Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
David Mckay, Designing Europe: Comparative Lessons from the Federal Experience
Adrienne Héritier et al., Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking,
Montserrat Guibernau (ed.), Governing European Diversity
Alec Stone Sweet, Wayne Sandholtz and Neil Fligstein (eds.), The Institutionalization of Europe
David Calleo, Rethinking Europe's Future
by Simon Walters, Tory Wars: Conservatives in Crisis
Boris Johnson, Friends, Voters, Countrymen: Jottings on the Stump
Edward Vaizey, Nicholas Bore and Michael Gove (eds.), A Blue Tomorrow: New Visions for Modern Conservatives
Victor Davis Hanson, Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam
Michael Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order
Ulrich Beck, The Brave New World of Work
Ian Gough, Global Capital, Human Needs and Social Policies: Selected Essays 1994–99
Roland Axtmann (ed.), Balancing Democracy
Richard Vernon, Political Morality: A Theory of Liberal Democracy
Paul Ward, The Red Flag and the Union Jack: Englishness, Patriotism and the British Left, 1881–1924
Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War
James Ellison, Threatening Europe: Britain and the Creation of the European Economic Community 1955–58
Murray Edelman, The Politics of Misinformation
Nicholas Jones, Campaign 2001
James Stanyer, The Creation of Political News: Television and British Party Political Conferences     

The proper study of propaganda

Robert Jackall (ed.), Propaganda (New York University Press; London: Macmillan 1995) (Main Trends of the Modern World). Pp.xi + 449; index. $50 (cloth); $20 (paper). ISBN 0–8147–4196–7 and 4197–5 (US). 0–333–61756–8 and 61757–6 (UK).

Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton (eds.), Propaganda; Political Rhetoric and Identity (Phoenix Mill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, Sutton, 1999). Pp.xi + 368, biblio. essay, footnotes, index. £50 (cloth); £14.99 (paper). ISBN 0–7509–2028–9 and 2029–7.

Gary D. Rawnsley (ed.), Cold War Propaganda in the 1950s (New York, St Martin's Press; London: Macmillan 1999). Pp.xi + 246; endnotes, index. £45. ISBN 0–312–22012‐X (US) and 0–333–67591–7 (UK).

Francis Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta 1999). Pp.xi + 509, select biblio., endnotes, index. £20 (cloth); £9.99 (paper). ISBN 1–8620–7029–6 and 7327–9.

Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, Britain's Secret Propaganda War, 1948–1977 (Phoenix Mill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, Sutton, 1998). Pp.xi + 223, biblio., footnotes, index. £25. ISBN 0–7509–1668–0.

Esko Salminen, The Silenced Media: The Propaganda War between Russia and the West in Northern Europe (New York, St Martin's Press, London, Macmillan, 1999. Pp.xi + 198, biblio., endnotes, index. £45. ISBN 0–333–72451–8.     

Book Reviews

Books in this article:
Solon Ardittis (ed., foreword by Jacques Attali), The Politics of East — West Migration
Daniel Gordon, Citizens without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought
John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. Explaining Northern Ireland
W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz (eds), Taken by Storm: the Media, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy in the Gulf War (Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press, 1994)
Michael C. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics
David Johnston, The Idea of a Liberal Theory: a Critique and Reconstruction
Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
David Miliband (ed.), Reinventing the Left
Jack D. Fleer, North Carolina Government and Politics
Leslie Bethell (ed.), Argentina since Independence
Niccolò Machiavelli (ed. and transl. by David Wootton), Selected Political Writings
Richard Crockatt, The Fifty Years War: the United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics
Julie Marie Bunck, Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba
Mark Lilla (ed.) New French Thought: Political Philosophy     

Revealing the parameters of opinion: an interview with Frances Stonor Saunders

In 1999 Frances Stonor Saunders published Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta) (American title: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters). The book received much attention from the media and from academics, and triggered a renewed assessment of this important aspect of Cold War history. W. Scott Lucas interviewed Frances Saunders about the methods of the CIA, the role of the intellectuals in the political and cultural battles of the Cold War, the question of their autonomy, the need for financial support of cultural activities, and the debate about the principles of intellectuals.     

Rethinking the ‘Cold War’ in the Asia‐Pacific*

Abstract

Whereas the Yalta System collapsed and the Cold War ended in the Euro‐Atlantic context, the basic structure of the Cold War remains in the Asia‐Pacific region, and still provides potential sources for future conflicts. This paper reconsiders the regional Cold War and its implications for current international politics in the Asia‐Pacific region. It argues that the relaxation of tensions seen since the late 1980s resembles the 1970s’ détente in the Euro‐Atlantic region, i.e. recognition of a Cold War political status quo, rather than the ‘end of the Cold War’. Along with political and ideological confrontations, significant elements within the Cold War structure in the Asia‐Pacific are regional conflicts among its major players. Their historical correlation within the San Francisco System has been neglected in past studies. The paper suggests that re‐examining the disputes within a multilateral framework may provide a key to a breakthrough in understanding the current status quo.     

Ethics and Intelligence after September 2001

Anthony Glees, The Secrets of the Service: British Intelligence and Communist Subversion 1939–51 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987). Pp.447; £18.

Robert A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Pp.378; $32.50 and $14.50.

Peter Taylor, Stalker: the Search for the Truth (London: Faber and Faber, 1987). Pp.231, £9.95, paperback £4.95.

Frank Doherty, The Stalker Affair: Including an Account of British Secret Service Operations in Ireland (Cork and Dublin: Mercier Press, 1986). Pp.90, IR£3.95.

K.G. Robertson (ed.), Intelligence and National Security (London: Macmillan, 1987). Pp.281.

William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History. U.S. Global Interventions Since World War 2 (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986). Pp.428. $19.95.

Joan Miller, One Girl's War: Personal Exploits in MIS's Most Secret Station (Dublin: Brandon Book Publishers, 1986). Pp.155. £5.95.     

Britain and the Korean war after 50 years: The slow emergence of an intelligence dimension

Anthony Farrar‐Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War. Volume I: A Distant Obligation (London: HMSO, 1990). Pp.xxii + 512, illus., bibliog., index. ISBN 0–11–630953–9.

Volume II: An Honourable Discharge (London: HMSO, 1995). Pp.xx + 534, illus., bibliog., index. £90. ISBN 0–11–630–958‐X.

Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao and the Korean War (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993; distributed in UK by Cambridge University Press, 1995). Pp.xvi + 393. £15.95, bibliog., index. ISBN 0–8047–2521–7.

Peter Lowe, Containing the Cold War in Asia: British policies towards Japan, China and Korea, 1945–1953 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). Pp.xii + 288, bibliog., index. £45. ISBN 0–7190–2508–7.

H. J. Yasamee and K. A. Hamilton (ed.), Documents on British Policy Overseas. Series II Volume IV: The Korean War, June 1950–June 1951 (London: HMSO, 1991). Pp.liv + 460, index. £47. ISBN 0–11–591695–4.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
RUSSELL MATHEWS (ed.), Making Federalism Work: Towards a More Efficient, Equitable and Responsive Federal System
R.M. BURNS et al., Political and Administrative Federalism
P.D. GROENEWEGEN, The Taxable Capacity of Local Government in New South Wales
F.A. LARCOMBE, The Stabilisation of Local Government in New South Wales 1858–1906
L.J. BARKER (ed.), Governance of the Australian Colleges of Advanced Education
MORRIS JANOWITZ, Social Control of the Welfare State
LYNTON K. CALDWELL, Man and his Environment: Policy and Administration
ALAN MURIE et al., Housing Policy and the Housing System
NIAL OSBOROUGH, Borstal in Ireland
DAVID HEALD, Making Devolution Work
T. H. RIGBY and R. F. MILLER, Political and Administrative Aspects of the Scientific and Technical Revolution in the U.S.S.R.
PETER WILENSKI, The Delivery of Health Services in the People's Republic of China
MARTIN SHUBIK, The Uses and Methods of Gaming
MARTIN SHUBIK, Games for Society, Business and War: Towards a Theory of Gaming
M. KUBR (ed.), Management Consulting: a Guide to the Profession
J. DAVID EDELSTEIN and MALCOLM WARNER, Comparative Union Democracy Organisation and Opposition in British and American Unions     

