Moreover, there is a distinction, albeit a fine one, between politicisation and policy contextualisation. Policymakers should not dictate analysts’ conclusions and analysts should not withhold assessments which contain bad news. However, policymakers should be able to request intelligence assessments that address the issues currently under policy consideration. To ensure timeliness and relevance, intelligence should be brought ‘within the realm of politics’ by presenting and packaging assessments in ways that effectively engage policymakers’ concerns. 13
The JIC sits firmly in the ‘activist’ camp. For much of its history, it has brought together the intelligence and policy communities. Sitting at the interface of the two, the JIC has certainly aided the policy relevance of intelligence over the years, whilst smoothing over the inevitable tensions between the two communities. Indeed, each group has inherently different objectives, pressures and working patterns. Elected policymakers operate in the short term and desire papers which are concise and free from ambiguity, and allow decisive and speedy action. The analyst’s professional imperative, however, is to produce an objective paper that reflects reality in all its complexity (as well as to ensure that intelligence is read). 14 In bringing together policymakers and intelligence officers, the JIC helps enhance interdepartmental harmony and create a sense of community cohesion.
This ethos of cooperation permeates the theoretical foundations of the JIC. It owes itself largely to the intimacy of Whitehall and the uniqueness of the British Cabinet government, relying on consensus, interdepartmentalism and collective responsibility. Whitehall is geographically small, allowing analysts and policy officials to easily meet their counterparts in different departments. This ease of face-to-face communication is in contrast to the United States, for example, where the CIA is based outside Washington DC. 15 Michael Herman, another former JIC Secretary, has described how some business was conducted through such informal Whitehall channels as the Cabinet Office mess. It is here, he states, that consensuses were built up and information flowed horizontally across the otherwise strict vertical lines of Whitehall hierarchy. He recalls how after JIC meetings on Thursdays he would head to the mess to ‘drink red wine and dissect the day’s performance of the JIC’s Heads of Agencies’. 16 This intimacy and informal communication helped build trust between members of the JIC, and to overcome the traditional intelligence–policy divide.
Making an impact
Thanks to its remarkable record of policy relevance, the JIC has gradually acquired impact at the highest levels of government. Again, however, this broad trend masks some fluctuation between high and low points. The first major high was in May 1940, when the Chiefs of Staff began to look towards the JIC for advice. By 1942, military plans, such as Operation Torch, drew heavily upon JIC assessments. This continued after the war. For example, the Chiefs of Staff accepted (flawed) assessments on Korea and used JIC intelligence as a briefing document when dealing with the Americans. This pattern continued even after 1957, when the JIC moved to the Cabinet Office.
Given the importance of Soviet nuclear and missile capabilities, JIC assessments on this topic became a core part of post-war military planning. In short, the committee maintained impact. However, the Chiefs of Staff doubted certain JIC estimates, and discrepancies existed between the producers (the JIC) and the consumers (the Chiefs of Staff) over Soviet capabilities until the mid-1950s. Regarding Suez, tactical intelligence was appreciated by the military, but strategic assessments were marginalised by senior policymakers despite the accuracy of the intelligence provided.
Senior policymakers became increasingly interested in irregular threats. Cabinet committees welcomed the JIC’s appraisals of Middle Eastern terrorism, whilst Edward Heath was personally briefed on JIC papers assessing Northern Ireland. The rise of terrorism on the JIC agenda in the late 1960s altered the purpose of intelligence. Intelligence to counter terrorism not only intends to inform decisions but also leads to direct intervention. Terrorism makes intelligence more active. Closer relations between the intelligence community on the one hand and policy and operational actors on the other are vital.
The relationship between intelligence and policy is symbiotic. The JIC has evolved over the years to ensure that its product is tailored to policy needs and is easy for the busy minister to quickly consume. It even engages in periodic feedback surveys to enhance the impact of its intelligence. Certain officials, such as Burke Trend, Cabinet Secretary from 1963 to 1973, and JIC Chairmen such as Patrick Dean and Denis Greenhill, went to great lengths to ensure intelligence is relevant and has impact.
Impact is, however, a two-way street. Some policymakers are far more intelligence literate than others. Some have had huge appetites for intelligence. Others have expected too much of intelligence and have treated the JIC as a crystal gazer. Still others have marginalised the JIC altogether. Winston Churchill was a notoriously keen consumer of intelligence. He had a voracious appetite, including not only raw intelligence but also daily JIC reports. Similarly, Margaret Thatcher had a deep interest in the secret world. Such was her desire to know more about how the system worked that in 1980 she became the first Prime Minister to ever attend a JIC meeting. 17 David Cameron is also highly conscious of JIC material and begins each meeting of the National Security Council with a briefing from the JIC Chairman. The benefits of an interested Prime Minister extend beyond JIC impact on Number 10. Once ministers realised that Thatcher was reading JIC reports, they decided that they should probably pay attention to them too.
