Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society

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Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society

Peter Jackson Jennifer Siegel Editors

PRAEGER

Intelligence and Statecraft

Intelligence and Statecraft The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society Edited by Peter Jackson and Jennifer Siegel

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Intelligence and statecraft : the use and limits of intelligence in international society / edited by Peter Jackson and Jennifer Siegel. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 0–275–97295–X (alk. paper) 1. Intelligence service. 2. International relations. I. Jackson, P. J. (Peter J.), 1964– II. Siegel, Jennifer ( Jennifer L.) JF1525.I6I576 327.12—dc22

2005 2004022489

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2005 by Peter Jackson and Jennifer Siegel All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004022489 ISBN: 0–275–97295–X First published in 2005 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of the Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10

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For Paul Kennedy

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations and Acronyms INTRODUCTION Peter Jackson and Jennifer Siegel 1 HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE USES AND LIMITS OF INTELLIGENCE Peter Jackson 2 POOR INTELLIGENCE, FLAWED RESULTS: METTERNICH, RADETZKY, AND THE CRISIS-MANAGEMENT OF AUSTRIA’S “OCCUPATION” OF FERRARA IN 1847 Alan Sked 3 SANCTIONED SPYING: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MILITARY ATTACHÉ IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Maureen O’Connor Witter 4 RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE AND THE YOUNGHUSBAND EXPEDITION TO TIBET David H. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye

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5 TRAINING THIEVES: THE INSTRUCTION OF “EFFICIENT INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS” IN PRE-1914 BRITAIN Jennifer Siegel 6 THE ROYAL NAVY, WAR PLANNING, AND INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS OF JAPAN, 1921–1941 Christopher M. Bell

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7 SOVIET INTELLIGENCE ON BARBAROSSA: THE LIMITS OF INTELLIGENCE HISTORY David R. Stone

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8 OPERATION MATCHBOX AND THE SCIENTIFIC CONTAINMENT OF THE USSR Paul Maddrell

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9 SEEING THE COLD WAR FROM THE OTHER SIDE: THE STASI AND THE EVOLUTION OF WEST GERMANY’S OSTPOLITIK, 1969–1974 Mary Elise Sarotte Notes Index About the Contributors

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221 279 287

Acknowledgments

This collection of essays grew out of a symposium on intelligence and international relations that was organized under the auspices of International Security Studies at Yale University. The symposium, which brought together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, was made possible by generous financial support from the Smith Richardson Foundation. Just as important was the advice, support and encouragement provided by both Will Hitchcock and Ann Carter-Drier before, during, and after the symposium. All books are collective efforts of one kind or another, and this is especially true of edited collections. Martin Alexander, Christopher Andrew, Charles Cogan, John Ferris, David Kahn, Pierre Lacoste, Hayden Peake, Wesley Wark, and Brad Westerfield all attended the symposium, chaired various panel sessions, and offered invaluable comments and criticisms to those giving papers. The same is true of Michael Handel, Walter Pfhorzheimer, and Robin Winks, all of whom have passed away since the symposium was held. Each played an important role in establishing intelligence studies as a subdiscipline of history and political science. All, moreover, were well-known for their generous support of younger scholars. They will be sadly missed by those toiling in their wake. We would also like to thank Dan Morris for providing crucial editorial assistance during the final stages of the project. Heather Ruland Staines, senior history and military studies editor at Praeger, helped get the project off the ground and supported it with patience during its particularly lengthy period of gestation. Finally, it is a great pleasure to acknowledge and thank Paul Kennedy, Professor of History at Yale University and Director of International

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Security Studies. Over the years, Paul has encouraged and supported the symposium, the book project, and, above all, the careers and scholarship of both editors. This book is therefore dedicated with esteem and affection to him.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ATB

Advisory Committee on Trade Questions in Time of War

BIOS

British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee

BOZ

British Zone

BSTU

Acronym for the Stasi archive: Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik

CDU/CSU

German Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union

CIA

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency

CIOS

Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee

COCOM

Coordinating Committee for East-West Trade

COMINTERN Communist International, 1919–43: Komintern, from Kommunisticheskii Internatsional COS

UK Chiefs of Staff Committee

CSDN

French intelligence service: Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale

DCOS

U.S. Deputy Chiefs of Staff

DDR

Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany, also known as German Democratic Republic)

DIA

U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency

DIS

UK Defence Intelligence Staff

EPES

Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section

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FBI

U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation

FIAT

Field Information Agency, Technical

FRG

Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)

GC&CS

UK Government Code and Cipher School

GCHQ

UK Government Communications Headquarters

GDR

German Democratic Republic (East Germany, also known as DDR)

GRU

USSR Military Intelligence: Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie

HMS

Stasi official employees: Hauptamtliche Mitarbeiter

HV A

DDR Main Administration for Reconnaissance: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung

IIC

UK Industrial Intelligence Centre

IJN

Imperial Japanese Navy

IM

Stasi unofficial employee: Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter

IMINT

Imagery Intelligence

ISTC

International Science and Technology Center

JARIC

UK Joint Air Reconnaissance Interpretation Centre

JIC

UK Joint Intelligence Committee

JPC

UK Joint Planning Committee

JS/JTIC

UK Joint Scientific and Joint Technical Intelligence Committees

KGB

USSR Committee for State Security: Komitet Gosudarstvennoye Beznopasnosti

KPD

DDR Communist Party: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands The state security service

MASINT

Measurement and Signature Intelligence

MFS

DDR Ministry for State Security: Ministerium für Staatsicherheit Also known as Stasi

MOSSAD

Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks

MVD

USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NID

UK Naval Intelligence Division


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NKGB

USSR People’s Commissariat of State Security: Narodnyi Kommissariat Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti Soviet intelligence and security service that was the predecessor of the KGB

NKVD

USSR People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs: Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del Soviet Secret Police

NRO

U.S. National Reconnaissance Office

NSA

U.S. National Security Agency

OGPU

USSR intelligence service: Obyedinyonnoy Gosudarsteevennoy Politicheskoy Upravlenie

OSS

U.S. Office of Strategic Services

OWI

U.S. Office of War Information

PWE

UK Political Warfare Executive

R&D

Research and Design

SED

DDR Socialist Unity Party: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands

SIGINT

Signals Intelligence

SIS

UK Secret Intelligence Service

SOE

UK Special Operations Executive

SOZ

Soviet Zone

SPD

DDR Social Democratic Party: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force

STASI

DDR Ministry for State Security Intelligence and security service officially known as MfS

STIB

UK Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch

SVR

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service: Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedk

TB 11

Soviet Military Administration’s Technical Bureau No. 11

TTIC

U.S. Terrorist Threat Integration Center

USSR

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

WMD

Weapons of Mass Destruction

ZAIG

Central Assessment and Information Group

Introduction Peter Jackson and Jennifer Siegel

Intelligence has never played a more prominent role in international politics than it does at the opening of the twenty-first century. Virtually all important actors on the global stage have established permanent intelligence bureaucracies to serve national security policy, and most states spend a significant portion of their national budget on intelligence. Public discussion of intelligence, even the most secret intelligence, has become commonplace in political discourse on international issues. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq of 2003, combined to bring the relationship between political leaders and their intelligence advisors to the forefront of public discussion of world affairs. In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, both American President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were widely charged with purposefully distorting intelligence in order to justify their policies. National intelligence services are larger, better funded, and play a more prominent role than ever in international politics. The emergence of large and well-funded intelligence bureaucracies has given rise to increased expectations. Intelligence services are expected to provide timely and reliable information on all threats to national and international security. When they do not, they are accused of failure and are then often subjected to intense public scrutiny. Understanding the nature of intelligence and the role it plays in international politics is therefore more important than ever. The aim of this volume is to contribute to this understanding through an examination of the historical context in which intelligence has become institutionalized. It will focus, in particular, on the evolution of permanent foreign intelligence services as a factor in international relations.

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Introduction

In the aftermath of the Second World War intelligence was described by one influential British foreign-office mandarin as the “missing dimension” in the study of international relations. This is assuredly no longer the case. Since the end of the Second World War, the study of intelligence has gained momentum among both historians and political scientists. There are now excellent histories of the intelligence services of all of the twentieth-century great powers. Few international historians now ignore the impact of intelligence on policy making. At the same time, much remains to be done. Recent work on intelligence by both historians and political scientists has focused overwhelmingly on the twentieth century. Study of the evolution of permanent intelligence bureaucracies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries remains in its infancy. There are very few systematic studies of the role played by intelligence in the making of foreign and military policy in this period. As a result, the historical and political context within which information gathering and assessment was institutionalized as a permanent component of the policy-making process of modern states has not received the attention it deserves. Intelligence is too often considered merely as a tool of decision making and divorced from both its historical context and the prevailing political, social, and cultural environment which conditions the way it is used. The intention of this collection is to contribute to a greater understanding of the evolution of intelligence as a tool of statecraft with essays that provide the crucial historical background to the development of permanent intelligence bureaucracies. The best place to start is a discussion of the nature and function of intelligence.

What Is Intelligence? What Is It For? Attempts to come up with a satisfactory definition of intelligence have thus far failed to generate any substantial consensus. David Kahn, one of the most eminent historians working in this field, has observed that “none of the definitions of intelligence that I have seen work.”1 This is perhaps because, as James Der Derian has argued, intelligence is the “least understood and most ‘undertheorised’ area of international relations.”2 One important reason for this is that there is little agreement as to what exactly intelligence is and what it is for. It is possible to identify two distinct approaches to understanding the nature and role of intelligence. The first stresses that intelligence should be understood first and foremost as information, whereas the second tends to understand it as a process. Central to the first conception is the principle that intelligence is information provided to decision makers in order to reduce their uncertainty and allow them to make wellinformed choices. Sir Harry Hinsley, a distinguished member of the

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British intelligence community during the Second World War and an equally distinguished historian of international relations, has defined the chief functions of intelligence: “Information has to be acquired; it has to be analysed and interpreted; and it has to be put into the hands of those who can use it.”3 Hinsley implicitly acknowledges that there is a process involved. His focus, however, is on the information that is used to inform policy. This is an approach favored particularly by historians. The chief aim is to explain policy decisions. The second approach tends to understand intelligence primarily in terms of the classic “intelligence cycle.” According to this view, the essence of intelligence lies in the various stages of collection, collation, analysis, and distribution that give intelligence information meaning and make it useful to decision makers. Thus, according to Alan Dupont, intelligence is “not merely information or data”; it is “information or data which has been processed, evaluated and distilled into a form which fulfils some useful purpose.”4 Mark Lowenthal, assistant director of Central Intelligence in the United States, judges similarly that intelligence “refers to information that meets the stated or understood needs of policy makers and has been collected, refined and narrowed to meet those needs.” This is why, he concludes, “all intelligence is information; not all information is intelligence.”5 The focus of this approach is to explain the dynamics involved in the production of usable intelligence. At the risk of generalization, this approach is more popular among social scientists.6 Philip Davies has argued that the distinction between these approaches is crucial to understanding British versus American concepts of intelligence. The British, according to Davies, tend to understand intelligence as information, whereas Americans tend to conceptualize intelligence as a process.7 There may be some truth to this claim. But one should be wary of taking such generalizations too far. It is true that the analytical machinery of the various U.S. intelligence agencies tends to be larger than those of their British counterparts. But it is important to remember that the U.S. intelligence community has more of everything. And one should not forget that it was the British who first constructed the machinery necessary for “all-source analysis” after 1939. The assessments of the British Joint Intelligence Community are a model of their kind and very similar to the “finished product” that Davies argues is at the heart of the American concept of intelligence.8 It would be misleading, therefore, to make too much of the differences between approaches that define intelligence as information and those that understand it as a process. The best intelligence practice, as well as the best writing about intelligence, has always paid careful attention to the relationship between intelligence information, the assessment process, and decision making. It is essential to remember

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Introduction

that it is the intelligence process, with its mechanisms for organizing, cross-checking, and analyzing raw information, that enables the careful exploitation of intelligence information. At the same time, although parts of the intelligence process may function very efficiently, if reliable information is not available, or does not arrive in time for it to be used effectively by decision makers, the process has failed. The preceding are only some of the difficulties inherent in any attempt to arrive at an acceptable definition of intelligence. There are others. Many scholars, for example, tend to understand intelligence primarily as a tool of foreign and defense policy making.9 Others focus on the political and legal issues raised by intelligence activity in domestic politics.10 Still others concentrate mainly on the role intelligence services have played as mechanisms of state oppression.11 Finally, intelligence-related issues, such as propaganda, have been prominent in recent studies of the cultural history of international relations.12 Nor is there much agreement on what constitutes intelligence activity. Sherman Kent, in a classic study published in 1949, implicitly recognized this problem when he observed that intelligence is what intelligence services do. Intelligence, according to Kent, refers to a certain kind of knowledge, the activity of obtaining such knowledge and to the organisations whose function is to obtain it.13 This underlines the central importance of sources to any understanding of the nature of intelligence. Scholars and practitioners have traditionally distinguished between two general types of intelligence sources: “open” and “secret.” Open-source intelligence is information that is freely available and can be acquired without resorting to illegal methods of collection. Typical open sources include the media, published official statistics, telephone manuals, and, recently, material available in cyberspace. During the twentieth century, the vast majority of information collected and analyzed by intelligence agencies came from this type of source. Intelligence from clandestine sources, conversely, is usually information that targets would prefer to remain secret. The classic means of acquiring intelligence from secret sources have traditionally been the use of espionage (human intelligence, or HUMINT); the monitoring of signals, including encoded or enciphered signals (signals intelligence, or SIGINT);14 and covert aerial or satellite photography (imagery intelligence, or IMINT). These sources make up what are usually described as the three intelligence “collection disciplines.”15 But the relatively clear distinction between open and secret sources became blurred with the arrival of spy satellites as effective sources of imagery intelligence in the early 1960s. The intelligence provided by satellites is more difficult to categorize because, although it is often information that targets would

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prefer to keep secret, it is obtained without violating their sovereignty in any current legal sense.16 The existence of different types of sources presents additional difficulties for any attempt to define intelligence activity. Should one categorize the obtaining of information from open sources as intelligence work? What distinguishes the intelligence process from the informationgathering activities of other government agencies? Michael Herman has offered a solution to this problem by identifying “government intelligence” as “the specialised organisations that have that name, and what they do and produce.”17 This distinction is also problematic, however. A central aim of the intelligence communities of the post-1945 period had been to analyze all incoming information collectively and to produce assessments that are based on the expertise of a wide range of officials. This aim has evolved along with the realization that, to function as a truly important source of state power, intelligence analysis must integrate information from all sources into broader appreciations based on careful corroboration and must frame available material within the larger political and strategic context.18 Pursuit of collaborative assessment and all-source analysis means that intelligence estimates are almost always based on a combination of secret- and open-source information, very often drawn from government departments that have no obvious links to the intelligence community. All of this makes it frequently impossible to differentiate between types of sources. To sum up this section, it is very difficult to make confident judgements about exactly what intelligence is and precisely how it influences decision making. It may be that this imprecision is inevitable and should be accepted in order to avoid erecting artificial barriers around the study of the subject. For the purposes of this volume of essays, intelligence must be understood both as information and as the process through which this information is gathered, analyzed, distributed, and used by decision makers. The aim of this study, after all, is to examine the way intelligence has evolved along with the practice of international relations.

The Need for Historical Context One of the biggest problems with much contemporary thinking about intelligence and international relations is a lack of historical context. Observers routinely comment on the challenges facing intelligence communities without reflecting on the historical forces that have shaped these communities over the past two centuries. New perspectives on the evolution of intelligence services and intelligence practice can only enrich ongoing debates over how best to reform national intelligence structures. Yet many commentators seem unaware of the historical

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Introduction

precedents for many of the problems facing intelligence services at the opening of the twenty-first century. A good illustration of this phenomenon is a recent essay by Andrew Rathmell on the potential importance of postmodern theorizing to the practice of intelligence.19 A widely respected expert on intelligence and security issues, Rathmell argues that intelligence services must make radical changes in terms of both their conceptual approach and their organizational structure in order to adapt to the social, cultural, and technological conditions of the twenty-first century. He asserts that existing state-based intelligence agencies are the products of modernity, but that the political and economic conditions of the modern era are disappearing. Capital-intensive mass production in highly urbanized societies is giving way, in the age of the Internet and digital technology, to “knowledge intensive, dispersed globalised systems.” The result is what Rathmell calls the “fragmentation of threat.” What is needed, according to Rathmell, is an end to the modernist paradigm of understanding security threats strictly within the conceptual framework of the states system. A new approach should be developed in which nonstate actors have a more prominent place in the pantheon of security threats. Rathmell further argues that radical changes must be made in the way intelligence agencies collect and process knowledge in order to give much greater priority to open sources. These agencies, he concludes, must become much more alive to the particular challenges of dealing with non-Western and non-European cultures. There is much truth in Rathmell’s diagnoses. Nonstate actors in general, and transnational terrorist movements in particular, did rise to prominence during the late 1990s, and important conceptual and organizational adjustments are necessary in order to respond to the new security environment that has emerged. But to argue that these challenges are a product of a “postmodern” era is to ignore the history of intelligence. Information technology has changed many aspects of intelligence work, but the intellectual challenges of dealing with security problems across immense spaces and over different cultures are by no means exclusively postmodern. As the essays by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Jennifer Siegel demonstrate in this volume, it is misleading to describe the emergence of globalized threats as a postmodern phenomenon. Imperial intelligence services faced such challenges throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are similarly interesting parallels between the international effort to combat terrorism in the early twenty-first century and the international campaign against the Anarchist movement in the late nineteenth century. In both cases the security challenge emerged as a loosely organized transnational movement of cells with no clear hierarchical

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structure but with millenarian aspirations. The key to limiting the destructiveness of Anarchism in the 1880s and 1890s was cooperation between various national police and intelligence services. Prospects for the successful limitation of Islamist terrorism worldwide seem also to rest, ultimately, on very similar procedures.20 The larger point, indeed the inspiration for and central theme of this collection of essays, is that studying the historical context in which intelligence has evolved can enrich our understanding of both the nature of intelligence and its role in international relations in the early twenty-first century. The essay by Peter Jackson provides a conceptual framework for thinking about the uses and limits of intelligence. Jackson argues that, despite the tremendous changes in the character of intelligence work, the chief function of intelligence has remained to reduce uncertainty in politics and war. He argues further that, because the nature of intelligence has not changed, the fundamental limits to its usefulness have also remained constant. As a result, intelligence is little or no more effective in reducing uncertainty at the opening of the twenty-first century than it was hundreds of years ago. Alan Sked’s contribution illustrates the consequences of a lack of reliable political intelligence for the Austrian army in Italy. Without timely and reliable information on the state of opinion inside Italy, the Austrian military commander, Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky, with the approval of Chancellor Klemens von Metternich in Vienna, decided to occupy Ferrara in 1847. The result was an international crisis that contributed significantly to the general climate of unrest preceding the revolutionary year of 1848. The chief force driving the growth of permanent and increasingly professional intelligence services was the need for ever more information as the industrial revolution transformed the structure of Western societies as well as the dynamics of travel and communications. These changes revolutionized politics, diplomacy, and war. In particular, the size of national armies increased dramatically, and war became an ever-more complex undertaking. The essay by Maureen O’Connor Witter traces the rise and development of the service attaché and links this to the demand for information generated by exigencies of modern war. She shows that the institutionalization of the military attaché, on duty in both peacetime and war, was one step towards addressing the existing intelligence deficit, but without similar developments in analysis and assessment, this newly formalized intelligence-gathering effort could not be truly effective. David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Jennifer Siegel both examine the importance of imperial policy to the emergence of permanent and professional intelligence structures in Russia and in Great Britain. In the Russian case, intelligence played a key role in tsarist competition with Britain in Afghanistan and Tibet. Schimmelpenninck

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van der Oye’s article on Russian intelligence on Tibet and the AngloRussian intelligence standoff during the Younghusband Expedition underscores the dangers of emphasizing collection and collation without a corresponding emphasis on analysis and dissemination. In the British case, the difficult experience of imperial conflict in Africa gave added stimulus to the ongoing professionalization of the British army in the halfcentury before the outbreak of the First World War. The result was a commitment to intelligence and a corresponding appreciation of the need to train a professional intelligence officer corps that emerged alongside the drive to constitute a permanent and professional general staff. As Siegel shows, however, this commitment evolved slowly and rather late in the day. Britain remained well behind its Continental rivals in this respect. When war broke out in 1914, the British “Intelligence Corps” lacked a clearly defined doctrine to guide its work. The First World War had a tremendous impact not only on the role of intelligence but also on its place within the state machinery of the important powers. Virtually all of the world’s most powerful states (and many of the smaller ones) emerged from the Great War with permanent intelligence services embedded within their political, diplomatic, or military establishments. Moreover, the parameters of intelligence assessment had expanded dramatically. No longer were intelligence estimates concerned overwhelmingly with the short-term intentions and military capabilities of potential enemies. The task of strategic assessment had become a longterm undertaking. Intelligence estimates were far more wide-ranging and thus more complex. This was because the experience of the first “total war” had driven home the need to measure war-making potential. Factors such as the industrial, commercial, and financial power, as well as the political cohesion, of potential allies and potential enemies alike, became central elements in intelligence estimates. These trends are reflected in the essay by Christopher Bell, which underlines the importance of the economic blockade, and thus economic intelligence, to the British strategy for war in the Far East during the interwar period. Bell focuses on the role of economic power in British intelligence assessments of the Far East in general and Japan in particular to provide a new perspective on British strategy east of Suez before the Second World War. The problem of reconstructing the dynamics of Soviet intelligence work before the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 is the subject of David Stone’s chapter. Stone combines an up-to-date discussion of the historical literature on this subject with a systematic survey of the most recently released documentary material related to Soviet assessments of the German threat before Operation Barbarossa. The result is an interesting discussion of many of the methodological and epistemological issues confronting scholars of the role of intelligence in politics and war.

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Stone emphasizes that existing interpretations of intelligence and decision making in the USSR before Barbarossa remain constrained by the unwillingness of Russian authorities to grant historians access to archival material. All international historians face the problem that many of their sources have been vetted by representatives of the state, but the challenges for historians of intelligence are often greater because access to intelligence-related documents is almost always more tightly regulated.21 As Stone points out, however, the case of Soviet intelligence is further complicated by the fact that scholars are denied access to any archival material and must instead be content with the publication of a limited number of documents selected by Russian intelligence officials. This obviously exacerbates the familiar problem of deducing the nature of material that is either unavailable or has been destroyed. Intelligence evolved considerably as international politics evolved from World War to Cold War. Many of these changes are well illustrated in the essay by Paul Maddrell. Progress in science and technology changed the character of war between 1939 and 1945. The advent of rocket-powered flight and atomic weapons generated an enormous demand for scientific intelligence within defense and foreign-policy establishments on both sides of the Cold War divide. Maddrell’s chapter illustrates the priority given to this kind of intelligence and provides insight into the intelligence practices that were developed in an effort to contain Soviet technological progress. Ironically, however, Soviet intelligence activities in the West were to prove vital in overcoming the American head start in the race to develop nuclear weapons. Maddrell also shows how research into the role of intelligence in Western efforts to “safeguard the empire of knowledge” can illuminate the wider national and ideological assumptions that characterized the waging of the Cold War in the West. The final chapter in this volume, by Mary Sarotte, considers the role of the East German security and intelligence agency not only as a tool of foreign policy but also as a foreign-policy actor in its own right. Sarotte’s essay provides fascinating insight into the dynamics of security and foreign policy in the German Democratic Republic during crucial negotiations for détente with West Germany. It also illuminates the place of the “Stasi” in the East German state machinery. Sarotte shows how intelligence research can deepen our understanding of both the nature of the Communist regime in East Germany and of the course of its foreign policy. It is impossible to conceive of either British or American intelligence playing a similar role in policy making either in London or Washington. Taken together, the essays in this volume underline the need for more research into the historical evolution of permanent intelligence

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bureaucracies and their role in international relations. While considerable research has been undertaken over the past few decades, much remains to be done. As debate continues in many of the world’s capitals over the mission and mandate of intelligence services, it is more important than ever that both elected officials and the wider public acquire a better understanding of the nature and limits of intelligence. History and historians have a central role to play in this project. Consideration of the way intelligence and intelligence practice have evolved over time places the development of the intelligence behemoths of the early twenty-first century into proper perspective. Careful study of the uses and limits of intelligence in the history of international relations over the longer term can provide a new and more comprehensive perspective on the nature of intelligence information and its relationship with policy making. The importance of intelligence to national and international security is hardly likely to diminish in the decades to come.

CHAPTER 1

Historical Reflections on the Uses and Limits of Intelligence Peter Jackson

The Duke of Wellington once captured the essence of intelligence analysis in war when he observed that “All the business of war, indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that is what I called ‘guessing what is on the other side of the hill.’”1 This maxim has always been as applicable to politics as it is to war. This essay will trace the development of intelligence as a tool to guide decision making from antiquity to the present. The argument throughout is that, while the practice of intelligence has undergone successive and often revolutionary transformations, neither the essence of intelligence work nor the nature of intelligence information has changed in any fundamental sense. The chief function of intelligence analysis remains “to extract certainty from uncertainty and to facilitate coherent decision in an incoherent environment.”2 The unending quest for greater certainty is a constant in the long history of international relations. Uncertainty is a central cause of insecurity and thus of the “anarchical” character of international politics.3 At least since Moses sent spies into the land of Canaan with instructions to “spy the land,” intelligence operations of one kind or another have been at the center

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of this quest. Yet, despite revolutionary changes in communications and information-processing technology over the past two centuries, uncertainty remains as prominent a factor as ever both on the battlefield and in international society.4 The reason for this is that, although telegraphs, radios, computers, and satellites have all transformed the character of intelligence work, the nature of intelligence has remained unchanged.

Uses: What Is Intelligence For? In addition to debates about what intelligence is, there is also controversy over what it is for. In particular, there are important divergences in thinking about the use of intelligence. One can identify two general conceptual approaches to defining and understanding intelligence activity. The first conceives of intelligence primarily as a tool to guide policy. A second, more controversial, conception is of intelligence as not only as a guide to decision making, but also as a tool for the implementation of policy. For adherents of the first approach, the proper role of intelligence is to reduce uncertainty. It does this primarily by providing information on the intentions and capabilities of other social actors.5 These actors can range from the political, economic, and military leadership of states, to multinational corporations, to transnational criminal and terrorist organizations. The fundamental aim is to identify security threats, on the one hand, and opportunities for political action, on the other. This is why intelligence on friendly actors in international politics can be as important as information on potential threats. In this conception, as historian John Ferris has observed, “Intelligence is not a form of power but a means to guide its use, whether as a combat multiplier, or by helping one to understand one’s environment and options.”6 This interpretation of the function of intelligence, shared by Michael Herman and other distinguished scholars, leaves little room for some of its more controversial uses. The only case where intelligence might function as a policy tool, according to this school, is the planning and execution of military deception in wartime.7 Otherwise, the business of intelligence should be limited ideally to the effective management and use of information.8 This relatively circumscribed view of intelligence activity stands in contrast to that of former CIA official Roy Godson. Godson has argued that the fundamental role of an intelligence service is to protect its society from threats posed by “other governments, political groups, parties, military forces, movements or individuals.”9 Consequently, intelligence work must include “(s)ecret activities to exploit its knowledge by affecting the composition, behaviour and politics of such entities and individuals.” These “secret activities” can include everything from deception to

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covert political, military, and economic intervention in other states to the use of propaganda in support of political objectives. Godson thus lists the four key functions of intelligence: collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action. In this conception, secret interventions in the affairs of other states are a legitimate, and even desirable, function of intelligence services. For Godson, and for many others, intelligence services are more than a guide to the use of power; they are also useful instruments in the exercise of power. The distinction between these two general conceptions is hardly academic. The implications of disagreements over the proper status and function of intelligence are far-reaching. Should intelligence activity be confined to providing assessments to decision makers? Or should intelligence services instead be given direct agency in the implementation of policy decisions? These are questions that go to the the heart of current debates over what intelligence agencies are for and how they can best serve policy. At the opening of the twenty-first century, in an era characterized by widespread advocacy of sweeping intelligence reform, and in a security environment characterized in particular by the “war on terror,” such questions have acquired unprecedented urgency and importance.

Limits: Problems Inherent in the Use of Intelligence Many of the most notorious political, military, and national security failures in history are also examples of failure to make effective use of available intelligence. A common feature of many major political catastrophes, from the Fall of Troy to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, is that information indicating an imminent threat was misunderstood, lost, or ignored. Most scholars of intelligence consider that such failures are inevitable.10 Obstacles to the effective use of intelligence fall into four (necessarily overlapping) categories: time and space, organization, politicization, and cognition. Problems of time and space pose inescapable limitations on decisions of all kinds. The need to gather accurate and relevant information, analyze it, and then integrate it into decisions while it is still useful, has always been one of the most difficult but important challenges in both politics and war. The central reason for this is that the social world is fluid rather than static. This means that the situation described by any given intelligence report is liable to change before the relevant information can be analyzed and integrated into the decision-making process. In this sense most intelligence information is “time bound,” and its usefulness depends upon the speed at which it can be transmitted and analyzed. This remains the case, despite the tremendous revolution in information technology wrought by the invention of electricity,

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telegraphs, and supercomputers.11 There is a two-sided equation that should be applied in order to understand the difficulties inherent in using short- and medium-term intelligence. The speed with which information can be acquired, transmitted, and analyzed must be measured against the speed with which the situation this intelligence describes is liable to change.12 This limitation has always applied more to information on short- and medium-term intentions and capabilities than to long-range “strategic” assessments. The formidable difficulties inherent in estimating short-term intentions, in particular, are a central reason intelligence failures are most often considered to be inevitable. The second major limitation is the problem of organization. This problem stems from the fact that the security environment is fluid and constantly throws up new types of threats with which intelligence organizations must cope. This is an ongoing factor that will always limit the effectiveness of intelligence work. Organizations provide the structures and processes that are necessary for the effective analysis and exploitation of intelligence. Yet the construction of organizations that are well suited to the effective collection, assessment, and distribution of intelligence is a constant challenge. Diverse factors, from technological change to internal and external political developments, force intelligence organizations to continue to adapt in order respond to a security environment that is always evolving. This means that structures in place to deal with certain types of threats will very often be inadequate for dealing with new security challenges. Intelligence agencies must therefore remain in a constant state of organizational flux as they respond to the fluid security environment in which they must operate. The need for intelligence structures creates other problems for the effective use of information. In the modern era of industrial-scale collection from a vast array of sources, intelligence organizations have out of necessity become increasingly large and complex. Larger organizations inevitably mean that intelligence must pass through more levels or stages in the process of collection, analysis, and dissemination. Each stage functions also as a potential “filter” through which intelligence passes in the necessary process of sorting relevant from irrelevant information. The larger the organization, the greater the danger that relevant information will be filtered out along with irrelevant “noise.”13 Crucial information will often become lost in the machinery of collection and analysis. There are other aspects to the problem of organization. In particular, the emergence of relatively independent agencies (and even departments within agencies) for the collection and analysis of different types of intelligence has thrown up barriers to the effective sharing of both information and expertise. This is not a new phenomenon. During the 1930s, failure to coordinate the work of the British Secret Intelligence


15

Service (SIS or MI6) with that of the service intelligence agencies and the Industrial Intelligence Centre led to important mistakes and misperceptions when it came to understanding the nature and dimensions of the threat from Nazi Germany.14 The same problem of lack of coordination between agencies prevented the effective exploitation of potentially crucial intelligence on the activities of suspected terrorists before the September 11, 2001, attacks.15 It is to counter these problems that interdepartmental organizations have been developed to coordinate assessments and thus achieve something closer to “all-source analysis.” But there is always the danger that these organs, such as the British Joint Intelligence Committee or the American National Intelligence Council, might develop an institutional identity of their own and thus reproduce the same problems that they were intended to resolve. All organizations, moreover, tend to develop their own cultures and institutional biases. These can also function as impediments both to cooperation with other organizations and to the endless quest for objective analysis. This leads to the third key limitation inherent in collecting, interpreting, and using intelligence: the pervasive problem of politicization.16 Because the identification and interpretation of threat is essentially a political activity, the possibility that intelligence information will be distorted by political bias is present at every stage of the intelligence process. From the outset, political assumptions determine what is considered a threat and what is not. This, in turn, conditions what information is gathered and what is deemed important. Just as importantly, such ideological assumptions also shape the way incoming intelligence is analyzed. Intelligence can be politicized in several ways. Among the most common is the tendency for intelligence assessments to be formulated to complement prevailing orthodoxies and predetermined policies. There are strong pressures for the former to conform to the inclinations and preconceptions of the latter. This “top-down” model of politicization is a product of the dynamic relationship between intelligence “producers” and decision making “consumers.” In order to avoid being ignored, and thus marginalized, there is a temptation for intelligence officials to produce assessments that conform to the policy preferences of their political masters. To challenge either political or institutional orthodoxies is to run the risk of becoming ostracized. Top-down politicization occurs in democracies, but is probably more pronounced in autocratic regimes.17 A second type of politicization is the intrusion of bureaucratic politics in the intelligence process. This is often produced by competition between ministries or departments for political influence, for greater resources or, most often, for both. The bureaucratic organization of the modern state, particularly of large states with substantial resources,

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makes the politicization of information within the machinery of government all but inevitable. As noted above, ministries or departments tend to develop their own corporate identities. This leads them to identify institutional interests and to pursue these interests, often in competition with other ministries or departments. This can result in both conscious and unconscious distortion of intelligence information at various levels in the decision-making process. The political and financial agendas of various bureaucracies tend to condition the way in which they interpret political and strategic issues and thus the way in which they use intelligence pertaining to these issues. The results can range from an institutional reflex towards viewing certain kinds of threats as more dangerous or more pressing than others, to the deliberate exaggeration of threats in an effort to gain a larger share of the national budget or a more prominent voice in government counsels. A third type of politicization is produced by systemic ideological bias. Members of the same policy-making community tend to hold similar ideological convictions. These convictions in turn condition operating assumptions about the social world. Such “belief systems” function as a perceptual lens through which that world is interpreted. They play a central role in determining what constitutes a threat and what does not. Belief systems further condition the way intelligence is interpreted and the way it is integrated into the policy process.18 Their effects are predictably most pronounced during periods of ideological tensions. The result is that calculations of such crucial issues as the intentions of other actors or the dynamics of the balance of power are often filtered through an ideological prism, which distorts information and skews strategic appreciations. There is a particular danger of politicization when intelligence services are used as tools of policy. As Michael Handel once observed, the closer the relationship between intelligence agencies and policy makers, the greater the likelihood that the whole process will become politicized.19 The results can be deeply embarrassing for governments that are ultimately required to take responsibility for the use and misuse of intelligence. Episodes such as the Bay of Pigs, botched assassination attempts on Cuban premiers or Palestinian terrorists, and illegal arms sales to Iran all involved intelligence agencies acting as instruments in the execution of policy. All, moreover, created grave political difficulties for Western governments and raised serious questions about the legitimacy of intelligence activity. A recent variation of this trend is the use of intelligence information to justify preemptive military action to the public in an attempt to build support for a chosen policy. Although the use of intelligence as a tool in the exercise of power is fraught with potential problems, it will almost certainly continue. Intelligence ser-


