The Politics of Strategic and Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946 (Studies in Intelligence)

225 Pages·2006·0.84 MB·English

by  Neville Wylie

The Politics and Strategy
of Clandestine War
This collection of new essays on the Special Operations Executive (SOE) sets
out to explore the ‘non-military’ aspects of British special operations in World
War II.
SOE was established in Summer 1940 to ‘set Europe ablaze’, by detonating
popular resistance against Axis rule and nurturing ‘secret armies’. Based on original
archive research, these essays highlight for the first time the numerous other areas
in which SOE contributed to the war effort and show that it played a major role
in supporting Britain’s political, economic, financial and humanitarian interest
globally.
By situating SOE within the context of Britain’s broader political needs, these
essays also demonstrate the extent to which SOE came to epitomise the skills found
in today’s secret service organisations. SOE showed itself capable of operating
on a global scale and developing the necessary expertise, equipment and personnel
to conduct activities across the whole spectrum of what we have come to know as
‘covert operations’. By bringing SOE’s activities into sharper focus and exposing
the scale of its involvement in Britain’s wartime external relations, this book echoes
current thinking on the place of the so-called ‘secret world’ in international politics.
The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine Warwill be of great interest to students
of SOE, intelligence studies, World War II and military history in general.
Neville Wylieis Associate Professor of International Relations at the University
of Nottingham. His most recent publications include Britain, Switzerland and the
Second World War(2003) and European Neutrals and Non-belligerents during the
Second World War(2002).
Studies in Intelligence Series
General Editors: Richard J. Aldrich and Christopher Andrew
ISSN: 1368–9916
Selected titles from the series:
Intelligence and Military Operationsedited by Michael I. Handel
Leaders and Intelligenceedited by Michael I. Handel
War, Strategy and Intelligenceby Michael I. Handel
Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World Waredited by Michael
I. Handel
Codebreaker in the Far Eastby Alan Stripp
Intelligence for Peaceedited by Hesi Carmel
Intelligence Services in the Information Ageby Michael Herman
Espionage and the Roots of the Cold War: The Conspiratorial Heritageby David
McKnight
Swedish Signal Intelligence, 1900–1945by C. G. McKay and Bengt Beckman
The Norwegian Intelligence Service, 1945–1970by Olav Riste
Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century edited by Heike Bungert, Jan
G. Heitmann and Michael Wala
The CIA, the British Left and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?by Hugh Wilford
Our Man in Yugoslavia: The Story of a Secret Service Operativeby Sebastian
Ritchie
Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century: Journeys in Shadows
by Len Scott and Peter Jackson
MI6 and the Machinery of Spyingby Philip H. J. Davies
Twenty-First Century Intelligenceedited by Wesley Wark
Intelligence and Strategy: Selected Essays by John Robert Ferris
The US Government, Citizen Groups and the Cold War: The State–Private Network
edited by Helen Laville and Hugh Wilford
Peacekeeping Intelligence: New Players, Extended Boundaries edited by David
Carment and Martin Rudner
Special Operations Executive: A New Instrument of Waredited by Mark Seaman
Mussolini’s Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and the Middle
East, 1935–1940by Manuela A. Williams
Britain’s Secret War against Japan, 1937–1945by Douglas Ford
The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive,
1940–1946edited by Neville Wylie
The Politics and Strategy
of Clandestine War
Special Operations Executive,
1940–1946
Edited by Neville Wylie
First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
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© 2007 Neville Wylie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The politics and strategy of clandestine war : Special Operation Executive,
1940–1946 / edited by Neville Wylie.
p. cm. – (Studies in intelligence series, ISSN 1368–9916)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Great Britain. Special Operations Executive. 2. World War,
1939–1945–Secret service–Great Britain. 3. Great Britain–Foreign
relations–1936–1945. 4. Subversive activities–Great
Britain–History–20th century. I. Wylie, Neville, 1966– II. Title.
III. Series: Cass series on intelligence and military affairs.
Studies in intelligence series.
D810.S7P64 2006
940.54′8641–dc22 2006002155
ISBN10: 0–415–39110–5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39110–8 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–96455–1 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–96455–2 (ebk)
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: politics and strategy in the clandestine war – new
perspectives in the study of SOE 1
NEVILLE WYLIE
1 ‘Of historical interest only’: the origins and vicissitudes of the
SOE Archive 15
DUNCAN STUART
2 A glass half full: some thoughts on the evolution of the study of
the Special Operations Executive 27
MARK SEAMAN
3 The ‘Massingham’ mission and the secret ‘special relationship’:
cooperation and rivalry between the Anglo-American clandestine
services in French North Africa, November 1942–May 1943 42
T. C. WALES
4 Communist in SOE: explaining James Klugmann’s recruitment
and retention 66
RODERICK BAILEY
5 ‘Kipling and all that’: American perceptions of SOE and British
imperial intrigue in the Balkans, 1943–1945 90
MATTHEW JONES
vi Contents
6 Ungentlemanly warriors or unreliable diplomats? Special
Operations Executive and ‘irregular political activities’
in Europe 109
NEVILLE WYLIE
7 A succession of crises? SOE in the Middle East, 1940–1945 130
SAUL KELLY
8 ‘Toughs and thugs’: the Mazzini Society and political warfare
among Italian POWs in India, 1941–1943 154
