The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

916 Pages·2016·9.29 MB·English

by  Richard Aldrich

Copyright
William Collins
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First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016
Copyright © Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac 2016
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Source ISBN: 97800075555444
Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007555451
Version: 2016-04-04
Dedication
To Joanne and Libby
(two espionage experts)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Abbreviations and Acronyms
Introduction
PART ONE: CREATING SECRET SERVICE
1 Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Andrew Bonar Law (1908–1923)
2 Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald (1923–1937)
PART TWO: THE WINDS OF WAR
3 Neville Chamberlain (1937–1940)
4 Winston Churchill (1940–1941)
5 Winston Churchill (1942–1945)
PART THREE: THE HOT COLD WAR
6 Clement Attlee (1945–1951)
7 Winston Churchill (1951–1955)
8 Anthony Eden (1955–1957)
9 Harold Macmillan (1957–1963)
10 Alec Douglas-Home (1963–1964)
PART FOUR: DÉTENTE AND DISSENT
11 Harold Wilson (1964–1970)
12 Edward Heath (1970–1974)
13 Harold Wilson (1974–1976)
14 James Callaghan (1976–1979)
15 Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990)
PART FIVE: TURBULENT TIMES
16 John Major (1990–1997)
17 Tony Blair (1997–2007)
18 Gordon Brown (2007–2010)
19 David Cameron (2010–)
Conclusion: Prime Ministers and the Future of Intelligence
Appendix I: Key Officials Since 1909
Appendix II: Key Intelligence and Security Machinery
‘Eat Before Reading’: A Short Essay on Methodology
Picture Section
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Publisher
Abbreviations and Acronyms
‘C’ – Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) CCC – Churchill
College Cambridge CIA – Central Intelligence Agency [American]
CIGS – Chief of the Imperial General Staff CND – Campaign for Nucleur
Disarmament Comint – Communications intelligence Comsec –
Communications security
COS – Chiefs of Staff
CPGB – Communist Party of Great Britain CSC – Counter Subversion
Committee CX – Prefix for a report originating with SIS
DCI – Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA DIS – Defence
Intelligence Staff
DMI – Director of Military Intelligence DNI – Director of Naval Intelligence D-
Notice – Defence Notice to the media covering security issues DOPC –
Defence and Overseas Policy Committee Elint – Electronic intelligence
FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation [American]
FCO – Foreign and Commonwealth Office GC&CS – Government Code and
Cypher School GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters GOC –
General Officer Commanding
GRU – Soviet Military Intelligence IRD – Information Research Department of
the Foreign Office ISC – Intelligence and Security Committee ISI – Inter-
Services Intelligence [Pakistan]
ISP – Internet Service Provider
JAC – Joint Action Committee
JIC – Joint Intelligence Committee JTAC – Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre
LHCMA – Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives MI5 – Security service
MI6 – Secret Intelligence Service (also SIS) MIT – Turkish Intelligence Service
MI6 – Secret Intelligence Service (also SIS) MIT – Turkish Intelligence Service
MoD – Ministry of Defence
NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NSA – National Security Agency
[American]
NSC – National Security Council [American]
NUM – National Union of Mineworkers OSS – Office of Strategic Services
[American]
PKI – Indonesian Communist Party
PLO – Palestine Liberation Organisation PSIS – Permanent Secretaries’
Committee on the Intelligence Services PUSC – Permanent Under-Secretary’s
Committee of the Foreign Office PUSD – Permanent Under-Secretary’s
Department PV – Positive vetting
RAW – Research and Analysis Wing [Indian]
RUC – Royal Ulster Constabulary
SAS – Special Air Service
SAVAK – Iranian Security Service
SBS – Special Boat Service
Sigint – Signals intelligence
SIS – Secret Intelligence Service (also MI6) SOE – Special Operations
Executive TASS – Soviet Press Agency
TUC – Trades Union Congress
Ultra – British classification for signals intelligence UKUSA – UK–USA signals
intelligence agreements 1948
WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction
Introduction
This is my own true spy story …
1
WINSTON CHURCHILL
On Saturday, 6 September 1941, Winston Churchill stood on a pile of bricks
outside the newly built Bletchley Park. Here, in the Buckinghamshire
countryside, the mysteries of the German Enigma encryption machine were
being patiently unravelled. Each day the codebreakers’ product was fed to a
prime minister in Downing Street who was beside himself with anticipation.
Now, with some emotion, Churchill expressed his profound gratitude and
explained to the codebreakers how they had already transformed decision-
making at the highest levels, and with it the course of the Second World War. A
decade later – and now approaching his eightieth year – Churchill was back in
Downing Street. His keen interest in intelligence had not diminished. In 1952,
top-secret spy flights took pictures over Moscow at the express instruction of the
prime minister. Over Minsk and Lvov, his airborne intelligence emissaries were
greeted by a formidable wall of Soviet anti-aircraft fire.
Churchill also relished covert action. In 1953, he positively purred with
enthusiasm over a joint CIA–MI6 plot that had overthrown the government of
Iran. This underlines the way in which intelligence was not just a secret window
on the world for Britain’s leaders, but also a discreet means of manipulating it.
In 1956 Churchill’s successor, a furious Anthony Eden, neurotic and plagued by
ill-health, barked into a telephone that he wanted Egyptian President Nasser
destroyed by MI6. Harold Macmillan’s government drew up what he called a
‘formidable’ plan for Syria which involved assassinating several leaders. Alec
Douglas-Home added Indonesia’s President Sukarno to the list of foreign leaders
that prime ministers wished to see toppled using Britain’s intelligence agencies.
However, when Harold Wilson asked for the liquidation of the Ugandan dictator
Idi Amin, officials responded with horror, and refused to investigate the options.
When secret intelligence took extreme risks, it was usually at the direction of
Downing Street.
Harold Wilson evoked the dark side of intelligence. He was convinced that
plotters within MI5, MI6 and especially renegade generals in the Ministry of
Defence were out to undermine his government. Notably terrified of the South
African secret service, known as ‘BOSS’, he chose to develop close personal
relations with the Israeli secret service Mossad instead. Speaking with American
officials who were inquiring into illegal activities by the CIA in the wake of
Watergate, he agreed with them that the CIA failed to tell British authorities
everything it did in London. Yet he remained fascinated by the secret world, and
valued the intelligence machinery in Downing Street, engaging in academic
debate with his intelligence analysts on points of detail like the Oxford junior
research fellow he once was.
Intelligence imperilled more than one British prime minister. Within weeks of
her arrival at Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher insisted on sitting in with the
Joint Intelligence Committee to better understand how intelligence was prepared
for those at the top. Only three years later, a major intelligence failure by the
same mechanism over the Falkland Islands almost ended her government. John
Major found himself confronted by the Arms to Iraq affair, in which ministers
had sought to cover up the control of arms export companies by MI5 and MI6.
The subsequent inquiry by Lord Scott revealed only part of the murky tale, and
brought Major’s government close to defeat in the House of Commons. Tony
Blair’s era was defined by vicious public arguments over intelligence. Despite
his successful use of secret service during the creation of the Good Friday
Agreement in Northern Ireland, it was accusations of the misuse of intelligence
over Iraq that would leave his reputation in tatters. His bold decision to use
intelligence publicly to justify the war on Iraq quickly backfired, and by 2005