Confronting the Colonies (7 page)

The impecunious British government lacked resources to monitor every part of the globe for potential threats. Officials therefore had to
make difficult decisions about which of its increasingly numerous priorities warranted attention. The Far East theatre certainly gained importance in the early Cold War years. It hosted a number of communist insurgencies (including in Malaya), the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War, and as such rose rapidly up the intelligence priority list. However, at the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency, the region was not yet considered a priority by either the chiefs of staff or the intelligence authorities. In fact, Hayter complained that the theatre ‘had been accorded low priority for the provision of intelligence personnel'.
²⁶

The provision of warning requires a collective effort. The JIC was a potentially useful body to perform such a role—even if the committee did not realise it at the time due to its vague charter. This was particularly the case for strategic warnings of impending insurgencies, which impacted upon the longer-term management of empire, and which therefore required a policy response at the ministerial level. As a result, whilst the declaration of emergency is ultimately a political act, intelligence was expected to warn of the broader rising trends of violence which pre-empted the declaration. That is to say, strategic as opposed to tactical warning.

The British central intelligence organisation is theoretically well-suited to this. It can collate all relevant information and properly evaluate the various and sometimes contradictory sources and departmental interpretations thereof. Moreover, military consumers expected to be notified of any emerging threats to British strategic interests. This could largely be justified through the JIC's ability to initiate its own reports, its responsibility of keeping under review intelligence as a whole and its responsibility for coordination with the JIC(FE). The JIC provided its outpost with guidance to ‘enable them to plan ahead and allot the necessary effort to subjects on which they might be called upon by London to furnish appreciations'.
²⁷
This relationship provided strategic guidance and coordination from London, but also allowed the JIC(FE) to preempt London and have some freedom in setting its own agenda. Moreover, one could have expected some level of warning from the JIC(FE) given that its chairman (along with the regional head of MI5) sat on a Special Planning Committee created in early 1948. This was supposed to report to the British Defence Coordination Committee (Far East) on ‘communistic activities' in Malaya and how best to counter them.
²⁸

William Hayter met with the chiefs of staff in April 1949 to address the lack of warning provided. Hayter acknowledged that the British
Defence Coordination Committee (Far East) had ‘a lack of confidence' in the regional JIC ‘on account of the fact that no warning had been given by the intelligence authorities of the recent disturbances in Malaya'.
²⁹
The chiefs of staff in London had lost confidence in the committee too.
³⁰
This reveals two insights into the JIC's evolving counter-insurgency role: firstly, that the joint intelligence organisation was expected to alert the relevant authorities of potential developments; and secondly, Hayter's subsequent defence of the JIC(FE) before his committee's military masters indicates the position, and accompanying responsibilities, of the JIC in London. It was the apex of the British intelligence organisation, including overseas. Whilst the emphasis remained on local actors, it was the JIC chairman who was summoned to explain the failure to the chiefs of staff. This meeting therefore possessed a significant legacy. It can be seen as the beginnings of the committee's warning role regarding irregular threats—a role that continues today.

In his defence of the JIC(FE), Hayter unsurprisingly laid the blame squarely at the feet of hapless local actors. In an argument indicative of traditional concepts of local responsibility in imperial matters, Hayter criticised the ‘the poor intelligence organisation of the Malayan police'.
³¹
It would of course be extremely naïve to automatically take Hayter at his word, as it is natural that he would absolve himself of responsibility and direct blame towards local sources. This, however, was a fair point and the intelligence that London received was certainly flawed. Historians have since revealed a catalogue of examples of local intelligence failures,
³²
which would have fed into the central intelligence system and spread misunderstandings and complacency. To give the most famous example, John Dalley, the unpopular head of the Malayan Security Service (MSS), argued just two days before the start of violence that ‘there is no immediate threat to internal security in Malaya although the position is constantly changing and is potentially dangerous'.
³³
Dalley's outfit was woefully understaffed, short of translators and lacked the necessary resources for the task at hand. Similarly, the Special Branch had just twelve officers in 1948, divided between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Compounding the problem, local records on communism had been decimated as a result of the Japanese occupation during the war, whilst the MSS and Special Branch lost their prize agent within the MCP, Lai Tek. Operational intelligence therefore sharply declined.
³⁴

Even when Dalley provided some limited warnings to the Colonial Office, his presentation of that intelligence was so poor that the warnings
lacked any impact. His Political Intelligence Journals swiftly became notorious amongst the consumers in the Colonial Office. They were long, detailed and lacked focus. Accordingly warnings were lost in a mass of detail, verbose ramblings and ‘random gossip'. Indeed, recipients acknowledged that the reports contained ‘some most valuable and interesting material' but lamented that ‘it certainly is rather difficult to see the wood for the trees'. After the violence had broken out, officials scoured past issues of the ‘voluminous journal' for missed clues but ‘searched in vain'.
³⁵
This was despite Dalley's highly defensive protestations that warnings had been issued.
³⁶
It was not all Dalley's fault however, and the consumers must also receive some blame. For example, one Colonial Office official complacently dismissed a political intelligence summary of May 1948. He argued that its discussion of potential subversion amounted to near ‘melodrama'. It conjured up ‘pictures of hordes of people burrowing mole-like in the interstices of Malayan society or scurrying hither and thither on their mischievous errands, so that one may almost wonder whether that society is not about to rock its fall'. According to this particular consumer, the real threat came from ‘mere bandits' rather than the communists.
³⁷

It is worth remembering that the JIC was not a collection body and merely collated and assessed intelligence. It was therefore somewhat hostage to the quality of information it received. Therefore, given local intelligence weaknesses in terms of collection and presentation, Hayter's view can be perceived as legitimate to an extent. The blame, however, did not lie entirely on decentralised local factors. Hayter's proclamations of innocence are legitimate only to an extent. Centralised confusion emanating from structural and bureaucratic weaknesses severely impeded any warning function. Bureaucratic problems, which the JIC was charged to oversee, served to exacerbate local intelligence failures. Tensions among the Malayan security services, extending to the JIC, heightened the inability to predict the violence by decreasing the efficiency with which intelligence was relayed to London. These factors became prominent as the local violence impacted on, and overlapped with, wider strategic matters, thereby inviting the involvement of regional actors such as Security Intelligence Far East (SIFE), which was responsible for the collation and dissemination of security intelligence affecting British territories, and the JIC(FE).

This was problematic. As Richard Aldrich has shown, the ‘intelligence and security services in Malaya and Singapore had never been team
players' and indulged in ‘backbiting' before and after the Second World War.
³⁸
A notable example was the power struggle between SIFE and the ambitious John Dalley. Dalley was a man apt to make enemies. Aside from his difficult personality, rumours of cowardice were rife. Senior members of the intelligence community both locally and in London believed that Dalley had ‘run away' at the time of the Japanese occupation during the war. This may have been unfair, however, as others have argued that Dalley bravely fought with the communists in the Malayan jungles against the Japanese.
³⁹
That he was an unpopular eccentric is, however, undeniable. On top of this, it appears that MI5 Director-General Percy Sillitoe ran an underhand campaign from London to undermine Dalley's Malayan Security Service in favour of expanding SIFE. The two certainly did not get on well and Dalley at one point referred to Sillitoe as being ‘only a policeman from Glasgow without any security experience'. Sillitoe found the comment ‘grossly offensive' and demanded an explanation from Dalley, who duly apologised.
⁴⁰