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vices have almost always been involved in covert operations. This is because intelligence networks often offer the best, and sometimes the only, means of acquiring the information needed for planning and executing of secret interventions. Moreover, they can usually provide the secrecy and plausible deniability that are the essential components of any successful covert action.20 A final barrier to the effective use of intelligence information stems from limitations of human understanding. While the human brain is an immensely powerful instrument for processing information, there are evident restrictions on our ability to comprehend the social world. In order to make sense of complex phenomena, the brain develops a matrix of concepts whose relationship to one another enables it to impose order on its external environment. The price of this order is a systematic simplification of complex physical and social realities. The result is that belief systems—assumptions and expectations concerning the nature of social life—condition the way human beings understand their environment. As David Hume observed in the eighteenth century, the mind cannot function in any area beyond that immediately accessible to the senses and to memory without employing a set of preconceptions about the social world.21 The problems that these issues present for the management and use of intelligence are manifold. Scholars have frequently underlined the way preexisting ideas and expectations shape both the collection and interpretation of intelligence. The mind is inclined to search for, and seize upon, information that confirms existing beliefs and desires. At the same time, there is a tendency to filter out evidence that challenges preconceptions and predispositions. This is what psychologists term “cognitive dissonance”: the mind’s tendency to resist knowledge that contradicts established beliefs.22 Observers have additionally stressed the damaging effects of ethnocentrism and of “mirror-imaging” (the tendency to project one’s own logic onto others) on the process of intelligence assessment.23 In her classic study of intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor, Roberta Wohlstetter stressed the difficulty in discerning important and reliable intelligence “signals” amid the inevitable plethora of background “noise.”24 Scholars have also identified a marked proclivity among military intelligence agencies, in particular, to formulate “worst-case” estimates of the intentions and especially the capabilities of potential enemies.25 The four categories of inherent limitations on intelligence and intelligence practice can only be properly understood in relation to one another. They rarely, if ever, exist independently. They tend instead to be mutually reinforcing. The need for speed of assessment, for example, will usually accentuate the distortive effects of preexisting beliefs and policy commitments. Similarly, the development of organizational

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boundaries and institutional identities can create or exacerbate bureaucratic rivalries and lead to the politicization of assessments. Above all, the iniquitous effects of politicization are linked to the inescapable limitations on human understanding. Cultural predispositions and ideological preconceptions always affect what questions are asked, what threats are deemed worthy of attention, as well as what conclusions are derived from available information. A brief survey of the history of intelligence as it evolved into its modern forms illustrates the way in which these factors, which are essential to the nature of intelligence, have imposed clear limits on efforts to use intelligence to reduce uncertainty.

The Evolution of Intelligence from Antiquity to the Modern Era The emergence of modern intelligence services, like so much of the machinery of the contemporary state, was driven to an important extent by the engines of European war. As late as the mid-nineteenth century, none of the great powers possessed permanent organizations charged with the collection and analysis of information on the military and political situation in other states. European diplomats had long engaged in espionage as a central means of acquiring information on the states in which they were posted. Similarly, code-breaking sections had been at work within the chancelleries or foreign ministries of most of the larger states throughout the modern period. These provided sporadic access to the secret diplomatic communications of other European countries. But there were no bureaucratic organs responsible for combining this secret information with other sources of intelligence or for providing political and military leaders with assessments to guide their decision making. The development of permanent intelligence organizations responsible for gathering, collating, and analyzing information and for distributing assessments to decision makers was a slow process that stretched from the late eighteenth century through to the end of the First World War. Prior to the French revolutionary wars of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, systems for managing intelligence had scarcely evolved scarcely at all since antiquity. The earliest recorded theorizing on the nature of intelligence and its usefulness in war and politics is that of Sun Tzu. Writing around 500 B.C., Sun Tzu repeatedly emphasized the importance of intelligence to waging war. “What is called foreknowledge,” he wrote, “cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from the gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained form the men who know the enemy situation.”26 But Sun Tzu was also aware of the difficulties inherent in any effort to obtain reliable information and coun-


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seled that all information should be evaluated carefully and corroborated wherever possible. Chapter thirteen of The Art of War provides a detailed discussion of the nature of espionage and the use of agents and double agents.27 Espionage and intelligence gathering from “open sources” were, moreover, common practices among the citystates of ancient Greece.28 Intelligence was similarly important to the Roman practice of conquest and governance. The Romans developed a sophisticated system for the collection of different types of intelligence and used a superb communications system to transmit information across their sprawling empire. It is also clear that Rome made extensive use of what would now be described as covert operations in pursuit of its political objectives.29 Signals intelligence also dates from antiquity. The Spartans are reputed to have developed a cipher system to provide for secure communications between political leaders and military commanders as early as the fourth century B.C. There is evidence of code-breaking activity in India during the same period. The Romans used secret writing regularly, particularly during military campaigns, and also tried consistently to intercept the communications of their adversaries. In The Gallic War, Julius Caesar describes the use of a sophisticated cipher system. The first code-breaking manual on record was probably written by the Arabs in the ninth century A.D. Attempts to monitor the communications of other organized groups are therefore almost as old as relations between political communities. The reason for this is that the interception of these communications can provide crucial insight into the intentions of other actors. Such intelligence has always been the most difficult to come by.30 But the history of intelligence is by no means that of the gradual evolution of ever more effective and efficient systems for gathering and analyzing information. From the end of antiquity through the first industrial revolution, problems posed by time and space worsened. During this entire period, there were no genuine breakthroughs in communications technology. The swiftness with which information could be transmitted was limited to the speed of horse and sail. Moreover, the fragmentation of the western Roman Empire undermined the vast network of roads and sea lanes that had constituted its nervous system. Long-distance communication was further undermined by the concurrent breakdown in political stability and the rise of hundreds of independent or semi-independent feudal polities in western, central, and northern Europe.31 Although military tactics evolved considerably over this period, the constraints imposed on communications by time and space prevented both command and intelligence from evolving significantly.32

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The slow improvement of communications during the late medieval and early modern periods combined with the rise of powerful city-states during the Renaissance to create the conditions necessary for the development of recognizably modern forms of diplomacy. Of particular importance for the evolution of foreign intelligence was the development of the resident ambassador as a more or less permanent institution in relations between the Italian city-states in the early fifteenth century.33 The post of the ambassador was established as a means of acquiring information on the political, commercial, and military situation abroad. As Michael Herman has observed, the diplomatic system that spread across Europe during the renaissance was to a large extent a response to the need for information.34 Ambassadors inevitably used both legitimate and clandestine means to gather this information for their reports. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, most embassies recruited spies, although the distinction between such clandestine methods and the use of open sources of information was often blurred.35 The development of the diplomatic mail service led just as inevitably to the interception of messages, the use of increasingly complicated codes and ciphers, and the evolution of “Black Chambers” for cryptanalysis. The first “golden age” of European secret writing and code breaking took place, not surprisingly, in Italy with the appearance of celebrated masters such as Alberti of Florence, Porta of Naples, and Cardan of Milan. By the mid-1600s, the Geheim Kabinets Kanzlei in Vienna, the Cabinet Noir in Paris, and the Deciphering Branch in London were all at work intercepting foreign communications and breaking codes and ciphers.36 Yet nowhere in Europe were permanent institutions established for the organization and analysis of this information or the preparation of reports for political or military leaders. Such institutions would only emerge in response to the demands of war between nation-states in the early nineteenth century. The limitations of communications and intelligence during this period are amply illustrated by the case of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In strategic terms, the Spanish intention to invade England in order to depose Elizabeth I was, in the words of Geoffrey Parker, “the worst kept secret in Europe.”37 Secret agents working for an array of states had managed to obtain copies of both the overall logistical plan for the operation and the battle plan outlining the formation the Armada would use as it sailed up the English Channel. The English government received repeated warnings from both its official representatives in European capitals and from the impressive network of secret agents run by Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham (the distinction between the two groups was not always clear). Yet “almost total confusion” reigned in London, not only as to the time and place of the attack, but


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even as to whether the invasion would take place at all. This uncertainty stemmed, in part, from classic problems of interpreting incoming intelligence, sorting reliable reports from rumors and other forms of background noise (particularly because the English ambassador in Paris, Sir Edward Stafford, was also a Spanish agent).38 But problems of time and space also played a central role. The chief difficulty was the speed with which information on the assembly and sailing of the Armada could be transmitted to London. As Michael Handel has argued, in this era of “premodern” intelligence, the lack of real-time communications rendered most operational intelligence of limited value.39 Agent reports, as well as the observations of English naval patrols along the Atlantic coastline, took days, sometimes weeks, to reach London and were thus difficult to corroborate when they were not entirely obsolete. This problem, combined with the fact that Spanish plans changed repeatedly, kept the English court largely in the dark as to the timing and precise target of the proposed landing. As a result, the English fleet was unable to prevent the Armada from entering the Channel and concentrating at Calais. England was forced to depend on the tactical superiority of its navy and a providential “Protestant Wind” to avoid being invaded and almost certainly subjugated by the Spanish army. Intelligence was not an important factor in the English victory.40 Added to the problem of time and space, the organization of intelligence remained ad hoc. The emergence of permanent intelligence bureaucracies would await the development professional army staffs during the French revolutionary wars. A treatise on intelligence and command written in the middle of the eighteenth century by Frederick the Great of Prussia provides a useful picture of the rudimentary character of intelligence practice during this period. Frederick understood intelligence as a matter of obtaining good sources and confined his observations concerning intelligence work to listing various types of sources that should be exploited. These included: travelers, local inhabitants, deserters, prisoners and spies sent out disguised as merchants to watch the enemy camp. Significantly, although he was one of the most effective political and military leaders of his era, Frederick did not reflect on the need to create an organ responsible for overseeing the collection and organization of incoming information. Nor was he much concerned with the collection of longer-range political or strategic information. He instead stressed the importance of exploiting a wide range of sources, both open and secret, in order to obtain tactical and operational intelligence while on campaign.41 Such practices were workable within the context of the relatively small professional armies of the eighteenth century. But they were illustrated to be woefully insufficient for the demands of war between

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nation-states after 1789. This was because the combination of the first industrial revolution, the explosion of revolutionary ideology, and the military genius of Napoleon changed the character of politics and war forever. By the end of the Napoleonic era armies of well over 300,000 were operating in independent corps over vast theaters. Under these conditions the sheer quantity of information needed to make strategy and wage war increased dramatically. Command and intelligence were similarly transformed.42 All participants developed relatively sophisticated information management systems. The French case provides perhaps the best illustration of the changes that were taking place. Incoming intelligence was concentrated within the Emperor’s Cabinet. During military campaigns (that is to say, nearly all of the time during Napoleon’s reign), political and strategic intelligence was separated from operational and tactical intelligence. At the political and strategic level, the collection and organization of long-range intelligence on the intentions of other powers was the responsibility of the Section Statistique. This section depended on a familiar combination of open and secret sources. Newspapers were a consistently important source of information, as were the extensive reports on political and military issues forwarded to the Quai d’Orsay by French diplomatic representatives abroad. Of equal importance was the intelligence obtained from France’s extensive espionage network, which had placed spies in every important European city, and from the Cabinet Noir, or Black Chamber. The French Black Chamber had been established under legendary code breaker André Rossignol during the reign of Louis XII. During the Napoleonic period, the cryptanalysts of the Cabinet Noir, under the direction of the equally famous secret police chief Joseph Fouché, had a staff of more than 100 and opened hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of letters per week.43 Operational and tactical intelligence was the domain of the Bureau Topographique of the Emperor’s Cabinet. This section played a vital role in organizing the mass of information on the disposition of French and enemy forces. It was the topographical bureau that was responsible for compiling and updating the detailed situation map that was used by Napoleon when dictating his legendary strategic and operational directives. This section also held all available statistical information on the status of the French army, its allies, and its opponents.44 This system marked several notable advances on most previous examples of intelligence organization. The fact that Napoleon was both head of state and military leader meant that both political and military intelligence, including long-, medium-, and short-term information from both open and secret sources, was concentrated within the Emperor’s personal Cabinet. This was probably as close as any head of


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state had ever come to constructing the necessary machinery for “allsource analysis.” Moreover, the Section Statistique operated in peacetime (to the extent that there was ever peace during this turbulent period) as well as during war.45 It is therefore almost certainly the first modern example of a permanent organization charged with the collection and collation of strategic intelligence. For all of this progress, however, the challenges posed by time and space remained as formidable as ever. While all military leaders placed great value on acquiring information from all available sources, the reliability of most intelligence, particularly on the operational and tactical levels, remained limited. Napoleon was apt to complain that “Nothing is so contradictory and nonsensical as this mass of reports brought in by spies and officers sent on scouting missions.”46 It is precisely this problem that led the great theorist of strategy Carl von Clausewitz to the despairing conclusion that “most intelligence is false” because it is “unreliable and transient.”47 The problems of obtaining and processing reliable short- and medium-term information in time to use it in decision making were as persistent as ever. Moreover, intelligence organization in the Napoleonic era still left much to be desired. There was still no organ charged with the analysis of incoming information. In the majority of situations, political and military leaders continued to perform key strategic and operational intelligence analyses themselves. In the French case, for example, Napoleon’s brain functioned as the Empire’s “central information processing machine.”48 This created ultimately insurmountable problems, even for someone of the Napoleon’s prodigious abilities, given the dramatic increase in the scale and pace of political intercourse as well as the size of armies and theatres of war. In this era both politics and war were in the process of revolutionary transformations. What was required was a permanent organization responsible for the collection and analysis of political and military intelligence. As ever, strategies and structures for gathering and managing information needed to evolve and adapt in order to meet these new conditions. It was not until the development of the general-staff system in Prussia that a permanent service was charged with the analysis of incoming information. In 1809, responding to crushing defeats at Jena and of Auerstadt, General Gerhard von Scharnhorst reorganized the Prussian military establishment, creating a special division within the war ministry charged with preparing for war in peacetime. The chief activities of this new organ were (1) the formulation of strategic plans for the organization and mobilization of army and (2) overseeing training and the education of its officer corps. Great emphasis was placed on the careful study of military history and the practices of elaborate maneuvers and

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war games were introduced. These reforms created a significant demand for intelligence in peacetime. The General Staff could not perform any of its key functions if it did not possess detailed information on the state of its own forces, that of possible opponents, and on theaters of war. This information needed to be catalogued and accessible on short notice. Such systemic pressures led to the eventual constitution of a permanent intelligence staff.49 The evolution of intelligence as a central component of peacetime planning was further strengthened by the dramatic impact of both railroads and the telegraph on nineteenth-century warfare. The combined effect of this new technology was to transform the conditions of time and space. Railroads changed the speed and scale of mobilization and deployment for war. During the Austro-Prussian war in 1866, for example, the Prussian General Staff used the German rail system to deploy more than 250,000 troops across a 270-mile front. The strategic movement of these armies was commanded largely from Berlin through the use of the telegraph, which now permitted the transmission of information at close to real time.50 Mobilization and deployment on this scale could not take place without painstaking planning and preparations. This only increased demand for detailed intelligence on an ever-greater range of issues. To meet this demand, two sections of the Prussian General Staff (the eastern and western sections) gradually assumed responsibility for the collection and organization of information. These evolved into “Foreign Armies East” and “Foreign Armies West”—the central components of the intelligence department of the Great General Staff.51 Crucially, these sections were given responsibility not only for the acquisition and collation of intelligence, but also for its analysis. Staff officers were charged with the preparation of strategic appreciations based on the synthesis and analysis of all relevant information, including received intelligence. This was a major advance from the previous era, when raw intelligence on strategic and operational issues was nearly always analyzed by political leaders and field commanders. Another significant development was the establishment of a military intelligence service, the Nachrichtenbureau, attached to the General Staff.52 A final important innovation was the gradual institutionalization of the military attaché. The role of attachés (military observers accredited to foreign governments) was initially to report on strictly military issues in the state to which they were posted. Inevitably, however, the parameters of attaché reporting expanded to encompass political and economic issues as well. Once again, Prussia led the way in this trend. It appointed the first attachés in 1816, with other European powers gradually following suit over the next half century.53


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The key product of Prussian General Staff work was the “estimate of the situation”—the forerunner of what is now known as a “net assessment”—which would then be integrated into strategic and operational plans.54 The Prussian staff system was a response to the changing nature of conflict and the need to manage effectively the ever-increasing volume of information relevant to waging war. Only permanent institutions charged specifically with the ongoing task of information gathering, analysis, and planning, in peacetime as well as during war, could cope with the challenges of strategy in the modern period. Equally importantly, the Prussian system also recognized that it was no longer possible to concentrate assessment at the level of decision. It was necessary to provide for analysis at the lower levels of planning. All of these were crucial innovations that gave the Prussian army important advantages during the wars of German unification between 1864 and 1871. After the tremendous victories achieved by German military power during this period, the Prussian system became a model for other continental European armies.55 The result was a significant transformation in both the structures and practices of military staffs in general and intelligence work in particular. Before 1870, foreign intelligence had been an ad hoc affair among most of the larger powers. This is not to say that intelligence services had not existed. They had. But they lacked permanence. As one historian has observed of the British case: “Victorian and Edwardian governments collected intelligence as a matter of course, not through permanent and specialised organisation. Collection agencies were jury rigged to meet specific problems and disbanded once these were resolved.”56 By the outbreak of the First World War, however, every major power possessed permanent organizations responsible for gathering intelligence and preparing assessments for decision makers.57 An important but often overlooked consequence of the influence of the Prussian model of staff organization is that the business of gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence came to be dominated by military officials. In France, for example, this function was performed by the service de renseignements (intelligence service), which was attached to the Deuxième Bureau (intelligence department) of the army General Staff. The French army would not lose its effective control of foreign intelligence gathering until the Second World War. Similar arrangements emerged in Austria and Russia. Even in Britain, the first permanent intelligence and counterintelligence organs were established within the War Office and Admiralty.58 The result was a militarization of threat assessment that would have important repercussions for international relations before the First World War. Before 1914, European states were

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much better informed about the capabilities of other powers, particularly the size of the armed forces of potential enemies, than they were about foreign intentions. This is was an inevitable consequence of the priorities of military assessment, which tended during this period to focus on issues such as the balance of military forces and the rearmament policies and deployment schedules of other powers.59 Scholars have remarked upon the invidious effects of the militarization of diplomacy before the First World War.60 But the consequences of military domination of both intelligence and threat assessment have not been fully appreciated. The military penchant for worst-case strategic calculations became the norm in the chancelleries of Europe. Soldiers and statesmen came to alarmist conclusions about the capabilities, and especially the intentions, of their potential adversaries. Although the responses of policy makers to the dilemmas of July 1914 were influenced by a host of factors, social and cultural as well as military and diplomatic, military control over the intelligence process was a crucial factor in shaping the pessimistic assumptions that underpinned decisions for war in 1914.

