Intelligence, Defence and Diplomacy

British Policy in the Post-War World

Richard J. Aldrich, Michael F. Hopkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135197339
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

What was Britain's reaction to the death of Stalin? How has Britain reconciled a modern nuclear strategy with its traditional imperial defence commitments around the world? How has secret intelligence affected the Special Relationship' since 1945? Certain clear questions and perennial themes run through British overseas policy since 1945. This book examines them, drawing on new research by leading historians and scholars in the field.

Introduction

British Intelligence, Defence and Diplomacy since 1945

Richard J. Aldrich and Michael F. Hopkins

The essays in this book address a range of key episodes in Britain’s changing security policy since 1945. They seek to examine not only British security dilemmas in many areas of the world since the Second World War, but also to depart from the traditional approach to the study of overseas policy with its primary focus upon diplomatic history. While this volume contains many essays examining central aspects of Britain’s post-war diplomacy, and while the Foreign Office has undoubtedly remained the central co-ordinating department of state for all overseas policy, much attention is given to wider subjects such as alliance systems, the retreat from empire, nuclear strategy, defence reviews, secret intelligence and the role of the media. The intention of this book has been to achieve a collection that is of the widest interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars working in many separate fields. This has been done by attempting a balanced analysis of some of the more salient aspects of British policy in many different regions of the world, and by exploring at the same time the different functional dimensions of British overseas activity. Accordingly, there is no attempt here to produce a chronologically organized textbook, surveying Britain’s experience overseas since the war.¹ Instead, the objective has been to present a balanced range of scholarly essays, organized on a thematic basis, which reflect some of the more exciting and innovative research now being conducted in the fields of British intelligence, defence and diplomacy.

To some extent the diversified pattern adopted in this volume mirrors the increasingly sophisticated approach to the study of post-war British overseas policy that has been adopted in British universities. The many students who now undertake courses in international studies are no longer confronted by straightforward diplomatic history. Instead a wide variety of approaches and activities is encountered. Moreover, the last decade has seen a great expansion in new research centres and specialist courses, particularly at the MA level, focusing upon empires and decolonization, military strategy, the media and intelligence.

This volume seeks to examine the dimensions and rapidly changing context of Britain’s security dilemmas in the period after 1945. Inevitably it is difficult to cast up convincing generalizations about a turbulent and diverse global experience stretching over half a century. Nevertheless, this long timespan prompts observations about the contrasting themes of change and continuity. It is particularly noticeable that, despite Britain’s diminished role in the international system, many of its security dilemmas and many of the regional concerns remain perennial. The problems of ethnicity in Yugoslavia, of détente and political dissonance in Germany, the questions of dependence and interdependence within the ‘Special Relationship’, the role and contribution of secret intelligence, the delicate strategic balance in the Middle East: all these matters have remained surprisingly fresh and constant factors in British overseas policy since 1945.

When surveying the shifts in Britain’s post-war security policy since 1945 it is also clear that some of the major transformations occurred in the period before 1970. This turning-point was marked by a decade that drew to a close with the devaluation of sterling, Harold Wilson’s ignominious abandonment of Britain’s role east of Suez and the renewed rejection of Britain’s application to join the EEC. Perhaps even more than the Suez crisis of 1956, these events signalled a major step in Britain’s descent from world power. Appropriately, many of the essays in this collection focus upon the critical period before 1970.

The chapters that follow can conveniently be grouped into four sections that are largely defined geographically. In the first section dealing with Europe, two key aspects of British policy are examined. Arguably, after 1945, two central concerns for Britain’s Cold War strategists in Europe were Yugoslavia and Germany. As one historian has recently argued, it is these two countries that appear to draw out most clearly the major presumptions of the policy-makers in this region.² Yugoslavia offers a fascinating insight into British policy towards the Eastern bloc. The rise of Tito presented Britain with the beguiling prospect of anti-Soviet communists and possible future splits within a hitherto monolithic communist bloc. The ethnically divided and unstable regime in Yugoslavia, like neighbouring Albania, appeared to offer Britain the opportunity to move beyond defensive containment and to take the Cold War to the enemy. Ann Lane (Chapter 2) examines the extent to which Britain was prepared to pursue a policy of ‘rolling back’ communism in South-East Europe. The contentious disputes over Trieste and Greece, over war criminals and over Britain’s regional economic policy are also examined.