KENT FEDOROWICH
9 ‘Against the grain’: Special Operations Executive in Spain,
1941–1945 177
DAVID A. MESSENGER
10 SOE’s foreign currency transactions 193
CHRISTOPHER J. MURPHY
Index 209
Contributors
Roderick Bailey is currently employed as a historian at the Imperial War
Museum, London, as a freelance historian and interviewer, running a major
project to acquire more material for the Museum’s SOE collections. He is a
graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge and a former Alistair
Horne Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. His PhD, from Edinburgh, was
entitled ‘SOE and British policy towards wartime resistance in Albania and
Kosovo, 1940–45’.
Kent Fedorowichis a Reader in British imperial history at the University of the
West of England, Bristol. He has published extensively on empire migra-
tion, Anglo-dominion relations and prisoners of war. His publications include
several collections of essays: one co-edited with Martin Thomas on International
Diplomacy and Colonial Retreat(London: Frank Cass, 2001); and one with
Carl Bridge on The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity(London:
Frank Cass, 2003). He has also co-authored with Bob Moore, The British Empire
and its Italian Prisoners of War, 1940–1947(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002).
Matthew Jonesis Professor of American Foreign Relations at the University of
Nottingham. He is author the of Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia,
1961–1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Britain, the United States,
and the Mediterranean War, 1942–44(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).
Saul Kelly is a Lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College, London (Joint
Services Command and Staff College). His publications include The Hunt for
Zerzura (London: John Murray, 2002), Cold War in the Desert (London:
Macmillan, 2000) and, with Anthony Gorst (eds), Whitehall and the Suez Crisis
(London: Frank Cass, 2000). His current project is concerned with the ‘Great
Game’ during and immediately after the First World War.
David A. Messenger is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of
Wyoming. He is currently completing a book-length manuscript on the subject
of French relations with Spain during and after the Second World War and
pursuing a new project on the recovery of Nazi assets in Spain.
viii Contributors
Christopher J. Murphyis currently an independent scholar. He was formerly
Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary British
History at the Institute of Historical Research. His PhD, from the University
of Reading, was entitled ‘SOE’s “missing dimension”: an examination of the
support organisation and broader internal relations within the Special Operations
Executive, 1940–1946’. He has recently completed Security and Special
Operations: SOE and MI5 during the Second World War(Palgrave Macmillan,
forthcoming), a study of the work of SOE’s Security (D/CE) Section.
Mark Seamanis a historian with the Cabinet Office. Formerly he was a historian
with the Imperial War Museum specialising in the study of the Special
Operations Executive and Intelligence during the Second World War. He has
just finished editing a collection of essays on SOE written by leading historians
in the subject.
Duncan Stuart retired in 1992 after a career in H. M. Diplomatic Service.
In 1996, he was invited to become the SOE Adviser at the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. He was the last incumbent of this post, which was
abolished in 2002 when the final class of SOE archival files was released to
the National Archive: Public Record Office in Kew.
T. C. Walesis the North American editor at the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief.
His 2005 Edinburgh PhD dissertation, completed under the supervision of
Professor Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones and Dr David Stafford, was entitled, ‘The Secret
War in the South: British and American Intelligence Co-operation and Rivalry
in the Western Mediterranean, 1941–1944’. He has written for many academic
journals on Cold War, intelligence, and security issues.
Neville Wylieis Associate Professor in International Relations at the University
of Nottingham, author of Britain, Switzerland and the Second World War
(Oxford, 2003), and editor of European Neutrals and Non-belligerents during
the Second World War(Cambridge, 2002). He has written a number of papers
on intelligence and special operations, including ‘“An amateur learns his
job?” Special Operations Executive in Portugal, 1940–1942’, Journal of
Contemporary History36/3 (2001), 455–471 and ‘SOE and the Neutrals’, in
Mark Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive: A New Weapon of War
(London, 2005).
Acknowledgements
My thanks, as editor, go first and foremost to the contributors, without whose
time, patience, and ideas this volume would not have been possible. The majority
of the papers published here initially appeared in the journal Intelligence & National
Security, and I would like to express my thanks to the editorial team, past and
present – Wesley Wark, Richard Aldrich, Peter Jackson and Loch Johnson – for
their unstinting help and support in bringing this and the INS’ ‘special issue’
on SOE (vol. 20, issue 1) to fruition. Thanks are also due to the score of anonymous
‘readers’, who kindly took the trouble to comment on early drafts of the essays,
and to the Imperial War Museum, London, for letting me publish Duncan Stuart’s
essay (Chapter 1).
Finally, it is a great pleasure to be able to take the opportunity afforded by the
publication of this volume to acknowledge my gratitude to M. R. D. Foot and
Tony Brooks. It was they who first inspired my interest in the study of special opera-
tions, and it has been their writings, views and personal experiences that have
more than anything informed my understanding of the extraordinary work and
‘world’ of SOE.
Neville Wylie
Nottingham