The Evolution of Intelligence in the Era of the Two World Wars The experience of the first “total war” from 1914 through 1918 changed the practice of intelligence assessment forever. The sheer dimensions of the conflict transformed approaches to understanding national power. Armies numbering in the millions remained locked for more than four years in a struggle for national survival that affected every level of belligerent societies. In this new era of mass industrialized war, familiar factors such as demography, industrial power, and financial strength became more important than ever. Added to these considerations were new categories of power, such as access to raw materials or social and political cohesion. One French intelligence assessment of the interwar period observed that: The experience of the war of 1914–1918 has demonstrated that, in the case of prolonged hostilities, a great state must possess not only military power, reserves of manpower and productive factories. It must also have at its disposition raw materials and foodstuffs as well as the moral force which efficient social and political organisation provide.61 In order to monitor the war-making potential of other powers, a department was set up within the French Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale


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(CSDN) and charged with gathering intelligence on the war-making potential of other states. Similar conclusions were drawn about the anatomy of military power in Britain. In 1931, the British government established the Industrial Intelligence Centre (IIC). These trends illustrate not only the way perceptions of power had evolved, but also how the importance of gathering and analyzing information on the outside world had become a permanent feature of government bureaucracy. In France the newly constituted economic intelligence department of the CSDN worked closely with the armed forces and service ministries, as well as the those of commerce and foreign affairs, when preparing its assessments of the strategic balance.62 The British IIC similarly cooperated with the department of overseas trade, the board of trade, the foreign office, and the intelligence departments of the armed services.63 The First World War also marked a revolution in signals intelligence. The size of armies in the field meant that the volume of communications between units soared dramatically. The size of the German army signal service grew from 6,000 to 190,000 between 1914 and 1918. A British army in the field sent an average of 10,000 telegrams and made 20,000 telephone calls per day. These transmissions could sometimes be intercepted by the use of “earths” planted in no-man’s-land close enough to pick up the vibrations emitted by enemy communications wires. More importantly, an ever-larger proportion of communications now traveled through the air rather than over wires. As Michael Howard has observed, the evolution of radio transmissions added a new dimension to warfare. Radio messages could be intercepted by anyone with a receiver set to the proper frequency. And very often the need for speedy communications during major operations dictated that directives were sent either in the clear or in ciphers that could be swiftly encrypted and were thus vulnerable to enemy cryptanalysts. With more signals available than ever before, all of the major powers developed larger diplomatic, military, and naval code-breaking units. Signals intelligence made an unprecedented contribution to the course of the war. The episodes of the Zimmerman telegram, the contributions of Room 40 to the naval war in general and the blockade in particular, and the French solution of the German double-transposition cipher, are only the best known cases of the important role of SIGINT in the eventual Allied victory in 1918.64 In sum, the First World War entrenched intelligence as a permanent feature in both political and military decision making. By 1919, the intelligence organizations of all important powers were larger and more sophisticated than ever. With the evolution of radio communications and aerial reconnaissance they had access to more sources and thus more information. It was during the First World War that for the first time all three of the

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modern “collection disciplines” (agent networks, aerial reconnaissance, and radio intercepts) were used systematically and became important sources of strategic intelligence. Just as crucially, developments in organization and communications made it possible to analyze and use information more quickly than ever before. Significantly, most of the smaller powers that emerged from the Paris Peace Conference also developed permanent intelligence services, many of which were to play a key role in national policy making during the interwar years. In many ways, then, it is difficult to disagree with the judgement of John Ferris that “(t)he modern age of intelligence began in 1914.”65 Virtually all of the great powers, with the notable exception of the United States, entered the interwar period with larger and better-organized intelligence and counterintelligence services than they had possessed before 1914. In Britain, secret intelligence had acquired an institutional identity in the form of the Secret Intelligence Service, which, in an important development for the future of secret intelligence in Britain, was moved from the war office and placed under the authority of the foreign office after the war. The British also took important steps towards establishing a system of all-source analysis. In 1920, Britain’s code-breaking capabilities were concentrated within the newly formed Government Code and Cipher School (GC & CS), which was then attached to SIS. Perhaps the most important step in this regard, however, was the establishment of the Joint Intelligence Committee ( JIC) in the following decade to collate all incoming military, naval, air, and industrial intelligence and to prepare strategic assessments for the cabinet. When a foreign office official became chairman of this committee in 1939, Britain had laid the foundations for effective all-source analysis.66 While the British led the way in constructing effective joint assessment machinery, intelligence was better established than ever before within the defense establishments of many other first-rank powers. In France the service de renseignements remained part of the army General Staff, but its prestige was greatly enhanced and its staff had increased nearly fivefold from the prewar years. In Germany, where military staffs were forbidden by the terms of the Versailles Treaty, foreign intelligence was initially disguised as counterintelligence and performed by the Abwehr within the ministry of defense. Under the Nazi regime in the 1930s, however, the number of intelligence-gathering organs multiplied rapidly and became a central feature of the chaotic Nazi system of governance.67 Intelligence evolved the least in the United States. The United States failed to develop a permanent secret service or to rationalize its signals intelligence capabilities. Although teams of very able code breakers worked within the army and naval General Staffs, these signals intelligence units often worked at cross-purposes. And the cryptanalysis unit


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within the state department had been dismantled during the early 1930s by Secretary of State Henry Stimson.68 The organization of intelligence in the United States thus lagged well behind developments in most of the other great powers. The case of the USSR is uniquely important because intelligence played a central role in the functioning of the Soviet state from its very beginnings. The Cheka, founded in the dire circumstances of Russian Revolution and civil war, quickly evolved into the central organ for both internal security and foreign intelligence collection. It acquired, and retained, more extensive powers than any other secret service until the rise of the Nazi regime. The result was that there was no independent Soviet foreign intelligence service. The collection of intelligence abroad was the responsibility of two organs. One took the form of the First Chief Directorate of the various successors to the Cheka as the central Soviet state security apparatus.69 The other was the intelligence department of the Red Army. In this way the search for foreign intelligence was integrated into the vast Soviet state security and intelligence machinery that, by the mid-1930s, controlled the sprawling empire of slave labor established by Stalin’s regime. Over the course of the interwar period intelligence became such a central component of Soviet political life that it is impossible to imagine the functioning of the Soviet system without the Cheka or its successors, the OGPU, the NKVD, the NKGB, and the KGB.70 The second organ charged with intelligence operations abroad was the military intelligence arm of the Red Army staff, the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie (GRU). Although the GRU was, in theory, responsible only for military intelligence, it collected a great deal of valuable political and strategic information as well. By the late 1930s, the OGPU/NKVD and the GRU had achieved some of the most impressive coups in the history of espionage. A host of well-placed agents provided high-grade intelligence on French, British, American, and German foreign and defense policy. What is more, the Soviet intelligence services were the first to function systematically as tools in the execution of foreign policy. The OGPU, following the example of the tsarist Okrhana, undertook a series of covert actions, including kidnapping, assassination, and long-term deception operations, to eliminate or neutralize “enemies of the people abroad.” But intelligence agents posted outside the USSR also functioned as political actors in their own right. During the 1920s, in particular, OGPU agents operated through the Comintern to organize and finance revolutionary subversion abroad and, in many cases, played a central role in the direction of foreign Communist parties. Moreover, many members of the Communist parties of Europe and North America also worked for Soviet intelligence during this period. If the Soviet secret service did not invent the concept of covert operations in these

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years, it certainly was the first permanent foreign-intelligence agency to make systematic use of them to pursue foreign-policy objectives.71 Intelligence organization had therefore evolved considerably in Europe by the outbreak of the Second World War. Yet with the rise of intelligence bureaucracies came new problems. Agencies tended to adopt either their own institutional identities or those of the ministry or department to which they were attached. Intelligence often became politicized in interministerial turf wars, to the detriment of accurate assessment. The use of intelligence information in bureaucratic infighting was virtually built into Hitler’s idiosyncratic style of government. In Nazi Germany, information was the political currency with which an ever-increasing array of agencies competed with one another to strengthen their bureaucratic position and expand their influence over domestic and foreign policy.72 This phenomenon is by no means restricted to authoritarian regimes. A lack of coordination and the politicization of assessments also crippled the intelligence efforts of democratic powers. In Britain intelligence assessments of the growth of German air power during the 1930s was the subject of bitter interministerial and inter-agency conflict. In France, air intelligence estimates of Luftwaffe strength were purposefully distorted in a desperate bid for more funding by the air ministry. The same was true of assessments of German land power.73 Nor could the progress made in organization overcome the immutable limits to human understanding. During the 1930s, the use of intelligence continued to be hampered by preconceptions and predispositions, worst-case thinking, and crude ethnic and national stereotypes. In Germany, for example, intelligence influenced high-level decision making only insofar as it conformed to Hitler’s desires for conquest and racial annihilation. Both Japanese and Italian leaders similarly interpreted intelligence information through the prism of nationalist ideology, racial assumptions, and ambitious plans for military expansion.74 The interpretation and use of intelligence in France and Britain was conditioned by a different set of assumptions. Both were status quo powers that desired to avoid war if at all possible. Hence a succession of British and French national leaders ignored warnings of the warlike intentions of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Reluctant to accept the inevitability of war, they seized instead on any information that suggested war might be postponed or even avoided altogether.75 Their perspective was also distorted by ideology and by ethnocentrism. Estimations of the worth of the Soviet Union as an ally against Nazi Germany were based as much on ideological assumptions about the nature of Soviet Communism as they were on balanced assessments of Soviet war-making potential. Calculations of the potential utility of an alliance with the USSR in the struggle to contain Nazi Germany were influenced greatly


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by deep-seated ideological mistrust.76 High-level British and American assessments of the Japanese threat, meanwhile, were flawed by crude racial assumptions about the Japanese.77 Preconceived theories and entrenched images impeded both democratic and authoritarian regimes from making effective use of intelligence. In the Soviet Union, where key foreign-policy and domestic-security decisions were controlled by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, the steady flow of intelligence provided by the excellent network of Soviet agents was filtered through the lens of Stalin’s paranoia and ideological bias. One of the best illustrations in history of the danger of crafting intelligence assessments to conform to the predispositions of decision makers is that of high-level Soviet assessments of German intentions before Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Despite at least one hundred independent intelligence warnings indicating a German attack, many giving the precise timing of the German offensive, Stalin remained convinced that this information was a combination of German brinksmanship and British disinformation. This conviction set the parameters for intelligence analyses. As a result, on the very eve of the attack, with German forces massing on the Soviet frontier, Soviet intelligence chief Lavrentii Beria wrote to Joseph Stalin that “I and my people, Josif Vissarionovich, have firmly embedded in our memory your wise conclusion: Hitler is not going to attack us in 1941.”78 As these examples indicate, the development of permanent intelligence organizations within the government machinery of all the great powers did not roll back the natural limits of intelligence. Age-old dilemmas of perception and misperception and political interference in the intelligence process continued to limit the effectiveness of intelligence as a “force multiplier” for policy makers. And these limitations affected analysts and decision makers of widely different nationalities and ideological predispositions during the run up to the Second World War.79 Nor had innovations in communications technology made it possible for intelligence to overcome, or even alleviate significantly, the problem of time and space. There were two central reasons for this. First, although the speed at which it was possible to communicate now approached real time, the volume of information available for collection and analysis had increased equally dramatically. During the Second World War, for example, belligerents sent millions of encrypted messages addressing everything from high politics to everyday logistics. Many, possibly even most, of these were intercepted, and hundreds of thousands were solved. But the overwhelming volume of this information posed insuperable practical problems for intelligence analysts responsible for producing estimates of the situation. What technology had provided with one hand in terms of new sources and communications

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technology, it had taken away with the other by forcing intelligence services to sort through vast amounts of information. The more information that was available, the longer the time needed to process it, and the greater the problem of discerning signals from noise, that is, to sort reliable intelligence from unreliable reports. Secondly, the space side of the equation had also been transformed. Technology had also increased the speed at which the political and strategic situation could change. Faster communications, along with the evolution of railways, motor vehicles, and aircraft, made strategic surprise on land possible for the first time since antiquity. This meant that the familiar problem of intelligence becoming outdated by the time it was received and interpreted remained as much a factor as ever. The end result was that uncertainty remained as prominent a factor as ever in diplomacy and in war. Although the limits to the usefulness of intelligence remained, there can be no denying that intelligence as a central tool of decision making came of age during the Second World War. The role of intelligence in this conflict has been the subject of such intensive historical enquiry that it would be impossible to sum up even the recent literature here. It must suffice instead to identify a number of important trends that emerged during the war that transformed the way intelligence was both gathered and used. These developments changed the character of intelligence work in fundamental ways. They did not, however, change the nature of the information that intelligence work provided. Richard Aldrich has rightly argued that the Second World War was characterized by an “intelligence revolution.”80 There were four interrelated components to this revolution. The first was the advent of machine cryptanalysis and code breaking by computer. This facilitated greatly the second feature: the collection of intelligence on an industrial scale worldwide. The third was the development of a fast and efficient network for communicating this information across distances, which made it possible to exploit real-time intelligence on a global scale. The fourth component of the intelligence revolution was the radical expansion of intelligence services in general and American secret agencies in particular. By 1945, vast intelligence bureaucracies had emerged at the very center of the British and American war efforts. These were important developments. The size of these agencies and their influence over policy would endure during the period of Cold War after 1945. The growth of the British and American intelligence communities was astonishing. In Britain, in addition to the Government Code and Cipher School and a much-expanded SIS, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) all took part in the intelligence war. By 1945, the SOE, founded only after the fall of France in the summer of 1940, had


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swollen to a sprawling organization with thousands of agents scattered across the globe (including 1,122 operatives in Asia alone). This was part of an overall expansion of Whitehall machinery that was never fully scaled back. The emergence and expansion of the U.S. intelligence apparatus was even more dramatic. The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), founded by William Donovan only in 1942, had a staff of over thirteen thousand by 1944. Added to the OSS were the Office of War Information (OWI) and the Board of Economic Warfare. At one point during the Pacific War, there were at least twelve independent secret services operating in one single theater, the Southeast Asia Command. Secret service had become a growth industry.81 The truly phenomenal expansion, however, was that of the personnel and resources devoted to signals intelligence. By 1941, Britain had developed the largest and most sophisticated SIGINT apparatus in history. Yet by the end of the war British officials were “stupefied” by the resources placed at the disposal of their American counterparts. The United States had achieved a dominance in this domain that it has never relinquished. The evolution of global, industrial-scale signals interception and decryptment during the war marked a decisive watershed in the history of intelligence. SIGINT became the most important source of secret information for the intelligence communities of virtually all of the major powers. And between 1941 and 1945, it provided Allied commanders with the most comprehensive picture of enemy intentions and capabilities in the history of warfare.82 Indeed it is possible to argue that the Second World War was the high-water mark in the long struggle to use intelligence to reduce uncertainty. The benefits obtained by the Allies, and by Britain and the United States in particular, from the systematic exploitation of signals intelligence in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres was unprecedented and have not been duplicated since—despite the massive resources that have been devoted to signals intelligence since 1945. Another important development was the rise of scientific intelligence, which became an industry in its own right after 1939. This was primarily a result of the increased complexity of modern weaponry. Between the wars most European powers had attempted to acquire intelligence on the latest foreign aircraft and weapon designs. But information came largely from open sources and from the observations of air, military, and naval attachés. The only state that appears to have gained valuable information through espionage was the Soviet Union.83 The emergence of a steady stream of ever more advanced weaponry—from radar in the late 1930s to jet fighters, V-1 and V-2 bombs, and, by the end of the war, atomic weapons—added a new dimension to secret intelligence gathering. Information on scientific research abroad became crucial to the

