrows, along with Duncan Sandys, then colonial secretary, to visit the area and investigate the intelligence organisation.¹⁸

JIC meetings played host to a number of debates about rebuilding Aden Special Branch after it had almost been wiped out by terrorism. Such discussion was, however, generally limited to issues of senior personnel and constitutional control as opposed to the mechanics of Special Branch. The latter remained the preserve of MI5. Instead, the JIC’s interests primarily lay in intelligence organisation, assessment and dissemination. Moreover, both the intelligence and policy communities consistently highlighted these aspects as being most in need of reform.¹⁹

There were a number of structural deficiencies hampering effective intelligence assessment and dissemination in Aden. Firstly, failing to learn from Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus, there was an initial lack of overall management or coordination of intelligence in the form of a director or chief of intelligence. Secondly, ten separate intelligence agencies reflected the complex political set-up. The high commissioner, the police and the armed forces all had their own intelligence gathering organisations, whilst local federal rulers refused to give active intelligence products to a British central collating point.²⁰ Consequently collation, assessment and dissemination proved difficult. Thirdly, the dual nature of intelligence assessment created a duplication of resources. The Local Intelligence Committee in Aden reported to the high commissioner, whereas the JIC (Middle East), which covered the same area, reported to the local commander-in-chief. As a result the various consumers received different intelligence assessments, which occasionally differed in conclusion or emphasis. This hampered military-political coordination. Consistent with the JIC’s managerial and oversight remit, reforming the relationship between the LIC and the JIC(ME) was the committee’s first priority.

In early 1964 the JIC attempted reform. They sought to reduce confusion between the functions of the two bodies and to increase the flow of intelligence from the theatre to both the regional headquarters and London.²¹ Burrows flew out to Aden to talk with key figures on the ground. Disaster almost struck en route and, out of the Whitehall bubble, the JIC chairman was close to being dragged into the dangerous realities of the vicious conflict. Not long into the flight, Burrows was informed by the pilot that a bomb was on board. It proved a false alarm, but Burrows bravely insisted that the plane should carry on to Libya where it was refuelling, rather than turn back to London.²²

On his return, Burrows emphasised the problem of the ‘dual nature of the intelligence organisation’ in Aden. This had led to confusion and ultimately created weaknesses in assessment and dissemination. To alleviate the situation, Burrows advocated the amalgamation of the LIC and the JIC(ME) as far as Aden, the FSA and Yemen were concerned. The latter would no longer be charged with responsibility for that area. Burrows further recommended that the JIC(ME) chairman be added to LIC membership, and that the LIC should report to all three relevant parties: the high commissioner, the commander-in-chief and the JIC in London through military channels. This would ensure that all relevant information reached all parties concerned, thereby enhancing the flow of intelligence from the periphery to the centre. Indeed, the JIC’s increasing access to ministers is illustrated by Burrows’s attendance at a Defence and Oversea Policy Committee meeting in mid-May, where ministers accepted the JIC proposals. Consequently, the JIC coordinated reform and urged departments to ‘hasten their implementation’.²³

Organisational changes alone, however, were not deemed sufficient to satisfactorily remedy the problems. Therefore, on the recommendations of its working party (and in consultation with the security intelligence adviser seconded from MI5), the JIC also strengthened the LIC and demanded it improve its output. In terms of membership, the JIC concluded that the chairman should be a senior member of the high commissioner’s staff with direct access to the high commissioner himself. It also recommended upgrading the post of ‘chief intelligence officer’ to ‘chief of intelligence’ and aimed to appoint a full-time secretary to relieve him of administrative duties. This new title was designed to convey dynamism and emphasise his coordinating role. Such a role was vital in bringing together the various aspects of the local intelligence cycle and for enhancing how intelligence was assessed, disseminated and ultimately acted upon. Demonstrating the JIC’s role in overseeing intelligence reform across the entire British imperial system, the working party compiled terms of reference for this new post. These were subsequently discussed in the full JIC committee and then with the high commissioner. He was to be immediately responsible to the LIC chairman and would advise on all matters of intelligence policy and intelligence organisation requiring coordination, as well as coordinating the activities and resources of all local intelligence organisations.²⁴

On top of this, the JIC then proceeded to oversee the search for a suitable candidate. The committee liaised with the various departments involved and injected urgency into their discussions. Brigadier Tony Cowper, a previous chair of the JIC (Far East), was subsequently appointed in December 1964 and briefed by the JIC a month later.²⁵ Finally, the JIC recommended that the LIC increase its output, including a weekly intelligence summary to be used in weekly intelligence reviews. This had proved very useful for Cyprus. Summarising the JIC’s role of intervention in intelligence matters, the committee informed Cowper that members ‘had gone to endless trouble to deal with both the personnel and the physical problems of the organisation and were still not entirely satisfied’.²⁶ It was clearly a more hands-on approach.

Having scrutinised intelligence performance at the regional and colonial levels, the JIC then intervened deep into the heart of Adeni intelligence. The committee examined the Aden Intelligence Centre (AIC) and Federal Intelligence Committee (FIC). The AIC was tasked by the LIC to collect, collate and assess intelligence and was thus, in essence, its intelligence staff. However, it proved less than the sum of its parts, lacking accurate intelligence and effective assessment. It was understaffed, overcrowded and (demonstrating parallels with Malayan local intelligence) was engulfed in lamentable personal rivalries.²⁷

The JIC was particularly concerned by the potential for local biases within the AIC. Accordingly, it decided that it needed strengthening as ‘the focal point of intelligence collecting and assessing under the Chief of Intelligence’. The JIC therefore recommended adding a desk officer, who specialised in Yemen, to the ranks of the AIC (and who would also serve on the Local Intelligence Committee), as well as a military intelligence officer, an Arab intelligence officer and an administrative assistant. Not only was this intended to bolster the AIC, but the addition of specialist personnel would have helped filter out the local biases that frustrated the committee. Finally, it was suggested that the AIC needed new premises as its current offices, which were shared with Special Branch, were overcrowded.²⁸ Ultimately, these reforms aimed to strengthen the assessment and coordination of intelligence and to ensure that both political and military consumers were adequately served.

Unsurprisingly, strengthening the Local Intelligence Committee and giving it sole responsibility for assessments on Aden proved popular with the Colonial Office. Colonial officials not only deemed the reforms essential due to the ‘seriousness of the threat to our position in Aden’, but optimistically praised how they had led to a ‘marked improvement’ in the collation and assessment of intelligence.²⁹ The military was, however, perhaps more realistic in its initial assessment. The commander-in-chief (Middle East) cautioned it was too early to tell whether the reforms were ‘entirely satisfactory’ and felt that gaps in intelligence remained.³⁰ In fact, implementation of the reforms was painfully slow. They had little tangible impact on the deteriorating security situation, thereby demonstrating the JIC’s lack of authority on the ground. By Christmas 1964, violence had increased and continued to rise throughout 1965, causing a second JIC working party to lament that despite some improvement, the intelligence organisation ‘still does not work smoothly’.³¹

Intelligence in Aden was particularly complicated to fix. The federal government intelligence structures existed in an uneasy relationship with the British-run system, resulting in what David French has described as a ‘machine of Byzantine complexity’.³² On top of this, the historian Clive Jones convincingly blames the lack of impact on incoherence in implementing the reforms. They were ‘introduced piecemeal, without conviction, and with the result being that officials in Aden doubted their efficacy’.³³ Despite attempting to recommend reform, the committee lacked the executive authority to ensure coherent implementation—a problem amplified by the stubbornness of Trevaskis in resisting reform.

Indicative of this, some succeeded whilst others fell by the wayside. The LIC did successfully take over responsibility for the region from the JIC(ME)—but the local committee’s intelligence reports continued to be somewhat suspect, as discussed below. Meanwhile, in August 1964 Jack Morton, an experienced MI5 officer seconded to the Colonial Office as security intelligence adviser, told the JIC that whilst the military intelligence officer had arrived in the AIC and was proving ‘most useful’, the proposed Arab intelligence officer had not been appointed. Again indicating a lack of conviction, he criticised the length of time it took to issue directives agreed in London in the theatre. Similarly, Morton warned the committee that whilst the AIC had moved to its new premises, security arrangements were not satisfactory and MI5’s officer on the ground had been forced to investigate.³⁴ This problem dragged on throughout the following months and hindered the effective implementation of JIC reforms. Due to security concerns, certain categories of intelligence could not even be distributed to the Aden Intelligence Centre.³⁵

A further problem, according to Jones, was ‘the bloody removal of experienced personnel and the lack of suitable replacements’.³⁶ This was certainly the case regarding the chief of intelligence position. The incumbent, H. Colville-Stewart, was, despite being an experienced Arabist, regarded as a weak link and ‘not up to it’.³⁷ The post was upgraded and he was subsequently demoted to deputy but his replacement, Tony Cowper, was not appointed until a few months later. Yet Cowper too was later criticised. However, Daniel McCarthy, the outspoken political adviser to Middle East Command, argued that it was not the man but the JIC terms of reference for the post that were to blame for the failings. They were impossible for any incumbent to meet. McCarthy praised Cowper for his progress regarding Special Branch and interrogations but felt that he had not been able to do much about political intelligence. McCarthy strongly recommended to the JIC that the chief intelligence officer should be a ‘roaming advisor’ keeping an overall eye on the state of intelligence.³⁸ Despite these shortcomings, the Colonial Office reflected in late 1964 that ‘this extensive reorganisation has [caused] a marked improvement in the quality of the assessments and reports produced for the High Commissioner, the C-in-C(ME), and the JIC’.³⁹ This proved optimistic, if not complacent. A year later, a senior Defence Intelligence Staff official lambasted what he saw as ‘interdepartmental rivalry and jealousies’ within the South Arabian intelligence machinery.⁴⁰

Reforms, round two

Undeterred, the JIC undertook a second examination of the intelligence organisation as Aden began its approach to independence. Two factors rendered this necessary. Firstly, the intelligence structure needed adapting to meet Britain’s supposed post-independence role and requirements. Secondly, the reforms instigated in 1964 had not worked as effectively as intended. The security situation had deteriorated.

From the start of 1965, the JIC had hoped to examine the intelligence structures in the FSA. The committee hoped to ensure that any intelligence organisation necessary to meet Britain’s post-independence requirements would be ready immediately after independence was declared. The committee’s planning was, however, fundamentally flawed. The JIC wrongly assumed that Britain would be keeping a base in Aden. This impacted upon the intelligence planning until the end of the year and made the work conducted throughout 1965 in Aden and London irrelevant. Once the reality became apparent to the committee in late 1965, revised planning needed to be rapidly employed.⁴¹ Additionally, the violence intensified throughout the year. Echoing similar difficulties in Malaya and Cyprus, intelligence soon dried up owing to a lack of Arab cooperation. Locals held little confidence in British security and protection post-independence and thus became less inclined to risk assassination by supplying British authorities with information. Indeed, the campaign of violence and assassination against informants and the police effectively crippled the Adeni Special Branch.

This was crucial and forced the JIC to revise its expectations. Given the security situation, the JIC’s initial designs for British intelligence requirements post-independence proved both irrelevant and unobtainable. Burrows began to feel that the ‘overriding objective’ was becoming simply to safeguard the British withdrawal.⁴² This in itself required a substantial intelligence effort involving the creation of a second JIC working party and additional reforms to the local intelligence apparatus.

The JIC oversaw the long overdue appointment of John Prendergast as director of intelligence in 1966. Demonstrating its oversight role, JIC involvement was required as Prendergast’s was to be a new position combining the roles of chief of intelligence and head of Special Branch. It therefore impacted upon the organisation of intelligence overseas. Moreover, the JIC had been putting ‘very strong pressure’ on the Colonial Office to poach the vastly experienced Prendergast from his current role in Hong Kong from the autumn of 1965. Interestingly, the JIC’s requests briefly materialised in October 1965 when Prendergast, who had earlier been head of intelligence in Kenya and Cyprus, visited Aden to compile a report on the intelligence organisation. His report was one of the key factors behind the subsequent creation of the second JIC working party.⁴³

This is an opportune place to elaborate on this little-considered aspect of the JIC’s role. During the Adeni insurgency, the committee was used as a body to help find the intelligence personnel required on the ground. This included, for example, a team of trained interrogators, extra officers for Special Branch and a military intelligence officer. As had happened regarding Cyprus, the JIC injected a sense of urgency and coordination into laborious discussions between the Colonial Office, military, MI5 and SIS.⁴⁴ The committee also attempted to get involved in deciding who should be appointed to certain positions. In addition to the example of Prendergast above, the JIC put pressure on the Colonial Office regarding chairmanship of the LIC in 1965. Committee members were unhappy at the choice put forward but were effectively told to ‘butt out’ and leave the matter to the high commissioner.⁴⁵ In addition, the committee was also mobilised and used as an authoritative body to add a degree of interdepartmental credibility to negotiations with the Treasury. On one occasion, for example, the Colonial Office cited JIC approval of a request for extra Special Branch personnel in a note to the Treasury—but those in charge of the nation’s purse strings were left unconvinced. At this point Bernard Burrows waded in personally to pressure the Treasury on behalf of the Colonial Office. Burrows’ intervention (partially) succeeded and the Treasury begrudgingly sanctioned temporary approval.⁴⁶

In addition to the appointment of Prendergast, other organisational reforms were deemed necessary. Although the JIC working party’s remit was to examine intelligence reform in light of developments regarding independence, it swiftly recognised the weaknesses of the previous reforms against the backdrop of escalating violence. In a damning testimony to the working party, Daniel McCarthy criticised the local intelligence machine as being ‘ramshackle and running down’ and lacking ‘most elements of a basic infrastructure’. He argued that despite a ‘mass of intelligence material’ being available, bureaucratic friction undermined assessment and dissemination so that comparatively little intelligence ‘reaches a central point for collation and assessment’.⁴⁷

Despite the 1964 reforms, working party officials also criticised the Local Intelligence Committee. In 1964, the JIC had recommended that the LIC chair be a senior member of the high commissioner’s staff but should have sufficient time to devote to intelligence matters. Whilst the former had been achieved (the deputy high commissioner now chaired the LIC), this had come at the expense of the latter (as the chair had a number of other non-intelligence duties). Officials also criticised LIC membership in that it did not, for the most part, consist of persons trained in intelligence.⁴⁸ Yet the working party concluded that there was little point in dispensing with the LIC: there was no time to replace it at this late stage in the countdown to Adeni independence—although local officials were warned not expect too much from it.⁴⁹ Similarly, High Commissioner Richard Turnbull agreed that although the LIC ‘did not work smoothly’, reform was ‘far more trouble than it was worth’.⁵⁰ The LIC, therefore, remained—albeit with a far from ringing endorsement. Similarly, despite ongoing problems the Aden Intelligence Centre also stayed, again for want of a better alternative.⁵¹

The conclusions of the JIC working group leave the distinct impression that the existing intelligence organisation was increasingly becoming a lowest common denominator stopgap until British withdrawal. Authorities lacked the time and political will to implement substantial changes, leaving McCarthy to condemn the ‘British political machine [as] the debris of colonial administration’.⁵² Intelligence deemed the Aden police and Special Branch as being ever ‘less capable of handling internal security’, and there grew an increasing feeling of hopelessness that the situation had escalated beyond British control. Indeed, as security continued to deteriorate throughout 1966 and 1967, the committee system, which had earlier proved reasonably effective became too unwieldy and of ever less importance in the months prior to independence.⁵³

Even as late as July 1967, when it was apparent that the British were going to evacuate and not maintain the base, the committee operated under the flawed assumption that a friendly regime would acquire power. Again, this significantly impacted upon the JIC’s ability to plan for post-independence intelligence requirements. Many of the relevant files regarding post-independence requirements remain classified. However, planners assumed that some sort of British intelligence organisation would have to be set up as part of an offshore naval task force or in the new embassy. This was designed to build up intelligence relations with the nascent South Yemen agencies, to monitor radio stations in Yemen after independence and to enable the collation and collection of intelligence on South Arabia (as happened regarding any foreign country). To meet such requirements, political and military intelligence liaison officers were deemed necessary, as were intelligence officers with recent Aden experience.⁵⁴ Yet confusion reigned. The JIC (and others) appeared unsure of the withdrawal date, who would be the new government and whether the task force (and the accompanying intelligence organisation) would even be needed. Intelligence requirements and the planned links with the new regime were increasingly scaled back as the reality of the ignominious scuttle hit home. In November 1967 the JIC conceded that ‘whatever the arguments needed in connexion with the naval force that would be standing by immediately after independence to evacuate British subjects if necessary, the requirement for intelligence cover of South Arabia would probably decrease sharply once this force had been withdrawn’.⁵⁵

Threat Assessment

The extent of Egyptian subversion

In addition to being interested in Aden itself, intelligence also closely monitored events in Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia. The complex and evolving threat to British interests involved all three. Security in Yemen impacted upon South Arabia, which in turn impacted upon Aden. Once the Yemeni conflict settled into a pattern of violence, one of the primary tasks for intelligence actors was to monitor the situation and to assess the severity and nature of the threat to Aden and the FSA. Influenced by the same Cold War mindset that originally shaped the committee’s understandings of the insurgencies in Malaya and Cyprus, the JIC initially looked to external communist intervention in the years before the coup. The JIC quickly recognised Soviet support to Egypt in the immediate aftermath of the coup, noted the involvement of Soviet personnel in Egyptian supply operations and warned of impending Soviet military aid. From 1964 however, assessments were planted firmly within the external context of the Egyptian and Yemeni threat. By 1966 the JIC had grown sceptical of reports of direct Soviet involvement or pressure on the UAR to maintain offensive operations against British interests.⁵⁶

Firstly the JIC assessed the type of threat. Was it overt, conventional and military? Or was it covert, underhand and subversive? This was a fairly straightforward assessment. Intelligence swiftly concluded that there was no conventional military threat posed so long as British forces remained in Aden. Instead, the JIC believed the threat was primarily subversive. At the outbreak of the conflict, the committee assessed that with Egyptian and Soviet assistance a Republican regime in Yemen was likely to ‘increase support for dissident elements’. It would ‘encourage nationalists in Aden to intensify their opposition to the merger [of the colony into the FSA] […] and to the retention of the British base’. In fact, the JIC warned that there were already ‘indications of a more truculent attitude on the part of Yemeni labourers in Aden’, who, combined with the People’s Socialist Party (PSP), ‘constitute a potential fifth column’. Consequently, the JIC urged policymakers to beware of Yemeni encouragement of terrorism and sabotage. Intelligence warned of the possibility of an all-out campaign to unify Aden with Yemen, backed by Egyptian propaganda and material assistance.⁵⁷

Believing the threat was unconventional, the JIC acted as a moderating influence on belligerent local and Colonial Office demands. The committee advised against a response in the form of conventional air strikes. JIC assessments downplayed the threat of Yemeni strikes against FSA territory, and in doing so rebutted hawkish arguments in favour of photo reconnaissance flights and retaliatory air strikes.⁵⁸ The issue again rose to the fore in early 1964. Still downplaying the conventional threat to the FSA and Aden, Bernard Burrows was ‘not convinced that there was an existing pattern of hostile overflying or deliberate intrusion’. He ultimately advised the chiefs of staff not to delegate greater authority to launch such action to trigger-happy local commanders.⁵⁹ Similarly, Stewart Crawford, an assistant under-secretary at the Foreign Office and a gifted analyst, later echoed JIC arguments to counter further Colonial Office calls for retaliation following a series of bombings against FSA territory in spring 1964.⁶⁰ The Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, however, relaxed the rules of engagement by allowing local military authorities to treat planes penetrating Adeni airspace as hostile. A few days later, Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home sanctioned a retaliatory air strike on a fort at Harib.⁶¹

Indicative of the JIC’s rising status and confidence, this episode reveals members if not crossing the intelligence-policy divide then at least edging very close to it by strongly advising on a very specific policy issue. It further demonstrates the committee’s initial moderating influence on policy discussions, the tense Whitehall atmosphere in which the JIC operated and the committee acting responsibly by offering intelligence that certain consumers (notably the Colonial Office) did not want to hear. Ultimately, the JIC’s warnings were vindicated as retaliatory air strikes created a political backlash against Britain in the United Nations.

Having established that the primary threat was not of a conventional military nature, the JIC then had to examine the extent to which the subversion was either violent or political. Intelligence was also required on the levels of external Egyptian involvement. Although initially focused solely on Yemeni affairs, Egypt increasingly turned its attentions towards South Arabia. Republican troops began to struggle in the desert quagmire and Nasser believed that arms were being smuggled to Royalist forces from over the border in FSA territory. From December 1963, Egypt, which exercised increasingly direct control of Yemeni policy, evermore opposed the federal government in South Arabia. Nasser sought to remove British influence.⁶² This, however, was a highly contentious issue within the government and intelligence assessments could not operate in a political vacuum.

Instead, the JIC was caught in the midst of an acrimonious Whitehall debate. The protagonists’ positions were strongly shaped by prejudices from historical encounters with Nasser, views on the retention of the empire, understandings of local agency in colonial security and the best way to ensure the security of Aden. On the one side sat the so-called Aden Group and its local allies. The former included certain members of parliament, such as Julian Amery, who had supported Eden’s attack on Suez in 1956. Son-in-law of Harold Macmillan, Amery famously represented the last flings of British adventurous imperialism. The Aden Group’s local allies included the Adeni Governor Charles Johnston and later the imposing figure of High Commissioner Kennedy Trevaskis. They strongly emphasised a coordinated Egyptian threat to the existence of the federation. To give just one particularly virulent example, Trevaskis wrote in early 1964 that ‘it must now be accepted that the UAR is determined to destroy our position in Aden in collaboration with its satellite, the YAR [Yemen Arab Republic]’.⁶³ These officials, according to Christopher Gandy of the Foreign Office, ‘viewed Nasser as the Great Satan’ and believed that he was ‘wholly responsible’ for the overthrow of Imam Ahmad in Yemen.⁶⁴

On the other side, Foreign Office officials, whilst acknowledging a threat from Egypt to the FSA did exist, were more cautious. Diplomats accused Trevaskis of exaggerating his case. As for the JIC, it quickly recognised that Egyptian support for Republican forces was vital for the survival of the new regime and closely monitored the levels of Egyptian forces stationed in Yemen.⁶⁵ Like the Foreign Office however, the committee was more prudent regarding subversion against Aden. Again, the central intelligence assessment process acted as a moderating influence within Whitehall.

Regarding violent subversion externally coordinated and directed from Egypt, the JIC initially exercised caution and only began to recognise the severity of the threat from spring 1964. Until then, the committee focused more on Egyptian links with the Adeni People’s Socialist Party, which was essentially a political rather than terrorist organisation. Whilst still focussing on external factors at the expense of local agency and ideology, the JIC acknowledged Egyptian involvement in political subversion including propaganda and political support. Egypt possessed merely the potential for active violent subversion.⁶⁶ This left JIC analysis at odds with assessments from the high commissioner and Colonial Office. Elements within the central intelligence machinery were reluctant to believe local colonial sources, fearing them biased. This perhaps is indicative of the influence of Foreign Office chairmanship of the committee. There was, however, a lack of appropriate balance between sources within intelligence assessment. Analysts dismissed colonial sources rather too easily in favour of those provided by the Foreign Office and GCHQ. This was not lost on officials in the Colonial Office. In a handwritten note, one lamented how ‘much of the argumentation coming from Aden too obviously lacks objectivity and therefore is discounted here by Departments. Clearly this is very dangerous’.⁶⁷ Throughout 1963, therefore, the JIC saw the main threat to Aden as being union-driven strike action rather than organised Egyptian violent subversion.

In fact, the JIC provided no warning of the impending violence at all, let alone warning of a coordinated Egyptian campaign against Aden. Although it had never been formally articulated, the JIC’s warning and monitoring role had gradually become increasingly expected by consumers. In 1961, Field Marshal Gerald Templer had called on the JIC to issue more forward-looking papers and this was later extended ‘to keep[ing] under review threats to security at home and overseas and to deal with such security problems as may be referred to it’.⁶⁸

A hand-grenade was thrown at Kennedy Trevaskis at Aden airport in December 1963. Two lives were lost, including that of Trevaskis’s deputy, but the high commissioner escaped with only a wound to the hand. The attempted assassination proved to be the catalyst for the declaration of emergency regulations. The JIC (Middle East) explicitly wrote, however, that the incident ‘should not at this stage be interpreted as the beginning of a widespread terrorist or assassination campaign’.⁶⁹ This proved in stark contrast to the assessments of colonial figures such as Trevaskis who emphasised that the declaration was the result of evidence of a mounting campaign of Egyptian-led subversion and violence. For example, Trevaskis swiftly wrote a strongly worded message to Duncan Sandys in Whitehall. He argued that ‘the grenade incident would now appear to be part of a deliberate plan for the subversion of the Federation’. The high commissioner outlined an organised and deliberate conspiracy against British interests involving Yemen, Nasser, the PSP, violations of air space and mass strikes (which he interpreted as political not industrial). Highlighting the importance of a strong local response, Trevaskis urged the government in London to take similar action.⁷⁰

The JIC was unconvinced by Trevaskis’s logic. Perhaps demonstrating what Trevaskis had privately lamented as London’s ‘old womanish attitude’, ⁷¹ the JIC agreed with its regional outpost that the attack was probably an isolated incident. Committee members declared that they had not seen evidence to convince themselves otherwise and that ‘before initiating a major subversive campaign against the British in Aden or against the Federation Nasser would need to feel able to risk at least a major row with the West (including the possible cessation of US food supplies) and at most a military confrontation with British forces for which he is ill-prepared’.⁷² With hindsight, it appears that the JIC fell into the ethnocentric trap of mirror-imaging or ‘the misperception that the enemy would behave exactly as you would yourself’.⁷³ Intelligence analysis transposed Western values and logic on a foreign regime, thereby underestimating psychological factors such as prestige and overestimating the importance of Western models of rationality and deterrence. As demonstrated below, the JIC later learned from its mistake in judging Nasser’s intentions. But this would not be the last time that British intelligence was guilty of mirror-imaging.⁷⁴

Adjusted assessments

Aden was a territory of strategic importance to Britain and fears of a domino effect in the region should Yemen fall to Arab Republicanism were growing. In the spring of 1964 JIC assessments began to shift in emphasis and recognise that Egypt had become more actively involved in directing violent subversion against British interests in the FSA (as opposed to political subversion). This raises two difficult questions. Firstly, was the JIC slow to recognise the Egyptian threat and thus guilty of cognitive rigidity in the face of growing evidence? Or should the committee be praised for initially showing caution before demonstrating cognitive flexibility in adapting to changing circumstances at the right time? Secondly, why did this shift occur and was it a result of new evidence or subtle political pressures?

The timing of the JIC’s shift raises issues relating to a further trap plaguing intelligence assessment: that of perseveration or ‘the belief in the virtue of consistency’.⁷⁵ Colonial officials would have argued that the central intelligence machinery was slow to recognise the Egyptian threat and maintained its original thesis of political subversion in the face of growing evidence to the contrary. Yet Foreign Office officials would have praised the JIC for its caution and for moderating the inflammatory assessments of their colonial counterparts before adapting intelligence assessments in response to new evidence.

It is, however, a particularly difficult question to answer. There is no exact date on which the Egyptians stepped up the campaign against British interests from which to measure the timing and accuracy of the JIC’s response. According to the historian Spencer Mawby, the Egyptian-sponsored Republicans added the emerging nationalist politicians of the south to the anti-British coalition: ‘This process culminated in February 1963 with the emergence of an Egyptian-sponsored coalition of opposition groups, the National Liberation Front, which had as its specific goal the removal of British influence from what they regarded as occupied South Yemen’. Similarly, Clive Jones writes of tribes ‘armed and sponsored’ by the Egyptian intelligence service in spring 1963. With Egyptian support, the NLF launched an insurgency campaign in October 1963 seeking to confront British imperialism.⁷⁶ Local colonial officials, however, feared such a movement almost immediately after the Yemeni coup. One paper issued at the end of October 1962, for example, warned that there was ‘ample evidence’ of plans to form a guerrilla liberation army, which would ‘probably be directed by Egyptians experienced in such operations’ and which would pose ‘a most serious threat’.⁷⁷ This seems prophetic. Yet the relationship between Egypt and the insurgents is extremely difficult to ascertain. Vitaly Naumkin, a former Soviet specialist in the region who had access to insurgent papers, has acknowledged Egyptian support and influence in the groups’ policies but states that anti-imperialist groups had a degree of autonomy from the outset.⁷⁸

It was of course a very complex situation. It roughly appears, however, that the JIC’s intelligence assessments were somewhat slow to recognise the dangers of externally coordinated violent subversion in South Arabia. Interestingly, however, when the committee did belatedly highlight the Egyptian role it went too far and neglected internal factors and local agency, as discussed below. Although performing a useful function by providing a prudent balance to bellicose Colonial Office rhetoric, one could argue that the JIC, fearing bias, was too quickly dismissive of evidence emanating from the Colonial Office and was overly reliant on intelligence from the Foreign Office or GCHQ. The JIC initially perceived the more political body, the PSP, as posing the main nationalist and Republican threat to Aden at the time and examined the PSP in the context of constitutional and electoral developments. Again highlighting external links over internal agency, however, the committee did conclude that the PSP received Egyptian financial support.⁷⁹

By the end of 1963, the committee was vaguely aware of the formation of a ‘National Front for the Liberation of the South’. This was thought to have been created in June 1963 to coordinate tribal dissidents and instigate trouble in Aden. Information, however, was scant. There was no mention of an NLF in the available weekly intelligence reports throughout 1963 and when referring to the insurgency in the Radfan area of South Arabia, the committee wrote only of ‘tribal dissidents, supplied with arms, ammunition and grenades brought in from the Yemen’.⁸⁰ Strategic intelligence reports offered no initial hint of Egyptian involvement or support. Instead the JIC linked the NLF to potential future support of a new Yemeni-controlled ‘Liberation Army of the Occupied South’ in a political and propaganda campaign in Aden. It was not until February 1965, as a result of some successful (if apparently brutal) interrogation sessions, that the JIC was informed of a detailed picture of the NLF’s organisation. It then became apparent to the JIC that the NLF had a hierarchical structure that could be traced politically and financially back to Egypt via Yemen. Interrogation also revealed that Egyptian military intelligence officers were directing the violent activities of the NLF from Yemen.⁸¹ It therefore appears that the JIC did not draw explicit links between the NLF, direct Egyptian involvement and coordinated violent subversion until 1965.⁸² Given the aforementioned intelligence deficiencies, this initial failure to give sufficient weight to the NLF and over-focus on the PSP most likely emanated not from perseveration and stubbornness but from a lack of intelligence. The JIC was hindered, however, by its neglect of colonial sources and over-reliance on GCHQ. Local sources may well have been flawed but overlooking them altogether owing to fear of bias and politicisation can actually skew intelligence assessments to the point where they ignore evidence that may well end up being accurate.

This leads to the issue of why the JIC began to recognise the (violent as opposed to political) Egyptian threat in spring 1964. New evidence was certainly a factor in this—illustrating the ability to adapt to incoming intelligence. In addition to increasingly belligerent speeches made by Nasser, by April 1964 evidence of Egyptian-directed violence began to pile up on JIC desks. For example in one meeting the JIC pointed to a number of new pieces of intelligence including a CIA assessment that the ‘UAR was likely to continue strong pressure against the Federation of South Arabia’, an unspecified report which quoted ‘an alleged UAR plan to involve Saudi Arabia in protecting the regime in Yemen while leaving UAR free to attack Aden and the “Arab South”’ and continued intelligence from local sources in Aden reporting an aggressive UAR policy.

‘In light of all this’, Burrows urged the JIC to reassess its own assumptions ‘which did not, perhaps, give sufficient weight to the U.A.R. threat’.⁸³ In a subsequent report on Egyptian policies towards Aden, the JIC concluded that Nasser wanted the British out of the region and that ‘evidence indicates that an organised campaign of terrorism, including assassination, particularly in the state of Aden, is under active consideration’. By the end of 1964, the JIC confirmed that ‘UAR subversive activities in South Arabia are directed by the Egyptian Intelligence Service’. At one point the JIC surprisingly even went further than Trevaskis, who criticised the committee for placing too much emphasis on sabotage and terrorism as the main instruments of Egyptian subversion as opposed to what he saw as the ‘chief danger’ of subversion through bribing tribes and suborning their allegiance from federal rulers.⁸⁴ This illustrates JIC receptiveness to adapt committee conclusions to new intelligence and counters charges of perseverance. However, despite new intelligence reaching the committee, as late as 1966 the JIC acknowledged a ‘marked lack of internal political and military intelligence on the U.A.R’.⁸⁵

In addition to new evidence filtering into the joint intelligence assessment process, it is also important to consider other factors. It is not unlikely that JIC scepticism of colonial sources and initial alignment with the Foreign Office contributed in some degree to its caution and over-emphasis of the political subversive threat. Psychologically, it would have been easier for the official mind to blame the escalating violence in early 1964 on external instigation, as had been the case in Malaya, than face up to failures in colonial policy and the realities of imperial decline. Interestingly, and unlike earlier insurgencies, this is evidence of a shift in JIC thinking in the early years of the conflict: violence (if not political subversion) was initially deemed not to be externally instigated.

Political pressures were also a factor and engulfed the atmosphere in which intelligence was centrally assessed. This, however, most likely worked subtly, intangibly and in terms of degrees of emphasis regarding the Egyptian threat—as opposed to the deliberate and direct manipulation of intelligence, which is rare. The shift in emphasis of strategic intelligence assessments implies newfound receptiveness within the joint intelligence organisation to local sources. Doubts, however, can be raised about the accuracy of certain local intelligence reports. Before reforms ended the dual intelligence organisation, Local Intelligence Committee conclusions subtly differed from their JIC(ME) counterparts in that they placed more emphasis on the active Egyptian threat. The differences in opinion and assessments between the two bodies caused ‘general concern’ amongst certain Colonial Office figures and Bernard Burrows.⁸⁶

The LIC’s subtle emphasis of the Egyptian threat was caused by what Jack Morton described as its ‘deplorable’ operating procedures and its ‘failure to marshal evidence and to assess it’.⁸⁷ The LIC’s place within the high commissioner’s administrative structure also shaped conclusions. After all, according to some Foreign Office accounts Trevaskis was biased and ‘convinced that the Egyptians have a great plot’ against the FSA and therefore ‘tends to interpret any incident […] according to his theory’. This, according to John Bushell, a political officer at Middle East Command, hindered the ability to conduct accurate and objective intelligence assessments in Aden. Trevaskis was a ‘forceful personality’, with whom his staff and officials did ‘not care to argue’, despite interpreting intelligence differently.⁸⁸ As one former CIA analyst argues, intelligence analysts are aware of their consumers’ policy preferences and it is this awareness that can potentially lead to subconscious politicisation.⁸⁹ Even some Colonial Office personnel agreed. Trevaskis had a tendency ‘to regard volume of evidence as being more important than the sifted evidence’. In one instance, he had used a detailed catalogue prepared by his senior officials to back his arguments when a more considered assessment by the LIC would have been preferable. Other colonial officials feared outright bias.⁹⁰

Sometimes such bias occurred subtly through indirect politicisation arising from the proximity of the LIC to the high commissioner. Other times it was far more direct. Trevaskis had a low opinion of the intelligence services and was prone to acting as his own intelligence assessment officer. On occasions he edited the local intelligence reports unilaterally. This was appalling intelligence practice. Trevaskis bypassed the objective assessments available to him from the JIC in London and other sources. Moreover, he did not always inform the JIC that he had manipulated the intelligence, and so the central intelligence machine in London ended up mistaking his personal opinion for LIC reports.⁹¹ Meanwhile, although the Colonial Office found some of Trevaskis’s practices dangerous, certain officials (including John Higham, the department’s JIC representative) sought greater LIC input into the central intelligence machine.⁹² Biased intelligence shaped by Trevaskis’s prejudices was allowed to seep into JIC assessments and therefore partly explains the committee’s shift in outlook.

The conclusions of the JIC(ME) and LIC weekly intelligence output subtly differed. Local Intelligence Committee reports emphasised the coordinated Egyptian threat slightly more consistently than their regional counterparts. Intelligence assessments of the grenade attack at Aden airport on 10 December 1963 provide an interesting example. Unlike the LIC (and indeed the Federal Intelligence Committee), the JIC(ME) actively downplayed both any external Egyptian involvement and suggestions that the attack formed the start of a coordinated campaign.⁹³ This then fed back to the intelligence machine in London and goes some way to explain the JIC’s initial caution.

Following the grenade incident, both the JIC(ME) and LIC highlighted the increasing Egyptian threat. However, the Local Intelligence Committee highlighted the specific threat to the FSA more starkly than its regional counterpart. Similarly, LIC reports consistently emphasised to a greater extent than the JIC(ME) the detrimental effect of failing to react to Egyptian air strikes against the FSA and the positive impact of retaliatory air strikes once completed. In August 1964, the LIC stressed the need for better intelligence on Cairo, for ‘most of the important decisions are undoubtedly reached there’.⁹⁴

Consequently, subtly flawed or biased local intelligence entered the centralised intelligence assessment machine via the LIC. This danger was enhanced once the LIC was given sole responsibility for these assessments at the expense of the JIC (Middle East) in May 1964. A further factor creating bias was the potential identity of interest between federal intelligence officers loyal to the local rulers and colonial officials. Federal intelligence had the motive to over-emphasise the Egyptian threat so as to force the British to stay in the region and defend the FSA. Local biases therefore remain one potential factor in the JIC’s change of emphasis in spring 1964.

The government’s political need to deflect blame towards external aggression and away from accusations of colonialism also influenced strategic intelligence assessments. At around the same time as the JIC’s recognition of concerted Egyptian involvement in violent subversion, Britain was under intense pressure in the UN and domestic media following the bombing of a Yemeni fort in retaliation to air strikes on FSA territory. The UN Security Council, in fact, on 9 April 1964 explicitly condemned the British reprisal attack.⁹⁵ Whitehall officials therefore required intelligence that could be used in the UN to publicly support the government’s case by implicating the Egyptians as well as the Yemenis. This would have alleviated international diplomatic pressure on Britain. Consequently, the JIC was commissioned by the Defence and Oversea Policy Committee to compile a list of publishable material on UAR and Yemeni activities in the FSA ‘for propaganda use in the U.N. and elsewhere’.⁹⁶ Expressing no disquiet in the minutes about the potential misuse of intelligence to support a policy position, the JIC complied but did warn that publicising the extent of dissident activity could be misrepresented and used against British interests.⁹⁷ This raises further questions about politicisation, this time relating to the public use of intelligence.

The dossier, drafted by the Joint Intelligence Staff, was issued by the JIC at the end of April. It recorded evidence of UAR air attacks against Yemeni Royalists as well as UAR and Yemeni aggression and subversion in the FSA. However, on closer examination it appears that intelligence was used to support a pre-conceived policy objective. To meet its brief the JIC tried to find as many examples of Egyptian intervention as possible. Therefore much of the intelligence contained within the dossier was merely a replication of a single source or newspaper report, seemingly lacking thorough assessment or validation. Regarding subversion, the dossier provided forty-one pieces of evidence of Yemeni and Egyptian activity in the FSA, but sources ranged from captured letters or propaganda leaflets to examples beginning ‘it was fairly reliably reported that…’ and ‘a source reported that…’ leaving the general impression that in an attempt to implicate the Egyptians as far as possible, the JIC resorted to uncorroborated intelligence.⁹⁸ It was very difficult for the JIC to avoid politicisation in such circumstances. The committee was directly serving the political masters who had to sell the policy in the United Nations.

The intelligence was used explicitly for political purposes: to implicate the Egyptians and relieve pressure on Britain at the UN. As more states acquired independence, international condemnation of imperialism gathered momentum. Transnational networks of non-aligned states, civil society groups and the media sought to point out the anachronistic nature of Britain’s imperial model and to expose the more brutal side of British colonial counterinsurgency. By commissioning a list solely of Egyptian and Yemeni incidents, the product naturally emphasised external incidents at the expense of internal activity and local agency. As argued in the previous chapter, agenda setting was crucial and the questions asked impacted upon the answers received. By considering only one side of the argument, the assessment automatically portrayed all violence and subversion as being externally instigated by the Egyptians directly or indirectly through the Yemenis. Issuing such a request indicated a shift in Foreign Office thinking, as officials had initially been reluctant to emphasise the Egyptian threat. This is perhaps explained by UN pressure on the British following the Harib strikes and the consequent need for a pragmatic Whitehall to defend British interests.

A further potential political factor was the election of the Labour Government in 1964. There was a strong anti-colonial lobby within the Labour Party, which could conceivably have shifted the parameters of the debate and challenged the political neutrality of JIC assessments. It has already been noted that senior Labour ministers were in favour of withdrawal once they became aware of the political realities. Despite this, the JIC began to change emphasis around six months before the election of Wilson. Potential pressure from the Labour Party did not therefore stimulate the JIC’s reassessment. But did any such pressure subtly encourage the JIC after it had changed route? Anti-colonialism within the party would have related more to withdrawal than to emphasis of the Egyptian threat. Consistently highlighting Nasser’s involvement, however, would probably have increased the incentive to withdraw. That said, there is no tangible evidence within the files that the Labour government put undue pressure on the JIC after its election. Indeed, there was a good deal of continuity between the Labour and Conservative administrations. Spencer Mawby has put it well: ‘although the former were less sympathetic than the latter to the federation and keener to appease the nationalists in Aden, the goals of British policy and even some tactics remained unchanged’. The Wilson government ‘employed a variety of means, many of them familiar, to combat Egyptian influence and construct a stable state in which their interests could be guaranteed’.⁹⁹

JIC intelligence assessments shifted their emphasis in spring 1964, bringing them more in line with Colonial Office and military thinking. Whilst there may have been an element of politicisation, Egypt did become increasingly involved in active and violent subversion around this time. Although this was not clear-cut, the JIC, after initial caution and based on the available evidence, was broadly correct in increasing the emphasis on the Egyptian threat. In fact, JIC assessments balanced the political pressures and inflammatory rhetoric from figures such as Trevaskis reasonably well. The committee initially expressed caution and moderation before adjusting its threat assessments without resorting to scare mongering and hyperbole.