‘How good are we?’ culture and the Cold War

This analysis addresses the question of how different levels of culture were used in the Cold War by political and civil institutions to influence public opinion in Western Europe, and, more specifically, in Germany. It illuminates how what are commonly defined as ‘cultural exports’ or ‘cultural propaganda’ refer to a highly heterogeneous and complex group of governmental and non-governmental agents, actions and motivations. While governmental exports focused increasingly on highbrow products such as book and art exhibits, manifestations of popular culture were only admitted if they revealed a specific educational purpose. It can be argued that high culture provided the basis for much Cold War propaganda as much as the Cold War manipulated representations of high culture. Competing against communist claims that America had no high culture, US Cold War programs invoked previous instances of high cultural exchange, particularly with Germany. In doing so, they sealed and politicized a cultural partnership that had been in existence for almost 100 years.     

Books: British Politics

P. Cosgrave, Thatcher: the First Term (London, The Bodley Head, 1985)
A. King (ed.), The British Prime Minister (second edition) (London, Macmillan, 1985)
A. Ranney (ed.) Britain at the Polls 1983 (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1985)
D. S. Bell (ed.), The Conservative Government 1979–84: an Interim Report (London, Croom Helm, 1985
S. Fothergill and J. Vincent, The State of the Nation (London, Pan, 1985
Philip Norton (ed.), Parliament in the 1980s (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985
Leo Pliatzky, Paying and Choosing: the Intelligent Person's Guide to the Mixed Economy (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985)
John Grieve Smith (ed.) Strategic Planning in Nationalised Industries (London, Macmillan, 1984)
E. Durbin, New Jerusalem (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985)
Geofrey Foote, The Labour Party's Political Thought (London, Croom Helm, 1985)
D. Selbourne, Against Socialist Illusion: a Radical Argument (London, Macmillan, 1985)
J. Grigg, Lloyd George—From Peace to War (London, Methuen, 1985)
David Dutton, Austen Chamberlain: Gentleman in Politics (Bolton, Ross Anderson Publications 1985)
Norman Flynn, Steve Leach and Carol Vielba, Abolition or Reform? The GLCand the Metropolitan County Councils (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1985)     

Book Reviews

Book Review in this Article
Arthur S. Link (ed.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volumes
Jonathan Osmond, German Reunification: a Reference Guide and Commentary
K. B. Lall, H. S. Chopra and Thomas Meyer, EC92, United Germany, and the Changing World Order
Heinz D. Kurz (ed.), United Germany and the New Europe
A. James McAdams, Germany Divided: from Wall to Reunification
Kosaku Yoshino, Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan
Stephen S. Large, Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: a Political Biography
Nazli Choucri, Robert C. North and Susumu Yamakage, The Challenge of Japan before World War II and After: a Study of National Growth and Expansion
Herbert Hill and James E. Jones Jr (eds), Race in America: the Struggle for Equality
Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: the Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics
Philip Norton, Does Parliament Matter?     

Intelligence,International Relations and 'Under-theorisation'

This article submits that the conceptual framework within which intelligence is studied must continue to evolve and adapt to the new conditions of the early twenty-first century. As more intelligence and intelligence related material than ever before enters the public domain, scholars of international relations must take greater account study of the role of intelligence. Despite its obvious importance to the course of the Cold War, for example, most accounts of the Cold War tend to ignore or downplay the importance of signals intelligence in particular. Intelligence, moreover, is all but absent in most contemporary international relations theory. The essay argues that intelligence should be placed closer to the centre of new interpretations of both the course of the Cold War and of the political dynamics of authoritarian states.     