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intelligence efforts of all of the first-rank powers. As one participant in this “most secret war” put it, “There was much more than ever before that needed to be known about the enemy.”84 The expertise required to direct this kind of collection and to evaluate the information it produced became a necessary component of the “empires of a different kind” that emerged over the course of the war. Recent research by Paul Maddrell demonstrates how important scientific intelligence had become to the Allies by 1945, and the lengths to which they went to deny German scientific expertise to the Soviet Union.85 An increased role for secret services in the dissemination of propaganda was yet another significant evolution in the character of intelligence during the war. In Britain there were close links between the PWE and SIS. The same was true in the United States of relations between OSS and its sister service, the OWI. As the war dragged on, the central functions of these agencies changed as the struggle for “hearts and minds” became less about winning the military conflict and more about shaping the postwar order. A good example of this is the intelligence war in Asia, where intense rivalry emerged between the British and American secret services. The American agencies initially worked to bring about an end to empire in the Pacific by spreading anticolonial ideology and by supporting Asian nationalist movements. OSS sponsorship for figures such as Gandhi, Chiang Kai Shek, and Ho Chi Minh posed a direct threat to the imperial order and was resisted energetically by the British, French, and even Dutch secret services.86 This rivalry among Allied intelligence agencies illustrates the emergence of intelligence services as political actors in their own right. This trend, first witnessed by the Soviet agencies during the 1920s, reflects not only the importance of ideas in both politics and war, but also the suitability of intelligence and intelligence organizations for clandestine political action. More than ever before, intelligence services and their activities had become expressions of the political aims of their governments. A final important Second World War development was the emergence of a full-fledged intelligence alliance between Britain and the United States. This alliance featured collaboration between services on an unprecedented scale, with cooperation extended beyond sharing information (something both the British and the Americans also did with the Soviets after 1941) to detailed arrangements for joint efforts in both collection and assessment. Of the series of arrangements forged between the two intelligence communities during the war, by far the most important was the “BRUSA” agreement concerning signals intelligence, finalized in spring 1943. These accords stipulated that Britain and the United States would “exchange completely all information con-


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cerning the detection, identification and interception of signals from, and the solutions of codes and ciphers used by, the military and air forces of the Axis powers, including secret services.” The agreement divided responsibility so that the United States would assume the “main responsibility” for Japanese communications, while the British would concentrate on Germany and Italy. The British-American SIGINT alliance was unprecedented in both the scope and the level of cooperation it initiated. It established intelligence as a permanent and significant feature of alliance politics.87 The USSR also emerged from the war with added confidence in its secret services and with greater understanding of their importance to national security. Soviet intelligence was unable to rival the successes of Ultra, Purple, and Magic. However, it did play a consistently important role on the eastern front (where most of the fighting in the European war took place). At the strategic level, the Stalinist regime received a steady flow of excellent intelligence from both HUMINT and SIGINT sources. This included crucial information indicating that Japan was unlikely to attack the USSR in the east, as well as consistent insight into high-level British and American policy making obtained from its penetration of the foreign and cabinet offices in London. This intelligence was a crucial advantage for Stalin’s negotiating position at inter-Allied conferences at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945. There is also evidence that Soviet signals intelligence achieved at least sporadic success in reading German Enigma traffic during the closing phases of the war. There was no dramatic transformation of the intelligence community in the USSR similar to that which took place in Britain and the United States. But this was primarily because a sprawling intelligence empire already existed in the Soviet Union before the war broke out.88

The Cold War and After The trends and processes that characterized the evolution of intelligence during the Second World War were accelerated and amplified during the “long peace” of the Cold War. This was largely due to the nature of the superpower standoff after 1945. The terrible danger of nuclear war created a new political and strategic environment in which intelligence and intelligence services played a more prominent role than ever. There were three central reasons for this. First, intelligence provided a means through which cold warriors, frustrated by the “straitjacket of nuclear deterrence,” could fight one another.89 As a result, secret operations mounted under the cover of plausible deniability became a key political tool in the global confrontation. The results were mixed at best. As Christopher Andrew has

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observed, “Some of the lowest points in the modern history of the presidency—the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, Iran-Contra—have arisen from grotesque misjudgements about the role of covert action.”90 Next, the propaganda function that all major secret services had acquired during the Second World War proved equally effective in the global ideological struggle between Soviet Communism and Western free-market liberalism. A key battleground of the Cold War was the hearts and minds of the world’s populations. Intelligence activity, from secret propaganda operations to bribery to covert political manipulation, was ubiquitous in virtually every theatre of the Cold War. Intelligence therefore played a fundamental role in shaping the character of the conflict by speeding its transformation from “an old-fashioned conflict between states into a subversive competition between societies.”91 Finally, the importance of intelligence services increased during the Cold War because the strategic stakes had been raised. For both sides, in an era where successful surprise attack could mean national annihilation, information about the intentions and capabilities of adversaries was more vital than ever. And, once again, technology had transformed the both sides of the time-space dynamic. With the advent of atomic weapons and increasingly sophisticated delivery systems, decisive strategic force could be mobilized and deployed using the ballistic missile. To monitor these threats, unprecedented resources were devoted to developing ever-larger and more-sophisticated global informationgathering and surveillance networks. Fears of a “nuclear Pearl Harbor” were a central factor in the creation of a vast U.S. intelligence community and brought intelligence officials to the very center of national policy making. As Richard Aldrich has observed, the result of all of this was that “At the highest levels, it was intelligence, especially very secret intelligence, that underpinned, even legitimated, so many policies launched in the [Cold War’s] name.”92 Michael Herman, a thoughtful and distinguished participant in the intelligence, has endorsed this view. According to Herman, the Cold War was “peculiarly an intelligence war” where secret service work had “an almost wartime intensity” because intelligence in all of its manifestations “was the currency for debating defence issues and all that sprang from them.”93 A closer look at the evolution of the American and British intelligence communities provides a good illustration of the broader trends since 1945. The four features of the 1939–1945 intelligence revolution continued to evolve and to shape the character of intelligence collection and analysis. The trend toward intelligence centralization continued in virtually all major powers. Perhaps the most important developments in this regard were the emergence in the United States of the Central Intelli-


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gence Agency and Director of Central Intelligence (1947), the National Security Agency (1952), the Defense Intelligence Agency (1961), as well as the concepts of “national intelligence” and “daily briefs.”94 The key aims in all cases were greater coordination of effort, more effective analysis of all incoming information, and a digestible finished “product” based on a synthesis of all incoming information. There were similar developments in Britain, where the Joint Intelligence Board (constituted after the war) became part of the Defence Intelligence Staff created in 1964. The JIC was also reformed. It was moved to the Cabinet Office in 1957 and then restructured again in 1968, when the post of Intelligence Coordinator was created.95 Similar moves to established centralized machinery of assessment have been made, with varying degrees of success, in the former British dominions, in many continental European states, in both the Soviet Union and post-Communist Russia, and in Israel.96 Technological developments continued to change the character of both collection and assessment. Among the most important developments has been the evolution of computer and satellite technology. Computers have made it possible to process and store hitherto unimaginable amounts of information at speeds beyond the comprehension of previous generations. Satellite-based communications, fiber-optic cables, and ever-more sophisticated imaging technology have further transformed the kind of information that can be collected, the speed with which it can be transmitted, and the scale on which it is available. These two technological trends accelerated throughout the Cold War. By the late 1950s, the speed at which NSA computers attacked foreign ciphers was 230,000 times faster than the systems used against Japanese communications during the war. Capacity has increased at an even faster rate since, with new supercomputer systems superseding one another every few years. The sheer amount of information generated by the NSA is staggering. By the end of the Cold War, its waste-collection system was processing 35 tons of classified paper per day.97 Satellite imagery was producing an equally vast amount of raw information—all of which required sifting and organization before it ever reached the stages of analysis and interpretation. This intelligence, moreover, was drawn from across the globe. In sum, intelligence collection had gone well beyond the industrial scales of the Second World War and had entered the information age, accumulating millions of pages of data of all kinds every day. A central result of these trends was that intelligence emerged as a major component of American government during the Cold War. By the late 1980s, the intelligence community was staffed by an estimated 200,000 personnel and had an annual budget of around $28 billion.

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Nor did the end of the conflict alter this trend dramatically. After a short period of retrenchment, the resources devoted to the U.S. intelligence budget have increased steadily over the past decade. The intelligence budget for 2004 approached $40 billion. Given the dimensions of the current threat posed by international terrorism, this trend is certain to continue for the foreseeable future.98 The most prolific expansion of intelligence bureaucracies, at least in the West, has thus been that of the agencies responsible for “technical collection” of signals and imagery intelligence (IMINT). Very soon after its formation, the NSA became the largest and best-funded intelligence agency in history. It has since been surpassed, at least in financial terms, by the emergence of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to oversee the collection of IMINT by satellites. By the 1970s, 87 percent of the resources devoted to intelligence gathering were devoted to “technical collection” by either the NSA or the NRO. In the early 1990s, according to unofficial but widely accepted estimates, the budget of the NSA had grown to nearly $4 billion, and the NRO budget was over $6.5 billion. The military spent an additional $11 billion each year on the collection primarily of tactical intelligence by technical means. The headquarters of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland, is now a sprawling complex of more than 60 buildings that house an estimated 21,000 civilian and military personnel, and its yearly electrical bill is more than $21 million. Taking into account the SIGINT operations of the three armed services, the number of personnel employed in cryptanalysis by the end of the Cold War was probably close to 70,000.99 The vast resources devoted to the “technical” collection disciplines means that the intelligence community has established an important role in scientific research and development in the United States. The NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States. In partnership with both universities and private corporations, it has underwritten a series of important scientific advances, including the world’s first solidstate computer, as well as a series of breakthroughs in superconductivity technology. The NRO, meanwhile, is a crucial source of funding for research, development, and defense contracts for the American aerospace industry, and has thus acquired a powerful congressional lobby to protect its budget. In addition, there are longstanding patterns of research cooperation between the intelligence community, universities, and privately owned businesses in the United States. These links illustrate the extent to which secret service work has become a part of the fabric of public life and political culture in America.100 Similar trends have also characterized the evolution of intelligence elsewhere—but usually on a much smaller scale. In Britain, for example,


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the overall budget for the intelligence services also expanded throughout the Cold War. Although British intelligence did not develop a satellite program similar to the one managed by the NRO in the United States, it did create an expensive Joint Air Reconnaissance Interpretation Centre ( JARIC) and continued to invest heavily in the SIGINT operations at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Like the United States, Britain now spends substantially more on intelligence than it does on diplomacy. In the early 1990s, the British government was spending around £1 billion annually on intelligence acquisition and analysis. And this figure has risen significantly since the turn of the century.101 There are noteworthy parallels in the evolution of Soviet and Russian intelligence since 1945. As has already been mentioned, the Second World War was less of a watershed for the Soviets only because they had already developed a massive intelligence apparatus with global reach during the interwar period. In many respects, the war marked the high point of Soviet intelligence agencies’ success in guiding policy makers. Its superb network of agents provided a steady stream of reliable information, particularly on high-level policymaking and scientific research in Britain and the United States. But the number and quality of Soviet agents in the West declined somewhat over the course of the Cold War, and both the KGB and the GRU came to rely ever more heavily on technical collection.102 The SIGINT and IMINT capacities of the Soviet secret services increased on a scale similar to the expansion that took place in the United States. By the early 1960s, both the KGB and the GRU had established comprehensive global listening networks. In 1960, the KGB’s Eighth Chief Directorate, responsible for the interception of political and diplomatic communications, decrypted 209,000 diplomatic cables from 51 states. More than 133,000 of these were forwarded to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. By 1967, the KGB was reading 152 cipher systems of 72 states. The KGB also had radio interception posts installed in 15 of its most important residencies. The post in the Soviet embassy in Washington, for example, produced more than 7,000 pages of summaries of intercepts in 1976 alone. The GRU developed an equally extensive capacity to monitor military communications. In the late 1980s, its listening network was comprised of 40 SIGINT regiments, more than 60 surface ships, and 130 satellites. Together the KGB and GRU operated 500 SIGINT ground stations during the closing phases of the Cold War, and an estimated 350,000 personnel were working in communications intelligence.103 Intelligence collection was more technically sophisticated and operated on a larger scale than ever before.

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The trend toward extensive intelligence cooperation within alliances, which found its fullest expression in the wartime AngloAmerican alliance, continued and expanded after 1945. Intelligence alliances emerged on both sides of the Cold War divide. In the West the operational plans of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were underpinned by extensive intelligence collaboration between member states. This collaboration focused on the collection of information regarding the threat posed by the USSR and the Warsaw Pact—with a particular emphasis on counterespionage. Within the wider parameters of NATO, comprehensive arrangements existed between the Anglo-Saxon countries, and a still-more-intimate relationship endured between the United States and Britain. Forged in the Second World War and given expression through a succession of accords, the Anglo-American intelligence alliance has proved surprisingly durable. Of course, close intelligence cooperation does not preclude protracted disagreements or even rivalry in certain contexts. However the “special relationship within the special relationship” remains especially important to Britain. It provides the UK government with “large-scale access to the output of the American intelligence superpower.”104 The unprecedented scale of collaboration in foreign intelligence gathering in the West was nonetheless surpassed by the level of coordination between Warsaw Pact countries. This was achieved primarily because the KGB and GRU were largely successful in exerting control over the intelligence services of the USSR’s allies. This gave the intelligence effort of the Warsaw Pact a coherence that NATO could rival only in the collection of military information to inform operational planning. This coherence was a product of the political control exerted by Moscow over the foreign policies of its client states. At the same time, the value of the intelligence obtained through the coordinated efforts of the Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and especially the East German secret services should not be underestimated.105 Of equal importance to the development of post-Cold War relationships were the links forged between the secret services of the superpowers and newly constituted intelligence services in postcolonial states. For decades the most important of these ties was between the United States and Israeli intelligence communities. But many other such relationships emerged as part of the global struggle for influence between the United States and the USSR. Cooperation between the CIA and Pakistani military intelligence during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is a good example of the ambiguities of many of the cooperative links forged in the heat of the East-West struggle. The conjuncture of the Cold War and postcolonial politics resulted in all manner of


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intelligence “alliances” between the superpowers and newly formed states from East Asia to the Horn of Africa. To sum up, the Cold War, like the Second World War, brought revolutionary changes to the practice of intelligence and its place in the machinery of the modern state. Permanent intelligence services have emerged to rival diplomacy as the most important source of official knowledge about the outside world. Since 1945, first-rank powers, including the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom, have consistently spent substantially more on intelligence than they have on planning and executing their foreign policies.106 Global listening and surveillance systems have been constructed with outposts throughout the inhabited and uninhabited regions of the world, on the oceans, and in space. Intelligence has become a permanent fixture in the political culture of most states and has played a significant role in shaping the course of much scientific research. It is also a permanent and prominent feature of statecraft. The character of intelligence work has evolved even more rapidly since the end of the Cold War. This evolution is due mainly to the continually accelerating pace of satellite and information technology. Computer processing capacity has been doubling approximately every 18 months. In particular, the rise of the Internet and online communications, along with the evolution of networked information-storage systems, has led to fundamental changes in the practice of intelligence work. Intelligence collection, as well as the initial stages of the collation and processing of incoming information, is increasingly performed by automated systems.107 Recent technological process has transformed intelligence collection practices, often dramatically. Every few years a new generation of satellites appears with ever-greater powers to observe the earth’s surface and to monitor communications. The United States is reportedly close to introducing a new series of “Space Based Radar Satellites” that will be capable of operating in tandem with other surveillance systems in pursuit of “around the clock, all-weather surveillance of the globe.”108 These satellites will use recently developed “hyper-spectral systems,” which are reputedly able to penetrate camouflage to identity the location and composition of objects normally hidden to both light cameras and current color sensors.109 The evolution of technology has also produced a new type of intelligence source. A recent class of satellite is equipped with sensors that can measure the seismic, acoustic, chemical, and biological signatures that are the products of nuclear testing. These satellites can also detect the presence of chemical and biological agents suitable for use in warfare. The information they provide is commonly referred to as measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and is particularly