This trend continued throughout the insurgency. In fact, shortly before withdrawal, the JIC had surprisingly become the most vocal body emphasising the Egyptian threat. For example, the JIS chairman, Alan Crick, grew concerned that departments had downplayed the threat of Egyptian intervention post-independence. Perhaps learning from the JIC’s own initial underestimation of Nasser, Crick warned that British norms and constraints had been projected onto Nasser and analysis had thus underestimated the impact of factors such as prestige in outweighing economic disadvantages. The committee therefore concluded that Nasser would, in the last resort, intervene militarily.¹⁰⁰

JIC intelligence assessments, however, went too far the other way—swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other as the conflict progressed. Demonstrating parallels with assessments of earlier insurgencies, once the central intelligence machinery decided that Egypt was directing violence, local agency was once again underplayed. From 1964, intelligence assessments propagated the idea of Egypt as a puppeteer and Adeni insurgents as Egyptian front organisations. Like earlier assessments of the impact of the Cold War on Malaya and Cyprus, such output lacked nuance and ended up bending local developments into a broader narrative. For example, a 1966 intelligence assessment on the outlook for South Arabia and the broader region concluded simply that there would be intense political manoeuvring for influence after the British withdrawal and that the internal groups would be directed by external actors (in this case Egypt and Saudi Arabia).¹⁰¹

Just as intelligence appreciations of Malaya and Cyprus were distorted by the Cold War gaze, assessments of South Arabia were dangerously warped by the fixation on Nasser. Intelligence ultimately neglected the role of local ideology and internal factors that may have inspired discontent with British imperial rule. This could well illustrate an unwillingness of the metropolis to acknowledge flaws in the imperial model or the legitimacy of local complaints. Such a narrative could also have been driven by broader cultural factors. Spencer Mawby, for example, has drawn fascinating connections between this ‘tendency to rob local actors of agency and to deny the significance of ideological commitments’ and the writings of Edward Said on Orientalism.¹⁰²

A key difference between Aden and the earlier insurgencies in Malaya and Cyprus, however, was that of the Cold War. In the late 1940s and 1950s, intelligence assessments were quick to link any violence to broader Soviet designs. By the mid-1960s, however, the JIC was more dismissive of the role of communism. Instead, the committee preferred to propagate the idea that Nasser’s fiery brand of pan-Arab nationalism was more influential, and even downplayed the role of ideology altogether. This, as Mawby rightly points out, impeded policymakers’ ability to consider the emergence of a Marxist-Leninist government which ultimately acceded to power in the new South Yemen shortly after British withdrawal.¹⁰³ Although the external framework or narrative had clearly changed, the central flaw in intelligence assessment remained.

Policy impact: withdrawal

In 1964 the new Labour Government renewed the Conservative pledge to grant independence to the FSA by 1968 but maintain the military base in Aden. The 1966 Defence White Paper, announcing that Britain would withdraw from the base and end all defence commitments came, therefore, as an unwelcome surprise to the local rulers. It had severe ramifications for security until South Arabian independence on 30 November 1967.¹⁰⁴ Strategic intelligence assessments played a direct role in policy formulation and provide an interesting example of the intelligence community providing objective analysis, which was then used responsibly by policymakers.

The JIC provided the policy community with intelligence assessments on both the content and timing of the White Paper. Regarding the former, the JIC warned its consumers in December 1965 of the potentially dangerous ramifications. The committee considered the White Paper’s impact on Egyptian withdrawal from Yemen. It warned that Nasser would present Britain’s withdrawal as a defeat for British policy. He would claim it was Egyptian pressure that forced the British out. Accordingly, the JIC correctly predicted that ‘the Egyptians will be tempted to continue and even increase subversion and terrorism in the Federation until independence in order to demonstrate that the British are being forced to withdraw as a result of persistent nationalist pressures’. The JIC did, however, note that the extent to which withdrawal would be portrayed as a defeat of British policy depended not only on the White Paper but also on the progress of Egyptian forces in Yemen.¹⁰⁵

Until the start of 1966, the Republican forces were completely dependent on the Egyptians. The war was proving a significant drain on Nasser’s resources and by the middle of the decade some 50,000 Egyptians were bogged down in the Yemeni stalemate. Accordingly, the war was becoming increasingly unpopular in Egypt. In August 1965, Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed the Jeddah agreement, in which the leaders of both countries pledged to end the war. Nasser promised to withdraw from the Yemen and the fighting calmed to an extent. Full Egyptian withdrawal, however, did not take place during 1966 as planned. A major factor in this was the British announcement that its forces would leave South Arabia by 1968, thereby causing Nasser to abandon plans for withdrawal and seek to establish control of South Arabia. The move provoked Nasser to devise a new strategy involving the redeployment of a sizable Egyptian force closer to the southern border with the FSA.¹⁰⁶ The British decision to withdraw could therefore be seen as an unintended gift to the old enemy, Nasser. It granted him the opportunity to claim a victory that had eluded him on the battlefield. The JIC had warned policymakers of this.

Regarding other security ramifications, the JIC feared a ‘grave effect’ including loss of morale and efficiency amongst the police and the Federal Regular Army. Intelligence accurately predicted that it would become ‘more difficult, perhaps impossible, to obtain Arab co-operation in collecting intelligence in Aden’.¹⁰⁷ Harmful political consequences, however, were softened at the insistence of the Colonial Office. To balance the negatives, the JIC also suggested that the White Paper could provide an incentive for the local FSA rulers to work together to create a viable state.¹⁰⁸ Given that the FSA was a tenuous construction, this was wishful thinking and reflects Colonial Office pressure on the committee to paint a rosier picture than the evidence (and experience) suggested. Colonial Office optimism was perhaps vindicated to an extent considering that there was no very dramatic collapse of the political situation following February 1966. Moreover, the difficulties in political negotiations long preceded the tenure of the Labour government in Britain. According to Mawby, notions that the White Paper intensified the insurgency should be treated with caution. It was instead part of a downward trend in the political and security situation.¹⁰⁹ With hindsight, this may well have been the case, but the JIC apparently believed that the White Paper would have had a significant impact in itself.

The JIC also assessed the threat posed by the timing of the White Paper announcement, which was made in February 1966. The committee was asked to consider the prospect of an early announcement. Regarding local internal factors, the JIC assessed that the advantages of an early statement lay in the political domain. The potential reduction in uncertainty would aid political and constitutional negotiations (albeit at the expense of future British influence). By contrast, the JIC felt an early announcement would be disadvantageous in the security domain. The committee warned that ‘the earlier the announcement is made the more difficult it will be to build up an effective security organisation, and the greater will be the problems of maintaining law and order in Aden in the interim period’.¹¹⁰ On balance, and after input from Robert Blaikley, the Colonial Office representative on the JIC, the committee appeared to agree that an early announcement ‘would help the position in South Arabia’.¹¹¹

Demonstrating the role of strategic intelligence assessment, the JIC also placed the White Paper in the bigger picture and examined broader regional implications. This led to quite different conclusions from those following examination of the internal situation alone. By contrast, the JIC argued that there were a number of factors which ‘call[ed] for varying degrees of delay’ regarding British regional interests. These included the need to secure the agreement of Persian Gulf rulers regarding the establishment of additional military facilities in the Gulf and the need for withdrawal not to be perceived as a defeat to Egypt.¹¹² Indicating the work of a responsible intelligence organisation, the JIC’s role was one of objectivity and the committee left policymakers to ‘give the appropriate political weight to the conflicting considerations’.¹¹³ Consequently, the JIC’s assessments directly impacted upon policy discussions. There was however much disagreement within Whitehall. Foreign Office officials hoped to defer any announcement, whilst their Colonial Office counterparts warned that delay would undermine local confidence in Britain.¹¹⁴

Based on JIC conclusions, policy officials posited that intelligence had raised doubts about the benefits of an early announcement. Consequently they re-evaluated the balance between an early declaration (to aid constitutional negotiations) and a later one (by which time the UAR situation would have become clearer).¹¹⁵ Similarly, the Colonial Office drew on JIC conclusions a month later but presented a more positive outlook of the impact solely on South Arabia of an early announcement. Echoing the JIC, the Colonial Office acknowledged that Britain needed to give ‘concrete evidence’ of its intention to keep an adequate military presence in the region at the same time as the announcement.¹¹⁶ In fact, the decision to move aircraft to the Persian Gulf in order to give a ‘clear physical sign’ of the British commitment directly quoted the JIC assessment.¹¹⁷

Covert Action

JIC reservations

Almost immediately after the Yemeni coup, local authorities and certain ministers bombarded policymakers in Whitehall with requests for covert action. These ranged from military support for friendly tribes on the South Arabian frontier to direct intervention in the Yemeni civil war. They even extended to the assassination of Egyptian intelligence officers. Proponents of such measures included local colonial officials such as Aden Governor Charles Johnston and High Commissioner Kennedy Trevaskis who were under pressure from local tribal rulers for British support against territorial incursions from the north. These views were echoed by Conservative ministers in London including Billy McLean. McLean was member of parliament for Inverness but had spent time with the Royalists and acted as an advisor to mercenaries operating in the region. A charming adventurer, he was no stranger to covert operations and was a veteran of Britain’s wartime Special Operations Executive—notably working with partisans against the Germans in Albania.¹¹⁸ Another minister sharing these views was Julian Amery, the minister for aviation. Like McLean, Amery had a romantic vision of empire and naturally supported the Royalist movement. Other ministers included Enoch Powell, minister for health; Duncan Sandys, secretary of state for commonwealth relations and also for the colonies; and Peter Thorneycroft, minister of (and later secretary of state for) defence.

With a history of clandestine operations over the Yemeni border dating back to the 1950s, Britain initially authorised limited covert action. This was somewhat extended in the summer of 1964. However, local officials and the aforementioned politicians pressed for deeper, more aggressive and more direct intervention throughout. Indeed, Trevaskis expressed continued frustration from the very outbreak of the violence that local recommendations were not being sanctioned by London. He insisted that lack of initial implementation necessitated stronger, more coercive and more repressive measures.¹¹⁹ These old Tory imperialists, according to former Foreign Office official Christopher Gandy, ‘apparently believed that if only all the King’s horses and all the King’s men could push hard enough they could put Humpty Dumpty together again and restore the Imamate, provided only that they were not held back by that awkward squad of wets and pussy-footers in the Foreign Office’.¹²⁰ In light of the various proposals coming from partisan parties, objective intelligence assessments were vital. It fell to interdepartmental intelligence to help policymakers determine the situation on the ground, to establish the levels of British intervention required, to assess the merits of covert action and to help ensure that this potentially risky strategy was used cautiously.

Covert action is a perilous approach to policy and proposals regarding Yemen became potentially dangerous as they grew in scope, ambition and directness. Using Loch Johnson’s influential scale to define covert action, the proposals can be seen as ‘high risk options’ given that they involved arms supplies. However, they arguably had the potential to develop into ‘extreme options’ in the form of a major secret war.¹²¹ Before sanctioning covert action, it is therefore vital that the intelligence services are able to conduct an objective assessment of the likely risks and gains, and of the benefits and limitations. This is important in ensuring that covert action is necessary and if so that it is conducted as responsibly as possible. For example, Gregory Treverton, a member of the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has warned about unintended consequences of covert action, often caused by unchecked escalation.¹²² More recently, former CIA operations officer William Daugherty has argued that it is important to assess ‘the odds of achieving policy goals, chances of compromise versus value objectives to be gained, and value of the objective versus the cost in money, resources and, perhaps, lives expended to achieve the objective’.¹²³ Indeed British journalist Anthony Verrier wrote at the end of the conflict that covert action was very much a double-edged sword with inherent risks involved. Whilst, ‘it helped secure the demise of Nasser in Yemen’, aggressive intervention, he argued, undermined South Arabian security.¹²⁴ Intelligence assessments were therefore important in ensuring the right balance could be met.

The JIC assessed the risks, limitations and benefits of embarking upon a policy of covert intervention. From the very outbreak of the violence, centralised intelligence assessments expressed caution about the merits of such risky secret policy. Prudence stemmed from two main reasons: firstly, the committee felt that supporting the Royalists would be futile and impose risks for little gain; secondly, the JIC grew concerned about the reliability of intelligence that pushed for an escalation of covert intervention.

Assessing the likely outcome of the Yemeni civil war, the JIC predicted stalemate. This had important ramifications for the use of covert action: assessments of the balance of power impacted upon the level of potential intervention authorised and, crucially, upon its chances of success. Predictions of Republican discontent or future Royalist ascendency fuelled arguments for covert intervention to speed the process along. Yet predictions of Royalist difficulties also generated calls for British aid. In fact at various points in the conflict, proponents of covert action fluctuated between emphasis on both Royalist ascendency and difficulty. Consequently, the JIC’s assessment of stalemate placed the committee at loggerheads with those pushing for intervention. Under pressure from Johnston who deemed the JIC view incorrect, the committee held its ground and concisely asserted in December 1962 that ‘so long as Egypt continued its support of the Republicans, there was likely to be a stalemate on the present lines, i.e. the Republicans would control the greater part of the country and of its economic resources but would be unable to extend their control to cover those parts in the north and east at present in Royalist hands’.¹²⁵ JIC assessments of stalemate were also criticised by Trevaskis just over a year later who lambasted them as ‘an empty argument for doing nothing’.¹²⁶

This pattern of tension continued in the early years of the conflict as the JIC’s intelligence conclusions were challenged by local authorities pushing for greater intervention. Trevaskis, for example, used the Algerian war of independence as an analogy to argue that ‘persistent skilful and well directed Royalist guerrilla tactics could cause such a degree of wear and tear on Egyptian forces that they could eventually be obliged to withdraw’, as had happened to the French forces in Algeria. Building upon this line of thought and citing the tactics that forced Britain out of Palestine and much of Cyprus, Trevaskis called for British help in ensuring an ‘extension, intensification and improvement of guerrilla tactics employed by the Royalists’.¹²⁷ Once again, however, JIC members stood firm. Burrows dismissed Trevaskis’s analogy and argued that the Egyptians would use tougher tactics than had the French.¹²⁸

The JIC also made important assessments about the third parties to whom aid would be channelled. These would have been the British-backed tribes on the frontier and potentially the Royalists in Yemen. The secret nature of covert action renders it difficult for the sponsoring state to control the actions of third parties—yet unintended consequences of potential third-party action could have negative political or security implications for that state.¹²⁹ Accurate intelligence assessments of the ability, motivations and loyalty of the third party are therefore essential when planning covert intervention.

Assessing these issues, the JIC doubted the Royalists’ ability and determination to fight a more aggressive campaign caused by increased covert intervention. The committee questioned the Royalists’ willingness to accept the losses that inevitable Egyptian reprisals would bring. In fact, the JIC dismissed the Royalists as having ‘so far shown little inclination to die for their cause’.¹³⁰ Whilst seemingly blunt or flippant, assessments of this nature were vital. It would have amounted to an insurmountable risk to offer weapons (with all the negative political consequences entailed) to a third party lacking sufficient motivation to succeed. However, the stance angered more partial observers. Julian Amery, who was feeding Saudi intelligence reports directly to Macmillan in parallel with the joint intelligence system, criticised the JIC for underestimating the coherence and vehemence of Royalist resistance. Amery received reports from unofficial sources that melodramatically romanticised the Royalist resistance, and that surely would have held little sway in the JIC had they ever reached the committee. For example, one report from a retired British army colonel sent to Amery (and forwarded to Rab Butler, Thorneycroft and Sandys), eulogised the Royalists’ ‘determination […] discipline and unity’ in standing up to ‘the maniac in Cairo’.¹³¹

Interestingly, even Trevaskis admitted that ‘our friends’ (by which he meant sympathetic elements within South Arabia) were divided. The high commissioner therefore called for inducements ‘to unite or at least to come to some working arrangement to ensure that they do not cut each others’ throats’.¹³² The JIC was sceptical about the prospects of this, not only regarding Adeni parties but also more broadly regarding the Royalist tribes. Indeed, the JIC expressed reservations about the loyalty of these tribes. Emphasising issues of tribal venality, the committee warned that they were ready to cause trouble for anyone ‘on either side’ if given arms, money and encouragement.¹³³ Highlighting the potential dangers of covert action, the JIC felt it was hazardous to place confidence, security, reputation and money into groups vulnerable to counter-bribery. This again was an important judgement when planning covert action. Nonetheless, by the time of this intelligence assessment, the Colonial Office had already authorised £50,000 to be spent ‘on measures to retain the loyalty of Federal tribes’.¹³⁴

A further important assessment to be made involved considering unintended consequences, future implications and the dangers of mission-creep. To again quote Treverton: ‘Small operations have often begun with grand purposes, objectives incommensurate with the instrument. When the goals could not be achieved, leaders were tempted to take the next step and the next […] Sometimes a more limited objective can be achieved, but its achievement makes it appealing to hope for more’. Therefore at minimum, intelligence must assess whether operations as initially conceived can achieve their purposes.¹³⁵ Given that those planning or calling for covert action can develop a personal stake or investment in its implementation and success, an objective interdepartmental body is necessary to assess such matters and prevent unchecked escalation. Indeed, the JIC argued that ‘the Royalists cannot be defeated nor can they win even with outside help unless such help went beyond the supply of equipment which they could operate themselves’. The levels of escalation required to aid the Royalists decisively, including the supply of tanks and aircraft (and men to operate them), would therefore probably lead to Egyptian reprisals.¹³⁶

It is commonly accepted that ‘the more provocative or threatening the operations, the more apt they are to come to the attention of the target country’s internal security service’.¹³⁷ As such, the JIC warned of dangerous escalation resulting from Egyptian awareness of British interference. It would lead to reprisal attacks against British interests and render covert action counter-productive. For example, the committee warned against increasing the scale of covert action because the ‘provision of heavier weapons might well […] be offset by the effects of reaction to their supply’.¹³⁸ The JIC blamed external subversion in part on Republican resentment of FSA territory being used as a base and refuge for Royalist and mercenary activity. The Republicans held the British partly responsible for this and therefore subversion in the FSA and Aden was a consequence of British covert action.¹³⁹ As such the committee performed a useful task in considering the consequences if the first step in covert action was unsuccessful—an important step in successful covert action planning.

This assessment aligned the JIC with Foreign Office officials who argued that the Royalists could only win as a result of drastic British intervention. This, they argued, was impossible.¹⁴⁰ It also echoed the views of SIS Chief, and influential JIC member, Dick White who was reluctant to become embroiled in a covert war.¹⁴¹ The JIC’s argument, however, had earlier been dismissed by Trevaskis, who accused the committee of having been misled by the Egyptians. Trevaskis lamented to Duncan Sandys how officials in London had not taken local complexities into account and had ‘overlooked the comparative ineffectiveness of sophisticated weapons even when used with calculated ruthlessness against an unsophisticated enemy in wild and sparsely inhabited country’. When Trevaskis received the JIC’s conclusions in March 1964 he again disagreed with the point that Royalists could not win without heavy equipment, privately noting in his diary that guerrilla tactics alone would suffice.¹⁴² He therefore seemingly overlooked the dangers of escalation associated with such covert action.

Egyptian action against British interests was not, of course, solely a reaction to British covert action. Nasser (and indeed the Yemeni Republicans) had their own agendas. As has already been discussed, Nasser sought to remove British influence from the region and irregular strikes provided him with a means of achieving this. Similarly, Yemen had long demonstrated a tendency to try and extend political influence over the border and dominate the south. The border itself was contested and Yemen had engaged in numerous raids into South Arabia since the late 1940s.¹⁴³ Whilst these motivations would have continued regardless of British activity, it was wise for the JIC to assess the provocative impact covert action may have had.

In addition to analysing the risks of covert action, JIC assessments also considered the accuracy of intelligence received from the theatre. Before embarking on covert intervention, it was (and remains) crucial to ensure that sources were accurate and that action was not being instigated under false pretences. All source intelligence analysis by an interdepartmental body operating at the apex of the intelligence structure was therefore a useful tool in evaluating and corroborating incoming information.

Fearing bias and exaggeration, the JIC was wary about intelligence reports emanating from local British authorities in the region. As previously argued, local Foreign Office officials felt that Trevaskis interpreted any new information according to his pre-disposed theory that Nasser was determined to force the British to withdraw and was doing so through violent subversion. Governor Charles Johnston was perceived in a similar way and reports from Aden regularly suggested that the Royalist cause was strong, that Egyptian morale was low, that Nasser was anxious to withdraw and that with some covert assistance from Britain, Royalist tribesmen would be victorious in the civil war. This, in turn, would decrease the threat to Aden.¹⁴⁴ Yet the JIC treated such reports with caution.

Instead the committee placed far greater value on signals intelligence acquired by GCHQ. Signals intelligence, or SIGINT, provided intercepts revealing a detailed picture of Egyptian troop deployments that did not necessarily corroborate Johnston’s reporting. As a result, the JIC chairman Hugh Stephenson dismissed Johnston’s reports. He told the prime minister directly that Egyptian morale was high and that sources in Aden had ‘clearly […] exaggerated’ reports of Egyptian defeats. Contradicting reports from Aden, Stephenson personally informed Macmillan that rather than being on the verge of success, the weak Royalists were ‘confined to their own areas’, and were engaged only in ‘sporadic guerrilla activity’. Stephenson followed this up by pointing out that tensions existed between Republican ministers and the chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces.¹⁴⁵ A similar instance occurred six weeks later when the JIC again emphatically dismissed Johnston’s views by stating ‘there was at present no evidence available to support the Governor’s contention that Nasser was anxious to pull his forces out of the Yemen, and indeed there were some indications to the contrary’.¹⁴⁶

At other points in the conflict, local intelligence reports emphasised Royalist difficulties and their imminent defeat, with all the consequences this would have had for British regional interests. Again, however, the JIC sensed bias and suspected an agenda designed to encourage increased British covert assistance. Questions were consequently raised over the reliability of the reports. For example, tribal rulers and indigenous intelligence officers loyal to those rulers had much to gain in misrepresenting the threat to induce further assistance from the British. In spring 1964, the committee assessed that ‘we have no evidence that the Royalists are seriously short of ammunition and spares for their present scale of equipment (the various tribal and Royalist complaints of shortage probably reflect maldistribution and in any case have to be judged against determination to retain adequate reserves for purely sectional reasons)’.¹⁴⁷

Similar issues were raised regarding reports from mercenary sources close to the Royalist tribes. These also pressed for deeper British covert involvement in the Yemeni civil war. The JIC was dismissive of mercenaries, although members only made this view explicit retrospectively. The committee criticised them as a ‘source of political embarrassment to the British government’ and for ‘sometimes put[ting] British interests at risk’.¹⁴⁸ Throughout the conflict, the JIC treated pro-Royalist intelligence with caution and it is highly likely that such information was weeded out at the assessment phase. The committee would most likely have looked upon the mercenaries and their sources as an inconvenience. For example, the committee stressed the distinction between intelligence obtained via unprejudiced sources and that obtained ‘from persons favourable to [the] Royalist Cause’. Likewise the JIC was wary of assessments being exaggerated so as to indicate the levels of Royalist requirements should their activities become more ambitious, as advocated by the mercenaries, as opposed to their present requirements.¹⁴⁹

These concerns were echoed by the JIC’s regional outpost, the JIC(ME). In May 1963 the JIC(ME) carried some intelligence from British ‘observers’ and ‘journalists’ who had visited the Yemen. However, the JIC(ME) was dismissive of their upbeat assessments about Royalist chances of success, confuting that ‘such claims have been made too often before to warrant serious attention’. Similarly, six weeks later the JIC(ME) reported that a ‘British observer’ who had visited Royalist areas in Yemen warned that the Royalists lacked ammunition and morale. Again the JIC(ME) dismissed these reports as politicised and exaggerated. It was believed that Royalists often ‘have more ammunition than they admit’.¹⁵⁰

The JIC therefore appeared to harbour reservations about the use of mercenaries. Lack of archival evidence however, precludes a detailed discussion of the relationship between the JIC and any mercenary activity. Regardless, there is little evidence that much aid was channelled to the mercenaries. Instead, as Spencer Mawby asserts, the frontier tribes were used: ‘The British government did give aid to the Royalists intermittently but […] generally preferred to operate against the Egyptians through its own independent tribal connections rather than utilising Badr or the mercenaries’.¹⁵¹ Overall, it appears that whatever official sanctioning the mercenaries may have enjoyed, they had little connection with the JIC. The central intelligence machinery may well have received unofficial reports from mercenary sources, but committee output suggests that the JIC lacked detailed awareness of their activity. Mercenary intelligence structures operated in parallel to the official intelligence machine. Indeed the most active mercenary, Johnny Cooper, led his own intelligence gathering reconnaissance missions, which he hoped would shed alternative light on the assessments made by the JIC.¹⁵²

Policy input

Covert action, however, is not essentially an intelligence activity but a foreign policy option. It is designed to influence events overseas in support of British interests. It is therefore important to examine the impact intelligence assessments had on the actual covert policy sanctioned. The JIC’s influence was intermittent in the early years of the conflict and assessments were used or overlooked depending on the consumers’ interests. Although some officials and ministers vociferously disagreed with the committee’s conclusions, JIC reports were used in planning covert intervention from 1964. They helped temper some of the more aggressive proposals. Intelligence helped ensure that any action did not extend to actively taking sides in the civil war but was instead limited to counter-subversion along the frontier. It must, however, be noted that JIC assessments were only one source in moderating covert action. Other factors simply included bureaucratic delays in responding to and processing requests, as well as policy malaise owing to ongoing tension about the best means with which to proceed.

From the outbreak of the Yemeni conflict, the JIC chairman fed intelligence directly to senior policy practitioners and ministers via his attendance of ad hoc cabinet committees. This happened for example in October 1962 when the committee’s assessments of stalemate and its criticism of exaggerated local reports were used in debates regarding initial responses and potential recognition of the new Yemeni regime. Perhaps such input casting doubt on the governor’s assessment played a role in Macmillan’s decision to sanction only some of Johnston’s requests the following month.¹⁵³ Elsewhere, the chiefs of staff waited for JIC conclusions before planning action to ‘counter border incursions and subversion in the Protectorate or hostile action affecting the security of the Aden base’. Based on the JIC’s threat assessment, military planners then began to liaise with the Colonial Office and a local security committee to consider how best to react to border skirmishes using counter subversion, infrastructure development and propaganda.¹⁵⁴ Between late 1962 and early 1964, the government authorised cautious covert action in the frontier area, including mine-laying, supplying arms to tribes and sabotage. This was ultimately defensive and more limited than requests from people like Johnston and Trevaskis. Local officials were hoping for retaliatory action inside Yemen itself as well as covert military assistance directly to the Royalists. They sought active involvement in the civil war. As Spencer Mawby has argued, ‘Macmillan’s administration was willing to consider retaliatory action, though not on the scale which Johnston proposed’.¹⁵⁵

Elsewhere, however, JIC reports were not used as an objective foundation to policy discussion. Some ministers and officials disagreed with the committee’s assessments and so simply ignored JIC intelligence. It has already been noted that Julian Amery criticised the JIC for underestimating the coherence and vehemence of Royalist resistance and fed parallel reports to the prime minister. Elsewhere, the committee’s assessments were used to justify covert action—despite JIC reservations. By January 1964 the JIC had dismissed any overt military threat, acknowledged the political subversive threat, but stopped short of accusing the Egyptians of an active coordinated campaign of violent subversion and terrorism. Yet these JIC conclusions were swiftly pounced upon by the chiefs of staff as the foundations on which to base and justify their own policy recommendations to cabinet. The chiefs, who emphasised the military importance of the Aden base, were keen to use the JIC acknowledgement of subversion as a green light. It would have provided the necessary intelligence justification for covert action. They were briefed that the JIC ‘agree (almost reluctantly!) that there is evidence to support the case that a concerted subversive effort is under way’. The chiefs used the JIC threat assessment to corroborate Trevaskis’s claims of coordinated external violent subversion.¹⁵⁶ Surprisingly, this was despite the fact that the JIC had explicitly cast doubts on the high commissioner’s arguments. Burrows had personally informed the chiefs of staff just a few days earlier that some JIC members believed the grenade attack was part of uncoordinated hostility, and the committee continued to warn only of political subversion.¹⁵⁷

Using the JIC intelligence as a foundation (or excuse), the chiefs of staff immediately discussed means to counter this subversion. They recommended using ‘all practicable measures’ to counter hostile propaganda.¹⁵⁸ Moreover, the exclamation mark denoting the perceived JIC reluctance combined with the swiftness and firmness of the chiefs’ lobbying for counter-subversion measures suggests a sense of relief that the JIC had reached the desired outcome. JIC intelligence could now be used as evidence to justify counter-subversion efforts. It was, of course, right and proper for the chiefs of staff to issue planning and policy recommendations and they were under no obligation to agree with JIC intelligence conclusions. This episode, however, raises important questions about the subtle use of intelligence assessments, which are perceived as objective, to justify consumers’ own preconceptions.

Meanwhile, other consumers used JIC conclusions to formulate limited counter measures. For example, using the JIC’s more limited assessments of the subversion, the Counter Subversion Committee examined means of countering Egyptian propaganda, such as through the use of a more powerful transmitter to broadcast counter-propaganda from Aden.¹⁵⁹ Covert action was not as potent as it otherwise might have been.

A review of policy towards Aden and South Arabia took place in spring 1964, in which JIC intelligence assessments proved influential. Alec Douglas-Home, then prime minister, requested a fresh look at the situation. He commissioned an up-to-date intelligence appreciation, which was to be circulated amongst the most senior policymakers.¹⁶⁰ Although Douglas-Home was not ‘yet convinced’ by the JIC’s review, Foreign Secretary Rab Butler drew heavily on the committee’s intelligence to argue for a distinction to be made between aiding the frontier tribes and the Yemeni Royalists. Butler wrote that ‘we must look critically at the argument that the best way of countering U.A.R.-Yemeni subversion is to provide encouragement and help to the Yemeni Royalists’. Explicitly referring to the JIC’s conclusions, he posited that direct aid to the Royalists was futile and risked escalating the violence.¹⁶¹

As part of the spring review, various proposals were made both in London and locally. Reflecting the input of Butler and the JIC, the actions sanctioned demonstrated the distinction between defensive border operations and offensive aid to the Royalists as well as an unwillingness to engage in particularly aggressive operations. For example, ‘actions to induce Yemeni tribes to neutralise centres of anti-Federation subversion’ were sanctioned, whilst a suggestion to assassinate Egyptian intelligence officers was not. Shallow non-retaliatory sabotage was sanctioned, whilst proposals for action deep inside the Yemen were vetoed. Similarly, the government was prepared to offer the Royalists money and to turn a blind eye to their use of federation territory, but was not prepared to supply arms and heavier equipment.¹⁶²

JIC intelligence assessments had a more formalised impact on policy from 1964. This was when calls for increased covert intervention intensified and new interdepartmental machinery was established. Intelligence then helped guide committees such as the South Arabian Action Group (which was charged with formulating proposals for overt and covert action), the Joint Action Committee (JAC), the Counter Subversion Committee and the Defence and Oversea Policy (Official) Committee in scrutinising and coordinating covert action. Available archival evidence suggests that, channelled through the JAC, all source intelligence assessment helped moderate the more aggressive proposals for covert intervention. Covert action was stepped up but intelligence played an important role in ensuring that it was a proportionate response to the threat, tied to specific goals and embedded in a broader foreign and colonial policy. These factors were, and remain, important guidelines for effective covert action planning.¹⁶³

Intriguing connections existed between the JIC and the Joint Action Committee. Although perhaps created earlier, the JAC was reconstituted in July 1964 along with (or as part of) a broader reorganisation of the joint intelligence machinery, including the Joint Intelligence Staff.¹⁶⁴ Indeed, there were extensive overlaps between the two committees in terms of structure and personnel. Firstly, the JAC was served by the JIC secretariat—an arrangement that meant that the JIC secretary doubled up as the JAC secretary.¹⁶⁵ Secondly, the two committees shared a chairman. Bernard Burrows and his influential successor Denis Greenhill were therefore heavily involved in planning covert operations including mine-laying, increased arms sales to ‘friendly’ tribal groups and ‘unavowable [sic] action within the Yemen itself’.¹⁶⁶ Thirdly, the most senior JIC members also sat on the JAC and were joined by representatives from the operational dimension in the Ministry of Defence, including the director of Special Forces. Composed of only those with a need to know, the JAC was smaller than the JIC and worked with a more highly classified distribution list. As such the JAC could discuss issues of a more sensitive and secretive nature than the Joint Intelligence Committee. This is one of the reasons why the two committees were kept separate.¹⁶⁷

The levels of overlap between the JIC and JAC are significant. They raise issues concerning the relationship between covert action and intelligence, with the former often being ignored in traditional conceptions of the intelligence cycle. The overlap also questions the relationship between intelligence and policy (with some American practitioners arguing that policy neutrality among intelligence officials does not apply regarding covert action).¹⁶⁸ Importantly however, policy formulation did not fall under the JAC’s remit. This was instead conducted by the relevant departments and was sanctioned by senior ministers. The JAC was simply involved in scrutinising and coordinating these policy proposals interdepartmentally. It then offered recommendations to ministers, and in doing so often invoked JIC assessments. It was, according to Davies, intended to provide direction and coordination for covert action programmes.¹⁶⁹ JIC involvement was therefore sensible in that the committee’s structure was used to ensure secrecy and committee members brought valuable experience with which to scrutinise, manage and coordinate. Moreover, the type of policy with which the JAC did deal can perhaps be termed ‘intelligence policy’ involving intelligence operations and inter-agency coordination. Such policy can be differentiated from broader strategic political or military policies, on which intelligence bodies should obviously avoid prescription.

The shadowy Joint Action Committee discussed, scrutinised and worked through the various issues within, and consequences of, the proposed action. Regarding Yemen and South Arabia, this was known as RANCOUR II. The committee’s scrutiny included inter alia considering the potential impact that halting operations would have had on local leaders and the impact of various political developments involving Nasser on the effectiveness of covert operations.¹⁷⁰ Once again it appears that late spring 1964 was a pivotal date regarding the JIC’s views on the threat and the best means with which to counter it. As has been argued, committee assessments in 1962 and 1963 were sceptical of covert action, yet from 1964 it appears that, through the JAC, JIC members were instrumental in issuing proposals. Stephen Dorril claims that Dick White performed an ‘unexplained’ ‘about-turn’ in the summer of 1964 and began to support covert action.¹⁷¹ It appears that others could have followed suit and bought into a growing consensus around some sort of covert action driven by mounting evidence of Egyptian violence on the one hand and constraints on overt action on the other.

However, a potential recognition of the increasing appeal of covert action does not necessarily mean that JIC members performed an about face. More likely, the JAC was used to dilute the more bellicose Colonial Office proposals to which the JIC had previously expressed reservations. The JAC subjected them to rigorous interdepartmental scrutiny and a bureaucratic process. This ensured that they were carried out as responsibly as possible.

The JAC also potentially helped to ensure that covert action was being conducted for the right reasons and not for political purposes. Planning for the forthcoming election campaign, for example, Julian Amery wrote to the prime minister in spring 1964 urging the government to ‘act on a much bigger scale than has been envisaged hitherto’. This was designed not only to defeat Nasser but to push the Egyptian leader so hard that the Labour opposition would be forced to come out in his support. According to Amery, ‘Nasser is probably the best hated man in Britain. But at bottom his policy and the Labour Party’s also towards the Middle East are very closely aligned. If we could identify [Harold] Wilson with Nasser over the next few months we might greatly strengthen our hand’.¹⁷² An interdepartmental body carefully scrutinising covert action proposals was therefore useful. The existence of such a coordinated mechanism also went some way to appeasing local authorities that were angry that their recommendations ‘seem scarcely to have been examined’.¹⁷³ Indeed, this set-up, which drew heavily on key JIC personnel, therefore achieved a further important criterion for planning covert interventions: evaluation in consultation with intelligence analysts.¹⁷⁴

Throughout the summer of 1964, calls continued to press for more active or offensive operations. Suggestions included assassinating Egyptian intelligence officers, organising tribal revolts inside Yemen and directly supplying the Royalists with arms and ammunition. Hawkish ministers hoped to link government-sanctioned covert action with direct aid to the Royalist forces by calling for clandestine parachute drops to be made directly to Royalist forces operating inside Yemen.¹⁷⁵ By contrast, however, the JAC recommended that covert operations ‘should not be resumed so long as the U.A.R. and their friends remain inactive against the Federation. [Redacted sentence…] Should Egyptians or Yemenis however resume their attacks and armed invasions, the J.A.C. considers that it is important that retaliatory RANCOUR action should be permitted on a similar scale’.¹⁷⁶ These operations were, however, more defensive than those called for from South Arabia and involved indirect aid channelled to pro-British tribes as opposed to direct intervention in the civil war.¹⁷⁷ Additionally, JAC recommendations included the proviso that any supply of arms was a ‘once-for-all exercise’ and that the high commissioner had to seek interdepartmental clearance before resuming operations beyond the accustomed level.¹⁷⁸

By the autumn of 1964 British-backed tribesmen were covertly engaged in operations against Egyptian forces along the Yemeni frontier.¹⁷⁹ Yet this was quite different from the more active and direct operations inside Yemen urged by local authorities and certain ministers in Whitehall. Indeed, in November 1964 the JAC stated that ‘none of the foregoing [covert operations] has any direct connection with the Royalists versus Republican struggle in the Yemen but has merely been part of an economical system for protecting the frontier of the Federation for whose defence we are responsible’.¹⁸⁰ Linking this back to the JIC, strategic intelligence impacted upon the covert action debate. Channelled through the JAC, intelligence helped to ensure that any operations sanctioned were conducted as responsibly as possible. Oversight from London may have irritated local officials who felt that it made tribal rulers look like British ‘stooges’,¹⁸¹ but was necessary to prevent escalation and damaging repercussions.

Violence in the FSA spiralled in the year and a half preceding British withdrawal. Growing increasingly vocal about the Egyptian threat, the JIC continued to regularly inform senior policymakers of the deteriorating security situation. Indeed, Prime Minister Harold Wilson commented that one JIC report made ‘pretty gloomy reading’.¹⁸² As independence approached, a new body was urgently established to deal with the deteriorating security situation in South Arabia by coordinating further interdepartmental action. Known as the South Arabian Action Group (SAAG), it was established in the Foreign Office in September 1966.

Like the JAC, the SAAG also possessed links to the JIC. Indeed, the JIC lay at the very heart of the Whitehall web. As well as being established by the JIC chairman, the group drew heavily on JIC assessments in order to compose a comprehensive report on counter action for ministers. SAAG ultimately called for ‘positive action’ to be taken on every front including both overt and covert.¹⁸³ Overall, although Britain was forced to withdraw, covert action, according to Lord Shackleton, minister without portfolio under Harold Wilson, was ‘extremely successful. [It was] effective both in driving the Egyptians back from parts of the South Arabian frontier and in causing the Egyptians considerable inconvenience by tying down a disproportionate number of Egyptian forces’.¹⁸⁴ Although South Yemen became a leftist state, significantly it was not an Egyptian satellite. Intelligence assessment was one source that helped achieve this and ensure that overzealous proposals with potentially damaging consequences were tempered.

Broader Reflections

By the mid-1960s, the JIC had acquired an increased confidence and status within the Whitehall hierarchy. With this however, came responsibility and vulnerability. Greater access to policy practitioners and ministers brought greater influence in the policymaking process. However, such newfound relevance pushed strategic intelligence towards the choppy waters of politicisation. As the central intelligence machinery’s status grew, so too did the potential for its assessments to become mired in departmental rivalries and for the subtle manipulation of objective assessment.

The producer-consumer relationship

JIC threat assessments possessed a higher Whitehall profile. The committee had moved away from the narrow militaristic topics that characterised the intelligence agenda during earlier insurgencies. However, the JIC did not operate in a political vacuum. Intelligence assessments were subjected to the winds of Whitehall—the vigorous buffetings from across the interested departments. The committee initially acted as a moderating influence by disseminating information that displeased certain consumers in the Colonial Office. As such, it found itself most often aligned with Foreign Office ideas and, initially at least, downplayed some of the more pugnacious rhetoric emanating from the Colonial Office. Whilst a useful function, certain colonial sources were perhaps too easily dismissed in favour of their Foreign Office and GCHQ counterparts. Fear of bias and politicisation can skew intelligence assessments just as much as actual bias.

Policymakers drew upon JIC threat assessments on a number of occasions. These included firstly when considering the nature of the threat; secondly when discussing covert action; and thirdly when excogitating strategic regional policies. The latter case demonstrated an effective intelligence system whereby objective analysis was presented without political weight to policy staffs from which policy could be formulated. On other occasions however the committee’s assessments were subtly manipulated in order to support a pre-conceived idea relating to Egyptian violent subversion or covert action. Similarly, the JIC was specifically asked to find (sometimes uncorroborated) intelligence implicating Egypt that could be published for political purposes—leaving a dangerous impression of the JIC being used as a tool in the policymaking process.

A fundamental principle of British intelligence assessment is that it remains objective and provides assessments of a given situation based on the available intelligence. It should not stray into the realm of policy prescription. Although avoiding outright policy instructions (which were well beyond the JIC’s jurisdiction and authority), the committee, perhaps indicative of its increased status and confidence, did stray into the realm of policy advice. It warned against the devolution of authority to local commanders regarding photo reconnaissance and retaliation. However, such policy requires a particular amount of input from intelligence authorities. This was also the case regarding the Joint Action Committee, in which JIC personnel were heavily involved. Again, however, the JAC did not formulate policy itself and dealt with intelligence-specific policy in which input from the JIC was integral and which must be differentiated from broader policies.

JIC threat assessments changed emphasis in spring 1964: they began increasingly to highlight violent and coordinated Egyptian subversion. The task of assessing the levels and nature of external influence and its interplay with internal factors was a tricky one. The JIC initially considered internal agency by looking at union strikes and the political threat, but also examined links with Egypt regarding political subversion. However, from 1964, local agency was increasingly eroded in the official mind and replaced with an emphasis on an externally-directed campaign of violence. This brought the committee more in line with Colonial Office and military thinking. There may have been an element of politicisation in this shift given, for example, pressure for evidence implicating the Egyptians. Egyptian policy, however, was becoming more aggressive. The JIC received much new evidence indicating this. Ultimately, the committee’s assessment reflected Nasser’s attempts to increase pressure on the British, but underestimated local agency and ideology thereby preventing policymakers from adequately understanding the likelihood of a future leftist government. Focus on the Cold War had shaped intelligence assessments of Malaya and Cyprus, yet this time it was warped by focus on Nasser. Once more, non-state actors were seen in a predominantly statist context.

All source intelligence

All source intelligence assessment proved important in managing and coordinating covert intervention interdepartmentally. It ensured that any action sanctioned was properly scrutinised so as to reduce potentially damaging ramifications. Covert intervention is a risky strategy and it is therefore imperative that the likelihood of success is adequately considered. Assessments must examine firstly whether covert action is necessary, commensurate with broader policy goals and whether the means chosen are proportionate to the objective. Secondly, the balance of power in the conflict must be assessed to determine the scale of covert action required. Thirdly, the trustworthiness, skill and motivation of the sponsored party should be considered, as the inherent secrecy involved generates a lack of ultimate control. Such risk assessment can then form a foundation for appreciating the feasibility of covert intervention and for setting clear objectives accordingly.

It is likely that similar considerations were taken into account when British leaders were planning covert operations in Libya in 2011. Balancing strategic and tactical priorities, Whitehall had to operate within tight constraints following the difficulties in Iraq and the strict terms of the UN resolution, thereby causing frustration on the ground akin to the tension between local officials and London in the 1960s.¹⁸⁵ Similarly, assessments of the strength and unity of opposition forces in Syria in 2012 played into Whitehall deliberations about whether or not to support the movement. This is in much the same way as assessments of the Royalists half a century earlier.¹⁸⁶

Planning covert action can degenerate into a politicised activity. Given the secret nature of the proposals, excitable officials can develop a personal stake in the operations, lose perspective and become swept away in the drama. As a result objective and strong intelligence assessment machinery is necessary. An interdepartmental approach combing all available sources is important in ensuring that intelligence can be adequately evaluated and assessed against other sources from different departments. This is integral in spotting flawed sources that may have been written with a clear agenda, thereby ensuring that covert intervention is planned objectively and rationally. It is therefore important that the intelligence assessment machinery is confident enough to deliver potentially unpopular conclusions. This is easier said than done and it is beneficial if assessment is conducted interdepartmentally and disseminated by very senior figures.

