Thinking about defence intelligence: Victor Cavendish-Bentinck,Denis Capel-Dunn,Kenneth Strong and the Joint Intelligence Bureau as foundation for the Defence Intelligence Staff

Abstract

The Defence Intelligence Staff’s closest relative was the Joint intelligence Bureau. The Bureau was created in 1946 as part of the post war reorganization of the intelligence machinery, consolidating a number of wartime organizations. It was a centralized organization, providing defence intelligence to customers in the armed forces and government. The Bureau was founded with the objective of implementing several lessons that had been identified in the Second World War concerning the organization and management of intelligence. This paper examines the particular lessons the Bureau’s founders and its leader had learned, and the ideas they sought to ingrain in the organization. It asks what kind of foundation the Bureau provided for the DIS, when it merged with the service intelligence directorates in 1964.