Libra rising: Hitler,astrology and British intelligence, 1940–43 1

During the Second World War Nazi Germany presented British intelligence with two intellectual challenges: to acquire its tactical‘secrets’ and to comprehend the strategic ‘mysteries’ of its commanding elite. The former were hidden, but knowable through the miracles of Ultra. The latter – Hitler's strategic intentions – were by contrast virtually impenetrable. Consequently, between 1940 and 1943 British intelligence used the talents of an astrologer, Louis de Wohl, who claimed – wrongly – that Hitler's strategic plans were astrologically inspired. However, as de Wohl's star began to wane he was talent-spotted by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which employed him to disseminate black propaganda. He consequently travelled to the United States where, in tandem with British Security Co-ordination, he undermined American confidence in the invincibility of Hitler through astrological prognostications. This article aims to demonstrate that although Britain had unprecedented access to Germany's tactical ‘secrets’, the ‘mysteries’ of Hitler's strategic mind-set remained just that.     

Eberstadt,Dulles and NSC 50: The Impetus for CIA Evolution through 1953

Despite outward appearances, the CIA's evolution between 1945 and 1953 was influenced by two objective investigations – the Eberstadt Task Force and Dulles Commission – and was accelerated, but not instigated, by the shock of the Korean War. The role of these two investigations, which ultimately resulted in NSC 50 and the establishment of the CIA as a viable member of the US intelligence community, has been overlooked in recent literature. While these panels played a critical role in shaping the CIA's organization during this period, the Truman administration never achieved its goal of establishing a truly ‘central’ intelligence organization. This article examines the formation of the CIA, discusses both reports, national policy changes enacted in response, and relevance to the US intelligence community's current operations.     

Approaches to Understanding the Inaugural CIA Covert Operation in Italy: Exploding Useful Myths

The Italian election of April 1948 represented the first occasion on which the CIA intervened to influence events abroad. Understanding of the operation has been shaped by three dissimilar approaches that have been critical, celebratory, and stressed continuity. These approaches have, in turn, fuelled a series of useful myths around the episode. Agency declarations of greater ‘openness’ after the Cold War promised to advance historiographical debates on this – and other – interventions through the declassification of records, although proved a false dawn. This article offers an alternative method to analyse the case through a broader international frame of inquiry that considers CIA action in the context of both American and Italian efforts during the election. In so doing, it challenges the useful myths around 1948.     

Connecting Intelligence and Theory: Intelligence Liaison and International Relations

Intelligence liaison increased exponentially during the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Today it continues as the most significant dimension of intelligence, including impacting on accountability and oversight considerations. Nevertheless, the intelligence liaison phenomenon remains largely under-studied and substantially under-theorized. In this article, preliminary suggestions are offered concerning how this dearth of theory can be addressed. Firstly, the relevance of international relations theory and other bodies of theory, together with significant approaches concerning how international relations – extending to how intelligence and intelligence-related phenomena (such as, in this article, intelligence co-operation) – can be studied, are explored. These theories, and equally, approaches, are arguably most appropriate when deployed in an arrangement of ‘complex co-existence plurality’ across the different interrelated levels of experience and analysis, and they offer more effective explanations when intelligence liaison is disaggregated into at least eight systemic attributes or variables. More broadly, the suggestion that international relations theory, and indeed theory generally, is ‘irrelevant’ to intelligence studies is simultaneously challenged.     

Shifting Currents: Changes in National Intelligence Estimates on the Iran Nuclear Threat

Lost in the political fallout of the Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2007 was any discussion about historical parallels and what those might say about intersection between intelligence, policy, and politics. This article argues that the NIEs on the ballistic missile threat of the 1990s offer a useful analogy. In a short period of time, the NIE's assessment of the threat from so-called ‘rogue states’ went from modest to non-existent, provoking charges of politicization, eliciting investigations, and pausing the US missile defense program. A similar sequence of events followed the NIEs on Iran, whose tenor appeared to shift from alarmist in 2005 to dismissive in 2007. If the experience of the ballistic missile NIEs is any guide, then it is not clear that the `cure’– investigations and commissions – are better than the disease. Both cases illustrate the need for the intelligence community to remain detached but not unaware of the policy environment into which these estimates are introduced. They also reaffirm that estimates are just estimates, probabilistic rather than deterministic judgments about future events.     

‘One of our Most Valuable Sources of Intelligence’: British Intelligence and the Prisoner of War System in 1944

During the Second World War, secret information derived from enemy prisoners of war (POWs) was a valuable asset to British intelligence. Until 1944, the POW system had expanded from a small interrogation camp in the Tower of London to a multi-step structure with the so-called Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, United Kingdom (CSDIC(UK)) at its top. The methods employed to collect reliable information included microphones, stool pigeons and different interrogation techniques. The results were read by all services and several ministries which provided a unique insight into German capabilities, intentions and thoughts.     