Refugees: The security dimension

In the 1990s doors have been closing in the Western world against refugee claimants. Although there are multiple causes for declining generosity towards refugees, arguments that refugees pose security problems to host nations have been particularly prominent. An historical analysis reveals that the so‐called ‘golden age’ of postwar refugee settlement from the 1940s to the mid‐1970s was a by‐product of Cold War security and propaganda considerations. The end of the Cold War and the pressures of refugee movements generated by Third World and former Communist bloc conflicts has restructured Western refugee discourse. Refugees now tend to be seen as importers of external political conflicts into the West. At the same time growing European and North American resentment of ‘foreigners’ competing for declining job opportunities and reduced social services have encouraged anti‐immigrant political movements. By tightening barriers and controls over refugees on security grounds, Western governments are able to respond in part to these pressures. The Cold War policing and security alliance in Europe has been retooled to form the basis of a new post‐Cold War cooperation over immigration and refugee security, without the necessity of creating a new framework of supranational institutions.     

Counter-Subversion in Early Cold War Britain: The Official Committee on Communism (Home), the Information Research Department,and ‘State-Private Networks’

This article applies the concepts of ‘transnationalism’ and ‘state-private networks’ to early Cold War Britain to analyze the aims and methods of governmental and non-governmental counter-subversion and propaganda in the ‘Cultural Cold War’. Using recently declassified and underutilized files, the article explores the roles of the Official Committee on Communism (Home) and, more particularly, the Foreign Office Information Research Department. The Attlee and Churchill administrations of the late 1940s and early 1950s increasingly perceived the primary non-military threat of communism to Britain as part of Soviet-inspired transnational subversion of western European societies. This created a growing impetus for a symmetrical, transnational response through both domestic and foreign clandestine ‘indoctrination’ campaigns operating via influential non-state British institutions. Despite constitutional concerns still relevant today, in 1951 ministers endorsed the domestic component of this response as a fully-fledged strategy that would encourage greater state intervention in British society in the Cold War struggle for both liberty and security.     

‘Grow your own’: cold war intelligence and history supermarkets

Most of the records of the three British secret services relating to the Cold War remain closed. Nevertheless, the Open Government initiative in the UK and the Clinton Executive Order of 1995 have resulted in some disclosures, often from consumer agencies who were in receipt of intelligence material. There have also been limited releases from other countries. Against that background, this essay considers two questions: First, how far has the study of intelligence affected the broad context of Cold War history during the last decade? And second, how effective have we been in probing the institutional history of secret services during the Cold War? The essay concludes that while some secret services are breaking new ground by recording their own oral history, academic historians have been less than enterprising in their investigations and tend towards a culture of archival dependency.     

BOOKS

Books reviewed in this article:
John Lovell, British Trade Unions, 1875-1933
Asa Briggs and John Saville (eds.), Essays in Labour History 1918-1939, Vol. 3
David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald
Nevil Johnson, In Search of the Constitution: Reflections on State and Society in Britain
Martin Minogue (ed.), Documents on Contemporary British Government, Vol. I: British Government and Constitutional Change , xii + 413 pp., Vol. 2: Local Government in Britain
William A. Robson, Welfare State and Welfare Society, Illusion and Reality
Wyn Grant and David Marsh, The CBI
Gabriele Ganz, Government and Industry . Professional Books, Abingdon, 1977, xii + 112 pp., £5.80.
Keith Barnard and Kenneth Lee (eds.), Conflicts in the National Health Service
The Citizen and the Public Agencies: a Report by Justice
Sir Leslie Scarman, English Law and Social Policy: A Symposium based on Sir Leslie Scarman's 1974 Hamlyn Lectures
Muriel Brown, An Introduction to Social Administration
David M. Clark, Battle for the Counties: Guide to the County Council Elections 1977
F. W. S. Craig (ed.), British Parliamentary Election Results
P. H. J. H. Gosden, Education in the Second World War: A Study in Policy and Administration
Chris Harlow, Innovation and Productivity under Nationalisation: The First Thirty Years
S. Jacobs, The Right to a Decent House
Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Diplomats: The Foreign Office Today
Ian Sellers, Nineteenth-Century Nonconformity
S. A. Walkland & Michael Ryle (eds.), The Commons in the Seventies
C. W. Cassinelli, Total Revolution     