Conversely, Eden famously marginalised the JIC over Suez. Fifteen years later, Harold Wilson also failed to heed JIC assessments – this time over sanctions and Rhodesia. 18 Indeed, Michael Palliser, one of Wilson’s private secretaries, recalls ‘not always’ showing JIC assessments to the Prime Minister. 19 It appears that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were also less interested in JIC material – although Blair developed a sudden keenness when his first crisis erupted in the late 1990s and it seemed that the Provisional IRA ceasefire was breaking down. 20 Working beneath the National Security Council, the JIC now once again has impact and access to the highest levels of government.
In the mid-1990s, the decision was taken to declassify and release most of the highly secret papers of the JIC. These are now in the National Archives. The process began with the JIC material for the Second World War and more recently has extended to provide JIC material for the period up to the early 1980s. This volume reproduces some of the core documents from the committee’s rich history. It places them within their historical and policy context to provide readers with an original insight into the secret workings of Whitehall.
Notes
1 . Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989), p. 391.
2 . National Intelligence Machinery (London: The Stationery Office, 2006), p. 23.
3 . Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray, 2002), p. 260.
4 . Central Intelligence Machinery (London: HMSO, 1993), p. 11.
5 . Dr J. Lewis MP, Security and Intelligence Services Annual Debate, July 2003. Available at http://www.julianlewis.net/speech_detail.php?id=80 (last accessed 14 October 2013).
6 . Michael S. Goodman, ‘The British Way in Intelligence’, in Matthew Grant (ed.), The British Way in Cold Warfare: Intelligence, Diplomacy and the Bomb, 1945–1975 (London: Continuum, 2009), pp. 127–40.
7 . Philip Davies, ‘Twilight of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee?’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 24/3 (2011), p. 428.
8 . Michael S. Goodman, ‘Avoiding Surprise: The Nicoll Report and Intelligence Analysis’, in Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman (eds), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011), p. 274.
9 . Michael Handel, ‘The Politics of Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security 2/4 (1987), p. 7; Roger Hilsman, Strategic Intelligence and
National Decisions (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956), pp. 163–5.
10 . For more details on this debate see Jack Davis, ‘The Kent–Kendall Debate of 1949’, Studies in Intelligence 36/5 (1992), pp. 91–103.
11 . Brian Stewart, Scrapbook of a Roving Highlander: 80 years round Asia and Back (Newark: Acorn, 2002), p. 269.
12 . Robert Gates, ‘Guarding against Politicization’, Studies in Intelligence 36/5 (1992), pp. 6–9.
13 . Richard K. Betts, ‘Politicization of Intelligence: Costs and Benefits’, in Richard K. Betts and Thomas G. Mahnken (eds), Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 60–1.
14 . Michael I. Handel, ‘Leaders and Intelligence’, in Michael I. Handel (ed.), Leaders and Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1989), p. 10; Richard K. Betts, ‘Policy-Makers and Intelligence Analysts: Love, Hate or Indifference?’, Intelligence and National Security 3/1 (1988), pp. 184–5.
15 . Gregory F. Treverton, Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). p. 213.
16 . Michael Herman, ‘Up from the Country: Cabinet Office Impressions, 1972–75’, Contemporary British History 11/1 (1997), p. 85.
17 . Ian B. Beesley and Michael S. Goodman, ‘Margaret Thatcher and the Joint Intelligence Committee’, History of Government blog, 1 October 2012, https://history.blog.gov.uk/2012/10/01/margaret-thatcher-and-the-joint-intelligence-committee/ (last accessed 14 October 2013).
18 . Cradock, Know Your Enemy , pp. 234–9.
19 . Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War , rev. ed. (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 292.
20 . Private information.
2
ORIGINS OF THE JOINT
INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
O N TUESDAY 7, July 1936 seven individuals sat around a large table in Whitehall. As the clock struck eleven, the first ever meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) began. Earlier in the year, a decision was made to create a central clearing house for intelligence: the JIC. In fact the first steps towards an integrated governmental approach to intelligence assessment occurred previously, in December 1923, with industrial and economic intelligence, but this would take years to become truly effective. The realisation that a wider-reaching interdepartmental intelligence assessment system was needed came from the military but was channelled through Sir Maurice Hankey, the creator of the Cabinet system of government.
Whilst it might have been Hankey who converted the concept of centralised intelligence assessment into practice, the stimulus for change came from military quarters. On 22 July 1935 the Director of Military Operations and Intelligence (DMO&I) in the War Office, Major General John Dill, wrote to Hankey about the need for a better system of coordinating intelligence:
We find an increasing tendency for certain specific aspects of intelligence to develop, in which two or more separate Departments are equally interested, with the result that the danger of uneconomical duplication in the collection and recording of such intelligence is tending to increase. 1
The underlying problem was not solely one of duplication, but of providing the best possible intelligence for planning purposes.
‘Intelligence’, as it was understood at this point in the 1930s in the United Kingdom, was synonymous with the military. The three separate branches of the military – the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry – each had its own dedicated intelligence staff and communication between them was patchy at best. Intelligence was collected individually, assessed separately and, by and large, used for internal purposes. Separate to these were the ‘civilian’ intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6. These were largely staffed by ex-military individuals, and the heads of both had spent their careers in the army and navy respectively. Encompassed within MI6 was the code-breaking outfit, the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). Both organisations had a broader remit than mere military matters but, nonetheless, military concerns remained dominant. The third element of intelligence at this time, albeit not recognised as such, was political reporting, located within the Foreign Office (FO). This was partly obtained via diplomatic channels and partly by the private networks created by the head of the FO, Sir Robert Vansittart. The net result of these three elements was twofold: that ‘intelligence’ was far more concerned with gauging capabilities than it was intentions; and that there was little attempt to coordinate activities.
