de Jong, B.

English

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

The Journal of Intelligence HistoryVolume 7, Number 2 Winter 20007/08http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/reviews-7-2.html (​http:​/​​/​www.intelligence-history.org​/​jih​/​reviews-7-2.html​). Geraadpleegd op 7-4-2009.Michael Smith, The Spying Game: The Secret History of British Espionage.London: Politico’s, 2003. ISBN 184275 0046, £9.99(Expanded and updated edition of New Cloak, Old Dagger, 1996) Michael Smith, defence correspondent of the British paper The Daily Telegraph and an accomplished writer on intelligence matters, has written a valuable history of British intelligence. It is well-written and balanced. Quite a few books have been published in the last few decades about the history of separate British intelligence organisations and many monographs have been published on different episodes from their history. As a recent example, Stephen Dorril’s voluminous MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service (New York etc.: The Free Press, 2000, 907pp.) comes to mind. Smith has chosen a different approach in dealing with British intelligence history in that he gives roughly equal space to the histories of the three most important British services: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Several chapters deal with military intelligence and what the author calls ‘parallel diplomacy’. More on the latter topic later.In the chapters on the history of the organizations mentioned several well-known episodes are discussed such as the Double Cross system during World War II, the breaking of the German Enigma and the Cambridge Five. Much has already been written on these subjects, but Smith draws attention to several interesting but sometimes neglected aspects of these already well-covered cases. He mentions, for instance, the great importance of the work of Bletchley Park to the Double Cross system, a topic that often tends to be forgotten as most of the attention of intelligence historians goes to the other Sigint triumphs during the war, e.g. the one related to the Battle of the Atlantic. Smith argues that the biggest contribution of Bletchley Park, certainly if it came to the D-Day landings in Normandy, had to do with the Double Cross system. The intelligence called Ultra which resulted from the broken Enigma codes revealed that the Germans believed every detail of the Allied deception plan concerning the place and time of the D-Day landings. The author also discusses briefly Ultra’s contribution to the German airborne landing in Crete in May 1941. The New Zealand commander at the scene, general Freyburg, knew from Ultra when the landing was due, but he simply did not have the forces available to fight off the German attack. The German airborne operation was therefore successful, but at such enormous cost that Hitler did not use his paratroopers again for similar operations for the remainder of the war. The Crete operation offers a good example of intelligence making a difference in battle, but not in the sense that the side who had it at its disposal gained a victory. This book abounds with interesting observations and bits of information. The author makes the telling point, for instance, that the relationship between the American intelligence and security services over the past fifty years has been so bad at times that their relationship with their British counterparts often was much better than the one they enjoyed with each other. In discussing the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), one of the pillars of the British intelligence establishment, he mentions that it usually meets once a week and is made up of senior Foreign Office and Treasury officials, the heads of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and several other high intelligence officials. An interesting detail here is that liaison officers from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also attend some of the meetings, which is an illustration of what is probably the most durable intelligence liaison in recent world history. On the importance of the US-British intelligence relationship generally, the author quotes former American Secretary of State Dean Rusk who once said:In the intelligence field, the US and the UK give each other a greater volume and wider variety of information than either does to any of its other allies. The arrangements provide for exchange of information gathered both from overt and covert sources; for the swapping of estimates; and for the preparation of joint estimates. There is a division of labor in certain geographic and functional fields, and on some areas and subjects, each nation is dependent for its intelligence mainly on the other.In another paragraph, Smith mentions as if in passing that British Petroleum is among a number of British companies with close relations to MI6. According to the author, senior BP executives have even been on the distribution lists for the reports of MI6. Occasionally, observations by the author are contradicted by information that has become available in the public domain since the publication of this book. He writes, for instance, that on the eve of the 2003 war against Iraq MI6 had a ‘surprising number of agents in Iraq, including long-term penetration agents’. Much is still unclear about the intelligence aspects of this war, but from the stack of reports written since, British and American, one can surely conclude that Humint on the part of the British and Americans was sorely lacking. At the end of the book there are two interesting chapters on what the author calls ‘parallel diplomacy’ about which he rightly says that it is ‘one of the least discussed uses of the intelligence services’. Parallel diplomacy, in his view, concerns the establishment of ‘communications with the enemy that would be too dangerous, both physically and politically, for ministers or ordinary civil servants too contemplate.’ As Smith observes, the practice of parallel diplomacy is not the exclusive domain of the British services. Both the CIA and the Mossad had secret back-channels to the PLO that were used at the time when the Oslo peace talks were being explored, and the South African National Intelligence Service (NIS) played an important part in negotiations with Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders on an end to the Apartheid regime. The British service MI6 has been involved in parallel diplomacy, particularly in Northern Ireland, where it has kept open communication channels with the IRA over the years, but it has also taken part in secret peace negotiations in places such as Angola, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia. According to Smith, an important advantage of such contacts lies in the fact that they take place outside the glare of the media spotlights that would otherwise make them vulnerable to all kinds of political and public pressure much more easily. Such communication channels are also deniable for a politician as he or she could simply say, if necessary, that they were unauthorised. An intelligence officer in contact with, say, a terrorist organization, could express ideas for a settlement or a truce, which could then later be taken up by his or her political masters. If it would be judged politically expedient those ideas could easily be discarded as well. An additional important advantage of such contacts lies in the fact that they usually provide intelligence about the adversary, even if they do not result in real political negotiations in the end. Smith gives some interesting examples of this.My one problem with this book is that in this edition for reasons of space the notes have been left out by the publisher, which for obvious reasons diminishes its value considerably. A partial even if not wholly satisfactory solution for this problem could have been to make the sources available on the internet.Ben de JongUniversity of Amsterdam

[Review of: M. Smith (2003) The spying game: the secret history of British espionage]

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/830846/75695_De_Jong_recensie_Michael_Smith_zoals_op_site_IIHA.doc

[Review of: M. Smith (2003) The spying game: the secret history of British espionage]

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications