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)

Acknowlegements

Abbreviations

1. Intelligence Assessment in an Age of Competing Threats

An Age of Competing Threats

Strategic Intelligence and the British Counterinsurgency Experience

The Joint Intelligence Committee and the Importance of Strategic Intelligence

2. Unfulfilled Potential: Malaya, 1948–1951

The JIC in 1948

Warning and Assessment

Broadening Assessments

Intelligence ‘Management'

Broader Reflections

3. Turf Wars and Tension: Cyprus, 1955–1959

The JIC, 1955—1959

Intelligence Advice

Assessing the Internal Threat

Internationalising Insurgencies

Broader Reflections

4. Into the Whitehall Minefield: Aden and the Federation of South Arabia, 1962–1967

The JIC, 1962–1967

Intelligence Reform

Threat Assessment

Covert Action

Broader Reflections

5. After Pax Britannica: Oman, 1968–1975

The JIC in 1968

Managing Intelligence Overseas

Assessments

Policy Input

Broader Reflections

6. Defining Threats, Understanding Security

JIC Evolution and the Quest for Inclusivity

Strategic intelligence and counterinsurgency: roles and lessons

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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

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?