Trump and the US intelligence community

President Trump has publicly denigrated the value of the United States' intelligence community (IC), imperilling the morale and retention of intelligence officers. Unless he establishes a better working relationship with the IC, the White House not only risks hollowing out the IC but could also wind up politicising the intelligence process and misusing intelligence products.     

British intelligence in the twentieth century

SIR STEPHEN LANDER, the Director-General of the Security Service, describes his Service's approach to the management of its archives which is based on its obligations under the 1958 Public Record Act. In this article, he indicates the quantity and type of records held by the Service and, illustrating with some examples, explains his Service's current file retention and release policies. The systematic programme of file releases to the Public Records Office, begun by the Security Service in 1997, has resulted in a considerable amount of intelligence archive material being placed in the public domain.     

The Liddell diaries and British intelligence history

This article discusses the wartime diaries of Guy Liddell of MI5. It argues that they are a crucial source for the study of wartime intelligence history, not only in respect of MI5 but also of other British secret agencies, particularly MI6 and SOE. Written in an accessible style, the diaries cast much new light on personalities, events, discussions and decisions both on operational matters and on questions of high policy, including relations with foreign intelligence services, debate on postwar intelligence priority and organization, and ministerial involvement in intelligence and security issues. In their breadth of coverage and information, their treatment of opinions and personalities, their abundance of detail and their fresh and unguarded prose, they are far more interesting, more accurate and more authoritative than either the various in-house MI5 section histories which have been opened to research in recent years, or the Hinsley Simkins volume of the official history of British intelligence. They are as significant a source for intelligence history as are the Cadogan diaries for the study of British foreign policy between 1939 and 1945. The article also points to inconsistencies in redaction throughout the diaries, and to other questions arising from the appearance of this crucial source.     

British signals intelligence and the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland

Historians for decades have placed Room 40, the First World War British naval signals intelligence organization, at the centre of narratives about the British anticipation of and response to the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. A series of crucial decrypts of telegrams between the German embassy in Washington and Berlin, it has been believed, provided significant advance intelligence about the Rising before it took place. This article upends previous accounts by demonstrating that Room 40 possessed far less advance knowledge about the Rising than has been believed, with most of the supposedly key decrypts not being generated until months after the Rising had taken place.     

MI1(b) and the origins of British diplomatic cryptanalysis

The War Office's First World War cryptanalytic bureau MI1(b) has been severely overshadowed by its more glamorous equivalent in the Admiralty, ‘Room 40’. In particular its diplomatic decryption work has gone completely unnoticed; yet this was its main activity, and it contributed more than did Room 40 to their common successor, the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). This article, drawing on the past decade's releases of GC&CS archives, traces the development of MI1(b)'s diplomatic work, disentangles its achievements from those of its better-known naval colleague, describes how the two organizations were merged to become GC&CS, and suggests why MI1(b)'s achievements were so quickly forgotten.     

Soviet intelligence,British security and the end of the Red Orchestra: The Fate of Alexander Rado

Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties that Bind: Intelligence Cooperation between the UKUSA Countries (London: George Allen &; Unwin 1986). Pp. xviii + 402. £19.95.

Giuseppe De Lutiis, Storia dei Servizi Segreti in Italia (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1985). Pp. 313, Lire 16,500.

Scott D. Breckenridge, The CIA and the U.S. Intelligence System (Boulder, CO; Westview Press, Frederick A. Praeger). Pp. 364.

Phillip Thurmond Smith, Policing Victorian London. Political Policing, Public Order, and the London Metropolitan Police (Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1985). Pp. x + 230. £35.

Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High‐Risk Technologies (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Pp. 386. $10.95.     

Foreign policy by commission: Reforming the intelligence community

Can presidential commissions serve as a source of significant policy innovation in the area of intelligence analysis? This study shows that intelligence commission recommendations present a decidedly mixed bag. We cannot speak of a linear movement toward improving the quality or management of intelligence analysis in which one problem is solved and attention then is turned to the next. Yet presidential commissions looking into intelligence analysis cannot be mere symbolic window dressing. Many of their recommendations have been listened to. It would be more accurate to see them as having in each instance narrowed the range of policy choices receiving serious consideration as means of improving the intelligence product.     

Industrialists and farmers: British interests and the European community

The ‘Europeanisation’ of domestic public policies has been among the key themes in recent reforms in EU member states. This article employs the analytical concept of ‘isomorphism’ to come to a better understanding of ‘Europeanisation’. Various mechanisms which might lead to isomorphic change are being identified and applied to the reforms in German competition and public procurement law. The application of the isomorphism framework suggests that ‘Europeanisation’ has multiple sources and cannot be understood as a uniform process nor as leading to uniform outcomes.     

‘Extremely valuable work’: British intelligence and the interrogation of refugees in London, 1941–45

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the compulsory questioning of over 30,000 refugees who escaped to Britain during the Second World War and who were detained in London’s Royal (Victoria) Patriotic School. It answers three questions: how did intelligence come to see non-British civilians as sources; what characteristics did refugees possess and how did these influence the information they shared; and who was interested in their accounts? It argues that, while this site was set up as an MI5 vetting camp for the identification of Axis agents, it quickly evolved into an intelligence-gathering centre, serving the interests of multiple departments and organisations.     

Making future leaders in the US intelligence community: challenges and opportunities

This article explores what factors are important in developing the future leaders of the US intelligence community in the post-9/11 security environment. It surveys traditional leadership theory to assess whether any of its perspectives are applicable to understanding leadership in the intelligence context. It argues, that although some leadership theory may be applicable, the intelligence studies field may be better served by developing its own body of leadership theory. Second, any leadership theory needs to consider together the two synergistic components of intelligence leadership: personal leadership development and the ability to lead organization reform. Furthermore, the role of intelligence governance may be the most critical factor in promoting better leaders of US intelligence agencies and the broader community.     

The use of events/interaction research by the intelligence community

This review essay applies academic and operational research community criteria of evaluation to a project founded on events/interaction data. The project, the Early Warning and Monitoring System (EWAMS), is built on solid academic research but also takes into account requirements of the operational community. Differences in form and content from typical academic events/interaction research have been instrumental in putting the EWAMS into operational use.The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed of implied, of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or any other agency of the U.S. Government.     

British open source intelligence (OSINT) and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union: persecution,extermination and partisan warfare

Where does British open source intelligence (OSINT) fit into the intelligence debate surrounding Allied knowledge of the Holocaust? In particular what can this source of intelligence tell us in regards to the opening of the extermination phase of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union? Were the Allies conclusions being falsely influenced by their own OSINT analysts? Or conversely did OSINT provide further evidence (alongside SIGINT decodes) that the Nazis were now committing mass genocide. This article explores these questions by examining the FRPS/FORD OSINT reports from the civilian ruled territories of (and those intended for) the Reichskommissariate Ostland and Ukraine.