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useful to policy makers concerned with preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Also important are the capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles such as the new Global Hawk drone—which functions as an “unmanned electronic vacuum cleaner,” relaying both imagery and signals intelligence information to American analysts and consumers all over the world via satellite communications.110 These and other recently developed collection “platforms” have given rise to an aspiration to “Dominant Battlespace Awareness” within the U.S. military establishment. According to this doctrine, troops on the ground will be given the ability to “reachback” to Internet-based information-processing systems that are receiving information via satellites, in order to help them make informed decisions in combat situations. The goal is to dramatically reduce battlefield uncertainty by removing the Clausewitzian “fog of war.” This is to be done by using a “system of systems” that receives a steady flow of information from sources on the ground, in the air, and in space.111 More than ever, therefore, intelligence collection is a global enterprise requiring huge human and financial investment. While the basic structures of most of the world’s major intelligence communities have not changed dramatically, the scale of spending on intelligence and intelligence-related activities has increased significantly. In the United States, funding for the intelligence services grew by 80 percent between 1980 and 1996, whereas spending on the military actually declined during the same period.112 This trend has only been accelerated by the “war on terror.” The overall budget for intelligence in the United States has grown from $26.7 billion in 1998 to an estimated $40 billion for 2004.113 The same trend is evident in the United Kingdom. Resources allocated to the three British intelligence services have increased steadily since the late 1990s. Most recently, funding for the three security and intelligence agencies rose from £937.8 million for the 2001–2002 budget year to £1.12 billion for 2003–2004. The ongoing effort against terrorism makes it virtually certain that intelligence spending in the West will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. The British intelligence budget, for example, is projected to grow to £1.18 billion in 2005–06.114 The post-Cold War era has also given rise to more comprehensive intelligence cooperation than ever before, particularly in the realm of signals intelligence. The proliferation of fax machines and personal computers that began in the early 1980s has provided new opportunities for signals intelligence agencies. More and more information passes through the ether and through cyberspace. Perhaps the most remarkable example of this trend is Echelon, which is essentially a highly sophisticated computer program designed to monitor both the flow and content of this information. The United States, Britain, and the other


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members of the UK-USA signals intelligence alliance use Echelon to eavesdrop on everything from private business negotiations to unclassified foreign military and diplomatic messages. There are two central innovative components to the Echelon network. First, “consumer” agencies (such as the CIA or the FBI in the United States and MI6 or MI5 in Britain) can submit “watch lists” to their national SIGINT agencies. Watch lists are usually keywords, names, phrases, and telephone and fax numbers that have been identified as potentially linked to security problems, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or communications between or within terrorist networks. These watch lists are then programmed into the Echelon “dictionary.” When the content of dictionary entries appears in monitored communications, it is highlighted for analysis. Second, the Echelon network allows the various national SIGINT agencies to submit their watch lists to the listening posts of all UK-USA SIGINT agencies. They are thus almost immediately able to dip into the intercepted communications of their allies in an eavesdropping network that covers the entire globe and extends deep into space.115 Other forms of cooperation are likely to prove equally lucrative. Of particular interest are the relationships formed between European and North American intelligence communities and the security and intelligence services in post-colonial regimes in Africa and Asia. Cooperative links between the US and Pakistani security agencies and between those of France and Morocco and Algeria are only two examples of the kind of post-colonial “intelligence alliances” that are more important than ever in the ongoing struggle against international terrorism. They are an indispensable corollary to the multinational intelligence machinery that is planned or envisaged for institutions such as NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations.116 Intelligence has become a permanent factor in political relations between states and is certain to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Enduring Constraints Despite the tremendous technological innovations since 1945, the nature of intelligence analysis and its relationship with decision making remains unchanged. The four categories of limitations to effectiveness and utility of intelligence have remained as influential as ever.

Time and Space The constraints of time and space are at least as powerful as they have ever been. As Richard Betts has persuasively argued, the most

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common source of compromise in the quality of intelligence analysis is haste.117 Yet the need for speed in the assessment process, which so often leads to oversimplification and snap judgements about complex issues, has been more pressing than ever since the advent of nuclear weapons. Massive strategic surprise, and even national annihilation, can now be achieved in the time it takes for an attacker to deliver a ballistic missile strike. As one of the scientists involved in the construction of the first atomic bombs wrote, nuclear weapons provided potential aggressors with a weapon that was both “potentially destructive beyond the wildest nightmares of the imagination” and also “ideally suited to sudden unannounced attack.”118 The stakes are higher and decisions need to be taken more quickly than ever before—both in committee and on the battlefield. Despite the staggering technological advances of the last century, the human brain does not function much more quickly or efficiently than it did 100, or even 1,000, years ago. Perhaps the best illustration of the continued importance of time and space constraints during the Cold War is the importance of nuclear deterrence to strategic policy on both sides of the conflict. A fundamental assumption underpinning the doctrine of nuclear deterrence was that intelligence could not guarantee sufficient warning of an impending nuclear attack—particularly after the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This realization gave rise to concepts such as a “stable balance of terror” and “mutually assured destruction,” which were influential in shaping strategic and foreign policy decisions from the mid-1950s through to the end of the Cold War. Even when the utility and morality of these concepts were questioned, the underlying problem, the impossibility of guaranteeing against surprise attack, remained the fundamental unresolved dilemma of strategy in the nuclear age. In other words, the ever-increasing speed with which massive force can be concentrated and brought to bear has eaten away at the advantages provided by ever-more-powerful information-processing and communications technology.119 Nor has technology provided intelligence with the means to overcome time and space considerations when dealing with the “asymmetric threat” posed by terrorism. This is because intelligence targets have access to much of the same technology as intelligence agencies. Terrorist suspects can move around the globe with relative ease. And the emergence of the World Wide Web provided terrorist groups with a precious resource both for mobilizing support and for coordinating their operations. The Internet is a problem as well as an opportunity for intelligence surveillance. On one hand, it has provided a new source of information. On the other hand, it has dramatically increased the sheer amount of information that must be monitored. As Gregory Treverton


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has observed, intelligence services operate in “a world of more openness but also more mysteries.”120 The attendant difficulties in sifting through what is an almost incomprehensible mass of information are only partially alleviated by the Echelon program, which cannot entirely replace human judgement concerning what is relevant and what is not. Moreover, Echelon notwithstanding, advances in commercial encryption programs have made it increasingly difficult to monitor the communications of nonstate actors of all kinds. The image of Western SIGINT and IMINT agencies as all-seeing and all-hearing technical leviathans remains a myth that sells spy novels but does not reflect the reality of intelligence practice at the opening of the twenty-first century. The result is that it remains as difficult as ever for intelligence services to meet the threat posed by loosely linked transnational networks of terrorist cells. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the Russian secret police, using late-nineteenth-century practices, were more effective at penetrating and thwarting the activities of anti-Tsarist opposition groups across Europe in the early 1900s than are today’s vast intelligence and counterterrorist agencies in their efforts to meet the challenge of transnational Islamist terrorism. The difficulties in tracking down Osama bin Laden, or the uncertainty surrounding the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, are two contemporary illustrations of the limitations of intelligence stemming to an important extent from time and space constraints. As long as crucial political and strategic decisions are made by human beings rather than machines, the conditions of time and space will continue to prevail. Uncertainty will remain an important factor in both politics and war.

Organization, Information Management, and Institutions The Cold War and post-Cold War eras are replete with classic illustrations of the ongoing problem of effective intelligence organization. Indeed, the challenges that have emerged as a result of the changes in the international order after 1990 have made the effective organization of intelligence one of the most compelling security problems facing policy makers at the outset of the twenty-first century. During the Cold War, the massive growth of intelligence communities in both East and West exacerbated the difficulties in constructing a rational and effective intelligence process. Although most national communities have moved steadily toward the goals of all-source analysis and comprehensive net assessment, three factors have slowed the process: the huge scale of collection activities, the unprecedented amounts of raw intelligence requiring analysis, and the attendant proliferation of agencies to deal with these problems. The challenges of

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effective cooperation and coordination were exacerbated by the inevitable rise of bureaucratic rivalry. Much is known about the internecine quarrels within the intelligence communities of Britain and the United States. As Richard Aldrich has observed, “each ‘national’ intelligence community in the west was regularly convulsed by rancorous quarrels.”121 Aldrich has shown that these quarrels were most pronounced in the United States, where “repeated attempts at centralisation only created separate fiefdoms that fought bitterly over policy and resources.” Clashes between the CIA and the intelligence departments of the three military services (as well as the Pentagon’s DIA) over such crucial issues as the nuclear balance of power or the war in Vietnam were of seminal importance in the military and diplomatic history of the second half of the twentieth century. Although we know less about the relationship between the various intelligence agencies in the Soviet Union, evidence suggests that, although both the KGB and the GRU were charged with collecting foreign intelligence, the two organizations did not collaborate in any major intelligence operations until 1981.122 The difficulties inherent in organizing and managing the vast intelligence-gathering machinery that emerged during the twentieth century are, if anything, more formidable than ever. The period since the end of the Cold War has thrown up a series of new security challenges with which intelligence communities must cope. The CIA, for example, is now charged providing analyses of a bewildering array of potential threats, from the AIDS pandemic to the proliferation of nuclear technology to the pressing question of transnational terrorism. Yet the restructuring and retooling of American intelligence to respond to the new security environment has been a slow process. The need for intelligence reform in the United States has been a public issue since the mid1970s. A host of studies, official, semi-official, and private, have appeared on the subject. Although several congressional committees have investigated the problem and made recommendations, they have resulted in little substantial reorganization of intelligence machinery in the United States.123 One reason that efforts at reorganization have failed is the immensity of the task at hand. There are now at least 13 major agencies charged with the collection of intelligence and counterintelligence in the United States, most of which have annual budgets of more than $1 billion. Large and influential organizations are often able to resist pressure for root-and-branch structural change. And the sheer scale of the United States intelligence community seems to defy effective central control and rational organization. Coming to agreement on exactly what measures are necessary has proved all but impossible. The response has


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been instead to deal with new threats using the intelligence structures of the Cold War. A good illustration of this trend is the reaction of the American intelligence community to the rise of terrorism after the end of the Cold War. During the late 1990s, the United States intelligence and policymaking community responded to the perceived growth of asymmetric threats with a dramatic increase in spending on counterterrorism. Within the FBI, for example, resources devoted to counterterrorism increased 350 percent between 1996 and 2001. Counterterrorism also rose to prominence within the CIA budget of the same period. Overall, the funding devoted to counterterrorism throughout the American intelligence community quintupled in the decade before September 11, 2001.124 But the long-standing problem of cooperation between these two agencies was not rectified. Failure to share information on the activities of potential terrorists was a major cause of the intelligence failure of September 11, 2001. Only in the aftermath of the terrorists attacks were new structures introduced to enhance cooperation. These were the Department of Homeland Security and the Terrorist Threat Integration Centre (TTIC). The aim of the TTIC, established in May 2003, is to “fuse and analyse all-source information related to terrorism” and thus to “close the seam” between the antiterrorism efforts of the CIA and FBI.125 The episode illustrates the essential problem of organization as a limiting factor on the effective use of intelligence: intelligence structures have always evolved in response to changes in the security environment. They have virtually never changed in anticipation of new threats. As a result the organization of the intelligence process is nearly always aimed at dealing with familiar problems and is by definition less well-suited coping with threats that lie in the future. This may sound like a truism. The point, however, is that this reality is too-rarely acknowledged in both the scholarly and more-popular literature on intelligence. The result has been the perpetuation of unrealistic expectations of what intelligence can and cannot do.

Political Influences The problem of political distortion of the intelligence process has been more pronounced than ever in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Again, an essential factor has been the astonishing growth of intelligence as part of the machinery of government. Ever-larger intelligence institutions, employing ever more personnel and benefiting from ever-greater investment, have developed even-stronger institutional identities and cultural reflexes. It is all but impossible to prevent such

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institutions from developing political agendas of their own in an effort to preserve their funding and influence over policy. The results have been legendary turf wars between various national intelligence agencies and bitter disputes over key assessments. Among the best-known examples of this kind of infighting are the “bomber gap” and “missile gap” controversies within the American security and defence establishment during the 1950s and early 1960s. In both cases the American service intelligence establishment produced consistently alarmist assessments of Soviet nuclear capability. These were challenged by the CIA, which alleged that military officials were systematically exaggerating the Soviet threat in order to preempt unwelcome reductions in defense spending.126 The inherent problem of political distortion in the process was explicitly acknowledged in Washington during the mid-1970s, when the Ford administration appointed a “B Team” composed of conservative experts from outside the intelligence community to challenge the CIA’s estimates of Soviet capabilities. Significantly, however, the key differences in the contending assessments that resulted were over the intentions, rather than the capabilities, of the USSR. The ideological antipathy for the USSR among the conservative members of the “B Team” conditioned both their estimates of the threat posed by the Soviet nuclear arsenal and their judgements about the utility of arms control negotiations.127 There are strong indications that the danger of politicization is exacerbated by the exigencies of the current war on terror. The decline of long-standing normative limitations on open interference in the internal affairs of other states has gathered momentum after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The notion of “preemptive self defense” has emerged as a central pillar of U.S. strategic doctrine.128 As long as wars of preemption remain an important component of the foreign and security policies of major states such as the United States and Britain, it will be necessary for their leaders to use intelligence information to provide public justification, and thus legitimacy, for preemptive action. Intelligence was employed in this way by both the American and British governments to strengthen public support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The British government took the unprecedented step of publishing an intelligence dossier, written by the chairman of the JIC, which included both wide-ranging assessments and raw intelligence obtained by MI6. Great emphasis was laid on the judgement that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and would not hesitate to use these against Britain and other Western countries.129 Here intelligence was used as an instrument of policy, rather than as a guide for the making of policy. The result was that the British government was plunged into one of the more serious political crises in recent memory.


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Evidence suggests that similar pressure was placed on CIA analysts to provide evidence of links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda terrorist network. This information was used by both Secretary of State Colin Powell and by President George W. Bush in public pronouncements aimed at boosting support for war against Iraq. As in the British case, the use of intelligence in this way redounded on the Bush administration, particularly after months of extensive searching turned up no evidence that Iraq possessed functioning weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing crisis resulted in an extensive congressional inquiry and the early resignation of the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet.130 Intelligence assessment also appears to have become politicized in disputes between the Pentagon and the State Department over policy towards Iraq. In September 2002, hawkish elements within the Pentagon established a rival assessment organ responsible for producing estimates of the political situation in Iraq. This “Office of Special Plans” (the renamed Northern Gulf Affairs Office) was placed under the direction of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who reported directly to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz. Although there remains considerable uncertainty as to the precise composition and functions of the Office of Special Plans, it is clear that it had access to high-grade raw intelligence and functioned as an alternative assessment organ to the CIA and the Research Department of the State Department. It prepared consistently alarmist estimates about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and about links between Saddam Hussein and international terrorism. These reports were forwarded to Vice President Dick Cheney and were used in arguments for a warlike posture against Iraq in the run-up to the Second Gulf War.131 The problem of the politicization of intelligence is unlikely to recede in the years to come. In an age of massive intelligence machinery, everincreasing budgets, and ever-greater masses of information, the tendency for intelligence to be distorted by ideological assumptions and political agendas is greater than ever. One well-informed observer has predicted that the twenty-first century will be the age of “public intelligence.”132 If this is true, it will only increase the danger that intelligence will become politicized to suit the policy agendas of national leaders.

Limits of Human Perception The final category of limitation has also been as influential as ever in shaping the way intelligence has been misinterpreted and misused since 1945. Recognition of the imperfect character of human cognition, and the limitations this places on effective intelligence assessment, is at the

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heart of the sophisticated literature on strategic surprise that has emerged since the 1950s. Scholars such as Roberta Wohlstetter, Richard Betts, Michael Handel, Ephraim Kam, and many others have stressed that because intelligence analysis is fundamentally a human process, it remains bounded by the conditions of human perception.133 Many of the illustrations of this fact have been drawn from the Cold War period. There have been many studies, for example, of the surprise achieved by the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive of 1968, or of the success of the Arab states in surprising Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The case of the Tet Offensive is a classic case of firmly entrenched preconceptions operating to filter out reliable “signals,” and thus distorting intelligence analysis. Reports of a Viet Cong buildup, including an essentially accurate assessment of North Vietnamese intentions by a CIA analyst in Saigon, were either ignored or dismissed because they did not fit with prevailing assumptions about the aims and objectives of the North Vietnamese.134 The case of the Yom Kippur War offers similar evidence of the distortion of intelligence analysis flawed by operating assumptions. The chief cause of the Israeli intelligence failure was a systematic underestimation of the capabilities of their Arab rivals. This, in turn, underpinned a misreading of Arab intentions. Despite a mass of evidence indicating a buildup of Egyptian forces in particular, Israeli leaders continued to assume that no attack was imminent. The most recent study of intelligence before the Yom Kippur War has concluded that key Israeli analysts and decision makers had reached a stage of “epistemic freezing” in which they were unwilling even to consider information or assessments that challenged their fundamental assumptions about the Arab states, their military capabilities, and the intentions of their leaders.135 The post-Cold War era and the recent challenge of transnational terrorism have provided further examples of cognitive limitations affecting threat assessment. Before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. intelligence community possessed extensive information indicating planning for a large-scale attack terrorist attack. It furthermore had received a steady stream of intelligence suggesting plans to attack the mainland United States, and, from 1994 through mid-2001, it also received information indicating terrorist plans to use aircraft as weapons. But both the FBI and the CIA failed to put this information together and to draw the correct conclusion that al-Qaeda was planning to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings.136 A central, though rarely acknowledged, reason for this failure is that the type of attack al-Qaeda was planning did not exist on the “cognitive map” which constituted the conceptual framework for intelligence analyses of terrorist intentions. Even information on terrorist interest in flight


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training did not prompt intelligence analysts to reached correct conclusions about future events that were entirely outside their collective mental experience. Government officials and intelligence chiefs will rightly strive to improve the analytical process. They will appoint more analysts and they will exhort these new appointees to “think outside the box.” Intelligence agencies will continue to develop and use sophisticated and powerful systems for collecting, communicating, and processing information. But there is no remedy for the fundamental limitations imposed by the conditions of human perception. The complexity of the social world renders impossible all efforts to establish a “direct mental interface with reality.”137

Conclusion Two chief conclusions arise out of this long survey of the evolution of intelligence. The first is that truly objective intelligence assessment is an ideal rather than an obtainable reality. Ongoing efforts to rationalize the intelligence process are unlikely to produce a system that is suitable for the security challenges of the future. This is not to say that intelligence officials should not continue to strive for better organization or for objective truth. It is instead to underline the complexities and ambiguities inherent in a process that is fundamentally political and that attempts to monitor an environment that is evolving constantly. Whereas the character of intelligence practice has changed dramatically over time, the complex and uncertain nature of intelligence has remained constant. The second conclusion, which follows from the first, is that foreign and security policy will always be formulated in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Intelligence can provide crucial insight into the intentions and capabilities of other actors. At times it can even make a decisive contribution to the success or failure of a given strategy. But it cannot, and will never, remove uncertainty as a factor in the great strategic and diplomatic questions facing national policy makers. Decision makers must therefore be realistic in what they expect from their intelligence services. Those responsible for making strategic and foreign policy must be well aware of the nature of intelligence information and, in particular, should be wary of basing crucial political decisions on the basis of intelligence reports. The experience of the Blair government and the Bush administration concerning the war on Iraq should serve as a salutary warning of the dangers of such a mistake. Intelligence, even very good intelligence, cannot rescue bad policy.