Centralised management

In contrast to its enhanced status within Whitehall, the JIC lacked authority in overseas intelligence management despite radiating some newfound confidence. Charged with an intelligence management function, the committee theoretically held an important role in keeping the local and regional intelligence organisations under review. As with Cyprus before, this involved monitoring the situation and intervening once the intelligence requirements had escalated beyond the capabilities of the local authorities. Demonstrating increased assertiveness, the JIC directly instigated a number of reforms, particularly focusing on the intelligence assessment and dissemination structures. This extended to the JIC overseeing the appointment of certain intelligence or Special Branch personnel, especially when appointing a new post that impacted upon the Adeni intelligence structure.

Yet the JIC lacked the authority to attain the required results. Violence spiralled and the committee had to re-examine the situation a year later. The JIC’s reforms were introduced slowly and incoherently. They were fatally impeded by lack of authority, an inability to force through the reforms, a deficiency of political will on the ground and of course a highly challenging security situation. Ultimately, as both political will and time dwindled, the committee’s attempts at reforms resulted in an imperfect and temporary stopgap until independence. Despite growing ambition, the committee failed to acquire the necessary authority to implement reforms in overseas intelligence organisations. This, however, became less of a problem as the last remaining colonial territories disappeared, taking the formal British intelligence structures with them.

5
AFTER PAX BRITANNICA

OMAN, 1968–1975

Much of Britain’s formal empire had been consigned to the shelves of history by the time Aden attained independence as part of the new South Yemen. That did not mean, however, that Whitehall was willing to give up political influence overseas. Within the context of debates about neo-colonialism, certain leading imperial historians have argued that ‘decolonization was the pursuit of imperialism by other means’.¹ Discussing Harold Macmillan’s ‘audit of empire’ in 1957 for example, A.G. Hopkins has described Whitehall’s approach as follows: ‘it was better to have friends than enemies in distant places, and if friendship could be sustained without burdening the Exchequer, a shift to informal influence had much to commend it’.² Given Britain’s financial insecurity and the decreasing legitimacy of imperialism in the eyes of many on the international scene, British interests had to be furthered via indirect means: through enhanced political influence as opposed to coercion.

This was certainly the case in the Persian Gulf, which, according to one of its last political residents (and future JIC chair) Geoffrey Arthur, was ‘the last province of the Pax Britannica’.³ Oman, however, occupied a slightly different position from its neighbours. Oman’s close relationship with the United Kingdom stretches back over two hundred years, with numerous treaties of friendship signed since the first treaty of commerce in 1798. In more recent terms, a treaty in 1958 streamlined London’s military, economic and technical assistance to the Sultanate. It allowed the British use of air bases in Salalah and Masirah Island in return for the secondment of British army personnel to the Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF). For example, the commander of SAF (CSAF) was British and, due to the Sultan’s refusal to commission Omani Arabs, so too were SAF officers. Consequently, SAF remained reliant on the British.⁴

Unlike the lower Gulf States however, Britain never regarded ‘protectorate regime’ status as being applicable to Oman. Despite not being a colony however, London held much influence over the Sultanate. According to leading imperial historian Wm Roger Louis, Oman ‘in international law was an independent and sovereign state but in effect [was] a British protected state’.⁵ Throughout the 1960s, Britain was afforded ‘significant latitude’ and handled Omani foreign and defence policy as London ‘saw fit’. The local ruler might have been made to feel important and irreplaceable, but his true powers ‘were tightly controlled’.⁶

Violent insurgency engulfed the Omani region of Dhofar in the late 1960s. Accordingly, the host country’s quasi-independent status provided a fascinating framework that shaped the British response, including the role of strategic intelligence. Indeed, it laid some of the foundations for counterinsurgency in the post-imperial twenty-first century. The British authorities found themselves covertly participating ‘in a civil war pitting an autocratic Middle Eastern monarchy against leftist rebels’.⁷ Owing to anti-colonial normative constraints, however, British involvement in counterinsurgency operations was publicly limited. Geraint Hughes argues that Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were determined to keep British involvement ‘as limited and discreet as possible and claim publicly that British personnel were not actually involved in fighting Dhofari insurgents’. Thomas Mockaitis puts it more bluntly: Britain was ‘no longer willing to expend “moral credit” in wars that smacked of colonialism’.⁸

Despite the political risks and enforced constraints, authorities in Whitehall were keen to aid the beleaguered (yet autocratic) Sultan. Oman possessed strategic and economic importance. This was crucial in a world where British formal assets were waning but political leaders were determined to maintain some semblance of British power. In terms of location, Oman’s position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz guarded the Persian Gulf. During the Cold War, the Gulf was ‘one of the main highways between east and west’,⁹ and policy practitioners feared that an anti-western regime in Muscat could have severed NATO’s sea lines of communication with the Gulf oil fields. The Soviet Union would then have had the capability to interdict western oil supplies. Such fears perhaps illustrate the primacy of economic concerns for the British, as opposed to the Americans’ broader Cold War containment focus.¹⁰

The violence also played out against the backdrop of British withdrawal from the Gulf. In 1968 Harold Wilson announced the complete withdrawal of British armed forces from the area by the end of 1971. However, he intended to leave behind regimes sympathetic to Britain’s national interest. Therefore Britain’s wider regional designs also demonstrated the significance afforded to stability in Oman. A hostile Omani regime was feared to potentially ideologically threaten British attempts to unite certain Gulf States into what would eventually become the United Arab Emirates,¹¹ thus hindering Britain’s intricate withdrawal from the region. In terms of practicalities, Britain’s main strategic asset in Oman was the use of the craggy Masirah Island. Lying off the east coast of Oman, the rugged island had long hosted a British military base. According to the JIC, this was important as a staging post on the CENTO air route to the Far East between Akrotiri in Cyprus and Gan in the Indian Ocean. It was also a crucial base from which air surveillance of the Gulf, Arabian Sea and northwest Indian Ocean could be carried out. Economically, Oman did begin to produce oil itself, but perhaps more significantly it was an importer of British arms.¹²

A large region in southwest Oman, Dhofar remains a diverse landscape encompassing fertile mountains, wild desert and rugged coastline. Highly seasonal weather, including an annual monsoon, severely challenged counterinsurgency efforts. Dhofar was culturally and ethnically distinct from the rest of Oman and, having endured years of neglect, many Dhofaris harboured secessionist ambitions. The nationalist Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF), initially backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, began low-level violence in 1965 before intensifying their activities in the late 1960s. The nature of the rebel movement was, however, fundamentally transformed following the creation of South Yemen (in the wake of British withdrawal from Aden). From 1967, radical leftists in South Yemen began to aid the Dhofari rebels and in August 1968 the group changed its name to the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf (PFLOAG). Indicating a shift to the left, Marxists ousted nationalists from leadership positions whilst guerrillas began to receive training from the Communist bloc. As Walter Ladwig argues, it was ‘a classic example of a nationalist rebellion, based on legitimate grievances, that was taken over by radical Marxists for their own purposes’.¹³ By late 1968, PFLOAG had around 2,000 fighters for offensive operations supported by 3,000 militiamen. By 1970 the insurgents were better trained than SAF, which was wholly inadequate, whilst most of Dhofar lay in rebel hands. The insurgents had pushed the military onto the back foot and concern was growing in London.¹⁴

Senior figures within the military and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) concluded that increased British involvement, albeit covertly, was necessary. Consequently, in April 1970 Brigadier Roderick Semple, director of the Special Air Service (SAS), led a British military team to Oman to contemplate the possibility of using his forces in the Dhofar war.¹⁵ This visit was followed by a near-bloodless coup on 23 July 1970, when Sultan Sa’id was deposed and replaced by his son Qaboos. Under Sa’id’s authoritarian leadership, counterinsurgency operations had failed amid the Sultan’s stubborn refusal to sanction development projects in Dhofar. The arrival of Qaboos provided grounds for a fresh start, and the new Sultan, a staunch Anglophile, pledged a less ruthless approach to counterinsurgency. This included civil development plans eschewed by his repressive father. The first SAS units, known as British Army Training Teams (BATTs) arrived in Dhofar shortly after Qaboos’s succession. Among other roles, they began to raise, train and direct groups of local fighters known as firqats. By January 1971, the first firqat had been raised and progress was slowly made in the conflict. Up to 60 SAS troops on four to five month tours of duty were transferred to Oman to work with the SAF. The British-led forces successfully established a permanent base on the rugged Dhofari hills whilst supply lines from Yemen were eventually reduced. Sultan Qaboos declared an end to hostilities in December 1975.¹⁶

The JIC in 1968

Back in the corridors of Whitehall, the year 1968 proved to be a seminal one in the history of the British intelligence machinery. The JIC, a single unit since its inception in 1936, was bifurcated; the Joint Intelligence Staff was dissolved and replaced by a newly created Assessments Staff; and a new post of intelligence coordinator was formed. Combined, these reforms sought to strengthen centralised all-source intelligence assessment and to allow for a more holistic approach to strategic intelligence. The JIC was split into two new committees: JIC(A) and JIC(B). The former continued the work of the JIC in political and security intelligence. By contrast, the latter held a remit over non-military economic, scientific and technical intelligence matters. It was chaired by the Treasury. Importantly, this indicated another move that broadened the JIC agenda and made the committee’s work increasingly inclusive. The economic dimension was belatedly being brought into understandings of national security, threats and intelligence. The experiment, however, proved short-lived and the JIC(B) was dissolved in September 1974, with its responsibilities transferred to the Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee. For purposes of continuity of narrative, this chapter will refer to the JIC(A) simply as the JIC.

A more successful reform, at least in terms of longevity, was the creation of a new, integrated Cabinet Office Assessments Staff to replace the long-serving JIS. The Assessments Staff maintained a similar report-drafting function to its JIS predecessors, but held a higher profile. Consisting of around twenty members of different disciplines across a range of departments, the Assessments Staff was more inclusive and more integrated than the previous system. Despite being small and informal it drew in additional manpower, including high-flying seconded diplomats. It was also more independent. Members were no longer the link between the JIC and parent departments as members of the JIS had been. The result, according to former JIC secretary Michael Herman, was ‘to produce strong central leadership of the collegial process’.¹⁷ With the creation of the Assessments Staff also came the new post of its chief. Incumbents of this post enjoyed influence over the JIC agenda and output, perhaps siphoning some of the power from the JIC chairman himself.

Current Intelligence Groups assisted the Assessments Staff in the drafting process, particularly regarding current intelligence. They were organised into seven geographical sectors, each composed of the departments and agencies represented on the JIC. Each sector was chaired by an Assessments Staff member. This ensured that experts in particular geographic fields were drafting reports.¹⁸

A third structural change was the creation of the post of intelligence coordinator. This was first filled on a part-time basis by Dick White. As a former head of both MI5 and SIS, White was a long-time JIC member. Having first joined MI5 in 1934, he possessed a vast and unrivalled experience of intelligence matters and understood the intricate workings of Whitehall. Indeed, upon becoming chief of SIS, White was tasked with bringing order and restraint to the slapdash service in the wake of the embarrassing Buster Crabb incident of 1956.¹⁹ According to one biography, White was well-trusted and commanded confidence. Importantly, he resisted the temptation to turn the new position into an ‘over-lordship’ of the various intelligence agencies, but concentrated instead on offering advice when asked. Others, however, have interpreted this as weak and ineffective passivity.²⁰ As part of efforts to improve the JIC’s management role, White was responsible for assisting the coordination and organisation of intelligence, for supervising the preparation of assessments, for preparing an annual review of the state of British intelligence, and for refereeing budgetary negotiations between the agencies, Treasury and political departments.²¹ The role of the intelligence coordinator in practice, however, is more difficult to assess. Although the JIC continued its broader theoretical management function of keeping intelligence as a whole at home and overseas under review, in practice this can be viewed with severe limitations, as the committee lacked the authority (and perhaps the courage) to manage the British intelligence organisation as a whole. Like the JIC chairman, White was limited to suggesting, commenting and advising.

In terms of other JIC functions, the committee’s terms of reference remained the same as in previous years. Along with management and liaison, the committee was expected to continue to issue assessments as required by consumers and as the committee itself deemed necessary. Nor was there tangible change in the JIC’s composition. It continued to be chaired by a Foreign Office official, although with a distinctly Persian Gulf flavour. Stewart Crawford, chair from 1970 to 1973, and Geoffrey Arthur, 1973 to 1975, had both been political residents there before taking up intelligence posts. Both men therefore had experience in the politics of the Persian Gulf. Crawford for example was political resident when Harold Wilson announced the withdrawal of forces and had to deal with the opprobrium of the local rulers. It also fell to Crawford to oversee the intelligence implications of the withdrawal once he was transferred to Whitehall. Meanwhile, Arthur in particular was considered a Middle Eastern expert at the Foreign Office and spoke both Arabic and Persian. They were two very different types of chairmen. Crawford was a more organised committee man. He spent a great deal of time crossing the ‘i’s on intelligence assessments. Arthur was more chaotic—although both were very able men.

The essence of the committee continued upon the civilian trajectory begun in 1957, albeit now with more of a Foreign Office twist. Not only did the Foreign Office enjoy chairmanship and an extra representative on the committee itself, but the chief of the Assessments Staff and various chairs of the Current Intelligence Groups were seconded diplomats. Although seconded, these young and ambitious diplomatic high-flyers would likely have been loyal to Foreign Office interests, with which their careers ultimately lay. One of the early chiefs of the Assessments Staff was Percy Cradock, who served during the first half of the 1970s. Since his death, the influential Cradock has been described as a ‘Foreign Office mandarin of modern times’. Of razor sharp intellect and often acerbic in his judgements, Cradock went on to become a foreign policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher and a chair of the JIC under John Major.²² Cradock had replaced John Thomson as chief of the Assessments Staff. Like Cradock, Thomson was also a Foreign Office high flier. Both were figures to be reckoned with. Thomson was determined, ambitious and immensely able.²³ Compared with 1948, a clear shift away from military dominance had taken place in the composition of the central intelligence machinery. It was quite a different body from the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency. The JIC now examined a broad range of matters—although the military did remain keen consumers.

Managing Intelligence Overseas

The JIC’s managerial function, particularly in terms of the domestic intelligence organisation, was not executed as strongly as was enshrined in the committee’s charter. The committee was formally instructed to ‘give direction to, and to keep under review, the organisation and working of intelligence as a whole at home and overseas […as well as to] coordinate the activities of the United Kingdom joint intelligence organisations overseas’. According to one retired insider, however, a formal management function simply did not exist.²⁴ Yet concerning management of the overseas intelligence structure, the JIC grew in confidence, even if ultimate authority remained wanting. Such aplomb was demonstrated by the committee’s attempts at increasingly direct intervention in colonial intelligence structures from Malaya to Aden. Unlike previous insurgencies, however, Oman was not a British colony.

Despite close links between the Sultanate and London, the ability of the JIC to intervene from Whitehall was limited by fears of neocolonialism and a lack of jurisdiction. Despite the imperial overtones of the counterinsurgency campaign, the fact that action operated under the rhetoric of official Omani sovereignty impeded London’s ability to repeat past successes.²⁵ This applied not only to imperial counter-insurgency tactics (which were not necessarily as ‘minimum force’ as has since been mythologised), but also to the JIC’s ability to intervene in a managerial capacity. The committee continued to exercise management and coordination of the regional British intelligence apparatus. However, its role in reforming Omani intelligence locally was more circumscribed than had been the case regarding internal Adeni affairs. As such, the manner in which the JIC dealt with Oman can perhaps be seen as part of a transition from imperial to post-imperial insurgencies. The JIC now no longer enjoys the managerial role it tried to fashion in the dying days of empire.

Regional intelligence reform

The insurgency in Oman coincided with British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. It therefore fell upon the JIC to oversee the regional apparatus during this transitional period, which included the running down of the Joint Intelligence Group, or JIG (Gulf) as well as the military command. Established in 1965 to better coordinate and disseminate intelligence to meet the rising threat of Iraqi and Egyptian subversion, the JIG (Gulf) was similar to overseas JICs but had a more limited geographical focus.²⁶ Its demise impacted upon regional intelligence arrangements and required JIC intervention.

From May 1971, the JIC oversaw reforms and provided the necessary interdepartmental forum to oversee the transition. JIC members, however, considered such work a bureaucratic formal necessity and the Defence Intelligence Staff was left to handle the specifics.²⁷ Illustrating the committee’s managerial role however, the JIC did keep regional arrangements under regular review. There appears to have been a working party, perhaps housed within the Defence Intelligence Staff, designed to consider the regional intelligence structure after Pax Britannica. The JIC issued a number of reports on this subject and it remained on the committee’s agenda until the end of the year.²⁸ Unfortunately, papers relating to the new intelligence structures remain classified, but one can broadly conclude that the JIC oversaw and coordinated the transition from London, although the level of JIC passivity is open to debate until the relevant papers are opened. In all likelihood the committee’s role was similar to that during the Cypriot insurgency in the 1950s when it was used as an interdepartmental forum to oversee and coordinate without directly managing.

The committee also theoretically oversaw the withdrawal of the MI5 security liaison officer from the Gulf in early 1970. This episode once more illustrates the JIC’s passivity regarding the activities of domestic agencies. After discussion with the FCO and the relevant officials, Martin Furnival-Jones, the director general of MI5, simply informed the JIC that the security liaison officer, who had been stationed in Bahrain since 1967, ‘was not fully occupied in the post’. He would therefore be withdrawn. Exercising its nominal management and oversight responsibility, the JIC then ‘invited the Security Service to proceed with the proposal to withdraw the [security liaison officer] from the Gulf’. This was largely a formality. The committee clearly only enjoyed an ostensible managerial role when it came to domestic agencies. The JIC, however, did warn that withdrawal of the officer ‘should not be interpreted as signifying that there was any ground for complacency about the security situation in the area’.²⁹

Omani intelligence reform

These changes to the regional intelligence organisation impacted upon assessments of Oman, particularly regarding dissemination. The JIG (Gulf), for example, issued regular assessments on Dhofar to London. Specifically at the local level, however (and unlike in previous campaigns), the JIC lacked input in reforming the Omani intelligence apparatus. It offered very little advice from London. Upon accession, Sultan Qaboos initially made few changes to the Omani Intelligence Service and Malcolm Dennison, who had directed the bureau under Sultan Sa’id, remained in place following the coup.³⁰ Reforms in 1972 revamped the service and included the appointment of a new director of intelligence, the ‘no-nonsense’ Ray Nightingale. The most prominent local reforms, however, occurred in 1974 when the Oman Intelligence Services became an independent structure (it was previously part of the Sultan’s Land Forces) with the new title of Oman Research Department, signifying a move towards ‘Omanisation’ and a change in priorities as the Dhofar war wound down.³¹ The JIC, however, had little hand in the reforms. The impetus had passed to British military actors and, unlike during previous insurgencies, the JIC neither created working parties to recommend reform nor sent a delegation to inspect the local intelligence structures. When not dealing with colonies, the JIC lost the mandate that it had gradually acquired since 1948.

One could argue that this was surprising for four reasons. Firstly, although not a colony, Oman was heavily dependent on British advice and support regarding defence and security. Secondly, as in Malaya, Cyprus and Aden, intelligence was weak and in need of reform. Intelligence coverage in Dhofar was poor and military operations were consequently based upon flawed information. Meanwhile, Sultan Sa’id remained obtuse and receptive only to information he wanted to hear.³² Thirdly, British personnel were involved in the Omani intelligence services. SIS ran the Omani Intelligence Service in much the same way that British officers directed SAF.³³ Additionally, other British actors were directly involved in intelligence reform, including Defence Intelligence Staff personnel deployed directly from London and at least one senior MI5 officer. A security liaison officer was also present throughout 1969.³⁴ Given the involvement of British intelligence personnel, one could argue that Omani local intelligence theoretically fell under the JIC’s jurisdiction of overseeing the British intelligence organisation as a whole at home and overseas. Fourthly, the JIC had a growing tradition of reforming intelligence apparatuses to counter insurgencies where British forces were involved. This was particularly the case when intelligence was weak: a realisation that had hit the JIC by early 1970.³⁵ Moreover, there was a growing trend of centralised Whitehall intervention within the realm of intelligence reform. Whilst intelligence reform was vital, it was left to British military actors predominantly operating locally, although there was some input from the Ministry of Defence. Such actors included the defence attaché, the SAS and the DIS in London.

The role of the defence attaché indicates a notable difference between local intelligence reform in Oman and Aden. Although the JIC initially warned that the appointment of a defence attaché ‘might raise delicate local issues’,³⁶ the post was secured as regional intelligence structures were run down. Given Oman’s non-colonial status, there was no Local Intelligence Committee with which the JIC could engage and, following the demise of the JIG(Gulf), the JIC lacked a means of input into reforming intelligence assessment mechanisms. In the absence of British local joint intelligence organisations, the defence attaché acquired an important role in linking the Omani intelligence structure with London, as well as in coordinating local intelligence by maintaining liaison with key regional figures.³⁷

During previous insurgencies, the JIC had overseen appointments of key intelligence personnel. Such a role apparently evaporated regarding Oman. The JIC, for example, remained silent in the summer of 1974 during negotiations over reform to the Omani Intelligence Service. Instead the defence attaché, communicating with the chiefs of staff, resolved issues relating to the post of director general of Omani intelligence.³⁸ In fact, the JIC had minimal interaction at all with local British figures, including the defence attaché.

The SAS was also directly involved in Omani intelligence reform. They held a remit covering both intelligence gathering and collation, particularly through the operation of firqat bands and subsequent interrogation of defectors. Although the SAS’s task to set up an intelligence gathering organisation in Dhofar would have been beyond the JIC’s interest in assessment and dissemination, SAS officers also recommended structural reforms. For example, it was suggested that the Sultan’s intelligence officer needed to have an assistant. The SAS was also involved in setting out the intelligence requirements for Oman—traditionally an area of JIC responsibility when it came to colonies.³⁹ Information on the SAS’s intelligence role was passed to the JIC chairman and SAS intelligence updates were fed into the central intelligence machinery, but (unlike in Aden or Cyprus) the committee held no active management or oversight function. Demonstrating the shifting context, intelligence reform and requirements remained a predominantly military domain. It was military figures who were most active.

That is not to say there was no input from London. The centralised intelligence machine had grown accustomed to at least overseeing, if not intervening, in overseas intelligence reform since 1948. Given the military dimensions of the conflict and strong Ministry of Defence interest, the Defence Intelligence Staff took the lead in Oman. Throughout the Dhofari conflict, the DIS, particularly DI4 (the DIS directorate responsible for the Middle East), held a lead role in intelligence assessments on the region and provided regular briefs for JIC meetings. DIS officials, for example, briefed the new commander of Dhofar in June 1974 before he took up his position.⁴⁰

Regarding intelligence reform, a DIS officer, Lieutenant Colonel Southwood, was deployed in Oman in November 1973 accompanied by a senior MI5 officer, Mr Lawrence. Responsible to the deputy chief of the defence staff (intelligence), they formed an intelligence team and advised on the organisation and deployment of the Oman Intelligence Service. The defence attaché noted this visit as ‘essential’, and it was swiftly followed by a four-day visit from a DI4 colonel further covering intelligence matters. In addition, another team from the Defence Intelligence Staff visited Oman in December 1973 to discuss the use of British intelligence personnel.⁴¹ Tellingly they travelled on the authority of the chiefs of staff and not the JIC. This contrasts earlier experiences when the JIC chairman visited the theatre himself, accompanied by the director of military intelligence (in the case of Cyprus) and by the colonial secretary (to Aden).

Lack of JIC activity can be put down to three factors. Firstly, following the demise of the JIG (Gulf), the JIC lacked a mandate to intervene in the regional intelligence structures. Secondly, because Oman was not a colony, there was no colonial administrative organisation with which the JIC was able to engage. Responsible for local joint intelligence organisations, the JIC lacked a mandate to intervene in a foreign state that did not have a Local Intelligence Committee or any other British intelligence organisation. Thirdly, as a result of Ministry of Defence interest in Oman, intelligence reform fell within the military’s jurisdiction. Without the involvement of the now defunct Colonial Office, there was less of an interdepartmental remit and need for interdepartmental coordination of local intelligence reforms. Moreover, the Defence Intelligence Staff, backed by senior military figures, perhaps had more authority than the JIC to implement intelligence reforms effectively, particularly given the limitations of the JIC’s supposed managerial role. The broader context of other more immediate defence commitments also perhaps explains the assertive confidence of military intelligence in Oman. In Northern Ireland in 1972, military intelligence had also undertaken a lead role.⁴² Perhaps military intelligence was going through a particularly assertive phase in the early 1970s and dominated Omani intelligence reform accordingly, sidelining the JIC in the process. It is not, however, possible to prove a direct link.

An intangible fourth factor remains—difficult to empirically prove via archival evidence, but worth brief speculation. The early 1970s was not a particularly strong period for the JIC. Consequently, the committee was unable to attempt the levels of involvement witnessed in Aden. Peter Wilkinson had taken over from Dick White as intelligence coordinator in the Cabinet Office in 1972. By this time, it was perceived that the coordinator had responsibility for organisation and management (more so than the chairman), yet hampered by health problems—and caring for a sick wife—Wilkinson was ineffective and lasted only 18 months until 1973. The committee’s ability to manage and organise intelligence at home and overseas was thus even more limited than previously. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Arthur arrived as chairman in 1973 but his somewhat chaotic style laid him open to accusations of laziness. The committee was simply not as efficient as it had previously been. Importantly, Burke Trend left the same year. As cabinet secretary, Trend had been immensely interested in intelligence and was a driving force behind the creation of the Assessments Staff and the intelligence coordinator. This contrasts the 1960s when successive chairmen worked alongside Trend to strengthen and improve the JIC, culminating in the 1968 reforms. Such drive, confidence and assertiveness were perhaps demonstrated in attempts at intelligence reform in Aden in a similar manner that military intelligence dominated Oman.

As the empire faded there was, naturally, a declining need for the JIC to have a role in colonial intelligence reform at all. There were simply no more colonies left. Instead the military helped reform and train local intelligence organisations on a case-by-case basis and only when British interests were at stake, as in Oman. Moreover, the empire (informal and otherwise) received less committee attention when compared to the peak of interest in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In terms of colonial intelligence management the committee had effectively come full circle since Malaya.

Assessments

Warning and monitoring

The year 1968 was a busy one for British intelligence and security actors. In addition to extensive structural reform of the joint intelligence organisation, authorities had to contend with diverse and evolving threats. Not only did the traditional framework of Cold War politics continue to feature on the intelligence agenda, particularly given the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that August, but a terrorist threat was also fermenting in the form of intensifying Irish Republicanism.⁴³ Meanwhile, the volatilities of the Middle East remained firmly on the JIC’s agenda. This encompassed the ongoing Arab-Israeli hostilities, oil security and subversion against British interests in the Persian Gulf. With globally diffuse threats and limited resources, the committee was hard-pressed to efficiently execute its informal warning and monitoring role.

Despite consumer expectations, there still existed no explicit warning function in the committee’s charter. Similarly, warning had to rely only on a limited formal structure. The JIC Watch Organisation and tripartite alert system was, however, predominantly (and understandably) focused on the Soviet threat and charged with meeting conventional NATO requirements.⁴⁴ Consequently, JIC monitoring of subversive or irregular threats to British interests—not directly related to the Cold War or Ireland—was relatively ad hoc, informal and passive. In the British organisational culture, caused in part by a lack of resources, officials had to ‘muddle through’ and rely on good judgement and an element of fortune.

The JIC—predominantly at the direction of the Assessments Staff—did commission a number of outlook papers for certain countries in an attempt at monitoring and warning. However, no formal means of choosing the subjects of such output existed. Initiative was key. Furthermore, the years following 1968 were not only the spring time of the Assessments Staff, but also the nascent body’s high point in terms of freedom of action and agenda. It was not until after the Falklands review that the Assessments Staff became increasingly tied down to political departmental demands. FCO high fliers John Thomson and Percy Cradock were primarily concerned with Europe and the Soviet Union. These were the big issues of the day which drove the ambitious young men. Having peaked in the late 1950s and early 1960s, imperial and third-world issues did not loom particularly largely on the committee’s agenda by the late 1960s. Although various end of empire conflicts did reach JIC discussion, interest generally developed reactively and passively.

This was certainly true of the insurgency in Oman. It took a combination of two factors to force the remote issue onto the intelligence agenda in Whitehall. The first was a dramatic event in the formation of the leftist South Yemeni government in 1967. This certainly grabbed attention. It also had damaging repercussions for the security of neighbouring Oman. Enjoying greater aid from the recently installed radical leftists across the border, Dhofari rebels intensified their violent struggle to overthrow Sultan Sa’id and end what they saw as British interference in Oman. The second factor was increased policy relevance. Harold Wilson’s influential declaration to withdraw from the Persian Gulf strongly increased the significance of security in the region and focused minds on the various scenarios that could affect British planning.

The low-intensity conflict had rumbled along beneath the Whitehall radar for a number of years. It was therefore highly difficult for the JIC to definitively warn of an impending deterioration in security and the likelihood of a full-blown insurgency. Indeed, incremental analysis often poses problems for intelligence assessments—especially regarding warning. New information was susceptible to being analysed within the context of that which had gone before: it was vulnerable to being understood simply as strengthening the previous piece. As CIA veteran Richard Heuer has argued, incremental analysis ‘facilitates assimilation of this information into the analyst’s existing views. No one item of information may be sufficient to prompt the analyst to change a previous view’.⁴⁵ A higher burden of proof was needed for a source to go against the grain and it was very difficult for intelligence assessments to differentiate continuing low level violence and popular resistance from an impending insurgency.

Despite the innate difficulties of the task, consumers increasingly expected strategic intelligence to perform such a role. Interestingly the JIC came tantalisingly close to an impressive success. In November 1967, the month of South Yemeni independence, the Joint Intelligence Group (Gulf) sent a warning to the JIC in London. The JIG (Gulf) cautioned that whilst ‘less active in recent months’, the rebels held links with the new National Liberation Front government in South Yemen. ‘The change in regime in the East Aden Protectorate looks like transforming their [the Dhofari rebels’] ability to obtain supplies of arms, food, and reinforcements’. Although it did not explicitly warn of a recrudescence in Yemeni fuelled violence or of an impending ideological shift within the Dhofari leadership, this remained a prophetic point. Association with the radical leftists in South Yemen altered the nature of the rebellion, changing it from a nationalist to a Marxist revolution. This proved only a tentative and initial assessment, however, and the JIG (Gulf) continued to broadly characterise the DLF primarily as a nationalist group. Wary of complacency, the JIG (Gulf) did however warn that ‘they continue to be well placed to achieve the assassination of the Sultan by suborning servants in the palace’.⁴⁶

Building on such local information, the JIC began to warn of the potential dangers in March 1968. Echoing the JIG (Gulf), the committee espoused the predominant nationalist and separatist aims of the Dhofari rebels and noted that there had been a decline in rebel activity in recent years. However, the JIC repeated the warning that ‘since the PRSY [People’s Republic of South Yemen] became independent in November 1967, there have been definite indications that the DLF has been receiving assistance from the PRSY’. Moreover, intelligence indicated that the previous decline in rebel activity had been ‘abruptly reversed’ in early 1968. Alarmingly, the rebels were ‘operating with greater confidence and effectiveness than ever before’. Indicative of the committee’s monitoring role, the JIC affirmed that ‘the situation will need to be watched carefully’.⁴⁷

By the summer, however, the JIC had grown increasingly optimistic and was unable to provide warning of the increase in violence. With advances in structural reform since the dark days of Malaya and Cyprus, and with Dhofar already on the JIC agenda, cognitive dissonance and political pressures must be considered. Vested departmental interests, particularly those of the military, influenced intelligence assessments.

Negative intelligence appreciations of the Dhofar situation reflected poorly on the performance of the SAF, which was directed by seconded and contracted British military personnel. Discussing conventional warfare, leading scholar Richard Betts has persuasively argued that ‘intelligence officers linked to operational agencies (primarily military) tend to indulge a propensity for justifying service performance by issuing optimistic assessments’.⁴⁸ A similar phenomenon can be seen in countering irregular or low-intensity threats. Interestingly this remains the case even when such officials were only indirectly involved. Ministry of Defence officials were seemingly reluctant to criticise the SAF’s performance in Dhofar. Instead they over-emphasised their erstwhile colleagues’ counterinsurgency achievements. Consequently, such officials questioned the JIC’s warnings about a potential deterioration of security in Dhofar. They queried, for example, whether ‘the existence of “guerrilla warfare” maybe rather over-stat[ed] the case’. Defence officials criticised the JIC’s assertion that Dhofar was the most vulnerable area in the Gulf as it gave ‘the impression that the DLF’s efforts have the upper hand and are dominating SAF which is, in fact, far from the case’. Similarly, the JIG (Gulf) joined the Ministry of Defence in strongly emphasising SAF’s successes when commenting on the draft JIC report: the DLF ‘have received such a bloody nose from SAF that they are now almost inactive’.⁴⁹

As a result of such input into the centralised intelligence machine, JIC output became increasingly sanguine. Earlier predictions of increased violence subsided and despite monitoring the situation, the committee missed an opportunity to provide accurate and explicit warning. For example, the JIC calmly explained that ‘stability in Muscat and Oman depends largely upon the wisdom and perhaps the speed with which the Sultan apportions his oil revenues’ and that ‘if the development programme proceeds as he [Sa’id] plans, the prospects are reasonably good’. This is surprisingly optimistic given Whitehall’s severe lack of faith in Sa’id’s non-existent civil aid projects. Revealing Ministry of Defence influence, the JIC further stated that ‘the strong security forces which he has built up can probably deal effectively with any internal trouble’.⁵⁰

Again this proved hopelessly idealistic. Violence spiralled and British forces, including the SAS, swiftly became covertly embroiled in a counter-insurgency campaign. This episode illustrates the more dangerous flip-side relating to closer producer-consumer relations. By giving policy-making departments an input into JIC assessments, the system runs the risk of producing skewed intelligence assessments falsely vindicating institutional mindsets. It is indicative of the drawbacks of an intelligence system that brings together analysts from different departments with different lines of command who will naturally push forward their own departmental interests.

It took increasing FCO anxiety about the deteriorating security situation for the misplaced confidence in the SAF’s performance to be questioned. In November 1969, Walter Allinson, the FCO’s representative on the JIC, informed the committee that his diplomatic colleagues were ‘becoming increasingly concerned at the inability of the Sultan of Muscat and Oman to end the rebellion in Dhofar’. The Assessments Staff was accordingly requested to provide an intelligence assessment on the political and military situation.⁵¹ As Antony Acland of the FCO’s Arabian Department quietly cautioned, ‘While it would be wrong to exaggerate the scale of rebel activity in Dhofar or the dangers of the present situation, there is enough evidence to show that the situation is steadily deteriorating’.⁵² FCO intervention in late 1969 and early 1970 countered Ministry of Defence confidence in the SAF. It caused the JIC to take the conflict seriously and issue a first comprehensive assessment.

Released in April 1970, the JIC’s first intelligence assessment solely on Oman offered a more sombre output. It warned that ‘rebel tactics have become more aggressive and effective’ and that the ‘majority of Dhofaris appear at least passively to support the rebels in preference to any attractive alternative’. In stark contrast to earlier confidence espoused by the Ministry of Defence, the JIC asserted that SAF had ‘little prospect of dominating the rebels who now operate freely in the western third of the province’ and further warned that ‘time is on their [the rebels’] side, and the morale of SAF will inevitably suffer in the long run if the present stalemate is allowed to continue’.⁵³

Internationalisation

Once the pattern of violence was established, strategic intelligence continued to monitor developments for the duration of the conflict. The JIC maintained ‘a regular flow of assessments on particular aspects of development in this area’.⁵⁴ Such output however, predominantly took the form of JIC notes or special assessments released in conjunction with weekly intelligence surveys, as opposed to long-term assessments. Illustrating a development in the JIC’s product from previous insurgencies, the committee now disseminated detailed and regular current intelligence driven by the Current Intelligence Groups and Assessments Staff. These assessments were complemented by medium- and longer-term appreciations and each aided the relevant policy considerations accordingly.

In accordance with the role of strategic intelligence in previous insurgencies, JIC assessments continued to augment local intelligence reporting by assessing the threat in the broader regional context. This was particularly important as the conflict signified a broader battle over the future of the Arabian Gulf, and was won in part through regional diplomacy and the cultivation of alliances.⁵⁵ In such a context, intelligence assessments internationalising the conflict would have been important in helping policy practitioners to appreciate all relevant factors when making decisions that crossed departmental boundaries. How did Dhofari developments impact upon broader British interests? The two major external contexts, against which the JIC assessed the local conflict, were the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and external South Yemeni support.

(i) Withdrawal from the Persian Gulf

The JIC did not view the Middle East through a disproportionately strong Cold War filter in the early 1970s. The committee concluded in 1968 that Soviet influence in the Persian Gulf was ‘negligible’ and predicted that the Soviet Union ‘will probably not seek to establish influence on a large scale in the Gulf’. In 1971, the JIC again predicted that ‘we do not think the Gulf will be a major theatre of Soviet activity’, despite the potential for cautious Soviet opportunism.⁵⁶

Illustrating an evolution from the early ubiquity of the Cold War framework, the British tended to view the Dhofari conflict more in relation to the Persian Gulf as a whole. That is to say that Oman was internationalised but within a broader policy framework as opposed to a threat framework. Policymakers and intelligence officials were far more concerned about withdrawal and its impact on British interests and regional stability. On discussing the urgency of the situation in February 1970, the JIC warned that ‘there could be considerable repercussions throughout the Gulf if the situation in Dhofar seriously deteriorated’. Two years later the committee again assessed that ‘the prospects for Oman are bound up with the prospects for the area as a whole’.⁵⁷

Such thinking can be traced back to June 1968 when the JIC reported on the likely developments in the Persian Gulf and their probable effects on British interests. Although the committee suggested that current levels of subversion in the region were unlikely to affect the oil flow, intelligence warned that instability could ‘snowball to large proportions [as…] instability breeds instability and one threat to our interests can easily lead to another’.⁵⁸ Similarly, the political resident in the Persian Gulf warned the JIC about the potential of a ‘domino process’ stemming from unrest in Oman.⁵⁹ Domino theory provides a regular theme across JIC thinking—much as it had done within a communist context regarding Malaya. Echoing the political resident, the JIC further warned that ‘if the Sultan were to lose control of the situation in Dhofar, where subversion is likely to continue, the trouble might spread for example to Inner Oman’.⁶⁰ This conceivably could then have spread beyond Omani borders and destabilised other states, thereby forming a more severe threat to British interests. The JIC did not conceptualise Dhofar as an isolated problem.

More specifically, British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf formed the most prominent regional context through which JIC thinking about Dhofar was filtered. Demonstrating interesting parallels with British withdrawal from Aden, both the orderly British retreat and British designs for the post-Pax Britannica legacy were threatened by local insurgency. As Clive Jones and John Stone note, London was attempting to ‘cohere the Trucial States […] into a single state structure—eventually to become the United Arab Emirates’. These designs ‘would be threatened by the success of an insurgency in neighbouring Oman inspired by an ideology antithetical to the concept of a nation state grouped around tribal hierarchies’.⁶¹

The JIC took such concerns seriously. The committee ‘had been charged by the Chiefs of Staff with the task of keeping the situation in the Persian Gulf under review in the context of planning for the withdrawal of British forces’.⁶² It is within this broader context that JIC assessments of Dhofar must be understood. In a widely distributed assessment on military withdrawal for example, the committee warned that growing instability in the Trucial States caused by a potential long-term postponement of withdrawal would impact, albeit indirectly, upon the security of Oman. It ‘would make it more difficult in the medium-term for the new Sultan to pursue his hitherto promising attempts to cope with subversion at home’.⁶³

Ten months later in September 1971, the JIC again considered the threat to the orderly British withdrawal from the Gulf. Within this broader analytical framework, the committee not only offered an assessment of the internal threat facing Oman but also considered the impact beyond the Sultanate’s borders. Applied to the broader British withdrawal, the report warned that ‘probably the main subversive danger lies in the emergence of PFLOAG as an effective force in the northern Trucial States’.⁶⁴ Although Harold Maguire, director-general of intelligence in the MoD, later stated that the report ‘possibly overstated’ the strength and unity of local subversive organisations,⁶⁵ this assessment again indicates JIC use of domino theory and the threat of the insurgency to Britain’s ultimate geopolitical designs.

Even after British withdrawal, the regional context and fear of the spread of instability remained prominent in intelligence assessments. For example, in April 1974, the committee warned, ‘if the Sultan fell, the fall of other traditional Gulf regimes might follow’. This was emphasised yet again at the end of the year when the JIC stressed that ‘the survival of Sultan Qaboos is a critical factor in the future of Oman which is, in turn, fundamental to the stability of the Gulf as a whole’. Intelligence singled out the United Arab Emirates as particularly vulnerable should instability from Dhofar spread.⁶⁶

(ii) External assistance

History has shown that levels of external assistance can be crucial in determining the success of an insurgency. Intelligence must therefore understand the type and nature of external support in order to fully appreciate the severity of the threat and to decipher how best to counter it. Such questions, however, pose challenges for intelligence assessments regarding the type of support, the relationship between internal and external actors, levels of local autonomy and whether an overarching threat framework is creating a distorting prism.

Regarding Dhofar, strategic intelligence assessed the conflict within the regional framework of external assistance: both to the Sultan and the rebels. Enjoying more success with the latter, the committee erroneously concluded in 1972 that Iran would not assist the Sultan due to Arabian suspicion about Iranian regional ambitions. The committee predicted that ‘it seems highly unlikely … that he [Qaboos] would ever accept Iranian military support in dealing with the Dhofar rebellion’.⁶⁷ Iranian Special Forces became involved later that year.

Regarding external assistance to the rebels, the JIC’s considerations of the usual suspects proved more accurate. Despite the bitter experiences in Aden, Egypt barely figured in JIC discussions after 1970. By October of that year, Anwar Sadat had replaced Britain’s old nemesis Gamal Abdel Nasser as president of Egypt and sought better relations with the British and Saudi Arabia.⁶⁸ After Nasser’s death, the Dhofari rebels lacked Egyptian support and the JIC wisely moved on to other suspects accordingly.

