Confronting the Colonies (18 page)

More importantly, the JIC also considered the impact of the nationalisation in conditions of war, as was ultimately the case. The JIC boldly asserted that ‘we do not believe that war with Egypt would in itself lead to a worsening of the situation in Cyprus. It seems unlikely that there would be a requirement for further troops'.
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Although this report signifies the JIC's attempts to place the insurgency into broader frameworks, the committee got it wrong. It may be easy with hindsight to criticise errors, but the fact that intelligence assessments had previously linked Egypt to Cyprus suggests that a logical deduction could have been made regarding Suez, whereby fewer troops (and more distractions) in Cyprus would lead to the theatre becoming vulnerable to EOKA attack. The question then is why the JIC overlooked this threat.

Firstly, problems in the intelligence assessment process left colonial implications initially neglected. The Grey Books, which were written largely by the Colonial Office, did include colonial developments but focused narrowly on internal matters. By contrast, the broader and more detailed JIC assessments included discussion of international aspects but lacked sufficient consideration of internal and local aspects. It was a difficult balance to strike and left colonial officials highly disgruntled at their lack of input into JIC assessments of Suez. Colonial governors, for example, were complaining that they were not being kept updated by the JIC.
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A particularly cantankerous and outspoken colonial official, Juxon Barton, strongly criticised the JIC's first paper on the nationalisation of the Suez Canal for not including colonial implications at all. Described by colleagues in the intelligence and security world as ‘a bit of a character' and a ‘livewire', Barton was a bitter former colonial administrator who had been passed over for an exotic governorship.
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On the verge of retirement, he had unfortunately ended up back in cold and rainy
London. His loss, however, has proved to be the historian's gain, for his brusque and candid minutes liven up the archival files no end. Indeed, Barton labelled this particular intelligence assessment as ‘cowardly' and neglectful of ‘the effects on the Dominions and Colonies'.
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By contrast, the JIC was far more successful in linking Suez to Cyprus in terms of conventional issues, such as war planning, conventional security and censorship.
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Incidentally, these issues were set and framed by the chiefs of staff, illustrating the continued military hold over the committee's agenda.

Barton complained that ‘I'm glad to see that we are not down as one of the signatories to their [indecipherable word] and out-of-date paper. If it really reflects high Foreign Office and Service thinking then heaven help us'. In fact, Barton's anger intensified throughout the week, culminating in a spectacular rant to his boss: ‘I have never seen anything so irresponsible, so dangerous to British interest in intelligence work. One almost suspects a “hidden hand”, but it is almost certainly stupidity'.
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Such disenchantment is interesting. On the one hand colonial officials deliberately distanced themselves from integration into the joint intelligence machinery, feeling the JIC misunderstood the complexities of colonial politics. Yet conversely, the same officials expressed anger when the committee neglected colonial implications. On this occasion the colonial officials did then assert their position in the discussion and the next JIC assessment did consider the impact on the Cypriot insurgency.