CHAPTER 2

Poor Intelligence, Flawed Results: Metternich, Radetzky, and the Crisis-Management of Austria’s “Occupation” of Ferrara in 1847 Alan Sked

In 1847, war almost broke out between the Austrian Empire and the Papacy. In an attempt to strengthen the hand of the new liberal pope, Pius IX, against the radicals and revolutionaries to whom he had apparently lost control, Field Marshal Radetzky, commander of the Austrian army in northern Italy, ordered his troops to reinforce the Austrian garrison in the papal town of Ferrara and to patrol the city. This move was approved by the Austrian state chancellor, Prince Klemens von Metternich, but when the pope protested—and the whole of Italy and most of Europe interpreted the actions of the Austrians as unlawful and aggressive—Metternich was forced to negotiate a climb down, which disgusted the army. The whole episode demonstrated how ill-informed Austria was about Italian opinion. Lacking reliable intelligence on the political situation in the Italian peninsula, the Habsburg leadership precipitated a major

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crisis. “I had foreseen everything except a liberal Pope,” declared Metternich.1 Radetzky wrote to his daughter: “Things are quiet here but the fire is burning beneath the ashes. God alone knows how it will end. The pope is flirting with the liberals and believes that he is converting them.”2 Two factors encouraged Radetzky to occupy Ferrara. The first was his—and Metternich’s—assumption that the pope and his cardinals, whatever they might say in public under political pressure, privately shared their conservative outlook in politics, which had led the papacy to ask for Austrian intervention in 1831. The second was a series of reports from Austrian secret police agents, which advised that Austrian intervention in Ferrara would be popular with the people there. One report, dated January 14, 1847, read: People believe that Radetzky will not tolerate a civil guard or patrols in Ferrara, since they say that, according to the treaties, with the exception of the carabinieri which is only entrusted with police work, there can be no other armed force in that town apart from the Austrian garrison. If Radetzky should, therefore, oppose [what is happening in Ferrara] the news would be well received.3 Both the assumption behind Radetzky’s actions and the analysis of the secret police proved false. Yet this kind of intelligence played a central role in the resultant crisis, because it reinforced existing Habsburg assumptions about both the state of Italian opinion and the role of Austria in the peninsula. It was seized upon to justify a robust policy that was in keeping with the traditional Austrian presence in Italy, but out of step with the political realities that had emerged since 1815. The lack of good intelligence proved costly.4

Background In 1846, the reactionary, pro-Austrian pope, Gregory XVI, died. He had, according to one of his cardinals, “left us without a farthing, without credit, without capable leaders, without troops and with a disaffected public opinion.”5 The last was the result of Gregory’s policy of jailing or exiling his political opponents, of his refusal to institute administrative reforms, and of his failure to build railways. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the college of cardinals elected a different type of man to succeed him—Cardinal Mastai-Ferretti, who took the name Pius IX. Their choice was immediately popular; unlike Gregory XVI, who hailed from Venetia, Pius IX, formerly bishop of Imola, was a papal citizen. His new secretary of state, Cardinal Gizzi, was also a papal citizen, and he was popular in his own right; Massimo D’Azeglio,

Poor Intelligence, Flawed Results

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a leading Italian liberal, praised him in his Degli ultimi casi della Romagna for his “humanity” and “nobility of heart.”6 Even Metternich greeted the election of “Pio Nono” as good news.7 Although his views would shortly change, they did not do so immediately, for there were a number of reasons why the Austrian chancellor should have welcomed Pius’s election. For a start, the conclave had been a very brief one—so brief, in fact, that the new pope had been elected before a single foreign cardinal had arrived in Rome. This meant that, unlike the previous occasion (it had taken seven weeks to elect Gregory XVI), there was no time for the expected riots to break out in the Papal States before the election had been completed. Secondly, the fact that Pius had previously been bishop of Imola meant that the new pope would be only too well aware of the deficiencies of papal administration. It was, therefore, plausible to expect that he would institute administrative reforms in the Papal States. Metternich, who had been urging these on the papacy for years, was therefore happy at the prospect of the introduction of the changes.8 Finally, there were diplomatic reasons why the Austrian chancellor should have welcomed Mastai-Ferretti’s elevation. The new papal secretary of state had already spoken out against a Gioberti-type papacy, that is to say, one committed to unifying Italy.9 Just as importantly, the election of Pius IX had dashed the chances of the pro-French Cardinal Bernetti receiving the papal tiara.10 Still, there were doubts. The Austrian ambassador to Rome, Count Lützow, thought the new pope, at 54 years of age, to be too young for the job.11 In fact, despite his 20 years in Rome, Lützow had only met the future Pius IX on one occasion. There perhaps lay the real doubt: uncertainty as to Pio Nono’s real intentions. The Habsburgs lacked well-informed sources on the political intentions of the newly elected leader of the Catholic Church. Significantly, the extremely reactionary ambassador was unacquainted with the new pope’s knowledge of Risorgimento literature, in particular with his admiration of the works of Gioberti. But this surely did not matter. Lützow could content himself with the thought that as Austrian ambassador, the pope would soon be seeking his advice. Yet after only a matter of weeks, the count was complaining that Pius never sought it, and by the autumn of 1847, he would describe himself as “literally isolated.”12 Metternich, on the other hand, had never been slow to dispense advice to anyone. Indeed, only a few weeks after Pius’s election, the chancellor had sent him three “Aperçus” for guidance. In these he had advised the pope, first of all, that he should “govern” and not simply “administer,” and should do so by forming a council of state. Secondly, regarding the amnesty that the pope was expected to proclaim,

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Metternich pointed out that this should be framed as an act of “forgiveness”; in short, it should be a pardon rather than an amnesty. Finally, the Chancellor outlined his usual thoughts on “concessions.” Wisdom and justice on the part of the government were the fruits of reason and duty; “concessions,” on the other hand, were signs of weakness, signifying a surrender of rights. Metternich urged the pope to keep all this in mind.13 It was the same sort of advice he had given all sovereigns since 1815.14 The pope, however, paid no attention to Metternich’s advice. His main source of counsel was the liberal French ambassador, Pelligrino Rossi. For, like the latter, Pius was in tune with the spirit of the age: “Public opinion is a fact,” he once said, adding, “we have to accept it.”15 Soon after his election, therefore, he declared: “We will have railways, we will have an amnesty; we will do things.”16 Perhaps Metternich had been right, therefore, to counsel caution so quickly. The papal reforms in any case began right away. An amnesty was declared on July 17, 1846, the day after Pius’s election; on August 22 a commission was named to report on a scheme to build railways; two days later, the pope began to consider schemes to alleviate the problem of unemployment. November 1846 then saw the introduction of legal reforms, and December that of tariff reforms. The New Year saw the establishment of an agricultural institute and the beginnings of gaslighting in Rome. On March 15, 1847, one of the most important of Pius’s reforms was announced: the freedom of the press, albeit within certain limits. This was followed on June 14 by another spectacular reform, the creation of a council of ministers. It is little wonder, therefore, that by the time the anniversary of the amnesty approached, on June 17, 1847, nearly all of Pius’s subjects—and indeed, nearly all Italians, for that matter—were preparing monstrous celebrations. Pio Nono was, in their eyes, not merely a man of God but a truly enlightened ruler. Or as Lützow put it: “The pope intends to do good and wants this because he sees his subjects not as taxpayers but as his nearest and dearest [Nächsten].”17 He proved this even so far as the radicals were concerned on July 5, when he announced the creation of a national or civic guard. The papal reforms would now be protected, and radicals, too, would have cause to celebrate on July 17. Within a year of his accession, therefore, Pius had become an Italian national hero, perhaps the first Italian hero in history, and he was recognised as such by the whole of Italy and Europe— perhaps even by God himself. The papal celebrations of July 17 were marred, however, by a totally unexpected incident. As the good people of Ferrara were enjoying their festivities, they were suddenly interrupted by the unannounced arrival of Austrian troops. According to the British vice-consul:


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Yesterday morning arrived six companies of Hungarian infantry, two squadrons of cavalry and a small detachment of artillery with three field pieces. After crossing the Po, part at Ponte Lago Scuro and part at Francolina, they arranged themselves in battle order. Orders were given to load their muskets and field pieces and march on Ferrara. In place of directing their course as customary, to the fortress, they paraded up and down several of our principal streets with artillery matches burning. After this part were marched into the citadel and part into the two barracks they hold in our city, San Benedetto and San Domenico; thus augmenting the numbers to about 1,800 in all.18 The Ferrarese were in turn terrified, insulted, and angered. They immediately interpreted this demonstration as an Austrian attack on the pope, who was expected to respond by taking up arms against Austria and launching a crusade to rid Italy of the foreigners. Up and down the peninsula, the cry of “Viva Pio Nono! Fuori i barbari!” (“Long live Pius IX! Out with the barbarians!”) was heard. In the words of two distinguished historians of the Risorgimento, it was the Ferrara episode that “led, eight months later, to the war of 1848.”19 What, then, were the Austrians up to? In the words of Professor Engel-Janosi: It is difficult to perceive the details of the coup, since most of the Austrian documents were destroyed. Was Metternich informed of the plan? Did Radetzky, seeing dangers in delay, act by himself? If the step originated with the State Chancellor, he might be seen—as in the case of the occupation of Cracow in the winter of 1846—as losing his touch on account of age in guiding the affairs of his state. The professor adds in a note: “It is also impossible at present to establish the views of Field Marshal Radetzky in this matter in any detail or to discover what instructions were furnished him by Vienna.” 20 Yet the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna contains many of Radetzky’s reports on Ferrara, even if his correspondence with Count Ficquelmont (Metternich’s righthand man entrusted with settling the affair) has disappeared. More important still, a number of letters exist in this archive that make Metternich’s own position on Ferrara clear. Engel-Janosi could have discovered these letters quite easily, because there are references in the register of the Kriegsarchiv (War Archive), which make their contents as well as their existence plain.21 According to Engel-Janosi, the fullest account of Austrian policy over the Ferrara episode is to be found in the second volume of George

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Fitz-Hardinge and Joan Berkeley’s trilogy, Italy in the Making, 1830–1848. There we are told two things: first, that “we may safely accept that Metternich’s statement that the orders came from Radetzky, acting on his own responsibility”; secondly, that “Metternich wrote to Lützow that Radetzky had not informed him of the order, but that nevertheless he was ready enough to defend it if necessary.”22 The Berkeleys would agree, therefore, with the explanation of the episode given by Metternich’s chief adviser on Italian policy, the former Governor of Lombardy, Count Hartig. In his history of 1848, Hartig wrote that the “strengthening of the Austrian garrison at Ferrara undertaken in the year 1847 with military ostentation,” although “quite lawful for Austria,” was an “anachronism” for which Radetzky was responsible.23 As Hartig put it: “The Cabinet in Vienna cannot be blamed for this anachronism for it first became acquainted with the fact when it was accomplished and was obliged, therefore, to assert its own legal rights.” 24 It would seem, therefore, that Metternich had not been informed of Radetzky’s move, but had nonetheless had to suffer its diplomatic consequences. In fact, this is not true. From the records of the Kriegsarchiv, we can state that Radetzky’s orders to Count Auersperg, the Austrian commander in Ferrara, were issued on July 16. The orders were transmitted the next day to Vienna, where Count Hardegg, the president of the Hofkreigsrat (war office), received them on July 21 and passed them on to the chancellor.25 By July 27, Metternich had returned Radetzky’s orders to the Hofkriegsrat, where they were entered once again in the register, this time with the comment:26 “the Chancellor declares himself in agreement with the orders given to the Fort Commander, Count Auersperg.” In other words, before the storm broke over Ferrara, Metternich had seen and approved the orders, even if he had not been party to them before Radetzky and would have had no time to rescind them if he had wanted to. In fact, as will be seen later, he not only approved Radetzky’s orders, but also pressed the Austrian claims further. The original occupation of Ferrara, therefore, in no way upset the chancellor, although, in contradistinction to Radetzky, he later realized that the reaction the occupation provoked meant that Austria would have to give way.27 Even then, however, he was not prepared to relinquish Austria’s position for several months. Metternich’s policy with regard to Ferrara can best be understood if it is placed within the perspective of his overall policy regarding Italy in the period from 1846 to 1848.28 This policy was essentially defensive, and therefore pacific.29 The state chancellor had no intention of leading an antirevolutionary crusade. His objective was to strengthen and consolidate the Austrian position in northern Italy, in hopes that pressure from the European Concert, as well as from Austria, would allow the


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governments of Naples and the Papal States to reform and make their own regimes sufficiently effective, obviating the need for outside intervention. On the other hand, the experience of the previous 20 years had hardly increased Metternich’s optimism regarding southern Italy. He feared that maladministration there would one day afford the revolutionaries their chance. As a result, his first priority was to ensure that northern Italy would be sufficiently protected to prevent it too from succumbing to revolutionary subversion. To this end he took a number of steps to consolidate the imperial position. These included strengthening Field Marshal Radetzky’s army in Italy; retaining the defense of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany (new defense treaties were negotiated with Parma and Modena in December 1847); and retaining the Austrian garrisons (under the terms of the Vienna treaties of 1815) in the papal cities of Comacchio and Ferrara. Diplomatically, his objectives included winning back Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia from revolutionary temptation and gaining the support of the powers (especially France) for the maintenance of the status quo in Italy. In 1847, it seemed as if these objectives might still be achieved. Charles Albert had not yet openly backed the revolution. Perhaps even more importantly, French premier François Guizot had harmonized France’s Italian policy with that of Austria. Metternich believed therefore that they could cooperate, and made a list detailing their joint goals: 1. To maintain the state of the Church on the conditions which form the present basis of its existence; 2. To silence the agitation in the state; 3. To assure the means of achieving the above, by strengthening the governmental authority, as may seem most reasonable;30 4. M. Guizot and I will consider the enterprise as successful if it results in maintaining peace in the state of the Church and consequently in the Italian peninsula; as also in diminishing the chances of a material intervention by Austria for the purpose of smothering revolutionary outbreaks.31 The trouble was that by July 1847, the pope, under the influence of the French ambassador Rossi (whose aims did not perhaps fully coincide with those of Guizot) and under pressure from the radicals, appeared to have allowed the reform movement to slip out of control.32 This had not seemed totally inevitable; even in June 1847, Gizzi had issued a notification in which certain reforms were ruled out, because they “would undermine the existence of the sovereignty (of the papacy), or at all events would diminish its intrinsic liberty and independence in

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the exercising of the Supreme Primacy.”33 Gizzi’s notification also mentioned the “distress” caused to Pius by those who would take advantage of the present situation to set forth and cause to prevail doctrines and thoughts entirely contrary to his maxims; and to push or set up claims entirely opposed to the calm and peaceful disposition and the sublime character of one who is Vicar of Jesus Christ, Minister of the God of Peace, and Father of all Catholics alike—whatever be the part of the world to which they belong.34 Gizzi clearly, therefore, was warning the public not to expect a crusade against Austria. He was also, as it happened, rejecting the then-popular pressure for the creation of a national guard. Indeed, so frightened was the new secretary of state of this demand that, at the beginning of July 1847, he asked Lützow under what conditions the Austrians would intervene.35 Metternich replied that an intervention was impracticable, although the Austrians would obviously offer help if the pope himself requested it. Yet it was almost certain that the pope himself would never make such a request. In Lützow’s words: “he could not make it even if he wanted to.”36 As it was, the pope’s own outlook differed radically from Gizzi’s, for on July 5, having accepted advice that it was wise to bow to the inevitable, Pius sanctioned the creation of a national or civic guard. Gizzi resigned. He believed that the pope had now surrendered control of events and had given way to revolution, a belief that was shared by Lützow, Guizot, Metternich, and Radetzky.37 Metternich’s main concern was that the revolutionary ferment in the Papal States should in no way infect the population of Austrian Italy. His problem was simply how to prevent this happening. Having ruled out an invasion of the Papal States as impracticable—the French might intervene and reach Rome first; besides, there was only a limited number of Austrian troops available—he had to think of further ways in which to consolidate imperial defenses. In particular, the chancellor worried about what to do if papal troops were to cross their borders and attack the Austrian army in northern Italy. On July 17, therefore, the day of the anniversary of Pius’s amnesty, and the day on which the Austrian reinforcements “occupied” Ferrara, Metternich submitted to Emperor Ferdinand a memorandum for the creation of a 25,000-strong “task force” to repel any threat from central Italy.38 Such a force, he stressed, would be used only as a “preventive measure,” because Austrian policy was purely defensive. This step, however, was never taken.39 The financial resources were not available, and, in any case, the international furore over the Ferrara episode undermined the chancellor’s position. Radetzky’s action in fact served not