Correspondingly, Klaus Larres (Chapter 3) demonstrates Germany’s central role in Britain’s early attempts at détente during the turbulent period of unrest within East Germany at the end of the Stalin era. It examines the familiar dilemmas faced by policy-makers in both London and Washington when presented with the possibility of exploiting dissonance within the Eastern bloc, dilemmas that would be repeated in the context of Hungary in 1956.³ British responses to dissent in both Yugoslavia and Germany not only shed new light on Britain’s evolving concept of containment but also appear to have a strong contemporary resonance with events in Eastern Europe during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The Anglo-American ‘Special Relationship’ is a complex and almost omnipresent theme in British security since 1945 and thus, to some degree, runs as a common unifying theme through the majority of the essays in this book. In the second section, Anglo-American themes are specifically explored. The Anglo-American alliance has undoubtedly received more attention from diplomatic historians than most aspects of British policy. However, Michael Hopkins brings a new approach to this subject, examining the importance of the British Embassy as a key component in the policy process. Constituting the most important ‘outstation’ of the Whitehall machine, by 1945 Britain had deployed over 1,000 staff to this large and influential centre, incorporating not only diplomats but also officials from ministries with responsibilities for trade, defence, science and technology. American historians have often remarked that the State Department and the United States Treasury sometimes confided more in the personnel of Britain’s Washington Embassy than they did in each other. Yet hitherto no study has examined the role of this crucial transatlantic institution.⁴

The Anglo-American relationship since 1945 has also been central to Britain’s ability to sustain an independent nuclear deterrent in the face of continuing British economic decline. The question of the balance of defence spending between nuclear forces, partially acquired from the United States, and conventional forces has been a central issue for British defence reviews and for British defence planning since the 1960s. Accordingly, David Boren’s examination of the adoption of the American Trident missile system and the associated Defence Review of 1981 (Chapter 5) holds considerable historic interest as an analysis of the process which contributed to the controversial decision to reduce conventional forces, notably the Royal Navy, immediately before the Falklands War. Moreover, defence reviews remain a live contemporary issue in the context of the current furore over the Options for Change defence review in the 1990s, which some have argued failed to offer a convincing definition for the shape of the British armed forces towards the year 2000.

The third section of this volume examines British policy in the Middle East and Asia. Recent controversy over events in Kuwait and also over the future of Hong Kong have underlined the extent to which these two areas have remained a continuing concern to British policy-makers from 1945 through to the 1990s. The three Middle Eastern themes explored within this volume are those of Britain’s attempt to sustain a military presence in the region because of its Cold War context, while at the same time attempting to escape from, or at least limit, the burdens of empire and also remain to some degree in step with policy-makers in Washington. As Ritchie Ovendale demonstrates in his essay on Palestine (Chapter 6), these three requirements were often contradictory and could not easily be reconciled. One of the major problems presented by Palestine was the simultaneous danger of irritating either President Truman, himself under strong pressure from the American Zionist lobby, or alternatively the Arab states of the Middle East. Good relations with the latter remained crucial to Britain because of their control over important oil reserves and for defence purposes. Moreover, until the 1950s it was only from airbases in this region that much of the Soviet Union, including important Soviet oil reserves in the Caucasus, could be subjected to air attack by the West.⁴

British withdrawal from Palestine at the end of the 1940s only served to place greater importance upon other areas in the eastern Mediterranean where Britain retained a foothold. During the 1950s, as Evanthis Hatzivassilliou demonstrates in the context of the Cyprus question (Chapter 7), Britain was determined to retain some sort of position here and to favour the Turkish case. This stemmed from the belief of both Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan that Turkey constituted Britain’s firmest ally in the region and consequently no solution to the Cyprus question could be permitted that might offend them. Yet while Britain remained the formal colonial power on Cyprus, without the sort of informal relationships and condominiums that characterized Britain’s role elsewhere in the region, matters were still far from straightforward. Washington enjoyed a close relationship with both Greece and Turkey and, like policymakers in London, feared a conflict that would threaten NATO cohesion. Meanwhile the EOKA guerrilla campaign not only placed considerable strain on the Alliance but also constituted Britain’s most prolonged exposure to terrorism in the region since 1945.

During the 1950s Britain encountered troublesome and prolonged insurgencies, not only in Cyprus but also in Kenya and Malaya. These were symptomatic of Britain’s inability to slip the bonds of empire and relinquish its sizeable military obligation in the Middle East and Asia. As David Devereux argues in his analysis of British global strategic thinking in the 1950s (Chapter 8), these commitments were not welcomed by the Chiefs of Staff. A number of developments, not least the successful testing of a British atomic bomb in 1952 and a hydrogen bomb in 1958, placed more emphasis upon nuclear rather than conventional forces. Moreover, a range of factors, not least American military thinking, conspired to place renewed emphasis on the defence of Europe at the expense of other regions. The challenge was to reconcile these new military developments with the traditional commitments of imperial strategy in areas such as Africa and the Middle East.