After some initial concern, the JIC also grew increasingly relaxed about Soviet influence in Dhofar. It argued that the objectives of the Soviet Union and nationalist revolutionary Arab regimes did not always coincide due to ‘Muslim antipathy to communism’.⁶⁹ In general, the JIC initially pointed to indirect Soviet assistance channelled via South Yemen. For example in 1970, intelligence indicated that the Soviet Union had ‘given training to small groups of rebels in Aden and [had] provided arms and ammunition’. A year later the committee added that Soviet support in the form of ‘small financial assistance’ to the rebels was channelled through South Yemen. Soviet assistance was, however, deemed ‘limited’.⁷⁰

Evidence is mixed as to whether the JIC was right not to focus too heavily on indirect Soviet assistance. As Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin note, ‘Despite its early hopes of turning the PDRY into an Arab beacon of “scientific socialism”, Moscow found South Yemen an almost constant headache’,⁷¹ and there is no mention of any aid being sent directly or indirectly towards Dhofar. Similarly, according to Geraint Hughes, the Soviets gradually curtailed assistance to ‘national liberation’ movements in the Gulf in the early 1970s.⁷² Contrasting starkly with the Cold War fears permeating assessments of earlier insurgencies, this view is certainly reflected in the intelligence assessments. By contrast, however, Marc DeVore has more recently argued that from 1971 the Soviet Union (along with Cuba) became the rebellion’s ‘principal purveyor’ of weaponry and training.⁷³

A similar pattern exists regarding the Chinese—although Chinese assistance was deemed to be more direct than the Soviets’. The JIC argued that the Chinese had provided material and instructional support and that some Dhofari rebels had visited China for training. In 1970, intelligence feared that Chinese help was in fact increasing. Like Soviet support, however, it appears that Chinese assistance subsequently declined as a result of increased Sino-Soviet hostilities and China’s rapprochement with the West and Iran after 1972.⁷⁴

This left South Yemen as the primary source of external assistance to the insurgents. Many intelligence assessments of the situation in Dhofar accordingly placed the violence squarely in the context of activity from across the border. What is interesting, however, is the relationship between South Yemen and the Dhofari rebels. Did intelligence assessments continue to deny local actors any agency and see an external actor as a puppeteer of the insurgency? There is little doubt that South Yemen supported the insurgency in Dhofar. Diplomatically they attempted to block Omani entry into the United Nations in 1971 and engaged in other lobbying activities, but also provided funding, logistics, sanctuary and even volunteers.⁷⁵

The JIC grew aware of the enhanced threat from South Yemen shortly after the creation of the new state in 1967. Following the new government’s speedy assertion that ‘we will be backing the revolution in Dhofar’,⁷⁶ British sources kept the levels of South Yemeni assistance closely under review. In early 1968 a report by the political resident in the Persian Gulf, informed the JIC that the establishment of South Yemen ‘has enhanced the risk’ of support from across the border and vowed that ‘every possible watch has been kept for evidence of active support’. As such, the regional Joint Intelligence Staff based in Bahrain began to report that the South Yemenis were ‘at least supplying’ the rebels with arms, but admitted a lack of exoteric evidence.⁷⁷ FCO officials in London added to this perception. They warned that ‘the more embittered and isolated the Southern Yemeni regime may feel, the more tempted it may be to lash out and demonstrate revolutionary zeal by trying to do something about the Gulf […] Its own capacity for this is extremely limited. But when it comes to material assistance to the dissidents in Dhofar in particular, it may have a fair capacity to deploy’.⁷⁸

Collating and building on these departmental and local assessments, JIC investigations into external support for the Dhofari rebels increasingly focused on South Yemen. Strategic intelligence strongly emphasised the importance of the external context and the influential role of the South Yemeni government. Despite admitting that intelligence on South Yemeni affairs and intentions was very limited, the JIC warned that the new government ‘openly support[ed]’ the rebels in Dhofar. South Yemen provided valuable logistic aid and the use of Yemeni bases. FCO officials grew increasingly concerned and in December 1971 emphasised the urgency of the Yemeni threat to the JIC.⁷⁹

Shortly afterwards the JIC strengthened its original assessment and argued that South Yemeni influence had become a ‘vital factor’ in maintaining the rebellion. The JIC now thought that the leftist government provided money, arms, ammunition, training facilities, political and propaganda support, and base facilities for the rebels. Furthermore, assistance was becoming increasingly open and the government was, according to the JIC, providing £250,000 annually.⁸⁰ This paper reached Alec Douglas-Home, then foreign secretary, and was directly used in a conference hosted by the chief of the defence staff in March 1972.⁸¹

One month later the JIC reiterated the warning. Growing increasingly alarmed, intelligence now counselled that South Yemen was ‘dedicated to the removal of traditionalist regimes in the area’ and would continue to support the Dhofari rebels.⁸² Subsequently, the committee regularly monitored assistance from South Yemen for the duration of the violence and later concluded that men from the South Yemen security forces were fighting with the rebels as so-called volunteers, both within insurgent units and self-contained units. Interestingly, and demonstrating parallels with earlier assessments of Egypt, the JIC dismissed any conventional threat (such as air strikes) from across the border to aid the insurgents.⁸³

Intelligence assessments were, however, more nuanced than regarding previous insurgencies. There is a difference between external instigation and external support of an existing insurgent movement. Unlike assessments of earlier conflicts, the JIC broadly ascribed the growth of violence to internal factors and local conditions. This was a clear and important development from Malaya (when international communism was blamed) and Aden (when Egypt was seen to be pulling the strings politically and then violently). Instead, the JIC concluded in 1970 that:

the growing rebellion in Dhofar, combined with the evident unpopularity of the present Sultan of Muscat and Oman among many of his subjects in Oman gives cause for concern. It is largely the result of the Sultan’s refusal, despite persistent advice, to speed up the development of the country dramatically, to improve his Government radically and above all to demonstrate to his people that development plans are going forward and that he cares for their welfare and improved standard of living.⁸⁴

The JIC, therefore, appears to have been of the impression that local actors organised the rebellion in response to the internal situation. The uprising was then adopted and publicised by the PFLOAG, which was seen as a South Yemen-based organisation.⁸⁵ Likewise in 1972, intelligence speculated that a future increase in violence could be a result of either external influence ‘or of internal disillusionment’.⁸⁶ Oman pre-1970 was underdeveloped and, according to the JIC, had almost none of the infrastructure of a modern state. Communication was limited, economic activity was depressed and ultra-conservative restrictions impeded social behaviour. Consequently, intelligence warned that lack of progress in political and economic development ‘could lead to increased security problems’.⁸⁷

Regarding the nature of the rebels, the JIC cautiously acknowledged the ideological shift and increasing influence of South Yemeni communism. The committee noted the rebels’ change of name from the nationalist DLF to the PFLOAG. Its emphasis on the ‘Popular Front’ strengthened communist connotations. Intelligence recognised the Yemeni hand in this and the JIC appreciated that ‘ideologically there has probably been some shift to the left since 1968’. Taking a more nuanced approach, however, the committee added that the rebels ‘tend to adapt the doctrines of others to their own particular needs’. Regardless of the name change, the JIC maintained that the ‘overriding concern’ of the rebels remained ‘the liberation of the province from the Sultan’s rule’.⁸⁸ Combined with assessments playing down international communist influence, it was this conceptualisation of nationalist unrest, rather than global Cold War strategy, which predominantly characterised JIC thinking. Indeed, intelligence deemphasised ideological commitments and argued that ‘economic and social development is the critical requirement […] Political measures to attract Dhofaris [sic] loyalties will remain fundamental’.⁸⁹ As has been seen in earlier insurgencies, available strategic intelligence was unable to give particularly detailed and sophisticated analysis of the various exploitable schisms in the insurgent group, notably between nationalists and communists. The assessments, however, do indicate a more realistic balance between internal and external, nationalist and communist factors than previously.

On the whole, the JIC assessed Dhofar in the regional context reasonably effectively. Placing the violence in the broader policy context ensured that intelligence assessments were relevant, timely and useful. Assessing the conflict in relation to external support proved more sophisticated than previous attempts to force developments into a preconceived mindset, denying local agency in the process. The greater focus on internal factors driving the insurgency (than had happened in Aden for example) is likely because Oman was not a British colony. Therefore, it was easier for officials to criticise local conditions and recognise legitimate grievances that instigated revolt. Unlike earlier insurgencies, such observations did not imply any criticisms of the British imperial model and therefore there was little political capital to be gained from portraying external actors as puppeteers.

Overall, this regionalisation of internal events suited the JIC’s strengths. Owing to the committee’s composition of generalists not necessarily expert in Oman (or even in intelligence), the JIC was far better suited to examining the bigger strategic picture than challenging departmental specialists on narrower tactical developments. That said, however, both Stewart Crawford and his successor as chair, Geoffrey Arthur, had served in the region, giving them a greater understanding than most. Additionally, this function suited its interdepartmental remit. The input of the JIC was important in broadening intelligence so as to ensure a wider range of policy practitioners and ministers understood the regional implications.

Policy Input

Strategic intelligence assessments on Dhofar were used as an all-source and consensus-based foundation to guide policy discussion. They complemented other non-intelligence reports such as papers from the commander of SAF and the consul-general in Muscat. Policy discussions included broad military planning, such as for British withdrawal, as well as more specific policies regarding precise short-term military assistance to the Sultanate. Despite the civilianisation of the JIC, the military remained a primary consumer regarding Oman, where the Ministry of Defence held important interests.⁹⁰ Intelligence assessments were also used by political consumers. This included at the most senior levels of government. Despite (or because of) his alarming descent into paranoia about the secret world, Harold Wilson was extremely interested in receiving intelligence and was accused of giving too much credence to information received through secret channels.⁹¹ Similarly, Edward Heath was also a keen consumer. He felt that JIC reports were ‘an essential part of the information reaching [him]’.⁹² Meanwhile, Foreign Office consumers also attested that JIC output was ‘all of equal and high value’.⁹³

British military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf was an issue for which military planners required JIC assessments. Accordingly, there are numerous examples of requirements set by the Ministry of Defence, tasking the committee with assessments in this field. In 1970, Harold Maguire called upon the JIC to produce an ‘appropriate intelligence assessment’ to aid military planning staff re-examining the military withdrawal. Three months later the director of service intelligence in the DIS called for a similar assessment to be used by the Defence Policy Staff in considering alternative policy options.⁹⁴ Such requests were met by the JIC and were used as part of the defence review into the British military withdrawal. Burke Trend, the tall, serious and experienced cabinet secretary who had served under four prime ministers, summed up the JIC’s policy input well. He informed Dick White that JIC papers on the Persian Gulf ‘constitute the background against which ministers should consider the means by which we prepare to withdraw our military presence […] but also to retain a capability of intervening, if necessary, in the future’.⁹⁵

Even after British withdrawal, the JIC maintained input into broader military planning regarding Oman. Threat assessments, in conjunction with non-intelligence sources, formed a foundation for policymaking discussions during annual reviews of British defence policy in Oman. For example, Lord Carrington, the defence secretary, used JIC assessments in discussions regarding British defence assistance in May 1972.⁹⁶ The following year, the directors of defence policy built on JIC conceptualisations of the nature of the threat when reviewing levels of assistance to Oman.⁹⁷ More directly, Geoffrey Arthur, JIC chairman, met with key military figures including the chiefs of staff and the commander of the SAF in November 1973 to discuss military assistance.⁹⁸ This pattern was repeated in policy reviews during 1974, with the Defence Policy Staff again drawing on JIC special assessments when considering long-term military assistance.⁹⁹ In addition to broader defence planning and military assistance, policy practitioners used JIC threat assessments relating to more specific issues. The rest of this chapter will focus on two of them: Omani air defence and the coup to replace Sultan Sa’id with Qaboos.

Air defence

The Assessments Staff provide ‘assessments which would form an agreed inter-departmental basis for subsequent policy decisions’.¹⁰⁰ Although pinpointing the exact policy impact of intelligence is one of the most difficult tasks facing the historian, close analysis of myriad archival files demonstrates direct input into policy relating to Omani air defence. As SAF operations drove the Dhofari rebels west, Qaboos grew concerned about South Yemeni air strikes in aid of the rebels. To alleviate these fears, the Sultan hoped to acquire an air defence system from the British but was met with reluctance from London, where officials sought to keep UK involvement to a minimum.¹⁰¹ JIC assessments of the air threat posed by South Yemen were instrumental in British policy discussions from 1972 to 1974. For example, in October 1972 the Defence Operational Planning Staff drew heavily upon two JIC special assessments covering the air threat to Salalah. A few months earlier, the Omani air force compiled an assessment of the South Yemeni air threat to Salalah. This report, however, merely considered capabilities rather than intentions. It provided a dry and detailed technical overview of South Yemeni capabilities and the lack of Omani defences.

Using its interdepartmental expertise and all-source assessment, the JIC was subsequently able to build on this limited local report and consider intentions. Consequently, the JIC’s conclusions differed from those of the Omani air force. The local report, assessing only capabilities, deemed an air attack ‘possible’.¹⁰² By contrast, the JIC, considering intentions, was able to conclude that, whilst the South Yemenis had the theoretical capability to do so, ‘an overt air attack on Oman would probably cause serious political difficulties for the PDRY’. It was therefore ‘considered most unlikely that the PDRY would risk the penalties’. Instead a ‘single high level bombing attack, responsibility for which could be denied, was assessed as more likely’, but the JIC explained that the ‘chances of it inflicting serious damage would be slight’. Owing to political constraints on South Yemen, the JIC informed the Ministry of Defence that the threat to Salalah had not increased. Based on this assessment the planning staff consequently recommended that ‘it is considered that the threat does not justify the deployment of UK air defence forces to Salalah at present and that the contingency plans in hand are adequate for the time being’.¹⁰³ This again illustrates the benefit of placing the issues into the bigger picture. Strategic intelligence was able to balance South Yemeni capabilities against broader political and military constraints affecting their intentions: tension on the borders with North Yemen and Saudi Arabia lessened the South Yemeni threat to Oman.¹⁰⁴

A similar use of intelligence material occurred again in late 1973 during a review of Omani air defences. Drawing on a JIC note from November 1973, a report by the Directors of Defence Policy asserted that ‘the assessment of the air threat remains broadly as previously stated; that isolated attacks are possible, that a sustained attack on Salalah is very unlikely, and that there is some risk of further attacks on border positions […] particularly if they were demonstrably in retaliation for SAF incursion into the PDRY’.¹⁰⁵ Illustrating use at the senior policy-making level, this later formed part of a chiefs of staff report on future British defence activity in Oman. Although they upgraded the threat of sustained air attack from ‘very unlikely’ to ‘unlikely’, the chiefs used JIC conclusions to assert that although Qaboos wanted an air defence scheme, such expenditure ‘was not justified’.¹⁰⁶

By tracing the genesis of this document, the JIC’s position in the policymaking process becomes apparent. The committee assessed the air threat to Oman and defence planners then built on JIC conclusions so as to formulate policy recommendations. These were drafted into a chiefs of staff document, before being sent to ministers. A similar pattern existed when the question was again reviewed in February 1974. In addition to quoting a JIC note on the subject, the Defence Policy Staff also drew on a JIC Weekly Survey of Intelligence, which stated that ‘a number of constraints exist which militate against a PDRY attack on Oman: the risk of escalation and the fear of drawing British retaliation and the unfavourable attitude to such action by PDRY of other Arab countries and of the Soviet Union’. Using the JIC’s threat assessments, and having considered the various implications for SAF and for British manpower, the Defence Policy Staff recommended that from a defence viewpoint the Sultan should not be sold any of the air defence equipment under consideration. Not only did the threat posed from South Yemen not warrant the expenditure, but it would have been difficult to find the British manpower to maintain the system without undermining the UK’s own air defences.¹⁰⁷

Intelligence assessments were therefore used as a basis for policy discussion at the highest levels of government. Intelligence’s ability to impact upon the policy debate was in no small part due to the importance of consensus in British intelligence assessment. Without consensus, the policy community would have continued to bicker over the accuracy of intelligence and would in effect have had to become their own intelligence analysts, thus raising important questions regarding politicisation. For this reason the committee had previously described the consensus principle as ‘fundamental’ and urged that the JIC should ‘issue jointly-agreed interdepartmental assessments and should not therefore indulge in the system of minority reporting which was common in the United States’.¹⁰⁸ As former JIC secretary Michael Herman has argued, ‘If the assessment is interdepartmentally produced and agreed, it helps to keep different ministers and their departments in step’.¹⁰⁹ The fundamental British principle of consensus allowed policy practitioners to use JIC assessments as a standard, objective and agreed basis for policy discussion.

The Palace Coup

A second, albeit very different, example of the use of intelligence assessments by policy practitioners relates to the ‘Palace Coup’. Qaboos overthrew his repressive father Sa’id in a near-bloodless coup on 23 July 1970. British connivance has long been suspected in academic literature and memoirs alike, but has lacked empirical evidence. For example, Thomas Mockaitis points to ‘considerable indirect evidence [which] suggests the British actively participated in the plot and perhaps even instigated it’, not least because within hours of the coup an SAS information team had produced a new counterinsurgency strategy. Meanwhile, Calvin Allen and W. Lynn Rigsbee claim that Hugh Oldman, the Omani defence secretary, and senior SAF officers coordinated the coup. However, no British officers directly participated.¹¹⁰

It has recently become apparent that certain British officials were aware of the coup in advance. They even held contingency plans involving the use of SAF to ensure that Qaboos assumed power.¹¹¹ Although much remains classified, archival evidence tantalisingly hints at a JIC hand in British planning. The committee’s intelligence assessments provided the intelligence justification for the necessity of the coup, thereby helping to legitimise British involvement in narrow terms of securing Whitehall interests.

Owing to an administrative error, two highly secret FCO files were mistakenly (and temporarily) declassified in 2005. Inside these files, papers confirmed that senior FCO officials knew of the coup in advance. Illustrating Whitehall awareness of local planning, Antony Acland, of the FCO Arabian Department (and future JIC chair), wrote of two contingency plans devised by Hugh Oldman. These plans firstly instructed SAF to switch allegiance to Qaboos if the coup were successful. Secondly, and more strikingly, they instructed SAF to use force to ensure the coup succeeded if it appeared to be failing.¹¹² Meanwhile another local British official, Stewart Crawford (soon-to-be JIC chairman), also wrote back to London. He suspiciously assured the FCO that ‘we would of course maintain the public position that we had no fore-knowledge’ and that the coup should be ‘presented as an internal matter with the British hand concealed or at least deniable’.¹¹³ Further evidence comes from John Graham, then commander of the SAF, who has since revealed that the British government approved the potential SAF action.¹¹⁴ Whilst neither of the contingency plans mentioned by Acland were ultimately required, the re-classified files reveal that the British had prior knowledge of the coup and were prepared to take military measures if necessary to ensure the desired outcome.

There is also a potential intelligence angle involving SIS. The documents place Hugh Oldman at the centre of the coup. Oldman, according to Clive Jones, had direct contact with SIS.¹¹⁵ Likewise, Tim Landon, an intelligence officer in Oman involved in the coup, also had links with SIS. Landon was a mysterious figure who had been friends with Qaboos since their time together at Sandhurst. He went on to amass a £200 million fortune in the Gulf. Landon had previously been trained by SIS in London and was ‘deeply involved with British intelligence’.¹¹⁶ Connections, therefore, existed between British officials on the ground, British nationals working for SAF and senior British officials in Whitehall departments and agencies. What remains unclear, however, is the level to which the coup was instigated from below and sanctioned by London, or was instigated at the request of senior Whitehall officials.

Intriguingly, exactly one week before the coup the JIC issued the following intelligence note: ‘A further risk lies in the possibility of a coup against the Sultan or in his assassination which, unless his son Qabus could take power almost at once, could lead to a situation of anarchy and the disintegration of the Sultanate. Such a move against the Sultan could occur at any time’.¹¹⁷ This has clear echoes of FCO and local planning to ensure that Qaboos was installed swiftly following any coup.

British officials in London expressed increasing frustration about the lack of progress in Dhofar. For example, the FCO Arabian Department expressed frustration to the JIC at Sultan Sa’id’s ‘inexcusable’ lack of logistic support for SAF.¹¹⁸ As the security situation deteriorated, it was realised that Sa’id was ‘an obstacle to victory in Dhofar, and therefore the overall plan to withdraw forces from the region’.¹¹⁹ This was a strong motivation for a change in political leadership. From an intelligence perspective assessing the security situation and future ramifications for British interests, the JIC also strongly emphasised the need for political change in the months prior to the July coup.

In April 1970, just three months before the coup and with the counter-insurgency campaign floundering, the committee issued a highly critical assessment of Sa’id. In frustrated tones, the JIC lamented that ‘the offer of material inducements to the tribesmen, in combination with a relaxation of the most irksome restrictions, would do something to improve the situation […] but the Sultan’s approach to such suggestions is negative, and there is no sign at present of any change in this attitude’. Criticising the prevailing stalemate, the committee repeated that more ‘effective political measures designed to win over the Dhofaris’ were necessary, but later again bemoaned how the Sultan remained reluctant to offer inducements and civil development.¹²⁰

The JIC also criticised Sultan Sa’id personally. They described him as inaccessible and austere. Lashing out, the committee attacked his ‘innate conservatism, his extreme reluctance to spend money and his failure to create adequate administrative machinery (in the country as a whole), combined with his lack of imagination and total unwillingness to acknowledge that opposition may have a justifiable cause’. These personal flaws were, according to the JIC, ‘powerful obstacles’ to the implementation of political reform and development. In the same report, the committee praised Qaboos as having ‘potentially a greater appeal for Dhofaris than the Sultan himself’. The JIC went on to argue that ‘if the Sultan were ever to decide to delegate authority in Dhofar to Qabus, this might considerably affect the attitude of the Dhofaris, but this prospect is at present remote’.¹²¹

The scathing criticisms quoted above were followed by four suspiciously redacted paragraphs, one of which certainly discussed potential future leadership issues. Commenting on JIC speculation about the death of Sa’id, however, Stewart Crawford and the Joint Intelligence Staff (Gulf) countered that ‘we are not sure that the Sultan’s death would necessarily change the situation radically. Qabus might be assassinated together with his father, in which case the change would certainly be radical. On the other hand it may be doubted whether the Dhofari rebels, having tasted comparative success and with active encouragement and assistance from the PRSY, would abandon their separatist aims even with Qabus in the saddle’.¹²² Interestingly, this suggests some local doubt that the accession of Qaboos would have provided a magic bullet. However, the JIC certainly felt SAF stood a better chance of victory with Sa’id deposed.

In sum, the logic of the JIC’s intelligence assessment progressed as follows. The committee highlighted the failures of Sa’id’s policies. They strongly criticised Sa’id personally, before emphasising the dangers of the continuing military stalemate. The JIC then praised the virtues of Qaboos (in stark and notable contrast to the assessment of his father) and suggested the benefit of a change in leadership. Intelligence then acknowledged that voluntary abdication was unlikely, before ending on four suspiciously redacted paragraphs. That is not to say that the JIC instigated the coup, rather the committee’s assessment could have been used to justify such action.

JIC conclusions are clearly echoed in FCO thinking. For example, Antony Acland wrote: ‘I believe that Qaboos is likely to be a much better bet than the present Sultan, especially as he may well rely heavily, at least in the initial stages of his reign, on HMG’s support, encouragement and advice. If so, this will place us in a good position not only to protect our specific interests in the Sultanate, i.e. Masirah and oil, but also to bring about an improvement in general stability’. Acland has further stated that the coup ‘was desirable’,¹²³ again expressing similar views to those put forth in the JIC report.

The formerly secret records demonstrate that JIC papers did reach, draw reaction from and were used by the FCO Arabian Department. For example, an FCO background paper circulated in February 1970 acknowledged the JIC assessment (which at this time was still in the draft stage) and warned that ‘the Dhofar insurrection has now reached the proportions of a serious threat and it appears unlikely that the Sultan will be able to overcome the insurrection whilst he continues to pursue his present twin policies of refusing to allocate adequate funds to his armed forces and also refusing to take steps designed to win the local population over to his side’. When discussing future developments, the FCO stated that ‘if the Sultan does not alter his policies soon but remains in power, the outlook is extremely gloomy’. Citing the JIC, it further argued that ‘if the Sultan continues to pursue his present policies he will be unable to win the war in Dhofar’.¹²⁴

JIC conclusions were thus used to justify and, drawing on the committee’s interdepartmental nature, perhaps legitimise FCO assessments. The FCO, however, went further than the JIC. It warned that ‘it seems very possible that unless there is a dramatic change in the Sultan’s policies development, administrations, and his armed forces, the government of the Sultanate will, in a few years, have been overthrown and replaced by a “revolutionary” left wing regime. It is unlikely that such a regime would be well-disposed towards HMG…’ This, according to the FCO, could spread throughout the ‘weak shaikhly regimes of the Lower Gulf and it might easily set off a chain reaction of similar revolutions which could extend as far as Bahrain, Kuwait, or even Saudi Arabia’.¹²⁵ Such doom mongering, based initially on a JIC conclusion but venturing beyond the committee’s more limited outlook that ‘the situation could deteriorate further’,¹²⁶ precipitated action.

Axiomatically, conclusions shared by the JIC and the FCO do not necessarily indicate JIC foreknowledge of, or any role in, the July coup. Given the available evidence, however, there is logic in the argument that intelligence assessments emphasised the importance of installing Qaboos swiftly from a security perspective and/or helped provide a legitimate, interdepartmental and consensus-based justification of FCO thinking. After all, as former CIA analyst Paul Pillar notes, ‘intelligence adds authority to any case for a policy’.¹²⁷ However the existence of interdepartmental consensus could be debated given the FCO dominance within the Assessments Staff at the time and the backing given to the Assessments Staff by the permanent under secretary at the FCO, Denis Greenhill (himself a former JIC chair). This raises potential accusations of FCO use of the perceived objective, interdepartmental and consensus-based nature of the JIC to acquire a badge of credibility and justify FCO designs. Alternatively, as Michael Herman has noted, ‘arguably the British system legitimises a consensus around FCO views’.¹²⁸ Here it is again apparent that the JIC did not operate in a political vacuum.

Important questions still remain about the overthrow of Sa’id. To what extent was London merely reacting to inevitable events? What was the level of input from London compared to that of local British actors? As far as the JIC was concerned, the extent of the committee’s knowledge remains unclear—but it is now known that in the case of a coup, the JIC (like the FCO) wanted Qaboos installed as quickly as possible. Whilst the JIC deemed a coup desirable, there is no evidence that members were aware of the specifics and the JIG (Gulf) seemed to have been taken by surprise when it actually happened.¹²⁹ It appears instead that the FCO may well have used the JIC assessment to help justify their planning of, or for, the succession of Qaboos, however active or reactive that planning may have been. Speaking to the BBC forty years after the event, Acland reminisced that ‘we hoped it [the coup] would go well, and in the end it didn’t go badly’.¹³⁰ The JIC, too, reflected warmly on the coup. Eighteen months afterwards, the committee issued a report echoing its earlier criticism of Sa’id before praising Qaboos for allowing a change of counterinsurgency tactics and for embarking upon a ‘substantial building programme’ for health, education and infrastructure. Vindicating the coup, the committee concluded that ‘the general situation in Oman has therefore greatly improved’.¹³¹

It was fair to assess that the counterinsurgency efforts under Qaboos were an improvement compared to those of his father. But his accession by no means signalled the end of the violence. Whilst he reversed many of Sa’id’s repressive policies, it was not until the summer of 1973 that the rebels launched their last major offensive action and Lord Carrington was informed that the rebels had lost the initiative.¹³² Despite Qaboos’s accession, there was clearly a long way to go and, as has been discussed elsewhere in this chapter, this episode did not signal the end of the JIC’s interest in Oman.

Broader Reflections

Despite its close links with London regarding defence and security policy, Oman was not a British colony. The context of counterinsurgency had changed. Firstly, independence could no longer be promised as a political tool. Secondly, the use of British force played an important but more limited role. Thirdly, host states replaced colonial territories. As part of the transition from colonial to post-imperial and modern counterinsurgency,¹³³ the Dhofar rebellion provides an interesting case study to demonstrate the JIC’s evolution from its role in the earlier colonial counterinsurgencies—and from which to explore broader issues of strategic intelligence in contemporary counterinsurgency.

Reforms in 1968 strengthened the committee. Output proliferated and consumers continued to draw upon JIC conclusions. Enjoying improved Whitehall status and building on experience from previous counterinsurgencies, the JIC maintained its role of monitoring the situation and providing assessments to be used as a basis for policy discussions. Given the post-imperial context, however, the committee’s role in overseas intelligence management diminished. As Mockaitis argues, to be successful in the 1960s and 1970s, the British counterinsurgency approach ‘had to shed at least some of its colonial baggage’.¹³⁴ This was no different for the JIC.

Engaging with overseas intelligence in a post-colonial era

The JIC continued to oversee reform to the regional British intelligence organisations. By contrast, the committee had little input into local reform despite having acquired increased confidence in this area over previous insurgencies. Instead, local British military actors, supported from London by the Ministry of Defence, took the lead. In the absence of a colonial administration, and particularly following the demise of the regional Joint Intelligence Group, the JIC lacked a mandate to intervene in Oman. There were simply no British joint intelligence organisations with which to engage.

Furthermore, Omani intelligence reform was considered a predominantly military issue, despite the involvement of British intelligence personnel. Oman’s non-colonial status decreased the interdepartmental nature of the conflict when compared to previous insurgencies and it consequently fell upon military actors to instigate local reform, not through colonial responsibility but rather as part of counterinsurgency warfare. A combination of these factors, compounded by the JIC’s traditional lack of authority to intervene effectively and decisively, limited the committee’s role. More broadly, as British influence waned, there was no longer a need for a JIC role in overseas intelligence management. It is ironic that the JIC grew in confidence in its overseas managerial role at the very time it was no longer needed.

Intelligence pitfalls

That is not to say that the JIC had no role in Oman. The committee maintained its assessment role and was expected to keep the situation under review. However, the central intelligence machinery’s organisational culture was such that the committee lacked a formal mechanism to aid warning of irregular threats. Officials relied on good judgement and initiative. With limited resources to monitor the entire globe, it took the accession of the new radical leftist government in South Yemen for the Dhofari conflict, which had been rumbling on for a number of years, to reach the JIC’s agenda. From then on the committee began monitoring the situation. Recognising the external pressures on the various end-of-Pax Britannica manoeuvrings, it did so by examining the threat in the regional context. Interestingly, this largely took the form of British regional interests as opposed to Cold War containment strategy. As the JIC grew in status, however, assessments remained vulnerable to politicisation.

It is important to remember that the committee did not operate in a political vacuum. As a responsible intelligence organisation, it had to disseminate information that may have run contrary to consumer wishes. This led to military actors hampering JIC attempts to predict the sharp increase in violence in 1968. Reluctant to acknowledge the severity of the situation and seemingly unwilling to criticise the performance of their colleagues on the ground, Ministry of Defence officials met the JIC’s initial conclusions with scepticism. It took increasing FCO concern to force the issue onto the JIC’s agenda as the security situation markedly deteriorated.

Sensitivity to the policy context

Aware of the policy context in which its assessments were written, JIC intelligence continued to impact upon policy discussions. The ability for committee conclusions to be used in this manner illustrates the importance of another fundamental of British intelligence assessment: consensus. This was vital in allowing JIC conclusions to fulfil their function in the policymaking process and be an interdepartmentally agreed basis for policy discussion. Without consensus, policymakers would have not only disagreed about the value or accuracy of intelligence but would have veered into the dangerous territory of being their own intelligence analyst. On the other hand, however, a system based on interdepartmental consensus could have allowed a political department to use JIC assessments to legitimise their views. Regarding the coup in 1970 for example, it appears that FCO officials could have used the perceived objective and collegiate nature of the JIC to help justify contingency plans to ensure Qaboos’s accession. This echoes chiefs of staff usage of intelligence regarding covert action in South Arabia.

Strategic intelligence assessments placed local developments in the broader picture. Unlike in earlier insurgencies when violence was seen as part of the Cold War’s overarching threat framework, developments in Oman were contextualised as part of a policy framework involving British military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. Close links with policy requirements ensured that intelligence assessments were sensitive to the policy context and therefore relevant, timely and useful. The internal threat was externalised to an extent, but instead of being placed within an all-embracing international prism it was done so in relation to the external support offered by a specific country. Importantly, intelligence assessments proved more nuanced and sophisticated. Analysis was better able to examine both internal agency and external support without conflating the two or painting a foreign regime as a malevolent puppeteer. This evolution in intelligence assessments most likely stems from two factors. Firstly, there was no longer an overarching Cold War mindset to automatically create misunderstanding of the role and autonomy of local actors. Secondly, Oman was not a colony. It was therefore easier for intelligence to criticise the internal governance of the state and recognise the legitimate grievances of the internal population.

Building on previous experiences, the committee continued to monitor the situation and provide threat assessments as a basis for policy discussion. The key difference from previous insurgencies, however, was that the JIC’s overseas intelligence management role had declined. In this sense, Oman forms an important part of a transition in the JIC’s role in counterinsurgency from those in colonial territories to modern conflicts in ‘host’ states. As Alex Marshall has argued, post-modern counterinsurgencies face a quagmire between imperial intervention and issues of sovereignty and legitimacy. Counterinsurgency intervention, which has imperialist overtones, is limited by the inability to use imperialist tactics due to constraints over the rhetoric of official sovereignty and modern liberal peace theory.¹³⁵

6
DEFINING THREATS, UNDERSTANDING SECURITY

In the decades immediately following the Second World War, insurgencies acquired a heightened significance along the corridors of Whitehall. They became increasingly central to British national and strategic interests. This transformation can be understood within the context of two overarching frameworks. The burgeoning Cold War created the perception that colonial territories had become a front line in an international ideological conflict. The empire was therefore vulnerable to both externally-directed communist subversion and conventional military threats. In certain cases, such as Cyprus, this was compounded by the belief that the territories concerned were strategically vital to Britain’s ability to wage a potential global war.

The second framework involved the strategic management of the moribund empire. Whitehall sought to maintain some semblance of international prestige against the backdrop of nationalist uprisings and the simultaneous efforts of transnational networks of non-aligned states, civil society groups and the media to expose the flaws of imperialism and the excesses of British counterinsurgency. The interplay between these two frameworks was both fascinating and complex. As has been demonstrated, they were at times conflated by policymakers and intelligence assessments. At other times, however, tension between the two, or the perceived subjugation of one by the other, created dispute within the central intelligence machinery and Whitehall more broadly. The heightened significance of overseas security propelled a trend of centralisation in the handling of local intelligence and security matters, thereby creating a greater role for Whitehall. The JIC was no exception. From 1948, the committee gradually evolved to acquire greater jurisdiction over colonial matters and found a role in countering insurgencies.

JIC Evolution and the Quest for Inclusivity

The JIC is not, and has never been, a static committee frozen in time, space and terms of reference. As such, an important theme throughout the ‘end of empire’ years was the successful evolution of the British central intelligence machinery to meet these challenges. Engaged in what Philip Davies has described as ‘pragmatic improvisation’,¹ the committee broadened its output beyond the narrow conventional military considerations of the Second World War. In doing so, the JIC gradually challenged orthodox conceptualisations of security and pushed towards a more inclusive understanding of what constituted a threat. Whilst assessing the Soviet military remained imperative, the JIC increasingly acknowledged the growing importance of unconventional threats not directly related to traditional defence matters. This included political security, subversion and the moods of overseas populations—all associated with insurgency.

The de-militarisation of the JIC is indicative of broader shifts in the British psyche post-1945. As Britain ceased to be a truly global power, it gradually became apparent that the government could no longer rely on military might to secure national interests. Instead, Britain was forced to make its way in the world by influence. As a result, according to Cabinet Secretary Burke Trend, ‘political intelligence would henceforth be as important as military intelligence, if not more so’.² Accordingly, and to its credit, the committee gradually evolved from an inherently military committee in 1948 to a more genuinely interdepartmental committee better able to consider broader matters, including irregular threats and colonial security, by 1975.

Although chaired by a Foreign Office representative throughout this period, the composition and structure of the JIC changed over time. Three key years were central in the committee’s general evolution and specifically in the broadening of its agenda: 1948, 1955 and 1957. The year 1948 saw the JIC upgraded from sub-committee to full committee status and acquire its first Colonial Office representative. However it remained imprisoned within the chiefs of staff committee structure, was dominated by military personnel and lacked a colonial mandate. The year 1955, in which Gerald Templer published his hugely influential report on colonial security, saw progress in terms of the JIC’s ability to consider imperial matters. Significantly its charter was re-issued to include the authority of the colonial secretary and the committee’s terms of reference were subtly adapted to make an overseas role more explicit.

Influential reforms in 1957 then saw the committee’s transition into the Cabinet Office. The JIC was very much a product of its environment and these reforms significantly contributed to its ability to consider a broader range of threats. Reflecting the changing priorities within Whitehall, the JIC then gradually increased its coverage of non-military issues, extended its status and increased the civilian influence within the committee. Reforms of the Ministry of Defence in 1964 and the creation of the Assessments Staff in 1968 served to aid this development. The evolution of the committee therefore reflects the changing understandings of security, threats and intelligence within Whitehall.

The 1957 reforms were undoubtedly significant. As displayed in the JIC’s initial response to the violence in Cyprus, conventional military issues dominated much committee thinking prior to 1957, before broadening out. Despite this, it would be an oversimplification to present 1957 as a turning point in the committee’s history. Change was evolutionary and the JIC did possess a theoretical ability to stray into broader matters whilst a chiefs of staff committee: it had Foreign Office chairmanship and representation from the Colonial Office and the heads of the intelligence agencies. However, with its peacetime scope and role unclear, consumers became confused. Aware of the JIC’s inherently military nature, they resisted committee input into non-defence matters. Malayan High Commissioner Henry Gurney’s refusal to accept JIC advice on colonial intelligence reform partly on the grounds that it was too much of a military committee provides a good example.

The military remained keen consumers of JIC products after 1957, particularly within the field of counterinsurgency. Indeed, in practice consumers did not become less military-based until after the 1964 Ministry of Defence reforms. Similarly regarding counterinsurgencies at least, defence intelligence continued to provide much input into the JIC machine. For example, as late as 1968 evidence suggests that military influence skewed a JIC assessment on the violence in Dhofar.

The Foreign Office’s influence has also created certain problems in terms of objective assessment. For example, the post-Falklands Franks Report recommended in 1983 that the JIC chairman be appointed by the prime minister to ‘facilitate a more critical and independent role’.³ Little changed after the Franks recommendation, however, and several subsequent prime ministers chose to appoint chairs from the Foreign Office.⁴ On the whole, however, FCO dominance after the move to the Cabinet Office was not quite as prominent as the military had been previously.

The JIC’s evolution also involved an impressive ascent up the Whitehall hierarchy. By 1975 its output had proliferated and included weekly reviews, short-term assessments, current intelligence assessments and longer-term memoranda. Moreover, the committee had achieved a greater status, relevance and a more prominent place at the foundation of the policymaking process. Such successful evolution was the product of a long struggle to achieve prominence firstly within military circles and later across the whole of Whitehall. Keith Jeffery has aptly described SIS’s bureaucratic history as having endured ‘a kind of Whitehall Darwinian jungle, where the survival of the fittest was the order of the day’.⁵ This metaphor can easily be applied to the JIC. Muddling through, the committee successfully navigated the transition from the Second World War to the Cold War, adapted its remit to ensure relevance to changing threats and rose through the Whitehall ranks. This was driven by a combination of four inter-connected factors: reactions to external events; individual personalities; tension and debate; and sensitivity to the policy context. The committee’s evolution reveals that it was at times both reactive and proactive regarding the broadened agenda and the challenging of orthodox notions of security.

Firstly, events external to the JIC, both internationally and within Whitehall, prompted reform. The post-Second World War contextual framework increased Whitehall’s focus on colonial security and again illustrates the important interplay between intelligence, policy responses and the international sphere. Against this backdrop, failures to predict insurgencies in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus were particularly influential in pushing reform. They drove the centralised handling of colonial intelligence and security. Additionally, the JIC’s transition to the Cabinet Office was in part a reaction to the Whitehall context, involving the reassertion of cabinet government in the aftermath of the Suez mis-adventure.⁶ It seems highly likely that Anthony Eden’s misuse of the JIC (and of the cabinet system generally) helped prompt the committee’s move to the Cabinet Office to ensure it was no longer out of the loop. In this sense, JIC evolution was very much reactive. It broadened its understanding of what constituted a threat to national security only after such a threat had so obviously arrived on the agenda. A prime example would be the fact that a Colonial Office representative joined the JIC only after the outbreak of violence in Malaya. Moreover, one could argue that the JIC was slow to recognise the importance of non-state actors as threats to national security. Insurgent groups were often understood within a broader state-centric context. The committee was more interested in external state-level support than internal agency. That said however, the JIC had to be proactive in accepting change, otherwise it would have swiftly become an anachronism and have been dissolved.

It is vital not to forget the role of personalities. Certain individuals, aware of the international and Whitehall contexts, were influential in instigating reform and broadening the JIC’s scope. A prominent example was the energetic, direct and irascible Gerald Templer. His 1955 review of colonial intelligence and security was highly influential. Having served both as a former director of military intelligence in Whitehall and as high commissioner during the violence in Malaya, Templer was uniquely placed to conduct such a review. He possessed the required authority and reputation to achieve results.

Patrick Dean, JIC chairman in the 1950s, must also take credit for recognising the increasingly interdepartmental nature of intelligence. Dean was influential within Whitehall’s secret spheres and successfully argued in favour of the move to the Cabinet Office. Strong characters also drove reform in the 1960s. For example, successive JIC chairmen Bernard Burrows and Denis Greenhill were both powerful and authoritative figures within the Foreign Office. Alongside the Cabinet Secretary Burke Trend, himself deeply interested in intelligence, they were particularly prominent in reforming the assessment drafting system and the subsequent creation of the Assessments Staff. Such figures were more proactive in driving the committee forward. Similarly, certain chairmen were integral to challenging both the military’s narrow view of security and its constraints on the committee’s role in the immediate years after 1945.

However, change always creates some resistance. Reforms and expansion thus naturally created friction both interdepartmentally and within the JIC. Yet such tension and the subsequent debate provided the third vehicle for the committee’s successful evolution. The 1957 reforms provide an interesting example of this. They can be conceptualised partly as the culmination of an acrimonious row between the JIC and the Colonial Office lingering for a long couple of years following the publication of Templer’s recommendations. Colonial Office resistance caused reflection on the nature of intelligence and the scope of the JIC. Central to the British system, collegiality and interdependence created conflict but ultimately drove the committee to broaden its agenda.⁷ It should be noted, however, that the Colonial Office remained sceptical of the committee during and after its transition to the Cabinet Office.

Finally, and linked to the above factors, the JIC’s sensitivity to the policy context aided the committee’s successful negotiation of the Whitehall jungle. Illustrating the virtues of a more activist approach to intelligence assessment, a closer relationship between the intelligence and policy communities allowed the JIC to stay aware of the policy contexts in which it operated. It could thus be relevant, timely, influential and able to gain the trust of senior Whitehall personnel. It must, however, also be remembered that the JIC’s own ambition would also have been a catalyst for its rise—after all, intelligence officers thrive on access to those in power. Moreover, one could perhaps argue that the broadening of the agenda was not driven so much by a renewed understanding of threats; rather it was driven by JIC empire-building. The Colonial Office certainly held such a view in the 1950s. This is likely to be a factor, but there is certainly a sense within the files that the committee did genuinely seek to reconsider the nature of security in the post-war world. The JIC’s current status, position and role are the result of a long and difficult evolutionary process driven by a variety of factors. It would be difficult to create a similar body from scratch in the twenty-first century.