As a result of this infighting, Dalley was denied permission to sit on the JIC(FE) despite requests for his attendance from authorities in Malaya. The tension rippled to the very apex of the central intelligence organisation and the request was also vetoed by the JIC. Incidentally, the committee made this decision just one week before the declaration of emergency regulations. Hayter argued the inclusion of Dalley would ‘divert the attention of the Committee away from its main purpose of considering strategic matters towards parochial affairs'.
⁴¹
Sillitoe was not present at this meeting and his input in the decision is unclear. In any case, this was a mistake as the ‘parochial affairs' of Malaya soon became interlinked with broader strategic matters. Indeed, the JIC's role swiftly became to apply local developments to the broader strategic context. In fact, exasperated local authorities struggled to find a role for Dalley at all. Nobody wanted to be ‘given the baby to carry' and one official even suggested letting Dalley chair the JIC(FE)—a suggestion dismissed as startling by MI5's colonial expert Alex Kellar,
⁴²
but perhaps revealing dismissive attitudes that the JIC(FE) was not deemed a particularly important body. In some quarters at least it appeared suitable for housing an ineffective personality.

The organisation and structure of the JIC(FE) continued to present further bureaucratic problems, hindering any ability to predict and react to the violence. The year 1948 witnessed widespread reform of the
regional intelligence body, including a new charter; however, reform left the committee feeling overburdened and confused as to its responsibilities and its chain of command. Alex Kellar, a rather flamboyant character with a penchant for sharkskin dinner jackets as part of his tropical kit,
⁴³
was sent out to temporarily head SIFE. Reflecting on the JIC(FE), Kellar complained to his colleagues in MI5 that the committee was too bulky, unable to discuss top-secret matters, and needed reform to improve efficiency. Meanwhile, the chairman of the JIC(FE), Patrick Scrivener, complained of a lack of manpower. He lobbied the JIC in London for some sort of full-time staff. This lingered until 1949, when in February steps were taken to create a full-time Joint Intelligence Staff (FE). In March, Hayter flew out to Singapore to inspect the set-up for himself. Two months later the JIC, the chiefs of staff and the Foreign Office finally agreed, after initially denying, the appointment of a full-time JIC(FE) chairman—although departments continued to bicker about whom that might be.
⁴⁴
The increasing importance of the Far East to British interests was belatedly being acknowledged.

The JIC(FE) was confused by its charter and requested clarification from London in the weeks before the outbreak of the insurgency. Not long before the guerrillas struck, intelligence officials admitted to being unclear about lines of responsibility and even ‘certain matters of function'.
⁴⁵
Staggeringly, regional intelligence officials, supposedly overseen by London, did not know what they were supposed to be doing and to whom they were supposed to be reporting. This was compounded by similar confusion amongst senior figures in London, including within the JIC, which were not resolved until September 1948.
⁴⁶
Such functional confusion and preoccupation with reform and structural issues in the weeks preceding the violence must have diverted attention away from security matters. Although the committee's minutes are currently unavailable, it would be astonishing if it did not hinder the JIC(FE) in dealing effectively with Malaya.

Centralised structural factors impeded the performance of the JIC itself. There existed no formal system of warning of colonial unrest by the time of the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency in 1948. Culturally, the committee had an inherent dislike of systems. Members preferred instead to rely on ad hoc informality, itself a product of both broader Whitehall culture and a lack of resources to monitor the entire globe. Indeed, Philip Davies has pointed out that what prevailed in the JIC was
‘a sense of quintessentially British “muddling through” (much like the rest of British politics and government)'.
⁴⁷
Indicative of this, archival evidence suggests that the JIC did not even realise that a warning role was expected. At one point in the spring of 1949, William Hayter moaned to his colleagues sitting around the JIC table that there appeared to be a ‘vague idea' amongst the chiefs of staff that the JIC(FE) should have provided warning of the uprising the previous year.
⁴⁸
There appears to have been confusion over responsibility. As a British territory, there were already a great number of British officials in the colony who would have been expected to inform Whitehall of emerging threats. In fact the JIC(FE) charter stated that the responsibility for detailed papers on British territories lay with those very local authorities.
⁴⁹
Therefore what should have been a great advantage of imperial insurgency as opposed to today—having personnel on the ground in advance—did not pan out as planned.