Secondly, local intelligence sources, which continued to portray EOKA as a dangerous organisation, were not adequately consulted by the intelligence assessment machinery in London. Just a month after the JIC described EOKA as ‘dying down', the Cyprus Intelligence Committee warned that ‘the potential of EOKA as an armed force remains considerable'. Similarly, the JIC (Middle East) criticised the JIC's Suez assessment as ‘optimistic'. Local intelligence actors added that EOKA was ‘still a factor to be reckoned with and terrorism is once again in full swing'. Directly linking events to Suez, the local intelligence committee then warned that ‘EOKA is likely to pay increasing attention to sabotage targets to demonstrate that the value of Cyprus as a military base is considerably reduced by hostility of local population'. Similarly, local intelligence further attacked the JIC's naïve conclusion by warning that ‘EOKA [is] likely to intensify effort in [the] event of war with Egypt in belief that it could achieve greater successes while HMG is preoccupied'.
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Such strong criticism by local intelligence sources of the JIC's conclusions suggests either that they were not consulted in the drafting process or that their advice was overlooked. Time pressures were certainly a factor in explaining this. The optimistic sections on Cyprus were written by Juxon Barton. He again criticised the JIC—this time for not allowing him enough time to complete his assessment thoroughly and to discuss the issues with the departments concerned.
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Although former JIC chairman Percy Cradock applauds the committee for doing a ‘credible job' regarding Suez,
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there were clearly deficiencies regarding the consideration of colonial matters. Cyprus was, however, mentioned in a later JIC report commissioned by the chiefs of staff on 9 October 1956 covering threats to UK overseas interests. Significantly, this was the same week that the ‘collusion' was hatched. During a time of frustration over Suez, Nasser's shadow hung ominously over the assessment despite not being explicitly acknowledged at the start. The report, according to the historian Gill Bennett, found that nearly all trouble areas identified (from the Middle East to Africa) were considered likely to be affected if matters were resolved in favour of Nasser.
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Indeed, it argued that ‘any concessions made by the United Kingdom under pressure are likely to have repercussions throughout the world, encouraging further claims and exacerbating potential points of friction. Conversely a successful demonstration of resolution and firmness by the United Kingdom would have the effect of discouraging similar pressure throughout the world'. Specifically regarding Cyprus, the committee wrote that ‘if British prestige in the Middle East declines, the terrorists will be encouraged, and a political settlement made more difficult'.
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By October therefore, and perhaps as a result of earlier colonial criticism, the JIC had implicitly linked Cypriot security and Suez—emphasising the importance of British regional prestige but without examining a more direct and short-term impact of the Suez campaign on Cyprus. Neither (in a separate report) did the JIC examine the impact on Cyprus if Nasser's prestige remained undiminished, despite considering the impact on other colonial territories such as Kenya and Aden.
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Ultimately, EOKA launched a devastating offensive whilst Britain was distracted by Suez. ‘Black November' 1956 was the low point of the insurgency, with 2,500 violent acts and over two hundred deaths reported.
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The JIC's flawed assessment may well have played some part in the decision to redeploy forces away from Cyprus during Suez. It
perhaps created a false sense of complacency in London that the counter-insurgency campaign would be unaffected. The JIC, however, got it wrong and was forced to concede, ‘this is the highest rate of casualties since EOKA commenced operations'.
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Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing.

The mid-1950s can be characterised as a period of tentative progress regarding the JIC's handling of insurgencies and irregular threats. It was also a period of tension. Yet these factors were not necessarily mutually exclusive: the debate over threat conceptualisation and the role of the JIC emanating from the 1955 Templer reforms helped drive the committee towards the Cabinet Office in 1957. As the Cypriot violence progressed, the joint intelligence organisation consequently grew better placed in terms of composition and structure to consider the insurgency. Enhanced jurisdiction over colonial insurgencies, however, brought with it predictable tension. It is not enough for historians simply to cite JIC conclusions when examining the impact of intelligence on policy. There is an important level underneath the final assessment that demonstrates how conclusions were reached and provides valuable insight into the workings of the official mind in all its complexity. The relationships between the central intelligence machinery and Whitehall departments were crucial. Whilst making historical analysis more complicated, this deeper level provides important insight into the workings of the British system and into interdepartmental perceptions and debates that shape the intelligence conclusions.

The JIC attempted to implement some sort of managerial function by offering advice and overseeing local intelligence reform. This raises important issues about the relationship between the interdepartmental intelligence assessment body on the one hand and individual departments that naturally take the lead in a certain policy area on the other. From October 1955, the committee acknowledged that the intelligence organisation in Cyprus could not meet the intensifying violence. Intervention from London was needed and the JIC complemented the
Colonial Office and MI5 by taking a strategic view. It provided an institutionalised forum through which relevant departments could liaise and coordinate an effective interdepartmental response in recommending and implementing reforms.

