That said, there is far more in the National Archives than meets the untrained eye. Regarding the JIC, overreliance on the committee’s papers creates a distorted narrative of its history and role. But awareness of parallel files and dusty hidden corners of the labyrinthine archival system offers a veritable gold mine. Historians can get by on the National Archives, so long as they look beyond the obvious series and supplement their work with interviews. For example, certain reports which remain classified in the JIC series can be found declassified elsewhere (including in America), whilst other files can challenge the narrative of the JIC releases.
Constructing a false narrative
Overreliance on the declassified JIC series creates a false narrative in a number of ways. Firstly, the JIC appears cumbersome and only able to deal with long-term issues. Secondly, the JIC appears purely passive. It has no operational dimension. Thirdly, it seems an isolated body with few links to other countries, notably the United States. Fourthly, it comes across as an admirable beacon of interdepartmental harmony and reports appear hermetic. They appeal to the tidy mind.
Current vs long-term intelligence
The JIC has long engaged in current intelligence. Lord Butler outlined the committee’s ‘main function’ as being to provide assessments on issues of both ‘immediate and long-term importance to national interests’. 6 It is therefore imperative that the JIC should not be perceived solely as some cumbersome long-term body unable to respond to crises and engage with short-term problems. As far back as the early 1950s, the committee was offering weekly intelligence reviews of various global developments. These usually involved Soviet activity and were tied heavily to the ongoing Cold War. They did, however, extend to other issues, such as tension in the Middle East and insurgent uprisings.
Current intelligence proliferated from the late 1960s. Backed by the newly created Assessments Staff, the JIC began to issue increasing numbers of short-term intelligence reports known as special assessments. These were disseminated alongside ‘notes’, which were of a slightly longer-term nature. Special assessments formed a crucial means of monitoring ongoing developments, from the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to the deteriorating security situation in Ireland.
Reliance on the JIC series leaves historians somewhat blind to this role. Current intelligence generally remains classified, but was often hot stuff appreciated by successive Prime Ministers and senior members of the Cabinet. An instructive example is found in the committee’s weekly intelligence reviews. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the JIC issued two current intelligence products every week. The first, known as the Grey Book, was distributed to a broad mass of officials in London and overseas. The second, known as the Red Book, was far more highly classified. It went to more senior consumers – including the Queen. There is a blanket ban on historians viewing any Red Book material. JIC minutes reveal its existence but offer no real hint at content. By contrast, the Grey Book was far less sensitive. It was disseminated to all and sundry manning British posts across the world. And yet declassification remains patchy at best. Whole years are missing and there is nothing from 1966 onwards.
Regrettably, the government has consistently held back special assessments and notes. Lack of access to the latter is strange: notes released under the Freedom of Information Act appear strikingly similar in topic and nature to the declassified longer-term appreciations. Special assessments, however, incorporated Red Book material from 1967. They covered matters of urgent importance, before being discontinued and replaced by ‘immediate assessments’ from 1974. 7 All special assessments remain classified.
Reliance on the declassified papers rather skews perceptions of the nature of the JIC’s reports. The JIC appears to be an overwhelmingly cumbersome body. The masses of declassified memoranda found in CAB 158 and CAB 186 are strategic assessments of longer-term issues, such as annual reviews of world communism. They are broad and sit at the foundation of the policymaking process, cumulatively building up consumers’ background information and shaping Whitehall understanding. As Michael Herman, a former JIC Secretary and veteran watcher of the committee, has acknowledged, this of course is a crucial role of intelligence in peacetime. Long-term JIC papers help create well-informed policies. 8
On the downside, however, such memoranda can be dense and dry, and often lacked current insight. Many of these papers took months to produce. To give just one example: an important report running to over eighty pages ascertaining the Soviet threat in the early Cold War was commissioned in January 1948. But it was not disseminated until July. 9 Although there were other papers produced in a shorter time, the declassified files do create a misleading impression that the wheels of Whitehall bureaucracy were turning very slowly indeed. The JIC files suggest that the committee was somewhat pedestrian and lacked sharp, incisive and acutely relevant policy insight.
Most importantly, in Rumsfeldian parlance, this particular missing dimension is a ‘known unknown’. Historians are aware that these intelligence products exist even if we cannot see them. The government has openly acknowledged that current intelligence has long formed part of the JIC’s role and has offered an overview of how the system evolved. But the sources themselves are kept tantalisingly out of reach. 10 In a recent overview of British strategic intelligence in the Cold War, Len Scott briefly mentions classified weekly output as a caveat to his broader discussion of the JIC. 11 Such awareness is important, but lack of full discussion impedes a holistic understanding of the committee’s role. Unfortunately, detailed analysis remains impossible owing to a lack of sources. Historians naturally rely on the declassified papers and tend to take the archival feed as an analogue of reality. As a result the role of the JIC becomes skewed.
Passive vs active
The second distortion is perhaps more serious. It is an ‘unknown unknown’. As we have seen, the JIC series create the impression that the committee was cumbersome and mostly reactive: members lacked dynamism and were not remotely interested in operational details. This is of course fair to an extent. The JIC was (and remains) fundamentally an intelligence assessment body. It spent the majority of the Cold War watching the Soviets, counting nuclear weapons and determining intentions.
Yet there is another aspect to the committee, on which the declassified JIC series are silent. Senior members, especially the Chairman, enjoyed a more operational dynamic. Firstly, this involved overseeing intelligence operations of a ‘special nature’. JIC members were tasked with monitoring controversial or risky intelligence-gathering operations. This aspect of the committee’s role is far from adequately revealed in JIC papers. Detailed discussion between the JIC and the Prime Minister regarding air photography in the Berlin Corridor, for example, has to be found in Ministry of Defence files. 12
Secondly, the JIC Chairman was at the forefront of British covert action planning throughout the Cold War. He worked closely with MI6 to define the parameters, recommend action and design the new Whitehall bureaucracy for taking the covert Cold War to the Soviets. JIC Chairman Patrick Reilly was heavily involved in Whitehall’s committee overseeing covert action, known as the Official Committee on Communism (Overseas), in the early 1950s. Moreover, he personally headed a working party examining proposals for covert action behind the Iron Curtain and argued in favour of limited strikes against satellite economies. It was Reilly who liaised with the Americans on covert action at the strategic level. 13
Reilly’s input began a fascinating pattern linking the JIC Chairman to covert action. Indeed, by the 1960s his successors were chairing a shadowy successor to the Official Committee on Communism (Overseas), known as the Joint Action Committee (JAC). 14 And the overlaps between the JIC and covert action did not stop there. Senior JIC members also sat on the JAC whilst the JIC Secretary doubled up as its secretary. 15 The JIC connected with other secret operational actors too. For example, the JIC Chairman was instrumental in establishing another body tasked with instigating covert action in the Yemen during the civil war in t
he 1960s. 16
The JIC Chairman was vastly influential and yet this does not come across adequately in the archives. He sat at the heart of an intricate and secret Whitehall web, and was probably third only to the Cabinet Secretary and the chief of MI6 when it came to covert activity. This gaping lacuna has important implications, which are going unnoticed because scholars are unaware that the lacuna exists in the first place. The Chairman’s active role raises core questions: what is the relationship between intelligence and policy in the British system? Where does covert action sit in the intelligence–policy dichotomy? If historians are unaware that the JIC Chairman was engaged in such activity then these questions go unanswered. Moreover, certain leading scholars of intelligence machinery have erroneously suggested that the Cabinet Secretary chaired the JAC. 17 This is an easy mistake to make as there are practically no archival files on the subject. Herculean digging is required. The answers, however, are in the National Archives – just not in an obvious place.
Such material would not necessarily be in the JIC files anyway. Strictly speaking, covert action was not JIC activity. It is therefore important not to overemphasise the dealings of JIC members outside the committee. But there is an important point here. This activity was planned by JIC members wearing different hats – Suez is a classic example of this. One of the reasons this material was kept outside the JIC was simply to keep it more secret. Much JIC material is not particularly sensitive and the committee had a surprisingly broad distribution list. Bodies such as the JAC therefore allowed the same people to engage in a highly sensitive activity without other government departments (and future historians) ever finding out.
Whitehall vs global
The JIC files downplay the committee’s global connections. They do this in three ways: firstly, there is no sense of foreign representation on the JIC; secondly, there is little detail on British liaison with former colonies post-independence; and thirdly, very few papers covering the JIC’s regional outposts remain. That the CIA enjoyed regular representation on the JIC is a poorly kept secret. Historians are well aware, for example, that the CIA had an officer on the committee during the Suez Crisis. Indeed, Chester Cooper, the CIA man in question, has written a lively account of his time in London. 18 Strikingly, however, any indication of this has been erased from the archival records. The JIC minutes do not even acknowledge the presence of a CIA officer, let alone offer his name.
Cooper’s role was important. Neglecting it skews understanding of Anglo-American relations in the strained days of the mid-1950s. Cooper continued his role on the JIC even when the regular diplomatic connections between London and Washington were broken. According to former JIC Chairman Percy Cradock, at one point Cooper was the sole channel of communication between the two capitals. 19 Similarly, Cooper’s role was again important during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Canada, New Zealand and Australia enjoyed similar status. The allies were present at one end of the JIC table for general discussion and for certain assessments, but were waved away during others. 20 This, however, cannot be proved using archival evidence at all – such input (especially regarding the US) has been mostly wiped from the official record. The JIC’s liaison role and the important input of intelligence in diplomacy are therefore neglected by historians relying on JIC papers. This is the sort of area where historians need to deploy their interview skills.
JIC files have likewise been excised of references to connections with the intelligence apparatus of other countries. The JIC was tasked ‘to keep under review the organisation and working of intelligence and defence security at home and overseas […] and to advise what changes are deemed necessary’. 21
Accordingly, the committee gradually acquired a role in colonial security. This included attempts to manage and reform the local intelligence assessment and dissemination systems. 22 There is plenty of material on such activity, including the detailed papers of JIC working groups.
It quickly vanishes, however, once the colony is approaching independence. There is very little on the role of the JIC post-independence. The Federation of South Arabia forms an instructive example. A great deal of material is available regarding JIC planning for withdrawal in 1967 but many of the relevant files regarding post-independence requirements remain classified. The released documents merely hint at some sort of offshore intelligence naval task force, the intelligence functions of the British embassy in the new South Yemen, and the need for intelligence liaison officers. 23 Perhaps more intriguingly, the countersubversion files suggest ‘arrangements for “stay-behind” facilities in colonial territories which were approaching full independence’. 24 No further detail is given. The JIC’s global role remains unknown.
During and after the Second World War, the JIC had a number of regional outposts. These included JIC (Far East), JIC (Germany), JIC (Washington) and JIC (Middle East). A number of smaller joint intelligence groups were also established, including one in the Gulf. Like the JIC in London, these often included representation from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – again, this is not apparent from the files. 25 Although these groups answered to the local theatre commander or head of mission in the first instance, 26 they formed an important network around the London JIC. On top of this, local intelligence committees existed in colonial territories whilst foreign-run JICs were also associated with the JIC in London.
Once more, however, reliance on the archives creates a skewed view. Overseas JIC files are held in CAB 191, but the series is notably fragmented. Many of the papers have simply been destroyed. JIC minutes do discuss issues relating to the regional JICs, including matters of structure and function, but very few regional reports have survived in the National Archives. Historians are therefore left broadly unaware of how JIC (Far East) reports, for example, fed into Whitehall intelligence assessments of south-east Asia. Yet again, the declassified JIC files create a distorted narrative of the committee’s role and work: this time as an insular Whitehall actor, as opposed to a global actor with tentacles reaching all four corners of the world.
Calm vs chaos
JIC files give the false impression that the committee writes the reports. It does not. Members merely review assessments which have been drafted by specialists seconded from different government departments within the central intelligence machinery system. The JIC makes last-minute alterations before approving reports and issuing them under the JIC banner.
The declassified series concentrate almost exclusively on the committee: its minutes and final memoranda. Historians are presented with an overly linear progression from conception, through drafting, to dissemination. In the released files, JIC assessments begin with the terms of reference (neatly outlined) and the final report follows behind. The corresponding minutes reveal some light discussion about presentation and emphasis. The process appears smooth and amiable – unnaturally so. It appears excessively hermetic and the committee is presented in a unified manner.
In reality the process is messier. The central intelligence machinery takes raw intelligence, comments from the intelligence agencies, contribution from the intelligence analysts and input from the relevant policymaking departments, and places it into the bigger picture by assessing what it all actually means. 27 Committee members have the final say, and one former Chairman has described the JIC as ‘the final arbiter of intelligence’. 28
A central reason underpinning this impression is the lack of sources from the sub-JIC level. Papers of the Joint Intelligence Staff and the Assessments Staff, the bodies who actually draft the assessments, are not present in the archives. There is some material in the JIC secretariat files, but declassification of this is patchy and barely scratches the surface of the central intelligence machinery as a whole. Similarly, historians rely on the smallest of hints in the JIC memoranda themselves – papers are tagged ‘revised’ or ‘final’, for example.
The result is a distorted impression of the JIC. Historians are presented only with the neat, calm and occasionally banal apex of
the central intelligence machinery. What is missing is the chaos beneath. Strategic interdepartmental intelligence does not start and finish with the JIC report and it is simplistic to talk of intelligence as a single unit. Instead, myriad processes take place beneath the final product which shape the intelligence assessment in underexplored ways. One might extend this criticism to British record preservation policy generally in the foreign, defence and security fields. Its excessive focus on elites means that we have failed to capture the locations where much of the debate took place. For example, just occasionally, minutes of the Joint Planning Staff – the engine room of British strategic thinking – surface in a forgotten file, but no central record has been preserved.
JIC assessments are the product of their environment. Those involved in writing and scrutinising the reports are under the command of their various ministries, not the JIC (although the creation of the Assessments Staff in 1968 was designed to address this). Understanding the competing pressures within the central intelligence machinery is therefore essential to understanding British interdepartmental intelligence assessments. Indeed, JIC conclusions are the product of competing agendas, diverging threat perceptions and jealous departmental turf wars. By tasking and framing issues in a certain way, a dominant department within the drafting process can dangerously alter an intelligence conclusion. Likewise, intelligence assessment is impeded if a particular department is sidelined. It is therefore important to shine a light on the corridors and back rooms of Whitehall to reveal the processes underpinning JIC assessments. Reliance on the JIC files alone renders this impossible. By looking beneath the JIC, it is possible to explore the competing conceptions behind a swathe of important issues since the Second World War.
Spying on the World Page 51