A further example of overseas British commitments was the Allied occupation of Japan. Here, perhaps more than in other regions, the Anglo-American relationship was crucial in a country dominated by the American presence and the larger-than-life figure of General Douglas MacArthur. Previous accounts of Britain’s Cold War in Asia have tended to focus upon China, the Korean conflict or upon the Malayan Emergency. Peter Lowe, in his analysis of Britain and the ending of the occupation of Japan (Chapter 9), draws our attention to the role of this surrendered adversary as both the keystone of Western containment strategy in Asia and a significant issue in discussions between London and Washington. Key subjects addressed include British attitudes towards General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito and the controversial peace treaties with Japan.

The last decade has witnessed a rapid growth in historical research in a number of relatively unexplored areas of British policy-making, not least that of intelligence and security.⁵ The nature of the contribution that these subjects are able to make to a general understanding of the post-war international system within post-war policy remains a subject of lively debate. There is nevertheless an emerging consensus that a strong ‘British school’ exists in this area with its own distinct approach.⁶ Characteristic of this emerging school is E.D.R. Harrison’s analysis (Chapter 10) of Kim Philby’s autobiographical account of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a book penned by Britain’s most notorious Soviet penetration agent. With the publication of My Silent War in 1968, Philby became the only one of five major Cambridge spies to have published his memoirs. Hitherto, many have maintained that its veracity could not be checked and therefore its value as a historical source was at best dubious. Even Philby, writing to an official who had served with the Central Intelligence Agency in the Middle East, asserted that the final judgement on the written account of his work would not be delivered until the appropriate SIS archives were opened up. He did not expect this to happen ‘until the 3rd millennium’.⁷ However, the wealth of publication in this area since 1968, not least the appearance of a number of official histories of intelligence, now permits a thorough scholarly assessment of the most widely read and highly controversial account of post-war British intelligence.

Standing in direct contrast to the notorious activities of Kim Philby, British intelligence in Asia since 1945 has been almost entirely neglected by historians. The complex process by which Britain slowly accommodated itself to increasing American dominance in this field is explored by Richard Aldrich (Chapter 11). It is suggested that Britain’s geographical assets or ‘residual empire’ in Asia offered considerable potential for intelligence collection and formed a significant element in post-war cooperation between London and Washington. These assets included the key role of Hong Kong for both human and technical surveillance of communist China and later North Vietnam, the development of Australian intelligence services under British sponsorship and the transfer of intelligence and security apparatus on the Indian sub-continent after independence. It is suggested that intelligence constituted an area where Britain has made a distinctive contribution to Western policy in Asia.

The natural counterpart to the gathering of intelligence is the security of information. A persistent theme in Britain’s security policy since 1945 has been the government’s concern to exercise a degree of control over the release of sensitive material relating to defence, foreign policy and intelligence matters into the public domain via the media, particularly in times of international crisis. The Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee (more commonly known as the D Notice Committee) has long formed a central and sometimes controversial component of this process. Typically in 1967 it was at the centre of a furore over revelations by Chapman Pincher concerning government interception of communications. Forming a point of liaison and co-operation between Whitehall and the media, the D Notice Committee seeks to manage the flow of such sensitive information by means of requests for its voluntary suppression. For the first time, Admiral Higgins, Secretary of the D Notice Committee until 1992, has kindly agreed to offer an account of the structure and workings of the D Notice system.

Finally the editors would like to take the opportunity to thank the many people who assisted in the production of this volume. In the hope of achieving a geographical and thematic balance, contributions were requested from a wide variety of sources and consequently these papers do not represent the proceedings of one particular conference. Nevertheless, the authors would like to thank the following for providing opportunities for the presentation and discussion of their ideas: The International Studies Association, the LSE-ICBH series of conferences on Contemporary British History, and the US Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. We would also like to thank the staff of the many archives that have been consulted.

NOTES

1. Those who would prefer an overview of British overseas policy since 1945 have ample choice. Recent studies of foreign policy include: David Saunders, Losing an Empire: Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1990); on defence policy, M. Dockrill, British Defence Policy since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); on colonial policy, J. Darwin,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: British Intelligence, Defence and Diplomacy since 1945
• Part One Europe
• 2 Coming to Terms with Tito: Britain and Yugoslavia, 1945–49
• 3 Reunification or Integration with the West? Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1950s
• Part Two The United States
• 4 The Washington Embassy: The Role of an Institution in Anglo-American Relations, 1945–55
• 5 The Trident Missile and Britain's 1981 Defence Review
• Part Three The Middle East and Asia
• 6 Britain and the End of the Palestine Mandate, 1945–48
• 7 The Cyprus Question and the Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1954–58
• 8 The Middle East and Africa in British Global Strategy, 1952–56
• 9 Great Britain, Japan and the Future: The End of the Allied Occupation, 1948–52
• Part Four Intelligence and Security
• 10 Some Reflections on Kim Philby's My Silent War as a Historical Source
• 11 ‘The Value of Residual Empire': Anglo-American Intelligence Co-operation in Asia after 1945
• 12 The D Notice System
• Notes on Contributors
• Index