For Dill, the key was to ensure that intelligence was best optimised and utilised for planning purposes. For Hankey, the importance was, in his words, that ‘arrangements [could be made] for facilitating touch between all the departments who obtain information on any particular subject’. 2 From their correspondence it is clear that they referred specifically to the three services’ intelligence directorates. Indeed, when the JIC was created as the solution, it did not include MI5, MI6 or the FO as members.
Possible ideas for a ‘Joint Intelligence Committee’ were debated throughout late 1935. Integral to these discussions and proposals throughout, Hankey was able to take advantage of his central position in the Whitehall machinery. He was the secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), the powerful forum chaired by the Prime Minister and attended by senior ministers. In addition, he was the secretary to the Chiefs of Staff (COS) Committee and chairman of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff (DCOS) Committee: he therefore filled a vital role in linking the ministerial, official and military components of the government and was a central figure in pushing ideas forward.
In October 1935 Hankey ensured that the idea of a central intelligence committee was discussed in both the COS and the DCOS committees. Despite some initial differences of opinion there was a consensus that some sort of change was needed. To resolve matters, a special ‘ad-hoc sub-committee’ was created, designed to foster proposals. Its membership comprised Hankey as chairman and the three military officers responsible for intelligence in the services: Dill, Vice-Admiral William James and Air Vice-Marshal Christopher Courtney.
The resulting report, entitled ‘Central Machinery for Co-Ordination of Intelligence’, is reproduced below. 3 Fundamental to the subsequent creation of the JIC, it was disseminated on 1 January 1936. The report’s conclusion was that ‘our intelligence organisation requires some modification to cope with modern conditions’. The ‘modern conditions’ referred to the duplication that was becoming increasingly problematic and common. Furthermore, it was recognised that the ‘eventuality of war’ required an efficient intelligence system. As such, Hankey’s committee suggested that ‘direct and permanent liaison between the many departments’ was needed. Their proposition was that the existing interdepartmental forum for intelligence on industrial matters be expanded and that a separate services’ intelligence committee be created.
The report was passed between the DCOS and COS committees and the CID and, despite some redrafting, was approved. Much toing and froing followed, including the creation of the Inter-Service Intelligence Committee (ISIC), but such measures proved short lived. On 16 June 1936 the COS committee met to discuss progress. At the meeting Hankey proposed to ‘extend the functions of the Inter-Service Intelligence Committee in order to enable that body to assist the Joint Planning Committee (JPC) when the latter required co-ordinated intelligence’. The COS wholeheartedly approved. 4 The title accorded this new body was ‘Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee’. 5
The JIC was, from the outset, a sub-committee of the COS committee. In contrast to the ISIC this increased its importance and positioned it firmly at the centre of government, where it was drawn into the orbit of the COS planning machinery. The JIC thus had a wider scope, not only absorbing the roles and remit of the ISIC, but also acting in an advisory capacity to the JPC and the Joint Planning Staff. 6 The new JIC comprised seven representatives: six were from the military and the seventh was Desmond Morton, a former MI6 officer and later Churchill’s intelligence adviser. The FO had shown interest initially in the JIC but, it wou
ld seem, wanted to see how it performed before becoming involved.
The JIC members themselves were aware of this gap. Two years after its creation the then chairman, Brigadier Frederick Beaumont-Nesbitt, put out a paper, also reproduced below, arguing that ‘here surely is a deficiency which could and should be made good’. He recommended the existing committee be enlarged, with the ‘inclusion of a senior FO representative, who would also be asked to act as Chairman’. This proposal was reinforced not only by the increasingly political content of deliberations, but also because it would stop any ‘vested interests’ from becoming ‘too powerful’. 7
The COS reaction was, perhaps, unsurprising. Any committee that reported to them, it was suggested, should not have an FO chairman. 8 Yet the general reaction to Beaumont-Nesbitt’s proposal was supportive, not least within the FO itself. Whilst such deliberations were underway the German army, in March 1939, marched into Prague and Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, promised support to Poland in the event of German aggression. Within the FO a Situation Report Centre (SRC) was created. Unlike the JIC, which had produced long-term strategic assessments up to that point, the SRC was designed to produce tactical summaries. By June, with the prospect of conflict looming, the FO chairman of the SRC, Ralph Skrine-Stevenson, produced a paper on the coordination of intelligence in time of war. Like Beaumont-Nesbitt’s proposals of a year earlier, he argued that the present system was not effective and that the FO should take an increased role. This time it hit a nerve. With rapid progress and some careful manoeuvring behind the scenes, the ideas were ratified at various levels within Whitehall. The result was that on 3 August 1939 the SRC and JIC were amalgamated and the FO assumed the chairmanship, a position it would hold until the Franks Report in 1983. 9
Spying on the World Page 2