There was, however, one area or dimension of security on which the JIC was conspicuously silent for much of this period: the economic realm. Economic considerations clearly loomed large over much British thinking during the post-1945 period, as the impecunious British government sought to maximise influence with minimum resources. This was rarely translated effectively into intelligence assessments however, and the committee remained largely uninterested in economic intelligence or of appreciations of the economic situation in various colonies on the road to independence. The JIC was effective at placing insurgencies into the broader political context, but neglected to consider their economic impact. In 1967 for example, one official complained to the cabinet secretary that JIC reports ‘suffered through the lack of economic content’. Philip Davies points to an interesting example regarding Sub-Saharan Africa: complaints were raised that an assessment overlooked the impact of economic trends in determining the type of leaders who would emerge in the countries concerned. This, the official continued, was ‘not the fault of those doing the studies, but a fault in the machinery in that the necessary machinery was not available to them’.⁸

It was not until the mid-1960s, when economic matters became increasingly intertwined with military and political aspects of security, that this was addressed. Burke Trend and Harold Wilson agreed that ‘much greater importance should be given in future to economic intelligence; and the effort in this field needed largely to be switched from concentration on the Communist world to the need for full and up-to-date intelligence about economic activity in the non-Communist world as it affected British interests in the financial, industrial, or commercial fields’.⁹ A separate JIC was created in 1968 to consider such economic issues. Although the experiment was short-lived, ‘international economic matters’ remain on the JIC’s terms of reference today.¹⁰

The evolution of the JIC is a story of the quest for inclusivity in determining threats. Challenging orthodox conceptualisations of security, the committee gradually broadened intelligence beyond conventional military matters to include political, and later economic, issues. This, as we have seen, sparked numerous debates between different departments about the intelligence agenda. These issues remain highly relevant. Fascinatingly, similar debates continue (sometimes fiercely) within Whitehall today. What constitutes a threat to national security? Are JIC conceptualisations and agendas inclusive enough? In the 1950s, the Colonial Office vehemently opposed the JIC’s militaristic understandings of security, causing a Whitehall ‘showdown’. Despite the progress made since then, other departments today remain frustrated by what they see as a narrow intelligence agenda. Just as the committee was once perceived as a military body, the JIC can now arguably be seen merely as a foreign policy debating club. One could argue that it neglects threats such as drugs, mass immigration, fraud from places such as West Africa and other organised crime. This has created familiar friction within Whitehall.¹¹

It will be interesting, for example, to see how the new National Crime Agency, when created in 2013, will fit into the JIC and National Security Council structure. Will its head sit on the National Security Council alongside his colleagues from MI5 and SIS, thereby driving the JIC’s agenda? Alan West, a former chief of defence intelligence, has recently speculated that the NSC does not consider issues such as organised crime. Although recognised as a threat by the National Security Strategy, the NSC, in West’s view, is likely to be more selective.¹² Indeed, crime falls into what one former MI5 director-general has described as a grey area. The point at which it becomes a national security issue is unclear.¹³ Insurgency was a grey area during the Cold War, and this blurred gap between inconvenience and threat remains something governments need to carefully consider when defining the JIC’s role. There is a continuing trend for intelligence to be used in support of a larger number of policy areas across government. Accordingly, in the words of one former adviser, ‘Government needs to think about how best to manage and facilitate this through the JIC and within the context of the statutory reporting lines and authorisations of the single agencies’.¹⁴

Strategic intelligence and counterinsurgency: roles and lessons

Non-state actors and insurgencies continue to pose a threat to British strategic interests. They remain a core priority for the intelligence community. The 2010 National Security Risk Assessment exercise placed international terrorism as a tier one priority whilst overseas insurgencies followed closely behind as a tier two priority risk.¹⁵ Although the current context differs from that of the 1950s and 1960s, they are by no means entirely disconnected. In fact, one could argue, as leading scholar of warfare Lawrence Freedman and others have done, that certain contemporary irregular threats are rooted in the past. Freedman claims that ‘all the struggles upon which al-Qaeda had fed were by-products of the processes of decolonisation, set in motion by previous world wars, and the creation of numerous new states, many of which turned out to be extremely weak and conflict-ridden’.¹⁶

Certain issues underpinning colonial counterinsurgency remain relevant today. Firstly, in the Federation of South Arabia and Dhofar, Britain gained experience of dealing with problems by operating alongside independent indigenous rulers. The same is very much true of twenty-first century counterinsurgency. Secondly, like Afghanistan and Iraq, colonial states were fragile. Governments were weak, struggled to maintain popular legitimacy and lacked a monopoly on the use of force. Thirdly, insurgents share similar objectives of forcing the West out by maintaining high levels of violence. They sought to make Afghanistan ungovernable and convince NATO governments that the operation was no longer worth the political costs. The same was done in Cyprus.¹⁷ There are also key differences. The United Kingdom of course no longer enjoys the benefits of colonial authority over host states. Instead, London now operates as a junior partner in a broader collation. Despite this fundamental paradigm shift, the JIC’s role in the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq can to a certain extent be conceptualised as part of the lineage dating back to Malaya.

Intelligence is crucial at the tactical level of counterinsurgency. It helps to distinguish the insurgents from the broader population and to generate contact information so as to capture or kill the enemy. Yet this book has revealed that the role of strategic intelligence in counter-insurgency was, and remains, equally important. Counterinsurgency is ultimately a strategic task and intelligence is therefore needed at the very top. All source intelligence assessment in Whitehall, in the form of the JIC, was important regarding local issues, which needed centralised coordination between departments or authorisation at government level. It had an important input into broader civilian and military planning, including on issues that extended beyond the specific counterinsurgency theatre—for example troop deployment against the backdrop of broader Cold War requirements.

All source intelligence helped inform policy practitioners of a number of factors from which broader strategic policy could be formulated. These included trends of violence, levels of external support, exploitable macro-level tension between various insurgent groups or within the leadership of an insurgent group, and implications of a broader policy or military strategy on the counterinsurgency effort or vice versa. Strategic intelligence therefore aided policymaking regarding both counter-insurgency specific policy (such as the centralised management of covert action) and broader regional policy, such as decolonisation, which needed to consider the progress of counterinsurgency operations. The JIC, in effect, helped put intelligence into what the Cabinet Office has recently described as ‘a sensible real-world context’ from which it is possible to ‘identify elements that can inform policy-making’.¹⁸

Warning

We now know that the JIC’s nascent and evolving role in counter-insurgency involved four key facets that developed over time: warning, threat assessment, policy impact and intelligence reform. Warning remains an important function for the joint intelligence organisation. The JIC has an official warning role explicitly enshrined in its charter, whilst the chairman is now specifically charged with ensuring that this is discharged effectively.¹⁹ Such clarity, however, was not always the case. This book has revealed that the committee was initially strikingly unaware that this role was informally expected. Moreover, any limited warning capabilities that did exist were largely, and understandably, directed towards the Cold War and conventional military threats. Following a number of costly insurgencies however, the JIC did gradually acquire a warning role regarding irregular threats to British interests. This remains the case today. By 2010 the government was emphasising a key priority of intelligence as ‘providing early indications and warnings of the intentions of hostile or potentially hostile state and non-state actors, and insights into their capabilities’.²⁰

Successfully warning of an impending insurgency is an inherently difficult task. It will continue to challenge intelligence analysts well into the twenty-first century as irregular threats dominate the security agenda. Warning of insurgencies is more focused on the detection of trouble brewing rather than predicting the conventional bolt from the blue. Yet identifying trends of popular discontent is particularly challenging, as is predicting if, when and how they may erupt into violence. It is then equally challenging to predict the nature and levels that violence will then take. Similarly, differentiating between random acts of civil disobedience or low level violence, and the beginnings of a widespread and organised insurgency is also highly problematic. This is particularly the case if it develops incrementally. Although the cumulative body of information may be significant, the receipt of small increments over time facilitates assimilation of this information into the analyst’s existing views.²¹ These difficulties are not going away. Indeed, as recently as 2011, the JIC failed to offer warning of the uprisings across the Arab world.²²

Yet on top of this already challenging task for intelligence analysts, the JIC was faced with further problems—structural, cognitive and political—which impeded intelligence assessment and the ability to provide warnings of brewing trouble. In structural terms, limited funds and lack of a formal warning system rendered individual judgement important in setting agendas and spotting impending violence. This difficult task was further stymied by under-developed relations with the Colonial Office. Without effective integration, the JIC, whose members were already overstretched by spiralling priorities, was isolated from developments. The central intelligence machinery was thus unable to exercise the necessary initiative. Accordingly, it often took a dramatic event and a relevant policy context to ensure JIC coverage of an issue—by which time it was often too late to provide warning. Some of these structural factors were alleviated as the JIC increased integration with the Colonial Office, moved to the Cabinet Office and better considered political and irregular threats. Others, however, such as a lack of explicit responsibility regarding warning remained until relatively recently.

By contrast, coordinated warning is now strongly emphasised within government. The Cabinet Office possesses a horizon scanning staff based in the National Security Secretariat. Taking priorities agreed by the National Security Council as a catalyst, the horizon scanning staff ensure focus on key areas whilst theoretically allowing scope for consideration of new and emerging issues—as insurgencies would once have been. Indeed, a bi-annual report specifically on countries at risk of instability is now issued.²³ Moreover, the National Security Council is now the ‘lead driver’ of the JIC agenda. This makes sense, for an interdepartmental approach to agenda setting and issue framing will alleviate the problems of having one particular department dominate—as happened when the JIC resided beneath the chiefs of staff. Moreover, harmony with NSC priorities will ensure that the committee remains policy relevant.²⁴ It is, however, too soon to judge the impact of these moves.

Structural improvements can only achieve so much. As Richard Betts has noted, ‘Intelligence can be improved marginally, but not radically, by altering the analytic system’. The use of intelligence ‘depends less on the bureaucracy than on the intellects and inclinations of the authorities above it’.²⁵ As such, cognitive factors further impeded the committee’s performance: they amplified the structural weaknesses. Interestingly, such factors were similar to those hindering intelligence warning of conventional attacks. For example, mirror imaging is an epistemological failure identified by former GCHQ Deputy Director Doug Nicoll in his influential 1982 report on JIC performance.²⁶ This ethnocentric phenomenon can also be applied to JIC underestimation of the subversive Egyptian threat to Aden and South Arabia. A further conventional, and indeed generic, trap into which the JIC occasionally fell was subtle politicisation. One demonstrable example from within these pages involves Ministry of Defence unwillingness to criticise their colleagues seconded to the Sultan of Oman, thereby hindering the ability to warn of the deteriorating violence in Dhofar. Similarly, intelligence analysts needed to be better aware of cognitive closure and the impact of overarching threat frameworks. For example, a more open mindset would have helped provide warning of the Cypriot violence.

A further cognitive challenge related specifically to the politics of colonial security—and JIC intelligence assessments must be viewed within this context. Colonial territories were by definition different from western democracies and from the political system of the imperial metropole itself. As Martin Thomas has admirably shown, colonial territories were naturally unstable. Popular discontent was inevitable because colonial authorities lacked democratic legitimacy and accountability.²⁷ Therefore, colonial intelligence and security automatically became somewhat politicised as a means of maintaining the status quo and ensuring the continuation of British authority. Not only was intelligence analysis a political issue, but the formal declaration of emergency itself was ultimately a political act. It was used by colonial administrators to preserve power in relatively weak or unstable territories. If intelligence permeated the colonial government, as Thomas argues, then it could easily be politicised so as to advance British interests and increase imperial influence over colonial peoples. This therefore created an extra challenge for the JIC in London, which was somewhat removed from the realities of colonial intelligence and security. The JIC had to evaluate colonial intelligence reports, consider their sources and ascertain if they had been written for a particular political purpose. This layer of analysis—specific to colonial insurgencies—naturally complicated the JIC’s warning role.

Moreover, flaws in local intelligence across all four case studies further impeded the JIC’s strategic warning ability. Structural, organisational and cognitive failings at the local level decreased the flow of accurate and timely intelligence from the periphery to the centre. One can argue that the JIC could only be as good as the information it received, that it was a tragic victim of local ineptitude. This is fair to an extent, for local intelligence systems were often in a tatterdemalion state prior to the insurgencies studied here: but it does not reveal the whole story. From the backrooms of Whitehall, the JIC did acquire jurisdiction to advise on the reform of colonial intelligence organisation. This responsibility was supposed to leap into action once requirements had escalated beyond the capabilities of the local command. To be fair however, this could well have happened too late for the JIC to provide warning. Yet the JIC did also possess oversight of its regional assessment bodies, the JIC (Far East) and JIC (Middle East). Regarding Malaya however, bureaucratic confusion over the functions and responsibilities of the JIC (Far East) hampered its ability to inform the JIC in London of forthcoming insurgency. Local intelligence was important, but its inadequacies were compounded by Whitehall.

Failures are complex and difficult to avoid. In this case, lack of explicit success was the result of a complex interplay between structural, cognitive, political and local factors. However, the JIC should not be judged too harshly by Cold War criteria for failing to predict an uprising as if it were a surprise conventional attack. The two are quite different. The committee deserves credit for gradually improving its ability to monitor colonial territories for irregular threats. It deserves some praise for recognising the importance of the unconventional threat to colonial security. The JIC’s broadening of traditional conceptualisations of security alerted consumer attention to the potential for unrest at a time of nationalist agitation and imperial decline.

These issues remain highly relevant today. With a warning function now explicitly enshrined within the JIC’s responsibilities, important questions are beginning to be asked about the performance of intelligence in the aftermath of the coalition’s invasion of Iraq. To what extent did intelligence alert ministers to the brewing insurgency? Fascinatingly, the questioning of former JIC chairman John Scarlett by the Iraq Inquiry in 2009 is not altogether dissimilar to that faced by his predecessor William Hayter during the Malayan insurgency. Separated by sixty years, the only real difference between the two episodes is the public forum. Indeed, the idea of being hauled up in front of a televised public inquiry would no doubt have been a horrifying anathema to Hayter and his contemporaries. In order to answer questions about whether intelligence provided ministers with enough warning about the post-conflict situation in Iraq, similar issues to those regarding earlier insurgencies must be taken into account.

Intelligence was indeed asking questions about whether or not an insurgency was brewing.²⁸ Warning of impending insurgencies, however, remains a difficult task today. Whilst certain structural impediments have been alleviated through closer departmental integration and the strengthening of the Assessments Staff, cognitive challenges remain. One particularly important challenge is the ability to understand the relationship between internal Iraqi security and the broader so-called Global War on Terrorism, and the impact on priorities and issue-framing this created. Warning is perhaps more difficult in the post-imperial age. Iraq is not a British (or indeed American) colony and therefore the United Kingdom had fewer assets in place and less information available. Indeed, in the face of criticism that intelligence offered no sufficiently thorough assessment or monitoring of post-invasion Iraq, John Scarlett emphasised the committee’s reliance on the quality of incoming intelligence. Limited intelligence leads to limited assessments.²⁹ This is the same line used by Hayter over half a century earlier. Recent years have also seen further challenges to the provision of warning. Globalisation and technological innovation have impacted upon popular movements in ways impossible during the 1950s and 1960s. Intelligence is therefore forced to monitor a broader range of sources. According to former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell, the joint intelligence organisation needs more open source capacity to enable it to do so effectively.³⁰

In February 2003, the committee did successfully warn that the post-Saddam security situation in the south would be ‘unpredictable’. Popular support for the new administration could not be taken for granted.³¹ Two months later, the JIC added that there was a significant risk that Iraqi groups competing for influence would resort to violence against each other.³² This, however, can be criticised as being too little too late. Interestingly, intelligence assessments had to grapple with the same issues of factional violence when considering Aden. The JIC warned that popular resentment at slow reconstruction efforts could also lead to violence.³³ Similar concerns about the lack of civil developments featured heavily in JIC assessments of Dhofar.

Contextualisation

Strategic intelligence assessments of the threat were also vital after violence had broken out. JIC reports reveal fascinating insights into how London understood these post-1945 insurgencies. They were not isolated incidents, but formed part of a broader theme or trend. They were not deemed to have been instigated locally, but controlled and manipulated by international actors. Sensitive to the various policy contexts, the JIC quickly grew aware of the external forces impacting upon colonial issues and the strategic management of empire. Consequently, a key characteristic of threat assessments relating to insurgencies was a deliberate internationalisation and contextualisation of internal security. Fulfilling its interdepartmental remit, such assessments were useful in aiding consumer appreciation of the broader implications of local developments by supplementing the tactical local intelligence reports. Indeed, analysis of the JIC between 1948 and 1975 reveals that Whitehall consistently sought to understand counterinsurgency campaigns within the broader regional context.

Internationalisation of local security presented serious dangers. These included cognitive closure, the misunderstanding of local intricacies and specificities, and the denial of local actors’ agency in unrest. This was certainly the case regarding the Cold War, which initially provided the most obvious framework through which to appreciate colonial threats. On the one hand it was crucial to understand any connections between insurgencies and international communism. As such, by 1957 the JIC used the Cold War dimension to claim an increasing interest in, and jurisdiction over, imperial security. The committee frankly warned that communist disorders, including in colonial territories, formed part of a larger Cold War framework and could not be considered in isolation. Yet on the other hand, assessments ran the risk of bluntly forcing any development into a preconceived and rigid mindset.

The international Cold War dimension threatened to oversimplify the more nuanced interplay between local and regional forces. This was the case regarding intelligence assessments of Malaya. Similarly when considering Cyprus, the committee initially looked to place the violence within the broader context of international communism—yet this proved to be at the expense of the more potent internal right-wing nationalist threat. This was significant. As David French has recently argued, ‘The “Malayan Model” of counter-insurgency laid great emphasis on the need to defeat political subversion, not just the guerrillas. But if the British did not understand, or take seriously, the political aims of their opponents, their counter-insurgency strategy was likely to go awry’.³⁴ The same was true at the Whitehall level. Had Colonial Office intelligence been better integrated earlier, all-source assessment may have focused less on the internationalism of the Cold War and paid more attention to internal agency and political aims. Inaccurate threat assessments left decision-makers unclear about the causes of the violence, thereby leading to flawed responses. Cognitive closure gave the insurgents a head start and created a faulty framework through which broader foreign, colonial and defence policy was formulated. In practice, this was one of the great weaknesses of the JIC.

It can be explained by three factors. The first is the marginalisation of local agency, conscious or otherwise. Significantly, this allowed policymakers to dodge difficult questions about the legitimate grievances of colonial populations and the efficacy of the British imperial model. It is telling that local agency was most recognised during the Omani insurgency—which of course was not in a colony. Indeed, the British were convinced of the moral righteousness of their imperial mission. They therefore found it difficult to accept that their opponents had a legitimate political programme of their own.³⁵ As part of this, intelligence perceived these opponents as being controlled by external forces.

Secondly, the Cold War threat dominated the mindset and agendas of the intelligence community as well as military and civilian planners. It was therefore natural that it would influence conceptualisations of unrest to an extent. A further by-product of this framework however, was the habit of looking at non-state actors through a state-centric prism. This also served to marginalise local agency. Thirdly, intelligence analysts lacked a deductive framework for counterinsurgency—particularly in the earlier insurgencies of Malaya and Cyprus. Without an awareness of insurgents’ goals and strategy, assessments fell back on the Cold War framework which emphasised international factors, states (particularly the Soviet Union) and conventional warfare. Perhaps then an approach combining induction with deduction based on a counter-insurgency model is useful. It would go some way to preventing assessment from regressing to redundant deductive frameworks.

This constant desire to place colonial insurgencies into an international framework of Sino-Soviet subversion did not only impede accurate intelligence assessment. It also severely strained relations between the JIC and the Colonial Office, where officials bluntly accused the JIC of failing to understand the complexities of colonial matters by blindly propagating a military and Foreign Office obsession with international communism.

By the mid-1960s, the JIC had acquired a broader remit and Cold War fears began to settle. However, focus on the international at the expense of local agency still created some problems in intelligence assessment. By the end of the insurgency in Aden, overemphasis of external factors, this time the Egyptian role, again marginalised the role of local ideological motivations. Britain was obsessed with Nasser and was once more unwilling to look at non-state actors. Instead, the insurgent groups were perceived through state-centric eyes. This was a mistake, for the local actors ultimately went on to form the new leftist government of South Yemen.³⁶ Intelligence assessments need to have exposure to alternative mind-sets. It is important that analysts feel secure enough to deviate from the established orthodoxy.³⁷

It could be argued that strategic intelligence is intrinsically broad by nature and will therefore always be prone to bend local intricacies into an overarching threat framework or narrative. Such assessments are not necessarily the best vehicle for policymakers to receive in-depth analysis of detailed local issues, but there is no reason why they should not better reflect the nuances of the real world. Success however depends not simply on the JIC, but on the political and security system within which it operates. The committee’s performance, then as now, must therefore be understood within the context of the intelligence received and the environment within which it works. Moreover, an accurate balance between the internal and external is difficult for even the most integrated and sophisticated intelligence assessment to achieve.

Similarly, an all-source interdepartmental approach helps to ensure that the intelligence agenda, requirements and priorities are objectively set. By giving more departments input into how issues are framed, developments become less likely to be assessed through the mindset of the most dominant department. Before being moved to the Cabinet Office, the JIC’s agenda was shaped by military interests. As a result, assessments focused predominantly on conventional warfare and the Soviet threat, thereby neglecting other types of threats such as insurgencies. The structure in which the intelligence assessment body is housed is thus central and can artificially shape the agenda and constrain potentially relevant assessments. An interdepartmental approach, therefore, helps counter the ubiquity of one narrative by allowing awareness of various trends. Intelligence analysts today, ever sensitive to overarching threats and policy priorities, should be wary of exhibiting cognitive closure by oversimplifying complex issues into the dominant cognitive framework. In an era in which nationalism remains and current non-state actors feed off the legacies of imperialism and decolonisation, it could perhaps be all too tempting to swap the Cold War prishowever zeitgeist: ‘the War on Terror’.

Intelligence assessments also elevated colonial insurgencies to the international and regional policy contexts. Ever aware of external forces encroaching upon British strategic management of its imperial interests, the committee placed the threat to Aden not only in the broader threat context of Egyptian and Yemeni intentions, but also in the policy context of a stable withdrawal. Similarly, the JIC assessed the Dhofari violence within the broader policy context of British military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. Whilst the internationalisation of colonial security into a threat framework proved problematic, contextualisation within the policy framework of decolonisation was particularly useful. It ensured timeliness and relevance of information. It also allowed an interdepartmental audience to understand the implications of local developments regarding broader British interests and strategy.

JIC threat assessments often served as a moderating influence within Whitehall. They prudently countered the more subjective or inflammatory rhetoric of various political players. Academics have already noted how confidence in all-source intelligence assessment provided stability in Cold War management,³⁸ and evidence now suggests that this can be extended to counterinsurgency and decolonisation. Given the tension and debates beneath the JIC level, intelligence assessment created calm from chaos.

This remains the case today. Regarding Iraq, JIC assessments have been praised by former senior officials. According to Gus O’Donnell, for example, they were able to offer a more balanced picture of the violence than either diplomatic or military reporting. This was no surprise. As a strategic actor, the JIC had time to stand back and ‘see the different assessments made by these different bodies plus the body of open information […] and what other countries are saying’. Therefore, JIC assessments often carried more weight than the independent views of single departments.³⁹ Building on its historical experience and growth, the JIC is clearly now at the very centre of the Whitehall security machinery.

During the Iraqi violence, the JIC continued to issue strategic intelligence assessments in order to aid ministerial policymaking. Subjects included the role and nature of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Revisiting a theme that plagued assessment of insurgencies between 1948 and 1975, the JIC looked at the interplay between local and international spheres. What impact did Iraq have on international terrorism?⁴⁰ To what extent was the insurgency driven by local agency? Again however, globalisation has increased challenges to intelligence assessment by creating extra levels of external support. Achieving the right balance between internal agency, external support and external instigation within a regional (or global) security sphere is now perhaps more difficult than ever.

Policy impact

The British system is characterised by an integrated approach underpinned by relatively close relations between intelligence producers and consumers. Consisting of representatives from the intelligence agencies and from policymaking departments, the JIC system represents a ‘dramatic erasing of the line’ between intelligence and policy.⁴¹ This helped to ensure that JIC output was relevant, timely, focused and useful. Under the British system, to quote Gregory Treverton, ‘at each stage, the process is animated by a sharper sense of what the real issues are and what information or analysis might be helpful when they come up for discussion […] Such participation improves the chances that intelligence will be useful when alternative courses of action are debated’.⁴² Alan Crick, a former JIC report drafter, has noted that intelligence must not strive for perfection at the expense of timeliness: ‘The imperfect interim report can be the most effective alerting device’.⁴³

This is perhaps more the case now after membership of the JIC expanded to include more policy representatives from departments such as the Treasury, the Department for International Development and the Home Office. Similarly, the regular weekly meetings of the National Security Council, chaired by the prime minister, have recently further increased and institutionalised cooperation between intelligence and policy. JIC papers are now increasingly commissioned to inform NSC discussions and the JIC’s agenda is tasked with following that of the NSC ‘as closely as possible’.⁴⁴ Yet with earlier representatives from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, military and Commonwealth Relations Office and with increasing links to bodies such as the Defence and Oversea Policy Committee, the important intelligence-policy relationship has long existed.

The JIC’s strengths lay, and still lie, in all-source intelligence assessment as a valuable input to aid policy debates. The committee’s biggest success was therefore its ability to bring together intelligence that crossed traditional departmental boundaries and jurisdictions—which is of course exactly what intelligence relating to insurgency did. Yet insurgencies pose specific challenges to traditional all-source intelligence analysis and evaluation. As we have seen, insurgencies breaking out during the Cold War presented a highly complex situation and too much separation from the policymakers would have left analysts flailing in the dark, unsure about exactly what to assess. Given the amorphous threat, high levels of uncertainty and proliferating sources, intelligence assessments had to be focused, relevant and aware of which questions policymakers needed answering.

Axiomatically, it was not (and is still not) the role of the JIC to make policy recommendations. However, the committee evolved to acquire an important place within the policymaking system. The JIC lacked policy input immediately after the Second World War. Whilst it aided defence planning, intelligence assessments of insurgencies rarely directly influenced strategic foreign and colonial policy. Despite this, it is important not to overlook the JIC’s more cumulative influence even at this early stage. Regular assessments gradually and passively helped build up policymaker knowledge of the issues involved, even if they initially lacked any direct impact. This was, and remains, a key role of the committee in peacetime. The JIC demonstrated a more tangible policy impact after 1957.

As the JIC gained greater prestige and policy relevance, it developed a more active input into policy formulation. This study has revealed that the JIC’s relationship to policy differed depending on the type of policy. On the one hand was the broader regional and strategic policy. This essentially involved the projection of British power in an era of decline. It had to take counterinsurgency developments into account, for ongoing insurgencies affected regional stability. On the other hand was the more counterinsurgency-specific policy. This related to defeating insurgents in a particular theatre. Regarding the former, JIC assessments of local developments as part of a broader regional policy context were directly used by policy practitioners, although the committee rightly steered clear of making policy recommendations. They allowed policymakers to consider longer-term strategic imperial and decolonisation policy accordingly, be it the importance of Cyprus, relations with Nasser or withdrawal from the Persian Gulf. Accordingly, the JIC helped guide policy practitioners through the external and international pressures encroaching on policy formulation during the ‘end of empire’ years.

Interestingly, the JIC enjoyed a more direct input into policies that impacted more directly on a specific counterinsurgency. During the violence in Aden for example, the committee and its chairman appeared willing to veer into the realm of policy advice on issues such as photoreconnaissance, retaliatory air strikes and the delegation of authority to local commanders. Committee members were also involved in scrutinising, coordinating and staffing covert action policies under the auspices of the shadowy Joint Action Committee. Specific counterinsurgency policy could thus be said to further erode any producer-consumer divide. This was most likely because it requires a particular amount of intelligence input and because any action usually falls within the domain of the intelligence community.

The JIC worked best when it was aware of the policy context and of key questions the government wanted answering. Such a system, however, suffers the potential for politicisation. Intelligence can be subtly manipulated for political use, whilst analysts can be oversensitive to the pre-conceived desires of policymakers. Accordingly, the JIC’s dramatic ascent carried with it an increased susceptibility to such political influence. Every step the committee took towards greater prestige, relevance and influence brought with it an increased vulnerability to manipulation. The committee could not operate hermetically in a political vacuum. It gradually grew susceptible to pre-conceived cognitive frameworks, interdepartmental rivalries, the buffetings of external political pressures and the occasional misuse of its output. These issues remain relevant today. Intelligence should not be manipulated to provide seemingly authoritative support for a particular policy. Moreover, the quality of intelligence is at risk when the JIC is specifically commissioned to produce an assessment for public use and to support a particular mindset. Certain parallels exist between JIC assessments of Egyptian violence to be used at the United Nations in the 1960s and the ‘dodgy’ dossier released in the build up to the invasion of Iraq.

On balance the importance of closer producer-consumer relations outweighed the risks of politicisation. After high profile controversies regarding Iraq in 2003 however, the system was further strengthened by the establishment of the post of professional head of intelligence analysis. Encompassing responsibility for supporting government decision-making, it is designed to enhance the quality of intelligence analysis through oversight of, and advice on, analytical capabilities, methodology and training across the intelligence community. In short, this power, which was invested in the JIC chair, seeks to ensure that intelligence products are impartial and uninfluenced by preconceptions or assumptions. Similarly, the government response to the Butler review into the intelligence failure over weapons of mass destruction also included proposals to expand the Assessments Staff by developing a new team to provide a standing internal review and challenge of JIC assessments.⁴⁵

Consensus is a further theoretical foundation underpinning the JIC system and aiding policy impact. This was (and remains) a useful function in that, according Lord Butler, appreciations that are ‘single statements of position’ benefit the policymaking process.⁴⁶ Consensus presents policy practitioners with a unified intelligence position from which to begin their policy debates, thereby providing clarity and efficiency. An interdepartmentally-agreed position also provided an authoritative weapon to be used in battles with the Treasury when trying to secure funding for extra intelligence or Special Branch personnel in a particular theatre.

Consensus also reduces the chances of policymakers falling foul of their own biases. As former JIC chairman Percy Cradock has argued, it would represent an abdication of responsibility for the JIC to offer more than one intelligence judgement.⁴⁷ Consensus allowed policy practitioners to work from the same intelligence starting point. According to former chair of the JIS, Alan Crick, ‘a mere parade of the possibilities is not enough’.⁴⁸ The quest for consensus also proved, and continues to prove, a useful end in itself. It forced the relevant personnel to work rigorously through the issues and thus gain a thorough understanding. As a member of the modern Assessments Staff has stated, ‘In some way the process of interdepartmental assessment is more important than the product. Committee discussion helped ensure that diplomats, military officers and intelligence practitioners saw the world through roughly the same eyes’.⁴⁹

Consensus is, however, difficult to achieve due to the number of intelligence, security and political actors involved in countering insurgency. Different Whitehall departments often held diverging and competing understandings of the threat. A prominent criticism is that the system led to lowest common denominator judgements. By analysing counterinsurgency, this book has shed new light on broader issues relating to intelligence assessment. JIC conclusions were the result of much interdepartmental bargaining. The final reports themselves belie the turf wars and tension whirring away beneath the surface. Central intelligence assessment must therefore be seen as a process rather than merely as an end product. The quest for consensus, however, usefully brought the tangled mess of competing judgements into a unified policy-relevant whole. A full and frank discussion about intelligence was vital to ensure that assessments were as authoritative as possible. Yet to be useful, intelligence ultimately has to be unified. This surely overrides charges of banality.

A second potential weakness is the potential for consumers to exploit the JIC’s use of consensus. Consumers could wear the committee’s ‘interdepartmentalism’ and objectivity as a badge of credibility. JIC assessments could thus be used as an authoritative source through which to bolster support of pre-conceived policy ideas. The Butler review also raised this idea. It warned that publishing a document under the name and authority of the JIC ‘had the result that more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear’.⁵⁰ Obviously regarding Iraq, the public publication took this a stage further.

Intelligence management

Analysis of the JIC files reveals a fundamental transformation in the management of empire: centralisation. This involved not only an increased role for MI5, but extended to the JIC itself. Whilst currently charged with some review and oversight responsibilities, the JIC has long since shed its overseas baggage. However, as part of its expansion from 1948 the committee attempted to acquire a role in local colonial intelligence reform. This, according to the JIC, fell under the banner of keeping intelligence organisations at home and overseas under review. Effective local intelligence was paramount not only tactically but also strategically. For example, a survey into the Adeni intelligence set-up in late 1963 concluded that the objective of intelligence was not only to ‘warn local authorities of threats to internal security’ but also to ‘warn of matters which threaten HMG’s strategic and political interests in the wider sense’.⁵¹

JIC encroachment onto Colonial Office territory regarding threat assessments had created bitter Whitehall tension and turf wars. Direct JIC involvement in the local intelligence and security apparatus had the potential to be even more controversial. The committee had to operate delicately within a framework dominated by a lead department (the Colonial Office) and a lead agency (MI5). The JIC sensibly took a back seat, focusing mainly on coordinating interdepartmental reforms. When the committee did intervene it concentrated on reforms of intelligence assessment and dissemination structures, leaving MI5 to take the lead in intelligence collection. In doing so, the fireworks between the Colonial Office and the JIC did not extend to this realm. It could be said, however, that this was because the JIC lacked the executive authority to actually do anything drastic, thereby leaving the Colonial Office with little to fear.

Historians now know that the JIC attempted to intervene in overseas security from 1948. Declassified intelligence files also reveal that the committee was generally weak regarding its managerial role. As colonial territories dwindled, however, so too did the JIC’s role. Although passive and ineffective, such attempts began during the Malayan insurgency when the committee offered advice on forming a Local Intelligence Committee. At this point however, the JIC lacked authority and its suggestions were met with resistance by local figures. By the mid-1950s, the committee became more involved in managing, or at least overseeing, colonial intelligence reform. Regarding Cyprus for example, JIC chairman Patrick Dean visited the island in October 1955 and reported that local intelligence requirements had grown beyond the local capability. Although not becoming directly involved itself, the JIC swiftly adopted a role of coordinating and overseeing interdepartmental discussion and intelligence reform. Committee meetings became a talking shop for interested departments including MI5, the Colonial Office and the military. Through this role, the JIC was able to oversee intelligence reform, overcome departmental disagreements and could try to inject some urgency into floundering negotiations. In practice however, it was limited to making invitations, suggestions and recommendations. Constitutionally, the JIC had no power to give orders to the departments and agencies. Despite this, the mere process of interdepartmental discussion and the need for consensus were beneficial in allowing all departments concerned to view the issues from the same intelligence foundations.

In the 1960s, the JIC directly intervened in local and regional intelligence reform for the first time. Having visited Aden, the JIC chairman established a working party focusing on reforming regional intelligence assessment structures. However, owing to a combination of the rapidly deteriorating security situation and a lack of JIC managerial authority, implementation of the reforms was slow and incoherent. The committee was forced to intervene for a second time as the Federation of South Arabia began its approach to independence. This too proved unsuccessful. However, the insurgency can be seen as the peak of the committee’s involvement in overseas intelligence management. By the early 1970s, the JIC’s managerial role had come full circle and—as in the late 1940s—the JIC played a negligible part. This time, however, JIC inconspicuousness reflected Britain’s transition to the post-imperial world.

Reflecting the changed international context, a central difference between the JIC’s role in Iraq and in earlier insurgencies was that of intelligence reform. As an extension of the process illustrated during the Dhofari campaign, the transition to the post-imperial world axiomatically negated this aspect of the committee’s colonial counterinsurgency role. The JIC lacked any mandate to reform the intelligence structures in Oman and unsurprisingly had no input into reforming local intelligence structures during the Iraq campaign. Reform of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service was conducted by the Americans—indeed the CIA established the service in 2004.⁵² The end of the colonial era and the decline of British overseas intelligence apparatus clearly altered the JIC’s functions in this regard. But, as we have seen, other functions have transcended the transition to the post-imperial world.

An interdepartmental approach

Integration and an interdepartmental approach permeate the British ‘way’. This was also beneficial due to a further challenge posed by insurgency warfare. Insurgencies cross traditional departmental boundaries and jurisdictions, including those of the Colonial Office, MI5, the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Ministry of Defence. Intelligence therefore had to consider colonial, political and security intelligence, intelligence gathered by MI5, SIS and GCHQ, Foreign Office intelligence from diplomatic channels and the Information Research Department, and Defence Intelligence. The diverging and competing priorities of the myriad actors involved (that is, tactical versus strategic, internal versus external) therefore rendered coordinated all-source intelligence assessment and dissemination crucial in strategic level counterinsurgency thinking.

Countering insurgencies required not only effective coordination within Whitehall, but also coordination across vast distances because of the geographical divide between the local theatre and London. The JIC system, with its responsibility for British intelligence at home and overseas, was important in bridging a tactical-strategic divide and coordinating intelligence flows from the periphery to the centre. It was crucial that intelligence from local sources reached the relevant intelligence consumers in London swiftly, so as to be used in strategic intelligence assessments appropriately. Political and military actors in the theatre and in London therefore needed to be aware of the JIC agenda and time-frame. This would ensure that all relevant information to be considered centrally arrived in time for the issuing of a particular intelligence report. Although in practice there are always difficulties, a benefit of the British intelligence organisation was its ability to ensure that the right information reached the right intelligence consumers—that is, that policy practitioners considering strategic policy were kept updated with the implications of an insurgency on the broader region without being overwhelmed by detailed tactical information regarding the actual operations.

Additionally, however, ministers also need to work in a more operational forum. Whilst key ministers respect the operational responsibilities of the military chiefs in relation to the armed forces, ‘they want to set the political direction on each of the operational issues that come up’.⁵³ Such action requires knowledge of both tactical and strategic realities and implications. In 2011 this approach was demonstrated within the National Security Council’s sub-committee on Libya (NSC[L]), which met sixty-two times during the conflict to consider both strategic and tactical matters.⁵⁴ The joint intelligence organisation again becomes useful in this context. Regarding Libya, the intelligence machinery produced daily intelligence summaries in addition to formal assessments to aid NSC(L) and NSC(L)(Officials) discussions.⁵⁵ A similar (albeit more embryonic) process ensuring ministerial and official needs were met was happening regarding counterinsurgency in the era of decolonisation.

Theoretically, the British system also helped reduce bureaucratic confusion. Detailed study of the JIC reveals, however, that this was often messier and more ad hoc than was desirable. Eventually, the system ensured that channels of communication were properly in place from the periphery to the centre and that clarity existed over the various actors’ roles and responsibilities. This reduced the gaps and overlaps that can occur in a more fragmented system. Such need for coordination has not been lost on the British government in recent years. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review emphasised the importance of strategic intelligence in drawing together information from across Whitehall, of coordinated assessments, and praised moves towards coordinated cross-Whitehall horizon scanning and early warning provision.⁵⁶

JIC veteran Michael Herman famously wrote that the JIC ‘is like democracy; the least bad arrangement yet invented’.⁵⁷ On counter-insurgency the committee’s record is indeed mixed. It did, however, improve substantially. This came as the committee evolved to better handle non-defence matters and as the intelligence assessment system became more integrated and sensitive to the policy context. The JIC certainly deserves credit for staying relevant by adapting to meet the changing threats in the post-Second World War era. Intelligence officials in a small corner of Whitehall helped to reconceptualise traditional understandings of security and redefine what constitutes a threat. There may have been fights along the way and in practice the joint intelligence machinery is a more chaotic process than the theory suggests, but it worked reasonably well on the whole. The JIC broadened its jurisdiction accordingly and gradually found a role in countering insurgencies—a role that remains vital today.

NOTES

1. INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT IN AN AGE OF COMPETING THREATS

1. ‘Transcript of Sir John Scarlett Hearing’, Oral Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, 8 December 2009, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/40665/20091208pmscarlett-final.pdf, p. 24, 67; ‘Transcript of Sir David Omand Hearing’, Oral Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, 20 January 2010, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/44187/20100120pm-omand-final.pdf, pp. 13, 16–17, 40, 48.

2. Deighton, Anne, ‘Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1955’, in Leffler, M., and Westad, O. A. (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume I, Origins, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 119.

3. Strong, Kenneth, ‘Talk to I.A.C’., undated, Alan Crick Papers, Intelligence 1950s, GB99 KCLMA Crick, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College London. The speaker is unclear from the notes although it seems likely that it was Strong. Although undated, the talk can be dated as the mid-1950s.

4. Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 79.

5. Connelly, Matthew, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 276.

6. French, David, The British Way in Warfare, 1688–2000, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990, p. 202.

7. For an excellent recent discussion of decolonisation see Hyam, Ronald, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918–1968, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

8. Aldrich, Richard, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, London: John Murray, 2001, p. 500.

9. Walton, Calder, ‘British intelligence and the mandate of Palestine: threats to British national security immediately after the Second World War’, Intelligence and National Security, 23/4, (2008), pp. 442, 458; Walton, Calder, Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire, London: Harper, 2013, pp. ix-xx.

10. Bennett, Huw, Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 8.

11. Mumford, Andrew, The Counter-insurgency myth: The British experience of irregular warfare, London: Routledge, 2012, pp. 67–8.

12. Murphy, Philip, ‘A Police State? The Nyasaland Emergency and Colonial Intelligence’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 36/4, 2010, p. 770; Thorpe, D.R., Supermac: The Life of Harold Macmillan, London: Chatto and Windus, 2010 p. 438; Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 280.

13. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 284.

14. O’Halpin, Eunan, ‘“A poor thing but our own”: The Joint Intelligence Committee and Ireland, 1965–72’, Intelligence and National Security, 23/5, (2008), pp. 658–80.

15. Cradock, Percy, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World, London: John Murray, 2002, pp. 239.

16. See for example, Murphy, Philip, ‘A Police State?’, pp. 765–80; Murphy, Philip, ‘Intelligence and Decolonization: The Life and Death of the Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau, 1954–63’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29/2, 2001, pp. 101–30. For a discussion of the missing dimension of intelligence in the decolonisation literature, see Andrew, Christopher and Walton, Calder, ‘Still the “missing Dimension”: British Intelligence and the Historiography of British Decolonisation’, in Major, P., and Moran, C. (eds.), Spooked: Britain, Empire, and Intelligence since 1945, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2009.

17. Butler, Lawrence, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, London: IB Taurus, 2002, p. xii, 191.

18. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 124.

19. Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War, p. 74.

20. Davies, Philip, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, California: Praeger, 2013, p. 43.

21. French, David, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–1967, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 58.

22. For an examination of the origins of the JIC, see: Goodman, Michael, ‘Learning to walk: the Origins of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21/1, (2008), pp. 40–56.

23. Goodman, Michael, ‘Avoiding surprise: The Nicoll Report and Intelligence analysis’, in Dover, R., and Goodman, M. (eds.), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History, Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011, pp. 265–74.

24. ‘Transcript of Sir John Scarlett Hearing’, Oral Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, 8 December 2009, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/40665/20091208pmscarlett-final.pdf, pp. 3, 5.