Intelligence to counter terror: The importance of all-source fusion

The modern digital environment has made terrorism and other transnational crimes vastly easier to coordinate on a worldwide scale than was possible before World War II. It has also exacerbated a most serious challenge: governments attempting to stop terrorists – particularly democracies – are expected to do so without undermining the laws, representative principles and informal confidences upon which a culture of democracy depends. The purpose of this article is to examine the modern intelligence requirements for countering terror in order to appreciate this challenge in greater depth and to develop a reasoned basis for balancing counterintelligence capabilities with civil liberties. It begins by considering the nature of the terrorists we face and the requirements for good intelligence operations against them. Historical examples illustrate those lessons that can be learned from the defeat of similar threats in the past, including the recurring ways in which challenges to civil liberties arise as democracies optimize intelligence in the name of security. In discussing the special opportunities and challenges modern technology poses in this contest, the analysis suggests an essential next step for democracies threatened by terrorists in their midst.     

The Wennerström spy case: A Western perspective

Few spy cases during the Cold War have such an international flavour as the Wennerström spy case – a neutral Swedish attaché spying on the West for the benefit of the East. Even 40 years later, however, the literature available on the case suffers from a Swedish bias and has generally received little scholarly treatment. Therefore, this article aims to describe and analyse the Wennerström spy case from a Western perspective, based on new declassified sources as well as the most recent research available in Swedish. Among other things, the article demonstrates that the investigation after Wennerström's arrest took place in close cooperation with primarily American and British intelligence services, that Wennerström's allegation of being a double agent was either false or greatly exaggerated, and, finally, that the damage done to Western interests due to his espionage was greater than portrayed in the existing literature.     

Too Little,Too Late: The CIA and US Counteraction of the Soviet Initiative in the Six-Day War, 1967

The authors' previous research has established that the 1967 Arab–Israeli Six-Day War resulted from a deliberate Soviet plan to provoke Israel into a pre-emptive strike, which would legitimize and trigger a massive Soviet military intervention to aid an Egyptian–Syrian counteroffensive. However, US documents released until recently provided no evidence that the American intelligence community, and particularly the CIA, detected this threat or informed the political leadership about it – even though some indications were picked up at the field level. A newly declassified, retrospective report appears for the first time to show that there was awareness of major components of the Soviet operation (preparations for a naval landing and parachute drop). But closer scrutiny finds that this report reflects Soviet propaganda more than factual intelligence – thus further tarnishing what has hitherto been held as an outstanding achievement for the Agency and its chief.     

Overcoming strategic weakness: The Egyptian deception and the Yom Kippur War 1

Analysis of the Egyptian deception on the eve of the October 1973 (Yom Kippur) War serves to illuminate operational rationale, which may guide future strategic deception models and processes. The Egyptians used deception to neutralize two Israeli ‘strong points’ that might jeopardize the crossing of the Suez Canal: the capacity for a preemptive strike and deployment in strength in the Canal region. The deception aimed to minimize Israel's ‘early warning space’, delaying the moment of decision-making and slowing down the IDF's operational response. Implementing a dual technique of concealing and misleading, the deception lulled the Israeli early warning system, the linchpin of its security doctrine, into accepting the (wrong) alternative option. The deception gained the upper hand because it corresponded – even if unintentionally – with the fundamental perception maintained by the victim, contributing to winning the first round of the surprise attack.     

Iraq: The Mother of all intelligence failures

The most important American intelligence failure in Iraq was the widespread belief among top administration officials that Saddam could be overthrown at little cost and successfully replaced by a pro-American regime. We trace the causes of these and related intelligence failures to the administration's hubris. It led the Secretary of Defense and Vice President – the men most responsible for the Iraq decisions – to formulate unrealistic expectations about America's ability to impose its will in the Middle East and to rig the feedback networks in the military and intelligence communities to provide them with confirming estimates while downplaying discrepant information.     

The Foreign Research and Press Service: Britain's Primary Source of Intelligence from the German-occupied Baltic States during the Second World War

The article investigates how the Foreign Research and Press Service succeeded in overcoming internal government prejudice to become His Majesty's Government primary supplier of intelligence from the German-occupied Baltic states during the Second World War. As the Foreign Office had banned the covert intelligence agencies from operating within the Soviet sphere, which included the Baltic states, the non-covert Foreign Research and Press Service Baltic States Section could operate without offending the USSR. The article charts how the Foreign Research and Press Service supplied crucial information from the enemy press that helped to form British war and post-war policy towards the USSR.     

Institutional Change and Conflict Regulation: The Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) and the Mechanisms of Change in Northern Ireland

This article uses historical institutionalist theory to assess the impact of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 – often seen as the first step towards gradualist change in the role of the state in Northern Ireland. It uses new data to show how the elites who initiated the process conceived of it and to identify the mechanisms producing change. The study shows that the mechanisms of institutional change identified in comparative studies of industrial policy and welfare state development are also to be found in processes of intergovernmental ethnic conflict regulation. In turn, it highlights a mechanism of institutional change – ‘wedging’ – not discussed in the literature.     