In practice, however, the Colonial Office and MI5 took the lead role in employing these reforms. Operating within a lead agency/department policy area, the JIC's theoretical managerial role was often limited to being kept updated by MI5 and the Colonial Office. Moreover, direct management of civilian agencies and departments by what was in 1955 a military committee would have been met with resistance. The committee lacked the status and authority to achieve meaningful reform itself. Although the JIC's role was largely passive and coordinative, the committee did serve a useful purpose as an extra layer to facilitate interdepartmental cooperation. To its credit, there existed little tension regarding intelligence management between the JIC on the one hand and the Colonial Office and MI5 on the other. The committee seemed content to adopt a position of coordination rather than direct intervention. The JIC knew its place.

The issue of agenda-setting was, and indeed remains, highly important: whoever framed the intelligence agenda impacted upon the output of the reports. It was therefore potentially dangerous when the agenda was largely set by a narrow band of consumers with pre-conceived mindsets about the nature of the threat. Demonstrating evolution from the neglect prior to the Malayan insurgency, Cyprus was on the JIC's radar before the outbreak of violence. However, the committee remained hampered by the same damaging structural and cognitive constraints reminiscent of seven years earlier. The JIC's agenda was focused exclusively around the communist threat and neglected the impending right-wing violence. Cognitively, the Cold War mindset permeated Whitehall and especially the committee's military masters—the chiefs of staff. Developments were considered through a Cold War prism.

Cognitive impairments were compounded by structural factors. The JIC remained housed in the chiefs of staff committee structure at the outbreak of the insurgency and continued to lack integration with the reluctant Colonial Office. To overcome these issues, the committee needed
to evolve to become more truly interdepartmental and integrated with all relevant actors. Although coming too late to make a tangible difference regarding warning of the Cypriot uprising, reforms in spring 1955 aimed to improve intelligence coordination in Whitehall so as to aid warnings of future insurgencies.

The JIC's role in the Cyprus Emergency demonstrated a difficult task for strategic intelligence assessments: to balance internal and external developments so as not to skew conclusions. From late 1955, Cyprus became a regular item on the JIC agenda. Via its weekly reviews of intelligence, the committee kept consumers in Whitehall and abroad regularly updated about internal developments, EOKA violence patterns and counter-terrorist measures. The Grey Book proved a suitable vehicle to disseminate internal developments, the role of local actors, and local ideology to the broader audience. The Colonial Office was able to draft a separate annex and have it inserted into the broader JIC output. This was clearly lacking in assessments of the Malayan violence, which took an overwhelmingly internationalist view. In fact, the joint intelligence organisation added little to local weekly updates. Despite this, the Grey Book and the JIC played an important role in coordination and dissemination. The JIC machinery added value to local colonial assessments by disseminating them along with other developments in order to allow consumers to view strategic trends, to reduce duplication and to serve as an interdepartmentally agreed reference point.

This approach, however, proved inadequate for more detailed assessments of external threats to Cyprus or the local implications of seemingly unrelated international developments. The British intelligence model theoretically added value to local or tactical judgements by placing them in the broader strategic context, by considering external threats to colonial security and by aiding the formulation of broader foreign, defence and colonial policy. Yet this was not necessarily the case in practice. Owing to Colonial Office reluctance to participate in what it angrily perceived as a military-dominated exercise, there was not enough engagement between the colonial officials and joint intelligence machinery. The Colonial Office refused full-time representation at the report drafting level and only attended on an ad hoc basis. Such reticence
reduced the opportunity for interdepartmental discussion and integrated analysis. As a result, JIC assessments fell into similar traps as had happened when assessing the Malayan uprising. Conventional Cold War conceptualisations initially dominated the committee's agenda and output until the 1957 move to the Cabinet Office. Any apparent contradiction is therefore resolved: the Cold War mindset did not encroach on weekly assessments of the internal threat but did impact upon broader and more detailed considerations of Cyprus in its regional context.