25. Cooper, Chester, The Lion’s Last Roar, New York: Harper and Row, 1978, p. 70.

26. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 26 May 1948, KV4/471

27. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, pp. 267–8.

28. Major General Francis de Guingand quoted in, Davies, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, p. 44.

29. ‘Transcript of Sir David Omand Hearing’, Oral Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, 20 January 2010, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/44187/20100120pm-omand-final.pdf, p. 20.

30. ‘The Diaries of Guy Liddell, 11 December 1946, KV 4/468. All references are from the National Archives, UK, unless otherwise stated.

31. See Cabinet Office, ‘Joint Intelligence Committee: Terms of Reference’ www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/joint-intelligence-committee-terms-reference, last accessed May 2011.

32. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, p. 261.

33. Davies, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, pp. 39–41.

34. ‘Transcript of Sir John Scarlett Hearing’, Oral Evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, 8 December 2009, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/40665/20091208pmscarlett-final.pdf, p. 18.

35. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 14, 138.

36. See Goodman, Michael, ‘The British Way in Intelligence’, in Grant, M. (ed.), The British Way in Cold Warfare: Intelligence, Diplomacy, and the Bomb 1945–1975, London: Continuum, 2009, pp. 127–40; For a detailed exploration of Anglo-American intelligence during the Cold War see Aldrich, The Hidden Hand.

37. Goodman, Michael, ‘The British Way in Intelligence’, p. 138.

38. Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review, London: The Stationery Office, 2010, p. 43.

39. Butler, Lord, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction Report, London: The Stationery Office, 2004, p. 13.

40. Omand, David, Securing the State, London: Hurst & Co., 2010, pp. 127–8.

2. UNFULFILLED POTENTIAL: MALAYA, 1948–1951

1. Walton, Calder, Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire, London: Harper, 2013, p. 164.

2. Stubbs, Richard, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan emergency 1948–60, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 87–9.

3. Stubbs, Richard, ‘From search and destroy to hearts and minds: the evolution of British strategy in Malaya 1948–60’, in Marston, D., and Malka-sian, C. (eds.), Counterinsurgency in modern warfare, Oxford: Osprey, 2008, pp. 113–4.

4. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 6 October 1951, KV4/473.

5. For overviews of the conflict see Short, Anthony, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya, 1948–1960, London: Muller, 1975; Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare; Clutterbuck, Richard, The Long Long War: The Emergency in Malaya 1948–1960, London: Cassell and Company, 1967; Stockwell, Anthony (ed.), Malaya: The Malayan Union Experiment 1942–1948, Documents on the End of Empire, London: HMSO, 1995.

6. The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, ‘First Review of the National Security Strategy 2010, 8 March 2012, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtnatsec/265/26506.htm#a18, last accessed March 2012.

7. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 6 March 1948, KV4/470.

8. For details see Attlee, Clement, As It Happened, London: William Heine-mann, 1954 p. 191; Griffiths, James, Pages from Memory, London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1969, p. 92; Eatwell, Roger, The 1945–1951 Labour Governments, London: Batsford, 1979, p. 79; and Ovendale, Ritchie (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments, 1945–1951, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984, p. 3, p. 16. For a discussion of how Attlee’s government moved from an internationalist Foreign Policy outlook towards acceptance of Cold War politics see Phythian, Mark, The Labour Party, War, and International Relations, 1945–2006, Oxon: Routledge, 2007, pp. 21–38.

9. Griffiths, Pages from Memory, pp. 92–3.

10. ‘Colonial Forces’, 22 April 1949, Chiefs of Staff(49)138 DEFE4/14.

11. Goodman, Michael, ‘Learning to walk: the origins of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21/1, (2008), pp. 50–3.

12. JIC Minutes, 18 February 1948, JIC(48)14th Meeting CAB159/3, ‘Review of JIC Organisation and Procedure’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)20 CAB158/3.

13. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 18 February 1948, KV4/470.

14. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)21 CAB158/3.

15. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, London: Frank Cass, 2002, p. 117.

16. Cradock, Percy, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World, London: John Murray, 2002, pp. 268–9.

17. Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, London: John Murray, 2001, p. 500.

18. Chiefs of Staff Minutes, 27 September 1948, Chiefs of Staff (48)138th Meeting DEFE4/16.

19. Walton, Calder, ‘British Intelligence and Threat to National Security, c.1941–1951’, PhD thesis: University of Cambridge, 2006, p. 276, 278; Walton, Empire of secrets, p. 125.

20. Templer, Gerald, ‘Report on Colonial Security’, April 1955 CAB21/2985 p. 19.

21. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)21 CAB158/3; ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee: Note by the Secretary’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)21 CAB158/3.

22. The JIC did not officially acquire an enshrined warning role until the post-Falklands Franks Review when a warning responsibility was invested in a senior member of the Assessments Staff. See Herman, Michael, Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 235. However, a warning role can be traced back to the Second World War when the committee was charged with monitoring signs of German aggression following the invasion of Norway in 1940. ‘Urgent Intelligence Reports: Directive to the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee’, Chiefs of Staff(40)360, 17 May 1940, CAB 80/11.

23. von Clausewitz, Carl, trans. Howard and Paret, On War, Princeton, 1989, ch.1, section 27.

24. Townshend, Charles, ‘In aid of the civil power: Britain, Ireland and Palestine 1916–48’, in Marston, D. and Malkasian, C. (eds.), Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, Oxford: Osprey, 2008, pp. 20–1.

25. For more information see Thomas, Martin, Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914, London and California: University of California Press, 2008.

26. Chiefs of Staff Minutes, 8 April 1949, Chiefs of Staff(49)53rd Meeting DEFE4/21.

27. JIC Minutes, 7 July 1948, JIC(48)68th Meeting CAB159/4.

28. ‘Defence Coordination Committee Far East, Report of the Special Planning Committee’, 24 April 1948, CO537/4246.

29. Chiefs of Staff Minutes, 8 April 1949, Chiefs of Staff(49) 53rd Meeting DEFE4/21. The BDCC(FE) was chaired by the Commissioner-General and reported to the Chiefs of Staff. It was an inherently militaristic committee and, in addition to MacDonald, included all three Commanders-in-Chief. Malayan High Commissioner Henry Gurney was only invited to attend occasionally when required.

30. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 1 April 1959, KV4/471.

31. Chiefs of Staff Minutes, 8 April 1949, Chiefs of Staff(49)53rd Meeting DEFE4/21.

32. For discussions of structural local failures including the poor organisation of local police forces see, Hack, Karl, ‘British intelligence and counterinsurgency in the era of decolonisation: the example of Malaya’, Intelligence and National Security, 14/2, (1999), p. 127; Sunderland, Riley, Antiguerrilla Intelligence in Malaya, 1948–1960, Santa Monica: RAND, 1964, pp. 3–10; Stewart, Brian, Smashing Terrorism in the Malayan Emergency: The Vital Contribution of the Police, Malaysia: Pelanduk, 2004; Stewart, Brian, ‘Winning in Malaya: an intelligence success story’ Intelligence and National Security, 14/4, (1999) pp. 267–83. For discussions of cognitive local intelligence failures regarding flawed intelligence assessment, see Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 496; Bennett, Huw, ‘“A Very Salutary Effect”: the counter-terror strategy in the early Malayan Emergency, June 1948 to December 1949’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/3, 2009, pp. 423–4.

33. John Dalley, quoted in Andrew, Christopher, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, London: Allen Lane, 2009, p. 448.

34. Walton, Empire of Secrets, pp. 166–7.

35. Minute by Williams, Rees, Colonial Office, 22 June 1948, CO537/3751; Minute by a Colonial Office official, 1 March 1948, CO537/3751; Minute by Williams, Rees, Colonial Office, 22 June 1948, CO537/3751.

36. ‘Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligence Journal no. 11 of 1948: Part One, General Summary’, 15 June 1948, CO537/3752; ‘Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligence Journal no. 10 of 1948: Part One, General Summary’, 31 May 1948, CO537/3752.

37. Minutes on internal security by JB Williams, 28 May 1948, CO537/3755 in Stockwell, A.J. (ed.), Malaya: The Communist Insurrection, 1948–1953, London: HMSO, pp. 15–6.

38. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand p. 497.

39. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 20 November 1946, KV4/468; Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 165.

40. See for example, ‘Assessment of the Value of SIFE and DSO Points in the Far East, KV 4/422; Percy Sillitoe to Thomas Lloyd, 17 December 1948, CO 537/2647. The author’s thanks go to Roger Arditti for this point and references; ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 13 April 1948, KV4/470.

41. ‘JIC Minutes’, 11 June 1948, JIC(48)58th Meeting CAB159/3; Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 497; Such was the ill-feeling towards Dalley that Sillitoe did not even want him on SIFE. ‘Personal for Kellar from Director-General’, 1 September 1948, KV4/422.

42. Note from Kellar, A. to Sillitoe, P., 5 November 1948, KV4/423.

43. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 448.

44. Telegram from Kellar, A. to Sillitoe, P., 16 August 1948, KV4/422; ‘JIC Minutes’, 22 September 1948, JIC(48)103rd Meeting CAB159/4; ‘Organisation of Intelligence, Far East’, 19 February 1949, JIC(49)18 CAB158/6; ‘Chairman JIC(FE)’, 27 May 1949, JIC/949/49 CAB176/22; ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 1 April 1949, KV4/471.

45. ‘Functions of the JIC(FE)’, 21 May 1948, JIC/948/48 CAB176/18.

46. The JIC(FE) were given a new charter and told to ‘advise the BDCC(FE) on all matters of intelligence and security intelligence policy and organisation, except that intelligence matters of purely military concern are to remain with the C-in-C committee’. ‘Charter for the JIC(FE)’, 15 September 1948, JIC/1809/48 CAB176/19; ‘Review of Intelligence Organisation in the Far East’, 15 June 1948, JIC(48)10 CAB158/3.

47. Davies, Philip, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, California: Praeger, 2013, p. 14.

48. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 1 April 1949, KV4/471.

49. ‘Composition and Function of the JIC Far East: Annex B’, 26 January 1948, JIC(48)10 CAB158/3.

50. Templer, Gerald, ‘Report on Colonial Security’, April 1955 CAB21/298 p. 12.

51. Füredi, Frank, Colonial Wars and the Politics of Third World Nationalism, London: I.B. Taurus, 1994, pp. 91–2.

52. Minute by a Colonial Office official, 11 May 1948, CO537/3751.

53. ‘Malayan Security Service, Political Intelligence Journal, Distribution List’, 19 April 1948, CO537/3751; ‘Review of Intelligence in the Far East: Annex A, Draft Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee (Far East)’, JIC(48)10, 15 June 1948, CAB158/3.

54. ‘Communist Influence in Malaya’, 29 April 1948, JIC810/48, CAB176/18.

55. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 170.

56. ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 August 1948, JIC(48)87th Meeting CAB159/4; ‘Effects of Communist Successes in China’, 6 January 1949, JIC(48)133 CAB158/5; ‘JIC Minutes’, 11 March 1949, JIC(49)27th Meeting CAB159/5.

57. Bennett, ‘A very salutatory effect’, pp. 423–4.

58. ‘Situation in Malaya’, 16 March 1949, JIC/520/49 CAB176/22.

59. Thomas, Empires of Intelligence, p. 297.

60. JIC Minutes, 11 March 1949, JIC(49)27th Meeting CAB159/5.

61. JIC Minutes, 3rd February 1950, JIC(50)13th Meeting CAB159/5.

62. Mackay, Donald, The Malayan Emergency, 1948–60: The Domino that Stood, London: Brassey’s, 1997, p. 86 The reappraisal in London of the Malayan situation led to the appointment of Harold Briggs as Director of Anti-Bandit Operations in April 1950, in an attempt to coordinate the civil and military response. The specific components of the Briggs Plan are beyond the remit of this study but broadly involved attempting to increase intelligence, and attempting to isolate guerrillas from food supplies and information via resettlement. Despite lacking the requisite authority to fully implement this, he did leave a valuable legacy. For details see, Barber, Noel, The War of the Running Dogs: How Malaya Defeated the Communist Guerrillas, 1948–1960, London: Collins, 1971, p. 97.

63. Mackay, The Malayan Emergency, p. 95. The Cabinet Malaya Committee was established in March 1950 and was chaired by Minister of Defence Manny Shinwell. It was tasked with coordinating the various Whitehall departmental interests regarding Malaya. Records of the Malaya Committee can be found in CAB21/1681, 1682, 2510. See also, Hennessy, Peter, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945, London: Allen Lane, 2000, p. 109.

64. Hyam, Ronald, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918–1968, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 409.

65. Butler, L., Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World, London: IB Taurus, 2002, p. xiv. That is not to suggest that external factors were the sole, or most important, factor in decolonisation and academic debate over this point exists. See for example, Darwin, John, The End of British Empire: The Historical Debate, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. What is important, however, is that the JIC tapped into the impact of broader pressures on imperial security.

66. Note from Sillitoe, P. to Hayter, W., 29 December 1948, KV4/423. Sillitoe was frustrated that a recent report issued by the Foreign Office supposedly in conjunction with MI5 and SIS had ignored various MI5 input on overseas British territories.

67. Perhaps this explains scholarly neglect of the JIC’s role regarding Malaya. For example, when trying to write on Malayan intelligence, Brian Stewart, himself a former JIC Secretary, noted that he could not find any files on the JIC’s discussions specifically about the Emergency. Consequently, the JIC is not mentioned in his article. Stewart, ‘Winning in Malaya’ p. 267.

68. Deery, ‘The terminology of terrorism’, p. 33 and Stockwell, Anthony, ‘Chin Peng and the struggle for Malaya’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6/1, (2006), pp. 279–97.

69. Hack, Karl, ‘The origins of the Asian Cold War: Malaya 1948’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40/3, (2009), pp. 483–4.

70. ‘Letter from Montgomery to Lyttelton’, 27 December 1951, PREM11/121. This perspective has since been somewhat discounted. John Young and John Kent, for example, have argued that ‘Stalin had little or no interest in areas of the world not adjacent to the Soviet Union and had not attempted to compete with the West in such regions by providing economic or military aid’. Instead it was not until the rule of Malenkov and Khrushchev that such an idea became attractive. See, Young, John and Kent, John, International Relations since 1945: A Global History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 161.

71. ‘The Communist Position in South East Asia: Brief for the Foreign secretary’, 21 July 1949, CO537/4246; ‘Summary of Indications Regarding Soviet Foreign Policy No. 52: Minute by R. Hibbert’, 13 April 1950, FO371/84480.

72. ‘The situation in Malaya’: Cabinet memorandum by Mr Creech Jones, 1 July 1948, CP(48)171, CAB129/28 in Stockwell, Malaya, p. 37

73. ‘Communism in Malaya: [Draft] Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, Undated but likely August 1948, CO537/4247; ‘Memorandum of the Situation in Malaya’, 20 October 1948, CO717/178/3; ‘Colonial Police Forces: Circular Despatch by A. Creech Jones’, 5 August 1948, CO537/4306.

74. ‘Fourth Fortnightly Review of Communism in the Colonies, Fortnight Ended 17 July 1948’, CO537/2638.

75. Füredi, Colonial Wars, p. 89, 101.

76. ‘Minute by R. Hibbert’, 5 April 1950, FO371/84480.

77. ‘Revision of Communism in the Colonies, Fortnight Ended 8 October 1948, 9th report’, CO537/2638.

78. ‘Communist Influence in Malaya’, 29 April 1948, JIC810/48, CAB176/18.

79. Quoted in Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 177.

80. Carruthers, Susan, Winning Hearts and Minds: British governments, the media, and colonial counter-insurgency, 1944–1960, London: Leicester University Press, 1995, p. 80; ‘Minute by R. Hibbert’, 20 October 1949, FO371/76021.

81. Note from Sillitoe, P. to Head of SIFE, 11 October 1948, KV3/136.

82. ‘R.5. Memorandum on Requirements for Communists’, 27 October 1948, KV3/136; ‘International Communist Movement’, 2 February 1949, KV3/136.

83. ‘Soviet Interests, Intentions and Capabilities’, 23 July 1948, JIC(48)9 CAB158/3.

84. This assumption regarding the supposed monolithic nature of world communism was generally maintained during the early years of the Malayan violence, although caveats and provisos were inserted from 1949 perhaps as a response to the Soviet-Yugoslav schism of June 1948. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, pp. 83–6.

85. ‘Soviet Interests, Intentions and Capabilities’, 23 July 1948, JIC(48)9 CAB158/3.

86. Efimova, Larisa, ‘Did the Soviet Union instruct Southeast Asian Communists to revolt? New Russian evidence on the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40/3, (2009), pp. 449–69; Walton, Empire of Secrets, pp. 177–8.

87. Butler, Britain and Empire pp. 86–7.

88. ‘The present day situation and duties of the Malaya Communist Party’: Note by Mr Strachey for the Cabinet Malaya Committee commenting on a captured MCP document, 12 May 1950, MALC(50)12, PREM8/1406/2, in Stockwell, Malaya, p. 216.

89. ‘Communist Influence in the Far East’, 17 December 1948, JIC(48)113 CAB158/5.

90. ‘Communist Influence in the Far East’, 17 December 1948, JIC(48)113 CAB158/5.

91. JIC memorandum, April 1949, quoted in Cradock, Know your enemy, p. 84. See also pp. 83–6.

92. ‘Summary of Indications Regarding Soviet Foreign Policy No. 52: Minute by R. Hibbert’, 13 April 1950, FO371/84480.

93. ‘Minute by R. Hibbert’, 20 October 1949, FO371/76021; The Foreign Office emphasised the threat of the MCP and its backing by China. By contrast, the Colonial Office placed a greater emphasis on CCP ‘fellow travellers’ in Malaya as a potential vehicle for communist expansion directed by China, as opposed to the MCP which was ‘discredited’, See letter from J. Paskin (CO) to M. Denning (FO), 17 October 1949, FO371/76021.

94. ‘Marxism (III)—Organisation of the Malayan Communist Party’, 31 October 1950, KV3/284.

95. ‘Communist Influence in the Far East’, 29 April 1949, JIC(49)33 CAB158/6.

96. Letter from M. Denning (FO) to J. Paskin (CO), 28 October 1949, FO371/76021.

97. ‘Communist Influence in the Far East’, 29 April 1949, JIC(49)33 CAB158/6.

98. Letter from J. Paskin (CO) to M. Denning (FO), 17 October 1949, FO371/76021.

99. ‘The Chinese Communist Threat in the Far East and South-East Asia on the 15th February 1950’, 15 February 1950, JIC(50)1/4 CAB158/9; ‘Communist Influence in South and South-East Asia and the Far East’, 8 March 1950, JIC(50)5 CAB158/9; ‘JIC Minutes’, 15 March 1951, JIC(51)28th Meeting CAB159/9; ‘JIC Minutes’, 17 May 1951, JIC(51)51st Meeting CAB159/9.

100. ‘Effects of Communist Successes in China’, 6 January 1949, JIC(48)133 CAB158/5; ‘The Chinese Communist Threat in the Far East and South-East Asia on 7th December 1950’, 8 December 1950, JIC(50)1/18 CAB158/9.

101. Ovendale, Ritchie., ‘Britain and the Cold War in Asia’, p. 125.

102. ‘Communist Influence in South and South-East Asia and the Far East’, 8 March 1950, JIC(50)5 CAB158/9; ‘The Chinese Communist Threat in the Far East and South-East Asia on 4th January 1951’, 5 January 1951, JIC(50)1/19 CAB158/9.

103. ‘Security of Malaya’, 21 August 1951, JIC(51)57 CAB158/12.

104. ‘Scale of Attack on the Colonies’, 22 March 1949, JIC(49)5 CAB158/6.

105. Hatlebrekke Kjetil and Smith, M., ‘Towards a new theory of intelligence failure? The impact of cognitive closure and discourse failure’, Intelligence and National Security, 25/2, (2010), p. 149, 156; See also Bar-Joseph, Uri, ‘Intelligence failure and the need for cognitive closure: the case of Yom Kippur’, in Betts, Richard and Mahnken, Thomas (eds.), Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honour of Michael I. Handel, London: Frank Cass, 2003.

106. Heuer, Richard, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Washington DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999, p. 36.

107. Füredi, Colonial Wars, p. 101.

108. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 4 July 1950, KV4/472.

109. Darwin, The End of British Empire, p. 91.

110. ‘Communist Intentions and Capabilities in South Asia, South-East Asia, and the Far East’, JIC(51)84, 9 May 1952, CAB158/13.

111. See for example, ‘The Political Situation in Malaya in Certain Eventualities’, JIC(54)49, 5 July 1954, CAB158/18.

112. ‘JIC Minutes’, 26 August 1949, JIC(49)84th Meeting CAB159/6. Incidentally, this meeting was chaired by Packard.

113. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 February 1950, JIC(50)13th Meeting CAB159/7.

114. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 February 1950, JIC(50)13th Meeting CAB159/7.

115. ‘Military situation in Malaya’ 19 April 1950, Chiefs of Staff(50)132 DEFE5/20; ‘Strategic Implications of a Total break in Relations with China’, 10 May 1950, JP(50)60 DEFE6/13; ‘Exclusion of Chinese Consuls from Malaya: letter from the Foreign Office to the Chiefs of Staff dated 28th April 1950’, 1 May 1950, Chiefs of Staff(50)149 DEFE5/20.

116. ‘JIC Minutes’, 18 August 1948, JIC(48)88th Meeting CAB159/4; ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 October 1948, JIC(48)112th Meeting CAB159/4; ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 October 1948, JIC(48)112th Meeting CAB159/4; Griffiths, Pages from Memory, pp. 97–8.

117. Herman, Intelligence Power, p. 152.

118. For examples see, ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 14 April 1950, Chiefs of Staff(50)59th Meeting Annex: ‘Strategy and Current Defence Policy in South-East Asia and the Far East’ JP(50)47 DEFE4/30; ‘Effects of Communist Successes in China’, 6 January 1949, JIC(48)133 CAB158/9; Defence of South East Asia in the Event of Chinese Aggression’, 1 May 1951, JIC(51)24 CAB158/12; ‘Strategy and Current Defence Policy in South-East Asia and the Far East’, 6 April 1950, JP(50)47 DEFE6/12; Effect of Overt Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea and Elsewhere’, 30 September 1950, JP(50)107 DEFE6/14.

119. ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 9 May 1949, Chiefs of Staff(49)67th Meeting DEFE4/21 (emphasis added).

120. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 449; Aldrich The Hidden Hand, p. 501. However, progress was slow and bureaucratic rivalries and personal politics left intelligence in a mess until Templer arrived.

121. ‘Note of a Meeting Held on the 18th October 1948’, 18 October 1948, CO537/2676.

122. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 449.

123. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell’, 23 September 1949, KV4/471.

124. ‘Note of a Meeting Held on the 18th October 1948’, 18 October 1948, CO537/2676; W. Dawson (CO) to R. Wood (MoD), 10 August 1948, CO537/2768; ‘Colonial Police Forces: Circular Despatch by A. Creech Jones’, 5 August 1948, CO537/4306.

125. ‘Note of a Meeting Held on the 18th October 1948’, 18 October 1948, CO537/2676; ‘Note of a Meeting Held in Sir Thomas Lloyd’s Room’, 2 November 1948, CO537/2675.

126. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)21 CAB158/3.

127. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, London: Frank Cass, 2002, pp. 119–25.

128. ‘Note of a Meeting Held on the 18th October 1948’, 18 October 1948, CO537/2676.

129. ‘Chairman JIC(FE)’, 27 May 1949, JIC/949/49 CAB176/22.

130. ‘Lessons on the Organisation of Intelligence in the Far East’, 5 August 1948, JIC/1461/48 CAB176/19.

131. ‘Lessons on the Organisation of Intelligence in the Far East’, 5 August 1948, JIC/1461/48 CAB176/19; ‘JIC Minutes’, 22 September 1948, JIC(48)103rd Meeting CAB159/4; ‘BDCC(FE) Minutes’, 16 July 1948, BDCC(FE) 8th Meeting, CO537/4246.

132. N. Watson (CO) to R. Wood (MoD): Attachment, ‘Communist Infiltration and the Security Situation in the Colonies’, 20 July 1948 CO537/2768.

133. ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 August 1948, JIC(48)87th Meeting CAB159/4; ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 September 1948, JIC(48)96th Meeting CAB159/4.

134. ‘Intelligence Organisation in the Far East—Comments on a Despatch by the High Commissioner for the Federation of Malaya, Annex: Comments by the JIC on Sir Henry Gurney’s Despatch No. 5 Dated 30th May 1949’, 20 October 1949, JIC(49)82 CAB158/8.

135. ‘Intelligence Organisation in the Far East—Comments on a Despatch by the High Commissioner for the Federation of Malaya, Annex: Comments by the JIC on Sir Henry Gurney’s Despatch No. 5 Dated 30th May 1949’, 20 October 1949, JIC(49)82 CAB158/8.

136. ‘Despatch no. 5 from Sir H. Gurney to Mr Creech Jones’, 30 May 1949, CO537/4773.

137. Nagl, John, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002, p. 71.

138. French, David, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–1967, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 21.

3. TURF WARS AND TENSION: CYPRUS, 1955–1959

1. Walton, Calder, Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire, London: Harper, 2013, p. 306.

2. Holland, Robert, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–1959, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, p. 61.

3. Dimitrakis, Panagiotis, Military Intelligence in Cyprus: From the Great War to the Middle East Crises, London: IB Taurus, 2010, pp. 77,79; Hunt, David, ‘Harding, John, First Baron Harding of Petherton (1896–1989)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, May 2008. www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40129/40129?docPos=6.

4. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 308.

5. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 313.

6. French, David, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–1967, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 48; Anderson, David, ‘Policing and communal conflict: the Cyprus emergency, 1954–60’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21/3, 1993, pp. 184–5.

7. Anderson, ‘Policing and communal conflict’, pp. 182, 190.

8. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 68; Anderson, ‘Policing and communal conflict’, p. 192.

9. Anderson, ‘Policing and communal conflict’, p. 178; Aldrich, Richard, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, London: John Murray, 2001, p. 567; Ashton, Nigel, ‘Macmillan and the Middle East’ in Aldous, R. and Lee, S. (eds.), Harold Macmillan and Britain’s World Role, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, p. 39.

10. ‘The Importance of Cyprus from the Point of View of Signal Intelligence’, 25 June 1957, CY(0)(57)4, CAB134/1589; Aldrich, Richard, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency, London: Harper Press, 2010, p. 155.

11. ‘Confidential Annex to DCC(57) 6th Meeting of 15 March, 1957, DEFE 28/11.

12. Templer, G., ‘Report on Colonial Security’, 23 April 1955, CAB21/2925. This report, based on a JIC appreciation, was influential and wide reaching. It was highly critical of intelligence organisation in Whitehall and argued for greater liaison between the JIC and the Colonial Office. For an introduction see Cormac, Rory, ‘Organizing intelligence: an introduction to the 1955 report on colonial security’, Intelligence and National Security, 25/6, (2010), pp. 800–22; Cormac, Rory, ‘“A Whitehall showdown?”: Colonial Office-Joint Intelligence Committee relations in the Mid-1950s’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39/2, (2011), pp. 249–67.Cradock, Percy, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World, London: John Murray, 2002, p. 262.

13. Davies, P., Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, California: Praeger, 2013 p. 153.

14. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, p. 173; Campbell, Alan, ‘Dean, Sir Patrick Henry (1909–1994)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/54843, last accessed 17 March 2011.

15. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 14 June 1956, JIC(56)71, CAB158/25; JIC Minutes, 11 August 1955, JIC (55) 63rd Meeting, CAB159/20; Davies, Philip, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, California: Praeger, 2013, p. 148.

16. JIC Minutes, 11 August 1955, JIC (55) 63rd Meeting, CAB159/20; Davies, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, p. 149.

17. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 16 November 1955, JIC(55)74, CAB158/22.

18. ‘Colonial Intelligence and Security’, 23 March 1955, JIC(55)28, CAB158/20.

19. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 26 August 1955, JIC(55)57, CAB158/21 (emphasis added); ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 27 February 1948, JIC(48)21, CAB158/3 (emphasis added).

20. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 26 August 1955, JIC(55)57, CAB158/21; ‘History of the Joint Intelligence Organisation’, 29 November 1957, JIC(57)123, CAB158/30.

21. ‘History of the Joint Intelligence Organisation’, 29 November 1957, JIC(57)123, CAB158/30; ‘Notes on JIC Operational Procedure’, 18 November 1957, JIC(57)76, CAB158/29.

22. ‘Note from Carstairs to Lloyd’, 26 April 1956, CO1035/1; Cormac, ‘A Whitehall showdown?’, pp. 249–67; Davies, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, p. 169.

23. ‘Note from Watson to Carstairs’, 11 May 1956, CO1035/1.

24. ‘JIC Minutes’, 31 October 1957, JIC(57)85th Meeting, CAB 159/28.

25. Dimitrakis, Panagiotis, ‘British Intelligence and the Cyprus Insurgency, 1955–1959’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21/2, (2008), p. 376; Popplewell, Richard, ‘“Lacking intelligence”: Some reflections on recent approaches to British counterinsurgency, 1900–1960’, Intelligence and National Security, 10/2, (1995), p. 350; Anderson, David, ‘Policing and communal conflict: the Cyprus Emergency, 1954–60’, in Anderson and Killingray (eds.), Policing and Decolonisation: Nationalism, Politics and the Police, 1917–65, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992; Hoffman, Bruce, and Taw, Jennifer, The Development of Britain’s “Small Wars”Doctrine during the 1950s, California: Rand, 1991, p.v; ‘Organisation of Intelligence in Cyprus’, 21 August 1954, CO1035/98.

26. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 579.

27. Quoted in Anderson, ‘Policing and communal conflict’, p. 183.

28. ‘Charter for the Joint Intelligence Committee’, 26 August 1955, JIC(55)57, CAB158/21.

29. ‘Colonial Intelligence and Security’, 23 March 1955, JIC(55)28, CAB158/20; ‘JIC Minutes’, 1 December 1955, JIC(55)93rd Meeting, CAB 159/21; ‘JIC Minutes’, 10 May 1956, JIC(56)44th Meeting, CAB159/23.

30. ‘Notes on JIC Operational Procedure’, 18 November 1957, JIC(57)76, CAB158/29.

31. Walton, Calder, ‘British Intelligence and Threats to National Security, c.1941–1951’, PhD thesis: University of Cambridge, 2006, pp. 280, 277; Andrew, Christopher, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, London: Allen Lane, 2009, p. 458.

32. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, pp. 447, 456

33. Dimitrakis, ‘British Intelligence’, p. 379; Andrew, Defence of the Realm, pp. 462–6; Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 307.

34. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 309.

35. ‘Report on the Visit of DMI and Mr Dean to Cyprus’, October 1955, WO216/889; Dimitrakis, Military Intelligence in Cyprus, pp. 74, 76.

36. Macmillan, Harold, Tides of Fortune, 1945–1955, London: Macmillan, 1969, p. 664.

37. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 308.

38. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Services in the Information Age: Theory and Practice, London: Frank Cass, 2001, p. 112.

39. ‘Intelligence Organisation in the Colonial Territories’, 8 November 1957, JIC(57)115, CAB158/30.

40. Jeffries, Charles, The Colonial Office, London: George Allen and Unwin ltd., 1956, p. 179.

41. ‘Report on the Visit of DMI and Mr Dean to Cyprus’, October 1955, WO216/889.

42. Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 463.

43. ‘JIC Minutes’, 12 January 1956, JIC(56)5th Meeting, CAB159/22.

44. ‘JIC Minutes’, 15 February 1956, JIC(56)17th Meeting, CAB159/22; ‘JIC Minutes’, 26 April 1956, JIC(56)29th Meeting, CAB159/23; ‘Greek Speaking Interrogators for Cyprus’, 20July 1956, Chiefs of Staff (56) 279, DEFE 5/70; ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 December 1956, JIC(56)117th Meeting, CAB159/25; ‘JIC Minutes’, 19 December 1956, JIC(56)123rd Meeting, CAB159/25.

45. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p. 570.

46. Holland, Robert, ‘Never, never land: British Colonial policy and the roots of violence in Cyprus, 1950–54’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21/3, (1993), p. 148.

47. Dimitrakis, Military Intelligence in Cyprus, p. 74.

48. ‘History of the Joint Intelligence Organisation’, 29 November 1957, JIC(57)123, CAB158/30.

49. ‘Cyprus’, 7 July 1955, Chiefs of Staff(55)153, DEFE5/59.

50. ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 May 1954, JIC(54)43rd Meeting, CAB159/15.

51. ‘JIC Minutes, Appendix: Review of Current Intelligence as at 26th August 1954, Annex IV: Colonial Territories’, 26 August 1954, JIC(54)76th Meeting, CAB159/16; ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 December 1954, JIC(54)110th Meeting, CAB159/17.

52. ‘JIC Minutes’, 27 January 1955, JIC(55)10th Meeting, CAB159/20.

53. ‘Colonial Intelligence and Security’, 23 March 1955, JIC(55)28, CAB158/20.

54. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 April 1955, JIC(55)30th Meeting, CAB159/18; ‘JIC Minutes, Annex IV: Incidents in Cyprus, a Note by the Colonial Office’, 6 April 1955, JIC(55)30th Meeting, CAB159/18.

55. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 308.

56. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 307.

57. Allison, Graham and Zelikow, Philip, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed., New York: Longman, 1999, p. 280.

58. Dimitrakis, Military Intelligence in Cyprus, pp. 67, 69.

59. ‘JIC Minutes: Annex IV Colonial Territories’, 24 June 1954, JIC(54)55th Meeting, CAB159/16.

60. Allison and Zelikow, Essence of Decision, p. 282.

61. ‘JIC Minutes’, 24 February 1955, JIC(55)18th Meeting, CAB159/20; ‘Colonial Intelligence and Security, Part II: Communist Aims as Regards the Colonies, Appendix B: Cyprus’, 23 March 1955, JIC(55)28, CAB158/20.

62. ‘Colonial Intelligence and Security, Part II: Communist Aims as Regards the Colonies’, 23 March 1955, JIC(55)28, CAB158/20.

63. Pillar, Paul, ‘The Perils of Politicisation’, in Johnson, L. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 483.

64. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 308.

65. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 55.

66. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 April 1955, JIC(55)30th Meeting, CAB159/18; ‘JIC Minutes: Annex IV, Incidents in Cyprus’, 6 April 1955, JIC(55)30th Meeting, CAB159/18.

67. ‘JIC Minutes’, 29 September 1955, JIC(55)79th Meeting, CAB159/21; ‘Interim Intelligence Report dated 6 September 1955’, 9 September 1955, FO371/117657.

68. Telegram from the Governor to the Colonial Secretary no. 1227, 11 December 1955, FO371/117677.

69. ‘Minutes of Meeting to Discuss IRD Material and the Colonies’, 30 November 1955, FO1110/845; Reddaway, G., ‘Communism and the colonies’, 22 May 1956, FO 1110/957.

70. ‘Review of Current Intelligence’, 4 October 1956, CAB179/1; ‘Review of Current Intelligence’, 6 December 1956, CAB179/1.

71. ‘JIC Minutes, Annex I: Review of Current Intelligence’, 12 April 1956, CAB159/23; ‘Review of Current Intelligence’, 13 September 1956, CAB179/1; ‘Review of Current Intelligence’, 27 September 1956, CAB179/1.

72. ‘Survey of World Communism in 1955’, 20 April 1956, JIC(56)10, CAB158/23.

73. ‘The Situation in Cyprus’, 28 April 1958, JIC(58)39, CAB158/32.

74. ‘JIC Minutes’, 13 October 1955, JIC(55)82nd Meeting, CAB159/21.

75. ‘JIC Minutes’, 23 February 1956, JIC(56)19th Meeting, CAB169/22; ‘JIC Minutes’, 10 May 1956, JIC(56)44th Meeting, CAB159/23; ‘Form of the Weekly Review of Current Intelligence and Weekly Survey of Intelligence: Note by the Secretary’, September 1957, JIC/1947/57, CAB 158/62; ‘Form of the Weekly Survey of Intelligence Annex B: Weekly Survey of Intelligence Distribution’, 23 May 1956, JIC/1353/56, CAB 176/57; ‘Form of the Weekly Survey of Intelligence Annex A: Weekly Review of Current Intelligence Distribution’, 23 May 1956, JIC/1353/56, CAB176/57.

76. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 October 1957, JIC(57)85th Meeting, CAB159/28.

77. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 27 September 1956, CAB179/1; and ‘Telegram from the Governor to Secretary of State for the Colonies’, 22 September 1956, FO371/12390.

78. For more information see Cormac, ‘A Whitehall showdown?’

79. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 February 1958, JIC(58)11th Meeting, CAB159/29.

80. Dimitrakis, Military Intelligence Cyprus, p. 89.

81. ‘The Situation in Cyprus’, 28 April 1958, JIC(58)39, CAB158/32.

82. Murphy, Philip, Alan Lennox-Boyd: A Biography, London: IB Taurus, 1999, p. 170.

83. ‘JIC Minutes’, 8 January 1959, JIC(59)4th Meeting, CAB159/31.

84. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, pp. 305–7. The Lancaster House Agreement established an independent Cyprus republic with a Greek president, a Turkish vice president and a House of Representatives with 70 per cent Greek and 30 per cent Turkish membership, the proportions reflecting the relative size of the two communities.

85. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 24 February 1959, CAB179/6.

86. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 30 June 1959, CAB179/6.

87. Horne, Alistair, Macmillan 1957–1986, Volume II of the Official Biography, London: Macmillan, 1989, p. 99; Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 58; Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, p. 672; see also Macmillan, Riding the Storm, 1956–1959, London: Macmillan, 1971, p. 662; and Markides, Diana, ‘Britain’s “New Look” policy for Cyprus and the Makarios-Harding talks, January 1955–March 1956’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23/3, 1995, p. 485, which discusses how Macmillan brought Turkey in as an officially interested party.

88. Murphy, Alan Lennox-Boyd, p. 115; See also Thurston, Anne, ‘Records of the Cabinet, Foreign Office, Treasury and other records’, Sources for Colonial Studies in the Public Records Office Series C Vol. 2, London: The Stationery Office, 1998, pp. 279–80.

89. ‘History of the Joint Intelligence Organisation’, 29 November 1957, JIC(57)123, CAB158/30.

90. ‘Review of the Cyprus Problem’, 12 July 1955, Chiefs of Staff(55)159, DEFE5/59.

91. ‘Ministerial Committee on Cyprus Minutes’, 21 July 1955, GEN.497/2nd Meeting, CAB130/109. The Ministerial Committee on Cyprus was chaired by the Minister of Defence Selwyn Lloyd and was composed of the Colonial Secretary, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Harold Macmillan, Foreign Secretary, also chaired one meeting and was joined by the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs and the Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Defence (as well as JIC chair Patrick Dean when discussing a topic which has since been redacted). The committee appears to be an ad hoc ministerial committee established in spring 1955 to allow interdepartmental coordination. It was reconstituted at the request of Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook in spring 1959. The later version, however, was chaired by the prime minister. ‘Cyprus’, Note from Brook, N. to the prime minister, 14 April 1959, CAB21/4268. An Official Committee on Cyprus was also created in 1957, chaired by Norman Brook. ‘Composition and Terms of Reference’, C.Y.(O)(57)1, 4 April 1957, CAB21/4267.

92. ‘Assessment of the Air Threat to Cyprus in Conditions of Limited and Global War’, 17 January 1957, JIC(56)134, CAB158/26; ‘Cyprus: Possibility of Atomic Attack’, JIC(54)12, 16 February 1954, CAB158/17; ‘Threat to Allied Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean from Aircraft Provided by the Soviet Union’, 27 November 1956, JIC(56)118, CAB158/26.

93. ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 12 November 1956, Chiefs of Staff(56)116th Meeting 1956, DEFE4/92.

94. Note from Watson to Carstairs, 11 May 1956, CO1035/1; ‘Committee on Security in the Colonies Brief’, April 1956, CO1035/1; See Cormac, ‘A Whitehall showdown?’.

95. Committee on Security in the Colonies Brief’, April 1956, CO1035/1; ‘JIC minutes’, 28 March 1956, JIC(56)32nd Meeting, CAB 159/23; ‘JIC minutes’, 21 November 1957, JIC(57)99th Meeting, CAB159/28.

96. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 7 October 1958, CAB179/5.

97. Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis, ‘The Cyprus Question and the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1954–58’ in Aldrich, R. and Hopkins, M. (eds.), Intelligence, Defence and Diplomacy: British Policy in the Post-War World, Essex: Frank Cass, 1994, p. 149; ‘Cyprus: Need for Action’, 27 June 1955, GEN 497/2, PREM11/832; ‘JIC Minutes: Annex II, Review of Current Intelligence’, 22 September 1955, JIC(55)75th Meeting, CAB159/20; ‘The Economic and Political Situation in Turkey’, 23 March 1956, JIC(55)78, CAB158/22.

98. ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 August 1956, JIC(56)65th Meeting, CAB159/24.

99. ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 6 March 1956, Chiefs of Staff(56)29th Meeting, DEFE4/84; for a discussion of the negotiations between Harding and Makarios see Markides, ‘Britain’s “New Look” Policy for Cyprus’, pp. 479–501.

100. ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 August 1956, JIC(56)65th Meeting, CAB159/24.

101. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 46.

102. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 21 October 1958, CAB179/5; ‘JIC Minutes: Annex III, Cyprus’, 22 September 1955, JIC(55)75th Meeting, CAB159/20.

103. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 22 November 1956, CAB179/1; see also Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 18 October 1956, CAB179/1; ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 14 February 1957, CAB179/2; ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 7 March 1957, CAB179/2.

104. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 2 December 1958, CAB179/5.

105. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 November 1955, JIC(55)88th Meeting, CAB159/21; ‘JIC Minutes’, 24 November 1955, JIC(55)92nd Meeting, CAB159/21.

106. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 November 1955, JIC(55)88th Meeting, CAB159/21.

107. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 November 1955, JIC(55)88th Meeting, CAB159/21.

108. ‘JIC Minutes’, 24 November 1955, JIC(55)92nd Meeting, CAB159/21.

109. Cradock, Know Your Enemy; Gill Bennett, ‘Suez and the threat to UK interests overseas’, in Dover, R. and Goodman, M. (eds.), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011; Craig, Anthony. ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee and British Intelligence Assessment 1945–1956’, PhD thesis: University of Cambridge, 1999; Scott Lucas, W., ‘The missing link? Patrick Dean, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee’, in Gorst, A. and Kelly, S. (eds.), Whitehall and the Suez Crisis, Oxon: Frank Cass, 2000. It is also covered within the Suez literature. See Kyle, Keith, Suez: Britain’s End of Empire in the Middle East, London: IB Taurus, 2011, pp. 552–3, 563.

110. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 158; ‘Telegram from Harding to Lennox-Boyd’, 6 October 1956, PREM11/1756.

111. ‘JIC Minutes: Annex, Review of Current Intelligence’, 28 March 1956, JIC(56)32nd Meeting, CAB159/23.

112. ‘The Activities of Cairo Radio and their Impact on Territories Towards which they are Directed’, 10 August 1956, JIC(56)78, CAB158/25.