CIA origins as viewed from within

Arthur B. Darling, with Introductions by Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman, The Central Intelligence Agency: An Instrument of Government, to 1950 (University Park, PA, and London: Penn State Press, 1990). Pp. 509. $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 0–271–00715‐X; $17.50 (paperback), ISBN 0–271–00717–6.

Ludwell Lee Montague, with an Introduction by Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman, General Walter Bedell Smith as Director of Central Intelligence, October 1950‐February 1953 (University Park, PA, and London: 1992). Pp. 308. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0–271–00750–8; $14.95 (paperback), ISBN 0–271–00751–6.

Michael Warner (ed.), CIA Cold War Records: The CIA under Harry Truman (Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1994). Pp. 473. $28.50 (paperback). Available from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA, 22161, USA, Tel: (703) 487–4650, order number PB94–928005.     

Cold War counter-terrorism: the evolution of international counter-terrorism in the RCMP Security Service, 1972–1984

This piece provides a detailed case study of the evolution of counter-terrorism within a specific domestic security agency of a liberal-democratic state in the context of the Cold War. It does so by examining the creation of a counter-terrorism unit within Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and how it responded to international terrorism. This occurred in between major terrorist attacks in Canada in 1970 and 1985 and included a growing focus on counter-terrorism even as counter-subversion remained a top priority within a still dominant Cold War domestic security framework. Ultimately, the article, based on thousands of pages of previously secret documents, argues that the Security Service could conceive of in a broader strategic sense the threat of terrorism but found it more challenging, for a variety of reasons, including the dominance of the Cold War and the difficulties around infiltrating ethnic communities, to collect intelligence.     

The Past Is a…Native Land?

Did the events of September 11, 2001 “change the world,” signifying the birth of an incommensurable brave new world of heightened uncertainty and insecurity? No. That headline-grabbing claim lacks historical perspective. Rather, the Cold War has exerted a profound impact on how America wages the War on Terror simply because the intelligence, bureaucratic, and military-industrial institutions that have shaped U.S. strategy since 9/11 took their present shape during the Cold War. Indeed, dramatic differences between the circumstances of the Cold War era and the dangers confronting the twenty-first century prevail, among them the shift from “conventional” to digital warfare, and from ominous nation-states to “rogue” states and sects. But the respective challenges and constraints shared by the two periods also possess notable similarities. Both the obvious discontinuities and the more subtle continuities with the recent past require judicious assessment from us today. Just as American leaders before World War II needed to “unlearn” the lessons of isolationalism in the 1930s in order to fight World War II, so too do American policymakers today need to unlearn the lessons of conventional warfare—including “intelligence” warfare–in order to combat rogue states and terrorist cells in the twenty-first century.     

Soviet Bloc and Western Bugging of Opponents’ Diplomatic Premises During the Early Cold War

This article examines Soviet Bloc and Western bugging of their opponents’ diplomatic premises in the early Cold War, from 1945 to the late 1960s. It explains the process of audio surveillance, identifies significant cases of bugging and describes the countermeasures taken by Western states. The paper concludes that the Soviet Union was able to gather a considerable amount of intelligence from bugging Western embassies in Moscow during the early Cold War. In particular, bugging enabled the Soviets to break the diplomatic ciphers of the United States, Britain and West Germany.