The Political Foundations of the Eurocracy

This article explores the politics behind the design of EU regulatory institutions. The EU has established an extensive ‘Eurocracy’ outside of the Commission hierarchy, including over 30 European agencies and a number of networks of national regulatory authorities (NRAs). The article examines the politics of institutional choice in the EU, explaining why EU policy-makers create agencies in some policy areas, while opting for looser regulatory networks in others. It shows that the design of EU regulatory institutions – ‘the Eurocracy’ – is driven not by functional imperatives but by political considerations related to distributional conflict and the influence of supranational actors.     

‘An important contribution to the allied war effort’: Canadian and North Atlantic intelligence on German POWs, 1940–1945

This article examines inter-allied efforts to collect, categorize and analyse material gathered from the thousands of German prisoners of war (POWs) in their hands during the Second World War. The different information gathered from enemy captives was valuable to British, Canadian and American intelligence services, helping them to evaluate morale of ‘Hitler’s soldiers’, to improve the security of their camp networks and to understand National Socialism ideology. Often viewed as a primarily British-American operation, POW intelligence also involved Canadian authorities. This article argues that Canada, far from being a secondary actor, had a central role within this transatlantic network.     

Congressional Intelligence Oversight: The Electoral Disconnection

This article seeks to reconcile congressional oversight models in theory with oversight realities in intelligence. For nearly three decades, political scientists have argued that Congress controls the bureaucracy – and in surprisingly efficient ways. Yet the history of intelligence oversight suggests the opposite. We take a fresh look at the logic and empirics of police patrol and fire alarm models and find that neither explains intelligence oversight well. Both rely on assumptions, such as the presence of strong and plentiful interest groups, which characterize domestic policy but not US intelligence policy. Our data – comparing committee hearing activities, legislative productivity, and interest groups across different policy domains between 1985 and 2005 – reveal that oversight varies dramatically by policy issue, and that intelligence almost always ranks at the bottom. Ironically, the same electoral incentives that generate robust oversight in some policy areas turn out to be far weaker in intelligence.     

China's dual strategy of coercion and inducement towards ASEAN

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the discussion about China's divisive influence on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It argues that recent China–ASEAN relations are based on Beijing's successful implementation of a dual strategy of coercion and inducement. The effectiveness of this strategy is tested against the South China Sea disputes – the issue that lies in the core of regional security and a key platform of power display. The article outlines Beijing's recent interaction with individual ASEAN member-states and its implications for the regional multilateral diplomacy. While by no means identical, Beijing's dual strategy of coercion and inducement with individual ASEAN states have resulted in an effective abuse of the ASEAN consensus principle – a tactic often referred to as ‘divide and rule’. Consequently, the group's internal discord has further eroded and affected the institutional confidence of ASEAN. This article draws attention to the psychological effect of coercion as a perception of punishment, and inducement as a perception of reward.     

Mussolini's Secret War in the Mediterranean and the Middle East: Italian Intelligence and the British Response

Little is known of the history, structure and operations of the Italian intelligence services in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The challenge brought by Fascist Italy to the security of the British and French imperial systems is at the heart of this article, which sets out to assess not only the imperial dimension of Fascist intelligence but also the response provided by Britain's and France's colonial authorities to Mussolini's ambitions in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. An examination of British and French intelligence archival material sheds new light upon perceptions of power and threat afforded by British and French policy-makers keen to maintain political control over their colonial and client states. The paper suggests that despite comprising a multitude of competing agencies, the Fascist services could rely on the work of motivated individuals and on the support of Italian diplomatic representatives overseas. Their ability to establish relations – although short-lived – with Arab nationalist leaders and their intense activities in British colonies, protectorates and mandates generated concern within the British Foreign and Colonial Offices. Meanwhile, poor intelligence coordination and assessment coupled with misguided assumptions about the nature of Arab nationalism hindered Britain's response to the challenge mounted by Mussolini's regime.     

Small parties: From party pledges to government policy

When estimating a party's capacity for goal co-ordination, scholars need not only consider contextual constraints but also the party's properties, since these directly affect its strategic choices. For small parties which are crucial in virtually all multi-party systems the co-ordination of votes, office and policy is much more difficult than for numerically strong actors. Since the conceptual tools to assess the weight of small coalition partners – weight defined as the capacity to defend and realise core policy commitments – and to systematise intra-coalitional processes in general are absent, this article proposes a typology to account for small parties' weight. This typology is defined by the two criteria of ‘qualified pivotality’ and ‘centrality’, each of which is assumed to create a particular set of strategic advantages. Based on the latter, the approach allows small parties' impact to be compared, first, with reference to their positions within the respective parliamentary party system, and, second, with reference to the type of coalition that is likely to be formed. Based on the separate but parallel assessment of ‘formation weight’ and ‘coalition weight’, the typology reveals under which conditions the same properties of a small party may be advantageous during the coalition formation process, but disadvantageous during the subsequent period of coalition government.