113. ‘The Situation which might arise in the Middle East at the Conclusion of the Suez Canal Conference’, 25 August 1956, JIC(56)93, CAB158/25.

114. ‘The Situation which might arise in the Middle East at the Conclusion of the Suez Canal Conference’, 25 August 1956, JIC(56)93, CAB158/25.

115. ‘JIC Minutes, Annex: The Situation which might arise in the Middle East at the Conclusion of the Suez Canal Conference’, 16 August 1956, JIC(56)72nd Meeting, CAB159/24.

116. ‘The Diary of Guy Liddell, 21 September 1949, KV4/471.

117. ‘Note from Barton to Watson’, 1 August 1956, CO1035/24.

118. For example see, ‘Censorship’, 5 October 1956, JIC(56)103, CAB158/26.

119. ‘Note from Barton to Watson’, 3 August 1956, CO1035/24; ‘Note from Barton to Watson’, 7 August 1956, CO1035/24.

120. ‘The Present Potential of EOKA as an Armed Force’, 22 September 1956, CIC(56)25, FO371/123930; ‘The Situation which might arise in the Middle East at the Conclusion of the Suez Conference’, 17 September, 1956, JIC/2311/56, CO1035/24.

121. ‘Note from Barton to West [JIC Secretary]’, 17 August 1956, CO1035/24.

122. Cradock, Know your enemy, p. 133.

123. Bennett, ‘Suez and the threat to UK interests overseas’, p. 212.

124. ‘The Threat to United Kingdom Interests Overseas’, JIC(56)104 18 October 1956, CAB 158/26.

125. ‘Probable Actions by Nasser in Certain Circumstances’, JIC(56)97, 11 October 1956, CAB 158/25.

126. Walton, Empire of Secrets, p. 311.

127. ‘Weekly Review of Current Intelligence’, 15 November 1956, CAB179/1.

128. ‘JIC Minutes’, 26 February 1957, JIC(57)21st Meeting, CAB159/26.

4. INTO THE WHITEHALL MINEFIELD: ADEN AND THE FEDERATION OF SOUTH ARABIA, 1962–1967

1. Turner, John, Macmillan, Essex: Longman, 1994, p. 177.

2. ‘DOP Minutes’, 28 February 1964, DO(64)11th Meeting, CAB148/1.

3. Walker, Jonathan, ‘“Red wolves and British lions”: the conflict in Aden’, in Marston D. and Malkasian, C. (eds.), Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, Oxford: Osprey, 2008, p. 149; Fain, W. Taylor, ‘“Unfortunate Arabia”: The United States, Great Britain and Yemen, 1955–63’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 12/2, 2001, pp. 126, 131, 135.

4. Ducker, John, ‘Historical and constitutional background’ in Hinchcliffe, P., Ducker, J. and Holt, M. (eds.), Without Glory in Arabia: The British Retreat from Aden, London: IB Taurus, 2006, p. 54.

5. Barnett, Michael and Levy, Jack, ‘Domestic sources of alliance and alignments: the case of Egypt, 1962–73’, International Organization, 45/3, 1991, p. 379; Witty, David, ‘A regular army in counterinsurgency operations: Egypt in North Yemen, 1962–1967’, Journal of Military History, 65/2, 2001, p. 405; Balfour-Paul, Glenn, End of Empire in the Middle East: Britain’s Relinquishment of Power in her Last Three Arab Dependencies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 5; Ducker, John, ‘The international context of South Arabia and British Policy’, in Hinchcliffe, P., Ducker, J. and Holt, M. (eds.), Without Glory in Arabia: The British Retreat from Aden, London: IB Taurus, 2006, p. 60; Walker, ‘Red wolves and British lions’, p. 158.

6. Healey, Denis, The Time of My Life, London: Penguin, 1989, p. 284; Dockrill, Saki, ‘Review of British policy in Aden and the Protectorates, 1955–67: Last Outpost of a Middle East Empire by Spencer Mawby’, English Historical Review CXXIII/502, 2008, p. 809; Smith, Simon, ‘Revolution and reaction: South Arabia and the aftermath of the Yemeni revolution’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28/3 2000, p. 203.

7. Johnson, Gaynor, ‘Introduction: The Foreign Office and British Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century’, in Johnson, G. (ed.), The Foreign Office and British Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Oxford: Routledge, 2005, p. 5.

8. Note from Joy (JIC Secretariat) to Burrows (JIC Chairman), 20 October 1964, CAB163/50.

9. Uttley, Matthew, ‘The management of UK defence’, in Croft S., et al (eds.), Britain and Defence 1945–2000: A Policy Re-evaluation, Essex: Pearson, 2001, p. 90; For more information see, Carver, Michael, Tightrope Walking: British Defence Policy Since 1945, London: Hutchinson, 1992, pp. 68–70; McIntosh, Malcolm, Managing Britain’s Defence, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990, pp. 20–2.

10. Kenneth, Keith, ‘Strong, Sir Kenneth William Dobson, (1900–1982)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2006, www.oxforddnm.com/view/article/31731.

11. Anon. ‘Sir Bernard Burrows’, The Daily Telegraph, 14 May 2002, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1394093/Sir-Bernard-Burrows.html.

12. Ure, John, ‘Greenhill, Denis Arthur, Baron Greenhill of Harrow (1913–2000)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, www.oxforddnb.com.view/article/74883.

13. Herman, Michael, ‘“The customer is king”: intelligence requirements in Britain’, in Johnson, L. (ed.), Strategic Intelligence, Volume Two, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 175.

14. Cradock, Percy, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World, London: John Murray, 2002, p. 264; See also ‘Personnel Administration: Reorganisation of the Joint Intelligence Staff and Domestic Arrangements’, October 1964, CAB163/130.

15. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, pp. 263–4; ‘JIC Minutes’, 28 January 1965, JIC(65)4th Meeting, CAB159/43; ‘JIC Minutes’, 11 February 1965, JIC(65)6th Meeting, CAB159/43; ‘JIC Minutes’, 15 December 1966, JIC(66)51st Meeting, CAB159/46; JIC Minutes’, 2 December 1965, JIC(65)51st Meeting, CAB159/44; Davies, Philip, Intelligence and government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, California: Praeger, 2013, p. 41.

16. ‘JIC Minutes’, 10 April 1963, JIC(63)17th Meeting, CAB159/39.

17. Draft note from C.S. Roberts to P. Beagley (Treasury), November 1965, CO1035/82.

18. ‘JIC Minutes’, 25 June 1959, JIC(59)41st Meeting CAB159/32; ‘JIC Minutes’, 23 April 1964, JIC(64)21st Meeting, CAB 159/40; ‘JIC Minutes’, 7 May 1964, JIC(64)23rd Meeting, CAB159/40; Burrows, Bernard, Diplomat in a Changing World, Durham: The Memoir Club, 2001, p. 151.

19. See for example, ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 11 February 1964, Chiefs of Staff(64)11th Meeting, DEFE11/423; ‘Recommendations of the Working Party—Note by the Chairman’, 26 May 1964, JIC(I.O.)(M.E.)(W.P.)641, CAB182/49; ‘Intelligence Organisation (Middle East), 30 July 1964, JIC(64)51, CAB158/53; ‘Defence and Oversea Policy Committee Minutes’, 14 May 1964, DO(64) 23rd Meeting, CAB148/1.

20. Paget, Julian, Last Post: Aden, 1964–1967, London: Faber and Faber, 1969, pp. 149, 128; Jones, Clive, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 1962–65, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2004, p. 187.

21. ‘Intelligence—Middle East Command’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)29, CAB158/52; ‘Draft telegram from Burrows to Chairman JIC(ME): Annex B to JIC/211/64’, February 1964, CO1035/160.

22. Burrows, Diplomat in a Changing World, p. 151.

23. ‘JIC Minutes’, 14 May 1964, JIC(64)26th Meeting, CAB159/41; ‘JIC Minutes’, 21 May 1964, JIC(64)27th Meeting, CAB159/41.

24. ‘JIC Minutes’, 30 July 1964, JIC(64)39th Meeting, CAB159/41; ‘Recommendations of the Working Party: Note by the Chairman, Annex B: Chief of Intelligence’, 26 May 1964, JIC(I.O.)(M.E.(W.P.)(64)1, CAB182/49.

25. ‘JIC Minutes’, 17 December 1964, JIC(64)61st Meeting, CAB159/42.

26. ‘JIC Minutes’, 28 January 1965, JIC(65)4th Meeting, CAB159/43.

27. French, David, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–67, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 31.

28. ‘Intelligence Organisation (Middle East), 30 July 1964, JIC(64)51, CAB158/53.

29. ‘Colonial Office Contribution to JIC(64)64’, Note from J. Higham (CO) to the JIC Secretariat, 31 July 1964, CO1035/49.

30. Undated Message from C-in-C(ME) to the Cabinet Office, summer 1964, CO1035/149.

31. Quoted in Andrew, Christopher, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane: London, 2009, p. 475.

32. French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, p. 30.

33. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, p. 170.

34. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 August 1964, JIC(64)40th Meeting, CAB159/41.

35. ‘JIC Minutes’, 27 August 1964, JIC(64)43rd Meeting, CAB159/42.

36. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, p. 170.

37. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 August 1964, JIC(64)40th Meeting, CAB159/41.

38. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54.

39. ‘Progress Report on Implementation of Recommendations by the JIC for Improving the Intelligence Organisation in Aden’, undated but attached to a note from D. Russell (CO), 20 November 1964, ISD/65/2/04, CO1035/182.

40. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden, Annex: Report on Visit to Aden by DMSI [Director of Management and Support of Intelligence]’, 25 November 1965, CO1035/183.

41. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden after Independence’, 2 February 1965, JIC(65)13(Terms of Reference), CO1035/86; ‘Intelligence Organisation in the Middle East: Confidential Annex to JIC(65)50th Meeting’, 25 November 1965, CO1035/183.

42. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 January 1966, JIC(66)1st Meeting, CAB159/45.

43. Colonial Secretary to R. Turnbull, ‘Organisation of Intelligence’, 21 September 1965, CO1035/79; Colonial Secretary to D. Trench (Governor, Hong Kong), 27 September 1965, CO1035/79; C.S. Roberts (Colonial Office) to Lord Beswick (Colonia Office), 1 December 1965, CO1035/180.

44. See for example, ‘Extract from JIC(64)45th Meeting Minutes—10–9–64’, CO1035/78; ‘Extract from JIC(65)1st Meeting Minutes 7.1.65’, ISD65/2/01, CO1035/78.

45. Blaikley (CO) to Turnbull (Aden), 1 September 1965, ISD65/2/64, CO1035/183.

46. C.S. Roberts (Colonial Office) to R.L. Sharp (Treasury), 13 January 1965, CO1035/78; B. Burrows to J.G. Owen (Treasury), 26 January 1965, CO1035/78; Sharp to Higham (Colonial Office), 1 March 1965, CO10 35/78.

47. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation Working Party’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54; See also Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, p. 186.

48. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54; ‘JIC Working Party on Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation Minutes’, 21 December 1965, JIC(IAF) (65)1st Meeting, CAB182/54; ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54.

49. ‘JIC Working Party on Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation Minutes’, 21 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)1st Meeting, CAB182/54; ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54.

50. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 January 1966, JIC(66)1st Meeting, CAB159/45.

51. ‘JIC Working Party on Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation Minutes’, 21 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)1st Meeting, CAB182/54; ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54; ‘JIC Working Party on Intelligence in Aden and the Federation’, 22 April 1966, JIC(IAF)66 1st Meeting, CAB182/55.

52. ‘Intelligence Organisation in Aden and the Federation’, 17 December 1965, JIC(IAF)(65)3, CAB182/54.

53. ‘The Outlook for the Persian Gulf and South Arabia up to the end of 1968’, 25 May 1966, JIC(66)37, CAB158/63; ‘The Security Threat in South Arabia up to the Date of British Withdrawal, 29 December 1966, JIC(66)74, CAB158/64. This report was ultimately studied by Harold Wilson himself, who subsequently asked the DOP(O) committee to examine the problems which would arise in 1967, see ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 February 1967, JIC(67)5th Meeting, CAB159/47; Paget, Last Post, p. 165.

54. ‘JIC Minutes, 13 July 1967, JIC(67)29th Meeting, CAB159/47; ‘Operations in South Arabia After Independence’, Draft Foreign Office/Ministry of Defence Paper’, 10 July 1967, DEFE24/570; ‘Liaison Staff’ (Appendix 2 to Annex A to CINCFE33/67), 27 September 1967, DEFE24/571.

55. JIC Minutes, 2 November 1967, JIC(67)49th Meeting, CAB159/47.

56. Ferris, Jesse, ‘Soviet support for Egypt’s intervention in Yemen, 1962–1963’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 10/4, (2008), pp. 28–9. Ferris argues that Soviet military units, or elements thereof, directly participated in combat and were also involved in indirect aid to the Egyptian and Yemeni governments. This level of assistance decreased, however, with the Soviet Union advising Nasser to decrease his commitments in Yemen from 1966. See, Laron, Guy, ‘Stepping back from the third world: Soviet policy toward the United Arab Republic, 1965–1967’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 12/4, (2010) pp. 108–10; Although the committee stopped short of concluding that Soviet personnel were involved in combat operations. ‘Implications of the Yemeni Revolt’, 30 November 1962, JIC(62)90, CAB158/47; ‘Sino-Soviet Bloc Technical Assistance to the Underdeveloped Countries’, 29 April 1960, JIC(60)32, CAB158/40; ‘The Outlook in Yemen, 19 May 1960, JIC(60)22, CAB 158/39; ‘Soviet Bloc and Chinese Penetration of the Middle East and Africa, 6 September 1963, JIC(63)62, CAB158/49; ‘Soviet Policy in the Middle East’, 7 June 1966, JIC493/66, CAB163/71. Although the UAR, or political union between Egypt and Syria, lasted only from 1958 to 1961, Egypt continued to officially be known as the UAR until 1971.

57. ‘Implications of the Yemeni Revolt’, 30 November 1962, JIC(62)90, CAB158/47.

58. For an early example of the JIC downplaying the threat of conventional air strikes see ‘Implications of the Yemeni Revolt’, 30 November 1962, JIC(62)90, CAB158/47.

59. ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 14 January 1964, Chiefs of Staff(64)3rd Meeting, DEFE11/422.

60. Note by Stewart Crawford, 16th March 1964, FO371/174627.

61. Jones, Clive, ‘“Among ministers, mavericks and mandarins”: Britain’s covert action and the Yemen civil war, 1962–64’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40/1 (2004b), pp. 103–4; ‘DOP Minutes’, 18 March 1964, DO(64)15th Meeting, CAB148/1; Mawby, Spencer, British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955–67: Last Outpost of a Middle East Empire, London: Routledge, 2005, p. 103; Mumford, Andrew, ‘Unnecessary or unsung? The utilisation of airpower in Britain’s colonial counterinsurgencies’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 20/3, (2009), p. 648.

62. Ducker, John, ‘The international context of South Arabia and British policy’, p. 65; Mawby, Spencer, ‘The clandestine defence of empire: British special operations in Yemen 1951–64’, Intelligence and National Security, 17/3, (2002), p. 117.

63. Trevaskis to Sandys, ‘The Threat to Our Position in Aden and the Measures Required to Counter it’, 31 March 1964, MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, The Threat to Aden, Rhodes House, Oxford.

64. Gandy, Christopher, ‘A mission to Yemen: August 1962–January 1963’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25/2, (1998) pp. 247–74. Gandy was a Foreign Office official serving in Yemen during the crisis.

65. See for example ‘Intelligence—Middle East Command’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)29, CAB158/52.

66. ‘Implications of the Yemeni Revolt’, 30 November 1962, JIC(62)90, CAB158/47; ‘The Threat to Aden’, 3 January 1964, JIC(63)80, CAB158/50.

67. Handwritten note by Mr. Shegog (Colonial Office), 10 April 1964, CO1035/181.

68. ‘JIC Revised Terms of Reference’, 29 March 1966, CAB163/50.

69. ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Intelligence Review’, 13 December 1963, 49/63, CO1035/161.

70. Kennedy Trevaskis, Diary Entry, 10 December 1963, p. 7, MSS.Brit.Emp. s546, Box2(B): Files 6–8, 1963 Diary; Trevaskis to C. Eastwood (Colonial Office), 5 February 1964, MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford; Trevaskis to Sandys, 13 December 1963, no. 452, DSND 8/5, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

71. Kennedy Trevaskis, Diary Entry, 11 December 1963, p. 8 and 12 December 1963, p. 9, MSS.Brit.Emp.s546, Box2(B): Files 6–8, 1963 Diary; Rhodes House, Oxford.

72. ‘The Threat to Aden’, 3 January 1964, JIC(63)80, CAB158/50.

73. Goodman, Michael, ‘The dog that didn’t bark: the JIC and warning of aggression’, Cold War History, 7/4, (2007), p. 531.

74. A 1982 report by Doug Nicoll, Deputy-Director of GCHQ raised the issue when examining warning failure and the JIC were again guilty regarding the Falklands. See Goodman, ‘The dog that didn’t bark’, pp. 531–2.

75. Nicoll, Doug, ‘The JIC and warning of aggression’, quoted in Goodman, ‘The dog that didn’t bark’, p. 537.

76. Mawby, ‘clandestine defence of empire’, pp. 108–9, 121; Jones, Clive ‘“Where the state feared to tread”: Britain, Britons, covert action and the Yemen civil war, 1962–64’, Intelligence and National Security, 21/5, (2006), p. 721. There is some debate over the exact date of the formation of the NLF with some authors placing it in October 1963. For more information, including the group’s evolution and gradual split from Egyptian support see Paget, Last Post, p. 116; Ducker, ‘Historical and constitutional background’, pp. 44–5; Ducker, ‘The international context of South Arabia and British policy’, p. 73.

77. ‘The Nature of the Threat to the Western Aden Protectorate and the Steps Needed to Deal with it’, WAP [Western Aden Protectorate] Security Committee paper, 31 October 1962, TS/POL/YEM/31/27, MSS.Brit.Emp. s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

78. Naumkin, Vitaly, Red Wolves of Yemen: The Struggle for Independence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 40; Mawby, Spencer, ‘Orientalism and the failure of British policy in the Middle East: the case of Aden’, History, 95/319, (2010), pp. 343–4.

79. ‘The Threat to Aden’, 3 January 1964, JIC(63)80, CAB158/50.

80. ‘WRCI as at 31st December 1963’, CAB179/11.

81. ‘Report on IS Interrogation in Aden, 2 Jan–30 Jan 65 by WO 2 Everson, FG, Intelligence Corps, Annexure A: Organisation of the National Front for the Liberation of Southern Arabia’. This report is attached to a letter from H. Benny (MoD) to J. Morton (Colonial Office), 23 February 1965, CO1035/78.

82. ‘The Threat to South Arabia’, 8 March 1965, JIC(64)77, CAB158/54; Such assessments built on LIC assessments see for example, ‘The National Front for the Liberation of the Occupied South or National Liberation Front (NLF)’, 25 January 1965, SF/PRO/1158, CAB191/12.

83. ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 April 1964, JIC(64)17th Meeting, CAB159/40.

84. ‘UAR Policies Towards Aden’, 21 April 1964, JIC(64)45, CAB158/53; ‘The Threat to South Arabia’, 8 March 1965, JIC(64)77, CAB158/54; ‘JIC Minutes’, 25 March 1964, JIC(64)16th Meeting, CAB 159/40.

85. Note by P. Halliday (JIC Secretariat), 16th February 1966, CAB163/71.

86. ‘Note of a Meeting held in the Colonial Office on 17 February 1964 to Discuss the Organisation of Intelligence in the Federation of South Arabia’, 19 February 1964, CO1035/181.

87. Jack Morton (SIA/Colonial Office) to Higham (Colonial Office), 20 April 1964, CO1035/181.

88. Note from Bushell (Political Office M/E Command) to Benchley (FO), 19 March 1964, FO371/174627.

89. Pillar, Paul, ‘The perils of politicisation’, in Johnson, L. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 477–8. As Pillar notes, displeasing a policymaker (particularly one as belligerent as Trevaskis) can ‘spoil an intelligence officer’s day’.

90. D. Russell (Colonial Office), ‘Organisation of Intelligence—Aden (Federation), 9 April 1964, CO1035/181; handwritten note by Mr. Shegog (Colonial Office), 10 April 1964, CO1035/181.

91. Walton, Calder, Empire of Secrets, p. 320.

92. Note from Higham (CO) to Morton (SIA), 6 February 1964, CO1035/160; See also Note from Russell (CO) to Morton (SIA), 17 January 1964, CO1035/160; ‘Note from Morton (SIA) to Russell (CO), 17 January 1964, CO1035/160; Telegram form the Colonial Office to the High Commissioner, Aden, February 1964, CO1035/60; ‘Draft note of a meeting held in the Colonial Office on 17th February 1964, to discuss the organisation of intelligence in the Federation of South Arabia’, 17 February 1964, CO1035/160.

93. The Assistant High Commissioner’s Office, Al Ittihad, Monthly Report for December 1963 No. 12’, January 1964, IOR/R/20/D/41; ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 362 for period 4th December to Noon 10th December 1963’, 10 December 1963, IOR/R/20/D/34; ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 364 for period 11th December to Noon 17th December 1963’, 17 December 1963, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No. 49’, 13 December 1963, 49/63, IOR/R/20/D/37.

94. ‘Threat to Federation and Protectorate’, LIC Report, 31 August 1964, IOR/R/20/D/91; See also Mawby, ‘Orientalism’, p. 341; For other examples see ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 368 for period 8th January to Noon 14th January 1964’, 14 January 1964, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 360 for period 22nd January to Noon 28th January 1964’, 28 January 1964, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 378 for period 18th March to Noon 24th March 1964’, 24 March 1964, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘LIC Aden Summary No. 379 for period 25th March to Noon 31st March 1964’, 31 March 1964, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No. 14’, 3 April 1964, 14/64, IOR/R/20/D/37; LIC Aden Summary No. 380 for period 1st April to Noon 4th April 1964’, 4 April 1964, IOR/R/20/D/35; ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No16’, 17 April 1964, 17/64, IOR/R/20/D/37; to compare with JIC(ME) papers see ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No. 2’, 10 January 1964, 2/64, IOR/R/20/D/37; ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No. 3’, 17 January 1964, 3/64, IOR/R/20/D/37; ‘JIC(ME) Weekly Review of Intelligence No. 5’, 31 January 1964, 5/64, IOR/R/20/D/37.

95. Hovet Jr., Thomas, Erica Hovet, A Chronology and Fact Book of the United Nations 1941–1969, New York: Oceana Publications, 1970, p. 59.

96. ‘JIC Minutes’, 16 April 1964, JIC(64)19th Meeting, CAB159/40.

97. ‘JIC Minutes’, 16 April 1964, JIC(64)19th Meeting, CAB159/40; ‘Publishable Material on UAR/YAR Activities in the Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia’, 28 April 1964, JIC(64)39, CAB158/53.

98. ‘Publishable Material on UAR/YAR Activities in the Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia: Annex D UAR/YAR Subversion within the Federation of South Arabia’, 28 April 1964, JIC(64)39, CAB158/53.

99. Mawby, British Policy in Aden, p. 127.

100. ‘JIC Minutes’, 27 February 1967, JIC(67)9th Meeting, CAB159/47; ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 March 1967, JIC(67)10th Meeting, CAB159/47; The report’s conclusions represent the JIC’s input, see ‘The Likely Situation in South Arabia Shortly Before and After the GB Withdrawal and the Implications for British Interests’, 3 March 1967, JIC(67)20, CAB158/66.

101. ‘The Outlook for the Persian Gulf and South Arabia up to the end of 1968’, 25 May 1966, JIC(66)37, CAB158/63.

102. Mawby, ‘Orientalism’, p. 341.

103. Mawby, ‘Orientalism’, p. 342.

104. Although Spencer Mawby argues the significance of the White Paper has been exaggerated, others suggest that it allowed Nasser to claim victory in Yemen, decreased popular support for British authority and law enforcement, and intensified the violence until withdrawal. Mawby, Spencer, ‘The “Big Lie” and the “Great Betrayal”: explaining the British collapse in Aden’, in Ashton, N. (ed.), The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the Superpowers 1967–73, Oxon: Routledge, 2007, p. 174; Balfour-Paul, The End of Empire in the Middle East, p. 85; Ducker, John, ‘Aden: the 1966 Defence White Paper’, in Hinchcliffe, P., Ducker, J. and Holt, M. (eds.), Without Glory in Arabia: The British Retreat from Aden, London: IB Taurus, 2006c, p. 204; Paget, Last Post, p. 159.

105. ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB158/60.

106. Witty, ‘A regular army in counterinsurgency’, p. 427; Mumford, Andrew, The counter-insurgency myth: The British experience of Irregular Warfare, Oxon: Routledge, 2012, pp. 88–9.

107. ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB158/60.

108. ‘JIC Minutes’, 22 December 1965, JIC(65)54th Meeting, CAB159/44; ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB158/60.

109. Mawby, ‘The big lie’, pp. 178–9.

110. ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB158/60.

111. ‘JIC Minutes’, 22 December 1965, JIC(65)54th Meeting, CAB159/44.

112. ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB158/60.

113. ‘JIC Minutes’, 22 December 1965, JIC(65)54th Meeting, CAB159/44.

114. Dockrill, Saki, Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice Between Europe and the World? Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2002, pp. 154–5.

115. ‘Sub-committee on South Arabia of the OPD(O) Committee Minutes’, 20 December 1965, OPD(O)(AS)(65)3rd Meeting, CAB148/49.

116. ‘Outcome of Defence Review: Aden Base, Memorandum by the Colonial Office’, 12 January 1966, OPD(O)(66)5, CAB148/69.

117. ‘Sub-committee on South Arabia of the OPD(O) Committee Minutes’, 4 January 1966, OPD(O)(AS)(66)1st Meeting, CAB148/78; ‘The Effects in the Middle East of an Announcement of a British Withdrawal from South Arabia in 1967 or 1968’, 23 December 1965, JIC(65)92, CAB 158/60.

118. Bailey, Roderick, ‘McLean, Neil Loudon Desmond (1918–1986)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/755411

119. See correspondence with Sandys, 1962–1964, in MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

120. Gandy, ‘A Mission to Yemen’, p. 264.

121. Johnson, Loch, ‘On drawing a bright line for covert operations’, The American Journal of International Law, 86/2, (1992), p. 286.

122. Treverton, Gregory, Covert Action: The Limits of Intervention in the Postwar World, New York: Basic Books, 1987, p. 193.

123. Daugherty, William, ‘Covert action: strengths and weaknesses’, in Johnson, L. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 613.

124. Verrier, Anthony, ‘British military policy on Arabia: some lessons for the future’, Journal of the RUSI 112/648, (November 1967), p. 352.

125. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 December 1962, JIC(62)63rd Meeting, CAB 159/38.

126. Trevaskis to Sandys, ‘The Threat to Our Position in Aden and the Measures Required to Counter it: Appendix III—The Need for Action to Rid the Yemen of UAR Troops and Influence’, 31 March 1964, MSS.Brit. Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

127. Trevaskis to Sandys, ‘The Threat to Our Position in Aden and the Measures Required to Counter it: Appendix III—The Need for Action to Rid the Yemen of UAR Troops and Influence’, 31 March 1964, MSS.Brit. Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

128. ‘JIC Minutes’, 25 March 1964, JIC(64)16th Meeting, CAB 159/40.

129. Treverton, Gregory, ‘Covert action: forward to the past’ in Johnson, Loch (ed.), Strategic Intelligence Volume 3: Covert Action, Behind the Veils of Secret Foreign Policy, Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 14.

130. JIC Minutes’, 25 March 1964, JIC(64)16th Meeting, CAB 159/40.

131. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, p. 116; Amery to Thorneycroft, 9 September 1964, with a letter from Michael Webb to Amery (20 August 1964) enclosed, AMEJ 1/6/7, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

132. Trevaskis to Sandys, ‘The Threat to Our Position in Aden and the Measures Required to Counter it: Appendix VI—The Need for Action to Aid our Friends in Aden’, 31 March 1964, MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

133. ‘Developments in the Arabia Peninsula and their Implications for Aden’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)32, CAB 158/52.

134. ‘Federation of South Arabia: Note by the Colonial Office’, Chiefs of Staff.1100/14/1/64, 14 January 1964, DEFE 11/422.

135. Treverton, ‘Covert action: forward to the past’, p. 14.

136. ‘Developments in the Arabian Peninsula and their Implications for Aden’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)32, CAB 158/52.

137. Daugherty, ‘Covert action’ p. 622.

138. ‘Developments in the Arabian Peninsula and their Implications for Aden’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)32, CAB 158/52.

139. ‘Developments in the Arabia Peninsula and their Implications for Aden’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)32, CAB158/52.

140. Gandy, ‘A mission to Yemen’, p. 257.

141. Bower, Tom, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90, London: Mandarin, 1996, p. 248.

142. Trevaskis to Sandys, 14 October 1963, MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford; Kennedy Trevaskis, Diary Entry, 17 March 1964, p. 88, MSS.Brit.Emp.s546, Box2(B): Files 6–8, 1964 Diary.

143. Mawby, ‘Clandestine defence of Empire’, pp. 109–10.

144. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 December 1962, JIC(62)63rd Meeting, CAB 159/38; ‘JIC Minutes’, 25th March 1964, JIC(64)16th Meeting, CAB 159/40.

145. Gen.776/2nd Meeting, 31st October 1962, CAB130/189; See also, Aldrich, R., GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency, London: Harper Press, 2010, pp. 163–4.

146. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 December 1962, JIC(62)63rd Meeting, CAB 159/38.

147. ‘Developments in the Arabian Peninsula and their Implications for Aden’, 17 March 1964, JIC(64)32, CAB 158/52.

148. ‘The Mercenary Problem’, 19 April 1968, JIC(68)9, CAB158/69.

149. ‘JIC Minutes‘, 2 April 1964, JIC(64)17th Meeting, CAB 159/40.

150. ‘Weekly Intelligence Review as at 31st May 1963’, 22/63, CO1035/6; ‘Weekly Intelligence Review as at 19th July 1963’, 29/63, CO1035/61.

151. Mawby, British Policy in Aden, p. 111.

152. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, pp. 129, 137; Hart-Davis, Duff, The War That Never Was: The True Story of the Men who Fought Britain’s Most Secret Battle, London: Century, 2011, pp. 49, 55, 62.

153. Gen.776/2nd Meeting, 31st October 1962, CAB 130/189; Mawby, ‘The clandestine defence of Empire’, pp. 117–8.

154. Chief of the Defence Staff to Peter Thorneycroft, ‘Review of Measures Necessitated by the Situation in the Yemen’, 12 December 1962, DEFE 13/398.

155. Mawby, ‘The clandestine defence of empire’, p. 118; Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister, ‘Yemen: Range of Possible Courses of Action Open to Us’, attachment to ‘Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia’, 21 April 1964, DEFE 25/129; ‘Federation of South Arabia: Counter Subversion Measures, Note by the Colonial Office’, 14 January 1964, DEFE 11/422.

156. Trotman, D., Brief for ‘Chiefs of Staff Meeting 14th January 1964: Subversion in Aden and the Federation’, 14 January 1964, DEFE11/422; Note from Watkins (Chiefs of Staff Secretary) to Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 13 January 1964, DEFE11/422.

157. ‘The Threat to Aden’, 3 January 1964, JIC(63)60, CAB158/50; ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 7 January 1964, Chiefs of Staff(64)1st Meeting, DEFE11/422.

158. ‘Chiefs of Staff Minutes’, 14 January 1964, Chiefs of Staff(64)3rd Meeting, DEFE11/422.

159. ‘Counter Subversion Committee Minutes’, 10 January 1964, SV(64)1st Meeting, CAB134/2543.

160. Note from the Prime Minister to the Foreign Secretary, 8 March 1964, PREM 11/4678.

161. Handwritten note by the prime minister on foreign secretary to prime minister, 20 March 1964, ‘The Yemen and South Arabian Federation’, PREM 11/4678; Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister, 20 March 1964, ‘The Yemen and South Arabian Federation’, PREM 11/4678.

162. Copy marked by William Luce (Acting Chief of the Defence Staff) of foreign secretary to prime minister, ‘Yemen: Range of Possible Courses of Action Open to Us’, attachment to ‘Yemen and the Federation of South Arabia’, 21 April 1964, DEFE 25/129.

163. Scott, James and Rosati, Jerel, ‘“Such other functions and duties”: covert action and American intelligence policy’, in Johnson, Loch (ed.), Strategic Intelligence Volume 3: Covert Action, Behind the Veils of Secret Foreign Policy, Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 101; Daugherty, William, ‘Political action as a tool of statecraft’, in Johnson, Loch (ed.), Strategic Intelligence Volume 3: Covert Action, Behind the Veils of Secret Foreign Policy, Westport CT: Praeger Security International, 2007, p. 120.

164. ‘Brief for Chairman JIC—29th October’, 28 October 1964, CAB163/130.

165. Hailliday, P., (Acting Secretary, JIC), ‘JIC Secretariat Establishment’ 20 April 1966 CAB163/50; untitled note on recommendations for the organisation of the JIC secretariat by an unknown author, 20 August 1964 CAB163/50.

166. Private information. See also, note from Gribbon, N., (MoD) to Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, 4 January 1967, DEFE11/525; Note from McIndoe, W., (Cabinet Office) to Burrows, ‘RANCOUR II’, 26 March 1965, DEFE13/710; Note from Burrows to Rogers, P., (Cabinet Office), 18 August 1966, CAB164/130; Note from Hilton Poynton (Permanent Under-secretary of State, CO) to Burke Trend copied to Burrows, 15 October 1965, DEFE11/710; For more information on the specifics of the covert action see Dorril, S., MI6: 50 Years of Special Operations, London: Fourth Estate, 2000, pp. 684–99; see scribbled markings in the margin of ‘South Arabian Action Group: Report by the Chairman and Deputy Chairman on their visit to South Arabia from 31st October to 12th November 1966’, 14 December 1966, DEFE28/160.

167. Davies, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, p. 52.

168. See Hulnick, Arthur, ‘What’s wrong with the intelligence cycle’, Intelligence and National Security, 21/6, (2006), p. 978.

169. Davies, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, pp. 52, 193. See also ‘Copy of minute by the Prime Minister, reference: Foreign Secretary’s minute to the Prime Minister, 8.2.65. “RANCOUR”’, 9 February 1965, DEFE13/710; Note from Michael Stewart (Foreign Secretary) to the Prime Minister, 7 April 1966, DEFE13/498; Note from R. Hastie-Smith (MoD) to M. Palliser (PM’s Office), 19 July 1966 DEFE13/498; Note from Cumming-Bruce, A. (Private Secretary (CO) to Wright, O. (PM’s Office), 14 April 1966 DEFE13/498.

170. ‘Aden and the Federation: Ministerial Meeting held at No. 10 Downing Street at 11.30 am on Wednesday, November 25, 1964: Annex A—Memorandum by the Joint Action Committee’, DEFE13/404.

171. Dorril, MI6, p. 689.

172. Letter from Amery to Douglas-Home and attached note entitled ‘Note on the Aden/Yemen Problem’, 7 May 1964, DSND 8/16, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. Although in this particular instance it appears that Douglas-Home was not impressed with Amery’s logic. He responded that ‘the best way to attract and keep public support is to do and be seen to be doing the right thing’. Douglas-Home to Amery, 8 May 1964, DSND 8/16, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

173. Trevaskis to Sandys, 13 December 1963, no. 452, DSND 8/5, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. See also Cormac, R., ‘Coordinating covert action: the case of the Yemen civil war and the South Arabian insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies, first article, (April 2012) p. 8.

174. Scott and Rosati, ‘Such other functions and duties’, p. 101.

175. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, pp. 87, 94–5, 102, 106–7; Mawby, ‘The clandestine defence of empire’, pp. 122–3.

176. ‘Aden and the Federation: Ministerial Meeting held at No. 10 Downing Street at 11.30 am on Wednesday, November 25, 1964: Annex A—Memorandum by the Joint Action Committee’, DEFE 13/404.

177. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, p. 98; ‘Supply of Arms to a Dissident Group in Taiz’, Note from Butler to the Prime Minister, 11 September 1964, DEFE 13/570.

178. ‘Supply of Arms to a Dissident Group in Taiz’, Note from Butler to the Prime Minister, 11 September 1964, DEFE 13/570; ‘Aden and the Federation: Ministerial Meeting held at No. 10 Downing Street at 11.30 am on Wednesday, November 25, 1964: Annex A—Memorandum by the Joint Action Committee’, DEFE 13/404.

179. Mawby, ‘The clandestine defence of empire’, p. 124.

180. ‘Aden and the Federation: Ministerial Meeting held at No. 10 Downing Street at 11.30 am on Wednesday, November 25, 1964: Annex A—Memorandum by the Joint Action Committee’, DEFE 13/404.

181. Trevaskis to Sandys, 25 February 1964, MSS.Brit.Emp.s367,6/1, ‘The Threat to Aden’, Rhodes House, Oxford.

182. Note from the Prime Minister to the Foreign Secretary, 26 January 1967, DEFE13/571.

183. ‘Report to Ministers’, 8 March 1967, OPDO(AS)(67)7, CAB148/78; See also ‘Report to Ministers: Note by the Chairman’, 2 February 1967, OPDO(AS)(67)2, CAB148/78.

184. Quoted in Mawby, British Policy in Aden, p. 141.

185. Urban, Mark, ‘Inside story of the UK’s secret mission to beat Gaddafi’, BBC News (29 January 2012) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16573516, last accessed March 2012.

186. Urban, Mark, ‘Syrian opposition’s failing military tactics’, BBC News (15 March 2012), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17379976, last accessed March 2012.

5. AFTER PAX BRITANNICA: OMAN, 1968–1975

1. Stockwell, A.J., ‘Malaysia: The making of a neo-colony’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 26/2, 1998, p. 138; Smith, Simon, ‘The making of a neo-colony? Anglo-Kuwaiti relations in the era of decolonization’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37/1, 2001, pp. 160–1.

2. Hopkins, A.G., quoted in Smith, S., ‘The making of a neo-colony? Anglo-Kuwaiti relations in the era of decolonization’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37/1, (2001), p. 161.

3. Arthur, Geoffrey, quoted in Roger Louis, W., ‘The British withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967–71’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31/1, (2003), p. 83.

4. Jones, C. and Stone, J., ‘Britain and the Arabian Gulf: new perspectives on strategic influence’, International Relations, 13/1, (1997), p. 1; see also Hughes, G., ‘A “Model Campaign” reappraised: the counter-insurgency war in Dhofar, Oman, 1965–1975’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/2, (2009), pp. 278–9.

5. Louis, ‘The British withdrawal from the Gulf’, p. 85.

6. Kechichian, Joseph, Oman and the world: the emergence of an independent foreign policy, Santa Monica: RAND, 1995, p. 130.

7. Hughes, Geraint, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised: the counter-insurgency war in Dhofar, Oman, 1965–1975’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/2, (2009), p. 273.

8. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 277; See also Jeapes, Tony, SAS: Secret War, HarperCollins, 2000, p. 11; Mockaitis, Thomas, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-Imperial Era, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, p. 6.

9. Rabi, Uzi, ‘Britain’s “special position” in the Gulf: Its origins, dynamics, and legacy’, Middle Eastern Studies, 42/3, (2006), p. 351.

10. Jones and Stone, ‘Britain and the Arabian Gulf’, p. 3; Ladwig, Walter, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency: Britain and the Dhofar rebellion’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 19/1, (2008), p. 64; Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, p. 75; Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 277; Fain, W. Taylor, American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p. 11.

11. Jones and Stone, ‘Britain and the Arabian Gulf’.

12. ‘The Outlook for Oman’, 1 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)11, CAB186/11; Phythian, Mark, The Politics of British Arms Sales since 1964, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000, p. 240.

13. Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, p. 66.

14. Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, p. 67; Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 281.

15. Peterson, John, Oman’s Insurgencies: The Sultanate’s Struggle for Supremacy, London: SAQI, 2007, p. 479.

16. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, pp. 10–11; Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, pp. 479–86; Dorril, Stephen, MI6: 50 Years of Special Operations, London: Fourth Estate, 2000, p. 734.

17. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 272; Herman, Michael, ‘Intelligence warning and the occupation of the Falklands’, in Danchev, A. (ed.), International Perspectives on the Falklands Conflict, London: Macmillan, 1992, p. 159.

18. Ash, W., (Deputy Secretary of the JIC) to the New Zealand High Commission, 22 December 1969, ‘UK Interdepartmental Intelligence Structure’, CAB163/151.

19. Cradock, Percy, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World, London: John Murray, 2002, p. 266.

20. O’Halpin, Eunan, ‘White, Sir Dick Goldsmith (1906–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53440; Private information.

21. Ash, W., (Deputy Secretary of the JIC) to the New Zealand High Commission, 22 December 1969, ‘UK Interdepartmental Intelligence Structure’, CAB163/151; Herman, Intelligence Power, p. 307; Davies, Philip, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, Vol. 2, Evolution of the U.K. Intelligence Community, California: Praeger, 2013, p. 38

22. Gittings, John, ‘Sir Percy Cradock Obituary’, The Guardian, 1 February 2010, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/01/sir-percy-cradock-obituary.

23. Cradock, Know Your Enemy, p. 267.

24. ‘UK Interdepartmental Intelligence Structure, Appendix A: Composition and Functions’, Ash, W., (JIC Deputy Secretary) to New Zealand High Commission, 22 December 1969, CAB163/151; Private information.

25. Marshall, Alex, ‘Imperial nostalgia, the liberal lie, and the perils of postmodern counterinsurgency’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 21/2, (2010), pp. 233–58.

26. ‘The Case for an Improved Intelligence Organisation in the Persian Gulf’, British Residency Bahrain, 21 March 1965, attached to letter from British Residency, Bahrain to JIC secretariat, 22 March 1965, CAB163/116; Cabinet Office, ‘Notes on Central Intelligence Machinery Division of Cabinet Office Records and other Intelligence-related Cabinet Office Records’, (London: Crown, 2010) p. 13.

27. ‘JIC Minutes’, 20 May 1971, JIC(A)(71)20th Meeting, CAB185/6.

28. ‘JIC Minutes’, 15 July 1971, JIC(A)(71)27th Meeting, CAB185/7; See for example, JIC(A)(71)44th Meeting, 18 November 1971, CAB185/7.

29. ‘JIC Minutes’, JIC(A)(70)6th Meeting, 5 February 1970, CAB185/5.

30. Allen, Calvin and Rigsbee, W. Lynn, Oman under Qaboos: From Coup to Constitution, 1970–1996, London: Frank Cass, 2000, p. 91.

31. Dorril, MI6, p. 734; Allen and Rigsbee, Oman under Qaboos, p. 91.

32. Pimlott, John, ‘The British army and the Dhofar campaign 1970–75’, in Pimlott, J. and Beckett, I. (eds.), Armed Forces and Modern Counter-Insurgency, London: Croom Helm, 1985, pp. 30–1; Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, pp. 69–70; Weir, M. (British Residency) to Crawford, D. (Consul-General, Muscat), 7 February 1970, FCO8/1415.

33. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 292.

34. Crawford, S. to McCarthy, D., 28 January 1970, FCO8/1415.

35. ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5.

36. ‘JIC Minutes’, JIC(A)(71)27th Meeting, 15 July 1971, CAB185/7.

37. ‘Directive to Defence Attaché Muscat’, Chiefs of Staff Secretary to Chiefs of Staff, 4 December 1973, DEFE11/763; See for example dispatches from the Defence Attaché to the Chiefs of Staff secretariat in January 1974, DEFE11/653.

38. Defence Attaché to Chiefs of Staff secretariat, 1 June 1974, DEFE11/737; MoD to Defence Attaché, 28 June 1974, DEFE11/737; Defence Attaché to MoD, 1 July 1974, DEFE11/737.

39. Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, p. 74; Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, Newsinger, J., British Counterinsurgency: From Palestine to Northern Ireland, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002, p. 144; ‘SAS in Dhofar’, Acland, A. (cc Crawford, S.), 1 February 1971, FCO8/1688; ‘Operation Storm: “D” Squadron Final Report, 13th January–9th May 1971’, 20 May 1971, FCO8/1689; ‘Sultanate of Oman’, 4 May 1971, Hart, F. (British Residency, Bahrain), FCO8/1689.

40. ‘DIS Briefing Programme for Colonel J.B. Akehurst’, 21 June 1974, DEFE11/737.

41. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman: Note by the Secretary, Annexure C to Appendix 7 to Annex A: Progress on CSAF’s Requests for Assistance Other than Loan Personnel’, 21 December 1973, Chiefs of Staff46/73, DEFE11/763; ‘List of visitors’, attached to letter from Defence Attaché to Chiefs of Staff Secretary, 17 February 1974, DEFE11/653; ‘Report on the Provision of British Service Assistance to Oman: report of the Defence Operational Planning Staff’, 12 July 1974, DOP Note714/74(Revised Prelim Draft), DEFE11/737.

42. Bennett, Huw, ‘From direct rule to motorman: adjusting British military strategy for Northern Ireland in 1972’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33/6, (2010), p. 519.

43. See O’Halpin, Eunan, ‘”A poor thing but our own”: The Joint Intelligence Committee and Ireland, 1965–72’, Intelligence and National Security, 23/5, (2008), pp. 658–80.

44. The JIC Watch Organisation was listed under ‘other JIC organisations’ in discussions relating to the 1968 reforms. It was ‘manned on a twenty-four hour basis in order to look out for situations in the world threatening our national interests, including threats to NATO, so that the intelligence community can be given advance warning. It maintains a close link with the current intelligence assessment organisation and all departments of the JIC(A)’. It consisted of four or five retired military officers monitoring incoming signals traffic. By the early 1970s, however, the system had become somewhat fossilised within the Cabinet Office and took more the form of a sorting role than a warning role. Ash, W., (Deputy Secretary of the JIC) to the New Zealand High Commission, 22 December 1969, ‘UK Interdepartmental Intelligence Structure’, CAB163/151.

45. Heuer, Richard, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Washington DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999, p. 15.

46. ‘Arrangement of the Security Threat Masirah as at 31st October 1967’, 28 November 1967, JIG(Gulf)1/67, CAB163/73.

47. ‘Subversive Activity in the Persian Gulf, Draft JIC Report’, 28 March 1968, 8/JIC/4082, CAB163/73; ‘Likely Developments in the Persian Gulf and their Probable Effects for British Interests’, 7 June 1968, JIC(68)35, CAB158/70.

48. Betts, Richard, ‘Analysis, War and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable’, World Politics, 31/1, (1978), p. 64.

49. ‘Departmental Comments on JIC(68)30Draft—Subversive Activity in the Persian Gulf’, 1 May 1968, CAB163/73.

50. ‘Likely Developments in the Persian Gulf and their Probable Effects for British Interests’, 7 June 1968, JIC(68)35, CAB158/70.

51. ‘JIC Minutes’, 6 November 1969, JIC(A)(69)45th Meeting, CAB185/9. The report was issued in April 1970.

52. ‘Note on “Situation in Dhofar” from Acland, A. to Arthur, G. (Political Resident, Persian Gulf)’, 11 February 1970, FCO8/1415.

53. ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5.

54. ‘JIC Minutes’, 3 June 1971, JIC(A)(71)21st Meeting, CAB185/6. This was done in conjunction with a series of other actors including local intelligence bodies. The JIG(Gulf) for example, sent regular updates outlining incidents and trends to both the JIC in London and to the FCO Arabia Department. See for example papers held in FCO8/1415 ‘Rebellion in Dhofar Province’, Jan–Dec 1970.

55. DeVore, Marc, ‘The United Kingdom’s last hot war of the Cold War: Oman, 1963–75’, Cold War History, First Article, (2011), pp. 4, 21–2.

56. ‘Present and Likely Future Extent of Soviet Influence in Individual Middle Eastern and North African Countries’, 7 June 1968, JIC(68)32, CAB158/70; ‘Future Soviet Policy in Persian Gulf’, 16 March 1971, JIC(A)(71)7, CAB186/8.

57. ‘JIC Minutes’, 19 February 1970, JIC(A)(70)8th Meeting, CAB185/3; ‘The Outlook for Oman’, 1 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)11, CAB186/11.

58. ‘Likely Developments in the Persian Gulf and their Probable Effects for British Interests’, 7 June 1968, JIC(68)35, CAB158/70.

59. ‘Future of the RAF Station at Salalah’, 23 April 1968, Chiefs of Staff secretariat, cc to JIC secretariat, ‘Enclosure to CHIEFS OF STAFF1283/23/4/68: RAF Salalah’, by Political Resident Persian Gulf, 5 April 1968, CAB163/116.

60. ‘Likely Developments in the Persian Gulf and their Probable Effects for British Interests’, 7 June 1968, JIC(68)35, CAB158/70.

61. Jones and Stone, ‘Britain and the Arabian Gulf’, p. 3.

62. ‘JIC Minutes’, 21 March 1969, JIC(A)(69)20th Meeting, CAB163/115.

63. ‘The Likely Effect of a Postponement of British Military Withdrawal on the Security Situation in the Gulf’, 8 December 1970, JIC(A)(70)49, CAB186/6.

64. ‘Threat to the Withdrawal of British forces from the Gulf in the Remaining Part of 1971’, 21 September 1971, JIC(A)(71)46, CAB186/9.

65. ‘JIC Minutes’, 26 November 1970, JIC(A)(70)46th Meeting, CAB185/4.

66. ‘Threat to Areas where British Forces have Commitments other than Continental Europe’, 10 April 1974, JIC(A)(74)18, CAB186/18; ‘The Prospects for the Persian Gulf and for Supplies of Gulf Oil’, 25 November 1974, JIC(A)(74)21, CAB186/18.

67. ‘The Outlook for Oman’, 1 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)11, CAB186/11.

68. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign reappraised’, pp. 296–7.

69. ‘Future Soviet Policy in Persian Gulf’, 16 March 1971, JIC(A)(71)7, CAB186/8.

70. ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5; ‘Future Soviet Policy in Persian Gulf’, 16 March 1971, JIC(A)(71)7, CAB186/8; ‘PDRY Support for PFLOAG’, JIC(A)(71)(N)158, 3 September 1971, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

71. Andrew, Christopher and Mitrokhin, Vasili, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World, London: Allen Lane, 2005, p. 214. From 1972 the KGB maintained close links with the PDRY intelligence service, providing training and cipher personnel, and from July 1973 a KGB liaison officer was stationed in Aden. In May 1974, the KGB and the PDRY intelligence agency signed a secret agreement on collaboration in intelligence operations against the United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. There were, however, tensions between the two intelligence agencies. p. 141, pp. 214–7.

72. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 296.

73. DeVore, ‘The United Kingdom’s last hot war’, p. 4.

74. ‘PDRY Support for PFLOAG’, 3 September 1971, JIC(A)(71)(N)158, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act; ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5; ‘The Threat to a British Withdrawal from the Gulf by the End of 1971, 16 July 1970, JIC(A) (70)(N)130, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act; Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 296.

75. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 296.

76. New York Times article clipping, 12 December 1967, sent from the UK Embassy, Washington to Aden Department, FCO, 12 December 1967, FCO8/366.

77. ‘Future of the RAF Station at Salalah’, 23 April 1968, Chiefs of Staff secretariat, cc to JIC secretariat, ‘Enclosure to CHIEFS OF STAFF1283/23/4/68: RAF Salalah’, by Political Resident Persian Gulf, 5 April 1968, CAB163/116; Balfour-Paul, H., (British Residency, Bahrain) to Gent, 23 March 1968, FCO8/366.

78. ‘JIC(A)(69)24(Draft)—Subversive Activity in the Persian Gulf’, McCarthy, D. to Fewtrell (PUSD), CAB163/115.

79. ‘The Short Term Outlook for Oman’, 2 November 1972, JIC(A)(72) (N)106, Document released through Freedom of Information Act; ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5; ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 December 1971, JIC(A)(71)46th Meeting, CAB185/7.

80. ‘The Subversive Threat from the People’s Democratic Republic of the Yemen’, 25 February 1972, JIC(A)(72)7, CAB186/11.

81. See Douglas-Home, A. to Muscat, 29 February 1972, FCO8/1877; ‘Brief for CDS Conference’, Aden to FCO, 2 February 1972, FCO8/1877.

82. ‘The Outlook for Oman’, 1 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)11, CAB186/11.

83. ‘The Situation in Oman’, 16 November 1973, JIC(A)(73)(N)88, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act; ‘PDRY Support for PFLOAG’, 3 September 1971, JIC(A)(71)(N)158, Document released though the Freedom of Information Act.

84. ‘The Threat to the British Withdrawal from the Gulf by the End of 1971’, 16 July 1970, JIC(A)(70)(N)130, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

85. ‘Rebel Activities in Oman’, 4 September 1970, JIC(A)(70)(N)164, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

86. ‘The Outlook for the Military Campaign in Dhofar’, 17 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)(N)36, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

87. ‘The Outlook for Oman’, 1 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)11, CAB186/11.

88. ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5.

89. ‘The Short Term Outlook for Oman, JIC(A)(72)(N)106, 2 November 1972, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

90. Although the FCO also interacted with the JIC, both in terms of feeding intelligence into the machine and consuming JIC output. See for example, McCarthy, D. to Crawford, S. (cc to Summerscale, P. (Assessments Staff), 22 January 1970, FCO8/1415’; ‘Sultanate of Muscat and Oman’, Acland, A. to Arthur, G., 20 February 1970, FCO8/1415.

91. Pimlott, Ben, Harold Wilson, London: HarperCollins, 1992, p. 706.

92. Bridges, T. (private secretary to Heath and Wilson) to Cradock, P., 8 June 1974, CAB 163/219.

93. Elliott, M. (FCO) to Herman, M., 3 July 1974, CAB153/219.

94. ‘JIC Minutes’, 30 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)17th Meeting, CAB185/3; ‘JIC Minutes’, 16 July 1972, JIC(A)(70)27th Meeting, CAB185/4.

95. Trend, B., to White, D., 3 April 1968, CAB163/73.

96. ‘Defence Assistance to the Sultanate of Oman’, 22 May 1972, DOP(72) 25(Revised), CAB148/122.

97. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman: Report by the Directors of Defence Policy’, 19 November 1973, DP20/73, DEFE11/763.

98. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman’, Confidential annex to Chiefs of Staff minutes, 27 November 1973, Chiefs of Staff(73)25th Meeting, DEFE11/763.

99. ‘The Principles Governing British Military Assistance to Oman: Report by the Defence Policy Staff’, 19 April 1974, DP8/749(c)(Draft), DEFE11/655.

100. ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 March 1972, JIC(A)(72)9th Meeting, CAB185/10.

101. Hughes, ‘A “model campaign” reappraised’, p. 289.

102. ‘SOAF Assessment of the PDRY Air Threat to Oman’, Defence Attaché to Chiefs of Staff Secretary, 4 June 1972, FCO8/1862.

103. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman: Draft Report by the Defence Operational Planning Staff’, 31 October 1972, DOP543/72(Prelim Draft), DEFE11/736.

104. ‘PDRY Support for PFLOAG’, 3 September 1971, JIC(A)(71)(N)158, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

105. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman: Report by the Directors of Defence policy’, 19 November 1973, DP20/73, DEFE11/763.

106. ‘Future United Kingdom Defence Activity in Oman: Note by the Secretary’, 31 December 1973, Chiefs of Staff46/73, DEFE11/763.

107. ‘British Military Assistance to Oman: Report by the Defence Policy Staff’, 15 February 1974, DP4/74(c)(Revised Draft), DEFE11/653.

108. ‘JIC Minutes’, 2 July 1970, JIC(A)(70)25th Meeting, CAB185/4.

109. Herman, Michael, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, London: Frank Cass, 2002, p. 36.

110. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, p. 74. This is repeated across the literature. For other examples, Arkless, David, The Secret War: Dhofar 1971–1972, London: William Kimber, 1988, p. 16; Dorril, MI6, p. 371; Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, pp. 71, 85; Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, p. 239; Allen and Rigsbee, Oman under Qaboos, p. 29.

111. Thomson, Mike, ‘Document’, BBC Radio Four (23 November 2009).

112. Thomson, ‘Document’.

113. Telegram no. 340, Crawford, S. to FCO, 13 July 1970, quoted in Thomson, ‘Document’.

114. Graham, J. quoted in Thomson, ‘Document’.

115. Jones, C. quoted in Thomson, ‘Document’.

116. Anon, ‘Brigadier Tim Landon’, The Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2007, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1557161; Townsend, John, Oman: The Making of a Modern State, Croom Helm: 1977, pp. 74–5; see also Dorril, MI6, p. 731.

117. ‘The Threat to a British Withdrawal from the Gulf by the End of 1971’, 16 July 1970, JIC(A)(70)(N)130, Document released through the Freedom of Information Act.

118. ‘Situation in Dhofar’, McCarthy, D. (FCO Arabian Department) to Crawford, S. (Political Resident, Persian Gulf), 22 January 1970, FCO8/1415.

119. Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, p. 85.

120. Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5.

121. Ladwig, ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency’, p. 85.

121. Sultanate of Muscat and Oman: The Military and Political Situation in Dhofar in the Shorter Term’, 17 April 1970, JIC(A)(70)6, CAB186/5.

122. ‘JIC(A)(70)6(Preliminary Draft): Situation in Dhofar’, attached to note from Crawford, S. to McCarthy, D., 28 January 1970, FCO8/1415.

123. Acland, A. quoted in Thomson, ‘Document’.

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2. Burke Trend to Prime Minister, 13 March 1967, PREM 13/2688.

3. See Scott, Len, ‘British strategic intelligence and the Cold War’ in Johnson, L. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, p. 146.

4. Scott, ‘British strategic intelligence and the Cold War’, p. 146; Davies, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, p. 37.

5. Jeffery, Keith, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949, London: Bloomsbury, 2010, p. 748.

6. Hennessy, Peter, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders Since 1945, London: Allen Lane, 2000, pp. 220, 236–7.

7. See also, Davies, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, p. 63.

8. Davies, Evolution of the U.K. intelligence community, p. 204.

9. A.M. Palliser, ‘Note for the Record’, 2 August 1967, PREM 13/2688.

10. ‘Joint Intelligence Committee—Terms of Reference’, Cabinet Office, undated, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/content/joint-intelligence-committee-terms-reference.

11. Private information.

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——— Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 2nd Edition, Washington DC: CQ Press, 2003.

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——— British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955–67: Last Outpost of a Middle East Empire, London: Routledge, 2005.

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——— The Labour Party, War, and International Relations, 1945–2006, Oxon: Routledge, 2007.

——— The Politics of British Arms Sales since 1964, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

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——— (ed.), Malaya: The Communist Insurrection, 1948–1953, Documents on the End of Empire, London: HMSO, 1995.

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——— Britain and the World in the Twentieth Century, London: Arnold, 1997.

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Journal Articles and Papers

Aldrich, R., ‘Policing the past: official history, secrecy and British intelligence since 1945’, English Historical Review, 119/483, (2004), pp. 922–53.

——— ‘“Grow Your Own”: Cold War Intelligence and History Supermarkets’, Intelligence and National Security, 17/1, (2002), pp. 135–52.

Anderson, D., ‘Policing and communal conflict: the Cyprus emergency, 1954–60’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21/3, (1993), pp. 177–207.

Bar-Joseph, U., ‘The professional ethics of intelligence analysis’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 24/1, (2011), pp. 22–43.

Barnett, M., and Levy, J., ‘Domestic sources of alliance and alignments: the case of Egypt, 1962–73’, International Organization, 45/3, 1991, pp. 369–95.

——— ‘From direct rule to motorman: adjusting British military strategy for Northern Ireland in 1972’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 33/6, (2010), pp. 511–32.

——— ‘Minimum force in British counterinsurgency’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 21/3, (2010), pp. 459–75.

——— ‘“A Very Salutary Effect”: the counter-terror strategy in the early Malayan emergency, June 1948 to December 1949’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/3, (2009), pp. 415–44.

——— ‘The other side of COIN: minimum and exemplary force in British Army counterinsurgency in Kenya’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 18/4, (2007), pp. 638–64.

Betts, R., ‘Analysis, war and decision: why intelligence failures are inevitable’, World Politics, 31/1, (1978), pp. 61–89.

Charters, D., ‘British intelligence in the Palestine campaign, 1945–47’, Intelligence and National Security, 6/1, (1991), pp. 115–40.

Comber, L., ‘The origins of the Cold War in Southeast Asia: the case of the Communist Party of Malaya (1948–1960), a Special Branch perspective’, Institute for South East Asian Studies Working Paper: Politics and Security Series no. 1,(2009).

Cormac, R., ‘Coordinating covert action: the case of the Yemen civil war and the South Arabian insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies, first article, (April 2012).

——— ‘“A Whitehall Showdown?”: Colonial Office-Joint Intelligence Committee relations in the mid-1950s’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39/2, (2011), pp. 249–67.

——— ‘Organizing intelligence: an introduction to the 1955 Report on colonial security’, Intelligence and National Security, 25/6, (2010), pp. 800–22.

——— ‘Twilight of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 24/4, (2011), pp. 427–46.

——— ‘Intelligence and the machinery of government: conceptualising the intelligence community’, Journal of Public Policy and Administration, 25/1, (2010), pp. 29–46.

——— ‘Intelligence culture and intelligence failure in Britain and the United States’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17/3, (2004), pp. 495–520.

——— ‘Spies as informants: triangulation and the interpretation of elite interview data in the study of the intelligence and security services’, Politics, 21/1, (2001), pp. 73–80.

Davis, J., ‘The Kent-Kendall Debate of 1949’, Studies in Intelligence, 36/5, (1992), pp. 91–103.

Deery, P., ‘Malaya 1948: Britain’s Asian Cold War?’ Journal of Cold War Studies, 9/1, (2007), pp. 29–54.

——— ‘The terminology of terrorism: Malaya, 1948–52’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34/2, (2003), pp. 231–47.

DeVore, M., ‘The United Kingdom’s last hot war of the Cold War: Oman, 1963–75’, Cold War History First Article, (2011), pp. 1–32.

Dimitrakis, P., ‘British intelligence and the Cyprus insurgency, 1955–1959’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21/2, (2008), pp. 375–94.

Efimova, L., ‘Did the Soviet Union instruct Southeast Asian communists to revolt? New Russian evidence on the Calcutta Youth Conference of February 1948’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40/3, (2009), pp. 449–69.

Fain, W. Taylor, ‘“Unfortunate Arabia”: The United States, Great Britain and Yemen, 1955–63’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 12/2, (2001), pp. 125–52. Ferris, John, ‘The intelligence-deception complex: an anatomy’, Intelligence and National Security, 4/4, (1989), pp. 719–34.

Ferris, Jesse, ‘Soviet support for Egypt’s intervention in Yemen, 1962–1963’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 10/4, (2008), pp. 5–36.

Freedman, L., ‘The Third World War?’ Survival, 43/4, (2001), pp. 61–88.

Gandy, C., ‘A mssion to Yemen: August 1962–January 1963’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 25/2, (1998), pp. 247–74.

Goodman, M., ‘Learning to walk: the origins of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21/1, (2008), pp. 40–56.

——— ‘The dog that didn’t bark: the JIC and warning of Aggression’, Cold War History, 7/4, (2007), pp. 529–51.

Grob-Fitzgibbon, B., ‘Intelligence and counterinsurgency’, The RUSI Journal, 156/1, pp. 72–9.

Gustafson, K., ‘Strategic horizons: futures forecasting and the British intelligence community’, Intelligence and National Security, 25/5, (2010), pp. 589–610.

Hack, K., ‘Malaya as a counterinsurgency paradigm’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/3, (2009), pp. 383–414.

——— ‘The origins of the Asian Cold War: Malaya 1948’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40/3, (2009), pp. 471–96.

——— ‘British intelligence and counterinsurgency in the era of decolonisation: the example of Malaya’, Intelligence and National Security, 14/2, (1999), pp. 124–55.

Hack, K. and Wade, G., ‘The origins of the Southeast Asian Cold War’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 40/3, (2009), pp. 441–8.

Handel, M., ‘The politics of intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 2/4, (1987), pp. 5–46.

Hatlebrekke, K.A. and Smith, M., ‘Towards a new theory of intelligence failure? The impact of cognitive closure and discourse failure’, Intelligence and National Security, 25/2, (2010), pp. 147–82.

Hatzivassiliou, E., ‘Cold War pressure, regional Strategies, and relative decline: British military and strategic planning for Cyprus, 1950–1960’, Journal of Military History, 73, (2009), pp. 1143–66.

Holland, R., ‘Never, never land: British colonial policy and the roots of violence in Cyprus, 1950–54’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21/3, (1993), pp. 148–76.

Hughes, G., ‘A “Model Campaign” reappraised: the counter-insurgency war in Dhofar, Oman, 1965–1975’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32/2, (2009), pp. 271–305.

Hulnick, A., ‘What’s wrong with the intelligence cycle’, Intelligence and National Security, 21/6, (2006), pp. 959–79.

——— ‘The intelligence producer-policy consumer linkage: a theoretical approach’, Intelligence and National Security, 1/2, (1986), pp. 212–33.

Jackson, P. and Scott, L., ‘The study of intelligence in theory and practice’, Intelligence and National Security, 19/2, (2004), pp. 139–69.

Johnson, E., ‘Britain and the Cyprus problem at the United Nations, 1954–58’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28/3, (2000), pp. 113–30. Johnson, L., ‘Making the intelligence cycle work’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 1/4, (1986–1987), pp. 1–23.

Jones, C., ‘“Where the State feared to Tread”: Britain, Britons, covert action and the Yemen civil war, 1962–64’, Intelligence and National Security, 21/5, (2006), pp. 717–37.

——— ‘“Among Ministers, Mavericks and Mandarins”: Britain’s covert action and the Yemen civil war, 1962–64’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40/1, (2004).

Jones, C. and Stone, J., ‘Britain and the Arabian Gulf: new perspectives on strategic influence’, International Relations, 13/1, (1997), pp. 1–24.

Kahn, D., ‘An historical theory of intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 16/3, (2001), pp. 79–92.

Kovacs, A., ‘Using intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security, 12/4, (1997), pp. 145–64.

Ladwig, W., ‘Supporting allies in counterinsurgency: Britain and the Dhofar rebellion’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 19/1, (2008), pp. 62–88.

Laron, G., ‘Stepping back from the third world: Soviet policy toward the United Arab Republic, 1965–1967’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 12/4, (2010), pp. 99–118.

Louis, W.R., ‘The British withdrawal from the Gulf, 1967–71’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31/1, (2003), pp. 83–108.

——— ‘American anti-colonialism and the dissolution of the British Empire’, International Affairs, 61/3, (1985), pp. 395–420.

Marshall, A., ‘Imperial nostalgia, the liberal lie, and the perils of postmodern counterinsurgency’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 21/2, (2010), pp. 233–58.

Mawby, S., ‘Orientalism and the failure of British policy in the Middle East’, History, 95/319, pp. 332–53.

——— ‘Review of: Clive Jones, Britain and the Yemen civil war 1962–1965: Ministers, mercenaries, and mandarins: foreign policy and the limits of covert action’, Intelligence and National Security, 20/3, (2005), pp. 547–48.

——— ‘The clandestine defence of empire: British special operations in Yemen 1951–64’, Intelligence and National Security, 17/3, (2002), pp. 105–30.

Michaels, J., ‘Agents for stability or chaos?: Conceptualizing intelligence “Relevance” in counterinsurgency’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 34/3, (2011), pp. 212–27.

Mumford, A., ‘Unnecessary or unsung? The utilisation of airpower in Britain’s colonial counterinsurgencies’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 20/3, (2009), pp. 636–55.

Murphy, P., ‘A Police State? The Nyasaland Emergency and Colonial Intelligence’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 36/4, 2010, pp. 765–80.

——— ‘Creating a commonwealth intelligence culture: the view from central Africa, 1945–1965’, Intelligence and National Security, 17/3, (2002), pp. 131–62.

——— ‘Intelligence and Decolonization: The Life and Death of the Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau, 1954–63’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29/2, 2001, pp. 101–30.

Oren, M., ‘A winter of discontent: Britain’s crisis in Jordan, December 1955–March 1956’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 22/2, (1990), pp. 171–84.

Popplewell, R., ‘“Lacking Intelligence”: some reflections on recent approaches to British counterinsurgency, 1900–1960’, Intelligence and National Security, 10/2, (1995), pp. 226–352.

Rabi, U., ‘Britain’s “Special Position” in the Gulf: Its origins, dynamics, and legacy’, Middle Eastern Studies, 42/3, (2006), pp. 351–64.

Smith, S., ‘The making of a neo-colony? Anglo-Kuwaiti relations in the era of decolonization’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37/1, (2001), pp. 169–72.

——— ‘Revolution and reaction: South Arabia and the aftermath of the Yemeni revolution’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 28/3 (2000), pp. 193–208.

Stewart, B., ‘Winning in Malaya: an intelligence success story’, Intelligence and National Security, 14/4, (1999), pp. 267–83.

Stockwell, A., ‘Chin Peng and the struggle for Malaya’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6/1, (2006), pp. 279–97.

——— ‘Malaysia: The making of a neo-colony’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 26/2, (1998), pp. 138–56

Vaughan, J., ‘“Cloak Without Dagger”: how the Information Research Department fought Britain’s Cold War in the Middle East, 1948–1956’, Cold War History, 4/3, (2004), pp. 56–84.

Verrier, A., ‘British military policy on Arabia: some lessons for the future’, Journal of the RUSI, 112/648, (November 1967).

Walton, C., ‘British intelligence and the mandate of Palestine: threats to British national security Immediately after the Second World War’, Intelligence and National Security, 23/4, (2008), pp. 435–62.

White, N., ‘Capitalism and counter-insurgency? Business and Government in the Malayan Emergency, 1948–57’, Modern Asian Studies, 32/1, (1998), pp. 149–77.

Witty, D., ‘A regular army in counterinsurgency operations: Egypt in North

Yemen, 1962–1967’, Journal of Military History, 65/2, (2001), pp. 401–39.

PhD Theses

Case, S., ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee and the German Question 1947–61’, (Queen Mary, University of London, 2008).

Craig, A., ‘The Joint Intelligence Committee and British Intelligence Assessment 1945–1956’, (University of Cambridge, 1999).

Dylan, H., ‘The Joint Intelligence Bureau: Economic, Topographic, and Scientific Intelligence for Britain’s Cold War, 1946–1964’, (University of Aberystwyth, 2010).

Mumford, A., ‘From Belfast to Basra: Britain and the “Tri-partite Counter-insurgency Model”’, (University of Warwick, 2009).

Walton, C. ‘British Intelligence and Threats to National Security, c.1942–1951’, (University of Cambridge, 2006).

Radio Broadcasts

Thomson, M., ‘Document’, BBC Radio Four (23 November 2009).

Websites

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Urban, M., ‘Syrian Opposition’s Failing Military Tactics’, BBC News (15 March 2012), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17379976, last accessed March 2012.

——— ‘Inside Story of the UK’s Secret Mission to Beat Gaddafi’, BBC News (29 January 2012). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16573516, last accessed March 2012.

INDEX

Acland, Antony 173–4, 186, 189, 190–91

Aden 9, 98, chapter 4, 176, 181, 206, 208, 211, 212, 215, 218, 219

military base 105, 116, 145, 146

Aden Intelligence Centre (AIC) 114, 115, 118

Afghanistan 203

AKEL 81, 83, 84, 86, 89, 96

Al Qaeda 2, 202, 213

Algeria 139

Allinson, Walter 173

Amery, Julian 122, 137, 139–40, 145, 149–50

‘Arab Spring’ 2, 204

Arab-Israeli conflict 6, 93–4, 170

Arthur, Geoffrey 162–3, 169, 182, 183

Assessments Staff 18, 160–63, 169, 170, 174, 183, 190, 197, 199, 208, 216

Attlee, Clement 3, 25–6, 29, 54, 57

Bahrain 165, 179

Baker-Cresswell, Captain 41

Barton, Juxon 96–7, 98

Bevin, Ernest 3, 26, 29, 57

Blair, Tony 1–2

Boucher, Brig. Val 39, 75–6, 77

Briggs, Harold/Briggs Plan 24, 56, 61

British Army Training Teams (BATTs) 160

British Defence Coordinating Committee (Far East) 32–3

British Guiana 65

Burma 47, 50

Burrows, Bernard 109, 111–13, 117, 118, 128, 139, 148, 199

Bushell, John 128

Butler, Lord 20, 216, 217

Butler, Rab 147

Cabinet Committee on Defence and Oversea Policy 59, 60, 64, 107, 110, 113, 121, 130, 147, 214

Cabinet Office 7, 16, 51, 63, 69, 71, 72, 87, 99, 102, 108, 110, 169, 197, 198–9, 200, 204, 211

Cabinet Office Assessments Staff 161

Caccia, Sir Harold 29

Cairo Radio 95

Calcutta Conference 45–6, 48

Carrington, Lord 183, 191

Carstairs, Charles 77, 79, 80, 93–4

Cavendish Bentinck, Victor 27

CENTO 159

Central African Federation 8

Chilcot, Sir John 1

Chin Peng 25, 38, 46

China 3, 23, 32, 39, 40–41, 44, 45, 46–9, 52, 53, 54, 178

Chinese in Malaya 23–4, 54

Chinese Communist Party 48–9

CIA 17, 127, 138, 171, 219

Cold War, see also communism

Soviet Union 3–4, 5, 7, 9, 12–13, 25–6, 55, 68, 79, 80, 89–91, 92, 100, 102, 103, 120, 132–3, 159, 170, 198, 202, 203, 204, 207, 209–10, 211, 212, 214

and policy on Malaya 41–53, 62–3

and policy on South Arabia and Yemen 175, 177–8, 181, 193, 194

Colonial Office 5, 6, 7–8, 152, 153, 197, 199, 201, 205, 210, 211, 214, 218, 220

and Cyprus 71–3, 74, 76–80, 84–7, 88–9, 90–91, 93–5, 100–2

and Malaya 27, 28–30, 33–4, 37–9, 41, 44, 45, 48–9, 56, 57–61

and South Arabia 108–9, 111, 114–15, 117–18, 120, 122–3, 125, 128–9, 132, 134, 135, 136, 140, 145

Colville-Stewart, H. 115

Cominform 44, 45

Commonwealth 25, 70–71

Commonwealth Relations Office 28, 70–71, 109, 220

communism 8–9, 25–6, 40–41, 43–53, 67, 72, 81–2, 83–4, 89–91, 120, 133, 159–60, 181, 209–11

Cooper, Chester 17

Cooper, Johnny 144

Counter Subversion Committee 146

counterinsurgency (general), see also under countries 6, 13–15, 21, 77, 110, 131, 164, 194, 195, 202–8, 214–15, 220

covert operations in Yemen 136–51, 154

Cowper, Brig. Tony 113–14, 116

Cradock, Percy 11, 17, 98, 163, 170, 216

Crawford, Stewart 121, 162–3, 182, 186

Creech Jones, Arthur 57, 59, 60

Crick, Alan 132, 213, 216

Cuba missile crisis 3, 106

Current Intelligence Groups 110, 161, 163, 174

Cyprus 7–8, 53, chapter 3, 117, 132–3, 139, 159, 165, 197, 203, 209, 210

Cyprus Intelligence Committee 79, 97

Czechoslovakia 170

Dalley, John 33–4, 38

Dean, Patrick 70, 75–6, 77, 85, 87, 91, 199

Defence Intelligence 220

Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) 109, 116, 164, 166, 167–8, 182

Defence Operational Planning Staff 184

Defence White Paper 1966 107, 133–5

Defence, Ministry of 57, 148, 166, 167, 173, 174, 176, 182, 192, 193, 197, 206, 220

Dennison, Malcolm 165

Department for International Development 213

Dhofar insurgency and war 10, 158–60, 165–8, 171–85, 206, 208, 212, 219

Dhofar Liberation Front 159, 171, 172, 173, 181, 187

DI4 168

Douglas-Home, Sir Alec 121, 147, 179

Eden, Sir Anthony 66, 71, 199

Egypt 16, 69, 78, 95–9, 106–7, 119–35, 159, 164, 180, 206, 211, 212, 216

Eisenhower, Dwight 109

EOKA 65–7, 75, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 90, 93–4, 95–9, 101

Evill, Sir Douglas 27, 30

Falklands War 16, 170, 198

Federal Intelligence Committee (FIC) 114, 129

Federation of Arab Emirates of the South 106

Foot, Hugh 66–7

Foreign Office/Foreign and Commonwealth Office 16, 18, 27–8, 37, 40, 41, 44–5, 48, 49, 54, 57, 71, 109, 121, 163, 165, 196–8, 214, 220

and Oman 173–4, 179, 182, 186, 187, 189–90

and Yemen war 122–3, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131, 136, 151, 152, 160

France 50, 139

Franks Report 16, 198

Furnival-Jones, Martin 165

Gan 159

Gandy, Christopher 122, 137

GCHQ 8, 18, 70, 123, 125, 126, 152, 206, 220

Gent, Edward 23

Global War on Terrorism 208, 212

Gold Coast 25, 57

Graham, John 187

Gray, William Nicol 57

Greece 65–6, 68, 88, 91–3

Greenhill, Denis 109, 148, 190, 199

Griffiths, James 26, 41

Grivas, George 65, 75, 77, 80

Gulf, see Persian Gulf

Gurney, Henry 24, 50, 59, 60, 197

Harding, John 66, 75, 78, 83

Harib 121, 131

Hayter, Sir William 29, 30, 32–4, 37, 207–8

Healey, Denis 107

Heath, Edward 158

Herman, Michael 18, 76, 161, 185–6, 190, 221

Hibbert, Reginald 45, 48

Hollis, Roger 8–9

Home Office 213

Hong Kong 4, 41, 117

Hormuz, Strait of 158

India 5, 56

Indo-China 50, 53

Indonesia 47

Information Research Department of FCO 83, 220

insurgencies (general), see also under countries 2–15, 21–2, 30–32, 65, 102, 166, 202–14

International Union of Students 43

Iran 177, 178

Iraq 1–2, 16, 17, 106, 154, 159, 164, 203, 207–8, 212, 213, 216, 217, 219

Iraqi National Intelligence Service 219

Irgun Zvai Leumi 94

Israel 5, 6, 16, 70, 93–5

Japan 33, 35

Jenkin, William 56

JIC, see Joint Intelligence Committee

Johnston, Charles 122, 136, 138, 142–3, 145

Joint Action Committee 147–51, 153, 215

Joint Intelligence Advisory Committee (Malaya) 61

Joint Intelligence Bureau 18, 28, 70

Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) passim, especially 6–22, 27–30, 34, 36–42, 53–6, 61–4, 69–73, 84–91, 108–10, 163–9, 175–83, 197–202

creation 16

division, 1968 160–61

JIC (A) 161

JIC (B) 161

JIC (Far East) (JIC (FE)) 27, 32–9, 42, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 113, 207

JIC (Middle East) (JIC (ME)) 69, 79, 97, 112–13, 115, 123, 128, 129, 143–4, 207

JIS, see Joint Intelligence Staff

Joint Intelligence Group (Gulf) (JIG (G)) 164, 165, 171–3, 190, 197

Joint Intelligence Staff (JIS) 18, 27, 30, 69, 108, 111, 148, 161, 179

Joint Planning Staff 54, 55

Jordan 93

Kellar, Alex 35–6, 56

Kenya 7, 65, 74, 98, 117

Korean War 32, 41, 49, 53

Labour Party 25, 107–8, 131, 149–50

Lai Tek 33

Lancaster House Agreement on Cyprus 68, 88

Landon, Tim 187

Lennox-Boyd, Alan 82, 88, 89

Libya 154, 220–21

Liddell, Guy 17–18, 24

Lloyd, Thomas 76

Local Intelligence Committees 59, 60, 112–15, 117, 128, 129, 167

Logan, Marston 44, 45, 58

MacDonald, Alex 75

Macdonald, Malcolm 38, 50, 58

Macmillan, Harold 5, 67, 76, 88, 89, 105, 139, 142, 145, 157

Maguire, Sir Harold 109, 176, 182

Major, John 103

Makarios, Archbishop 66, 83

Malaya 7, chapter 2, 73, 80, 90, 100, 101, 102, 114, 127, 132–3, 163, 169, 197, 199, 203, 207, 209, 210

Malayan Communist Party 23–5, 35, 38, 43–4, 45–9

Malayan Races Liberation Army 23

Malayan Security Service (MSS) 33, 35, 38, 56, 58

Masirah 158, 159

Mau Mau 7, 65, 74

McCarthy, Daniel 116, 118, 119

McLean, Billy 136

mercenaries 141, 143–4

MI5 (Security Service) 6, 8, 12, 17–18, 25, 28, 29, 35, 45–6, 48–9, 52, 56, 57, 67, 70, 74–7, 79, 100, 112, 117, 162, 165, 202, 217, 218, 220

Montgomery, Field-Marshal Bernard 44

Morton, Jack 115, 128

Nasser, Gamal Abdul 95–6, 98, 106–7, 121–4, 126–7, 131–3, 134, 141–3, 149–50, 153, 177, 211

National Crime Agency 202

National Intelligence Estimates [USA] 19

National Security Council 202, 205, 213, 220

National Security Strategy 202

NATO 8, 68, 91–3, 159, 170, 203

Nicoll, Douglas 206

Nightingale, Ray 166

NLF 106, 125–6, 171

Northern Ireland 9–10, 168, 170

Nyasaland 8, 65

O’Donnell, Gus 208, 212

Oldman, Hugh 186–7

Oman 10, chapter 5, 206, 210, 219

coup of 1970 186–91

Omani Intelligence Service and intelligence organisation in Oman 165–9

Omand, Sir David 20

Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee 161

Oxford University 29

Packard, Charles 54

Palestine 6, 57, 94, 139

People’s Socialist Party (PSP) 120, 122, 123, 125–6

Persian Gulf, see also Bahrain; Oman 5, 105, 111, 135–6, 157–9, 162, 164–5, 170, 171, 175–9, 182–3, 194, 212

Philippines 47

police: Aden 119

Cyprus 67, 73, 75, 79

Political Intelligence Journals 37–8

Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf (PFLOAG) 159–60, 176, 180, 181

Powell, Enoch 137

Prendergast, John 117–18

Qaboos, Sultan 160, 165, 177, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188–91, 193

Radcliffe, Lord 84

Radfan 107, 126

RANCOUR II 149–50

Reilly, Patrick 29, 54

Review of the Situation Round the Soviet and Satellite Perimeter 38, 85

Rhodesia 10–11

Ricketts, Sir Peter 25

Sa’id, Sultan 160, 165, 166, 171, 173, 183, 186, 187, 188–91

Sadat, Anwar al- 177

Saddam Hussein 1–2, 208

Salalah 158, 184

sanctions 11

Sandys, Duncan 111, 123, 137, 141

SAS 160, 166, 167, 186

Saudi Arabia 106, 127, 134, 139, 159, 177, 184

SCANT 69

Scarlett, John 207

Scrivener, Patrick 36, 58

SEATO 53

Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE) 34–6, 45, 56

Security Service, see MI5

Seel, George 29

Semple, Brig. Roderick 160

Shackleton, Lord 151

Shaw, John 74

Shortt, Arthur 54

Sillitoe, Percy 29, 35, 38, 42–3, 45–6, 74

Singapore 30

SIS 8, 25, 28, 46, 68, 70, 94, 117, 141, 187, 220

Smith, Ian 10

South Arabia, Federation of, see also Aden; South Yemen (independent) 9, 105, chapter 4, 208, 219

South Arabian Action Group 147, 151

South Yemen (independent), see also South Arabia; Yemen 151, 157, 159, 171–2, 178–81, 183–5, 192, 211

Southwood, Lt Col 168

Soviet Union 3–4, 7, 11, 26, 28, 39, 43, 44, 45–8, 52, 79, 87, 90, 91, 120, 159, 170, 175, 177–8, 185, 196, 210, 211

Special Branch (Aden) 111–12, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 155

Special Branch (Cyprus) 75, 76, 79, 80, 82

Special Branch (Malaya) 33, 56

Special Planning Committee 32

Stephens, Donald 75

Stephenson, Hugh 79, 109, 142

Strachey, John 41, 47

Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010 19, 221

Strong, Major General Sir Kenneth 109

Sudan 5

Suez Crisis 5, 70, 95–9, 122, 199

Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) 158, 172–4, 183, 185, 186–8

Syria 106, 154

Templer, Gerald 24–5, 37, 56, 69, 80, 81, 89, 99, 123, 197, 199, 200

terrorism 2, 14, 202, 208, 213

Thailand (Siam) 25, 45, 50, 53

Thatcher, Margaret 163

Thomson, John 163, 170

Thorneycroft, Peter 137

TMT 87

trades unions 67, 123

Trend, Burke 169, 183, 196, 199, 201

Trevaskis, Kennedy 122, 123, 127, 128–9, 132, 136, 139, 140, 145, 146

Turkey 68, 88, 91–2

Turks in Cyprus 67–8, 87

Turnbull, Richard 118

United Arab Emirates/Trucial States 159, 176, 177

United Arab Republic 106, 107

United Nations 92–3, 121, 130–31, 154, 179, 216

USA 2, 12, 19, 110, 159, 219

Weekly Review of Current Intelligence (Grey Book) 38, 83, 85–7, 96, 101, 102

Weekly Survey of Intelligence (Red Book) 85, 185

Welensky, Sir Roy 8

West, Alan 202

White, Dick 46, 74, 77, 141, 149, 161–2, 169, 183

Wilkinson, Peter 169

Wilson, Harold 107, 131–2, 151, 158, 159, 162, 171, 182, 201

World Federation of Democratic Youth 43

World Federation of Trade Unions 81

World War, Second 6, 17, 25, 27, 30, 33, 35, 109, 136, 196, 198

Yemen 106–8, 119–27, 129–31, 136–51, 212

Zhdanov, Andrei 44, 47