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merely to undermine Metternich’s diplomacy with France; it also made Austria’s policy in northern Italy appear offensive, obscured the fact that Pius had lost control of the papal reform movement, justified the need for a papal national guard, and, worst of all, seemed to invite a papal crusade to expel Austria from Italy. In this respect, it also completely undermined any of Pius’s lingering hopes to pursue a moderate policy. The field marshal, in fact, had committed a first-class blunder. Yet, because this was not immediately apparent, and having himself approved Radetzky’s orders, Metternich instructed Lützow to defend the Austrian case. It ran as follows: the Austrian reinforcements had merely entered Ferrara in the same manner in which they would have entered, say, Vienna; moreover, by garrisoning and patrolling the town—and not merely the citadel as was customary—these troops were within their rights. The relevant article of the Vienna treaty had given Austria the right, in respect to the Papal States, to garrison the “places” of Comacchio and Ferrara. “Place” was shorthand for the French place forte (fortified town), but because neither Commachio nor Ferrara had a citadel (Ferrara’s having been in ruins since 1815), it was clear that the treaty had assigned Austria the right to garrison the whole “wall-surrounded” town of Ferrara. Metternich quoted a letter from a former Austrian commander of Ferrara, Marshal Bellegarde, to back up this contention. For in 1816, the papal authorities had allowed Bellegarde to quarter troops outside the citadel. There were, of course, counterarguments that made compromise difficult. For a start, there was no need to suppose that Austrian troops should enter a town in papal territory in the manner in which they would enter an Austrian town; secondly, because Ferrara was an ancient Italian capital, it would have been referred to in 1815 as a “town” rather than a “place” (forte) had it been the intention of the diplomats to refer to the whole city; finally, Bellegarde’s letter of 1816 merely incorporated Austrian claims that had been objected to both before and since and, therefore, proved nothing.40 The result was a series of complicated negotiations, during the course of which it became clear that Britain, France, the whole of Italy, and even Prussia were on the side of the pope. The matter was only eventually settled, when on December 16, 1847, the situation reverted to the status quo ante, with the Austrian troops restricted to the citadel of Ferrara, a settlement that the imperial army regarded as humiliating.41

Radetzky and the Ferrara Episode: Blundering with the Best of Intentions The works of both Engel-Janosi and the Berkeleys provide a reasonable account of the international context of the Ferrara affair. However,

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because none of the authors had access to Radetzky’s correspondence on the matter, their accounts are one-sided. Only by examining his role can one understand how the dispute came about, what Austria was aiming at, and how Metternich was willing to subordinate military matters to diplomatic priorities. It was the Austrian army that had been responsible for the diplomatic crisis over Ferrara. Radetzky had, on July 16, 1847, issued instructions to Count Auersperg, his newly appointed commander in Ferrara, to increase the garrison there. Crucially, reports from the Austrian secret police in northern Italy had suggested that this would be a popular move.42 And Auersperg’s instructions had been framed in such a way—at least from Radetzky’s point of view—to cause the minimum of fuss. These instructions have never been published before, so to clarify Radetzky’s position beyond all possible doubt, and to clear him from any charge of war-mongering or provocation, they will now be given in full, along with Metternich’s approval of them. Radetzky, it seems, was simply taking a routine, precautionary measure to strengthen the position of the lawful authorities in Ferrara at a time when he (and many other observers, including Metternich and Lützow) expected, in view of the creation of the national guard, civil order in the Papal States to crumble into dust. Radetzky’s orders to Auersperg were therefore composed as follows: Recent political events, including an agitation which has seized the whole of the Papal States and brought about the unfortunate decision of the Roman government to arm the entire population in the form of a so-called national guard, have made me resolve to strengthen the garrison at Ferrara and to place in your care both the relevant orders as well as the fortress itself for the duration of the present circumstances. You will, therefore, immediately on receipt of this order proceed as follows: 1. You will, for the moment, leave the garrison duties exactly as they are, save that, particularly with regard to the citadel, you can take whatever steps its security or that of the garrison requires. 2. You will restrict yourself to the role of a purely neutral observer and distance yourself from all the intrigues of the parties, which no doubt will soon find themselves fighting one another. You will observe everything and report all incidents to me. 3. You know the lack of trust of the Roman authorities from previous experiences. This must be even greater in their present circumstances. You will therefore conduct yourself in all matters with the greatest


4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

9.

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regard and respect for them, although you will reject any demand that is incompatible with our occupation rights or with the dignity of our government. If the legate should demand an explanation from you regarding the strengthening of the garrison, you will tell him that you have no authority to discuss any sort of political question, but that the most likely cause would be the anarchic condition of the Roman provinces and the need on our side to take security measures to maintain order in our own provinces that border on them. In particular you will keep a watchful eye on the neighboring town of Bologna, because it really forms a sort of intermediate government, and it is from there that the whole revolutionary machinery will be set in motion. If the case should arise of the Swiss troops being driven out of the legations by force and compelled to retreat towards Ferrara, you will take them under your protection. Supervise the discipline of the troops carefully and ensure they avoid any clashes with the national guard being formed there. Should the revolutionaries adopt a hostile position towards you, which in any case does not seem likely to me, or, indeed, should they go over to the attack, then I expect you to know how to maintain the security of the fortress entrusted to you as well as the honor of our troops. The situation in Rome is such that there is really no government there, but merely frightened puppets of an agitated populace, manipulated by sects, secret societies, and revolutionaries who will tolerate them only for so long as they are needed. It could quite easily arise, that the legate himself might have to take advantage of your protection; in this case you will receive him and treat him with all the respect worthy of his position. In extraordinary circumstances, consult with your corps commanders; send the reports of all incidents, if circumstances require, either by telegraph or by courier. Never allow yourself to give the appearance of being the aggressor. Our role at present is a completely defensive one so long as superior orders do not indicate a different position. The situation is no longer as it was previously; that is, it simply cannot be assumed that the Roman government will call for our intervention. I regard the Pope at present as a prisoner in his own capital who is robbed of his freedom of maneuver. Radetzky m/p Field Marshal43

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Radetzky’s report, with Auersperg’s instructions reached Hardegg, the President of the Hofkriegsrat, on July 21. On July 22, it was “immediately” passed on to Metternich.44 The chancellor returned it to Hardegg on July 26, with the following comments: With the contents of the instructions issued by the field marshal to FML Count Auersperg, the appointed fortress sub-commander of Ferrara, I can only declare myself to be in full agreement. Through Article 3 of the same it is made the duty of the fortress commander to observe the greatest regard and respect in all his dealings with the papal authorities, yet on the other hand to reject any demand that is not compatible with the occupation rights of the imperial and royal troops. The strict observation of this paragraph should serve to secure the execution of Article 7, by which the fortress commander is instructed to ensure that any kind of friction with the civic guard, if one should be created in Ferrara, should be avoided. It is a general military rule that in fortresses, no civil guard can be independent of the fortress commander, nor can it assemble without his foreknowledge. I have not omitted to draw the attention of the papal government to the need arising from this to establish an understanding between the imperial and royal general command and the highest civil authorities in Ferrara, although I hope that, as a result of this suggestion, the holy cardinal-legate of Ferrara will be instructed to be willing to lend his approval to such an understanding. I kindly beseech Your Excellency to invite Field Marshal Count Radetzky to cooperate in this matter on his side in the spirit of his instructions to Count Auersperg, in which moderation shares an equal place with firmness, just as proper respect is accorded to the consequences of our occupation rights and to the rights of the allied territorial government.45 A number of conclusions can be drawn from this exchange of letters. In the first place, it seems that Radetzky was at pains to point out to Auersperg that relations with the Papal States had undergone a change. That is to say, despite the memory of 1831, when Austrian troops had intervened to restore the authority of Gregory XVI, and despite recent


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inquiries from the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Gizzi, Radetzky thoroughly understood that a papal request to intervene on this occasion was extremely unlikely. He was not in any way guilty, therefore, of Hartig’s charge of anachronistic behavior, and his instructions, as indeed Metternich noted, combined firmness with moderation. Radetzky, if anything, saw himself acting to aid the pope and the papal authorities, who he considered to be intimidated by the mob. Hence, he specifically instructed Auersperg to be ready—albeit only if requested— to give protection to the papal legate and even to the Swiss guard. In short, his motives for reinforcing the garrison at Ferrara, far from having anything to do with threatening the pope, were concerned with being in a position to help, should the revolutionaries threaten even the papal authorities. Radetzky’s central mistake, which was a product insufficient good intelligence on political sentiment in Italy, was to assume that the papal authorities were basically conservative and pro-Austrian in their political sympathies. The ill-founded reports by secret police thus played an important role in the evolution of the crisis, because they reinforced preexisting assumptions within the Austrian leadership about the political positions of the papal authorities. In all likelihood, therefore, the episode of Ferrara arose by accident. It is even entirely possible that Auersperg (whose instructions, after all, had ordered him “never to give the appearance of being the aggressor”), had had his troops enter the town in the Austrian fashion, without being aware of what was happening there, certainly without any expectation of the reaction they would provoke. History, after all, is awash with just such incidents and accidents. Metternich’s letter, despite any statements that he may have made subsequently, makes it perfectly clear that he approved of the steps that Radetzky had taken. True, he had been given no time to countermand them, if indeed he had thought that to be necessary. Yet the most significant aspect of the chancellor’s letter is neither his approval nor his lack of time to disapprove, but the fact that his approval was combined with his resolve, before the hostile reaction of the papal authorities could have been made known to him, to take the matter one step further. Thus in his letter to Hardegg, it was Metternich—not Radetzky—who specifically raised the question of the relationship of the Austrians to the civic guard within the fortress. Radetzky’s first instructions to Auersperg had been to leave garrison matters as they were. It was Metternich, on the other hand, who immediately contacted the papal government (even before he had time to write to Hardegg) suggesting that an arrangement be made by which the civic guard at Ferrara would come under the orders of Auersperg himself in certain matters. That is what the chancellor’s general

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principle, namely that “in fortresses no civil guard can be independent of the fortress commander, nor assemble without his foreknowledge,” really meant. And it was this general principle, as much as the original treaty rights of 1815, around which the subsequent dispute and negotiations were to turn. Before that stage was reached, however, a more practical issue arose: What was to be done about lodgings for the officers who had been sent along with the reinforcements to Ferrara? The papal authorities, under orders from the pope himself, had refused to accommodate them. Radetzky, in a report that no longer survives, but which must have included Auersperg’s own description of his arrival in Ferrara, had on July 22 posed this question to Hardegg, who in turn had passed the buck to Metternich on July 28.46 On July 31, therefore, Metternich had to make a rather embarrassing confession in reply: “It is well known that with regard to the exercise of the garrison right in Ferrara and Comacchio by the imperial and royal troops, no particular agreement was reached with the papal authorities.” According to the chancellor, therefore, the important thing was to discover “what had happened in practice over a number of years,” because he could only answer Radetzky’s inquiry once he knew if and how the officers had been quartered when the garrison had been reinforced in the past.47 Perhaps this supremely practical matter, therefore, reminded Metternich that the Austrian case from the very start was less than watertight. In any event, the difficulty over accommodation was soon removed; on August 2, Hardegg passed to Metternich a report from Radetzky that informed him not only that Ferrara was more peaceful, but also that, thanks to the efforts of the papal legate, Cardinal Ciacchi, the extra troops had been quartered in two barracks in the town and that their officers were in private quarters close by.48 This cooperation on the part of the papal legate, however, merely led Radetzky and Hardegg to suspect that, in spite of the legate’s official instructions and the protests being made in Rome to Lützow, Ciacchi must also have been acting on confidential instructions from Rome. In Hardegg’s words: “As far as the government there is concerned, the only thing that really matters is not to concede the extension of our occupation right to the town of Ferrara through an official document issued on its behalf.”49 In other words, Radetzky and Hardegg believed that the protests were meant simply for public opinion, that the papal government was merely bluffing, and that Austria’s interpretation of its occupation rights would soon be accepted in practice. This misreading of papal intentions was only bolstered by faulty intelligence from the Austrian secret police. It remained to be seen, however, just how compliant Ciacchi would be.


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The outlook was by no means bleak. On August 2, Auersperg replied to a (now missing) letter from Radetzky, explaining that with regard to night patrols, he for his part preferred not to institute any. True, this meant that the patrols were being conducted by the national guard, which “had scarcely any conception of military duties,” but Auersperg reckoned that if he were to introduce parallel patrols during that time of heightened tension, it would immediately lead to “unpleasant clashes if not bloody scenes.”50 Moreover, Auersperg agreed with Ciacchi that the questions of passwords for and the selection of these patrols were not important, although Ciacchi, for his part, had made it clear that if new regulations were to be introduced, he would have to protest. In light of the general principle that Metternich had already laid down, therefore, Auersperg was behaving remarkably liberally and clearly doing everything possible not to upset the Ferrarese. Indeed, he was even corresponding with Lützow through Ciacchi, a rather extraordinary gesture of trust on his part.51 On the other hand, Auersperg wanted Radetzky himself to make the final decision regarding the patrols. The field marshal, meanwhile, was again writing to Auersperg to stress the need for caution and to pass on to him a copy of Metternich’s approving letter. Radetzky also empowered Auersperg to reach an understanding with Ciacchi, while giving him the following advice: First of all, I remind you to observe the greatest moderation and respect in your conversations with the cardinal. Fill your speech with all possible devotion in order to avoid mistrust. But do not leave yourself unprotected, and stick firmly to the principle that we have the right to occupy the piazza of Ferrara and not merely the citadel. Show the cardinal that the town is not tenable without the citadel, nay that every soldier must regret the situation of a city that lies under the cannons of a citadel and is exposed to destruction at any moment. The fate of Antwerp recently should give sufficient proof of that. You can let it slip into conversation that the service of the House of Austria in upholding Catholicism and the Holy See, the devotion of the Emperor, our master, towards the same, ought to obviate any mistrust, that it is even in the interest of the Holy See itself to possess a city through which it can receive the support of a sincerely friendly power, that Austria, as the most powerful state of the peninsula, can have no other interest but to maintain peace and order in Italy, on which the autonomy and independence of its princes depend—and the cardinal himself will not deny it in the present circumstances—[both of which] are [now] threatened to the highest degree.52

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Radetzky, therefore, was still working on the assumption that the views of the pope must coincide with his own and that he was in fact offering timely, military assistance to the Holy Father. The rest of his advice concerned the details of a possible agreement. He reminded Auersperg of Metternich’s general principle that no civic guard could be independent of a fortress commander and that any activity it indulged in, if not of a strictly police nature, should be reported to the commander for approval. From this it followed that the commander should choose the password and arrange for the selection of names for night patrols. If the cardinal objected that the Italians could not understand German names or words, the process could be conducted in Italian: “All our soldiers are sufficiently fluent in Italian to obviate any fear of a misunderstanding,” wrote Radetzky. The fortress commander, likewise, would have to be informed beforehand if any exercises (particularly those involving rifles) were planned by the national guard. This was the rule in Austrian garrisons, and there was nothing in it to infringe upon the sovereignty of the Holy See.53 “All German federal fortresses,” wrote the field marshal, “are placed in a similar position, and even if the Holy See is not a member of a federation with Austria, they are nonetheless linked by intimate ties of friendship and by a common interest against principles that aim at nothing less than the overthrow of the existing state system in Italy.” Once again, therefore, Radetzky’s assumption of shared viewpoints and interests shone through. If Ferrara and Piacenza, Radetzky continued, had been weakly garrisoned in the past, this was merely because Francis I had wanted to spend as little money as possible on troops stationed abroad. Yet Austrian troops and their commanders had always been quartered in the city. In 1831, the Austrians had even taken over the main and tower watches, but if these had subsequently been partly relinquished to the Swiss Guard, the subordination of the latter to the fortress commander had never been questioned. If necessary, therefore, these watches could once again be taken over by the Austrians. Auersperg was to explain to Ciacchi that such a step would only be a natural one, and to reject any objections from the legate. Radetzky, in any case, expected the fuss to die down quickly as the Ferrarese lost their enthusiasm for a civic guard. Indeed, according to the field marshal, this was already partially occurring. A civil guard, they were discovering, cost them “gold, time, and energy” and was simply unnecessary in a town protected by Austrian bayonets, swords, and cannon. Finally, he affected to see hope in the position of Ciacchi: “If I judge the character of the cardinal correctly,” wrote Radetzky, “his main motive is fear of compromising himself in the eyes of the liberal party. I think he will come out of his hiding place


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once he gains trust in your loyalty.” Auersperg, on the other hand, was warned not to let this mislead him, but “to stick firmly to the spirit and the principle, which His Highness, the Prince Chancellor, has expressed in his letter to the president of the Hofkriegsrat.”54 By August 2, Radetzky, Auersperg, and probably even Metternich, believed that Ferrara would turn out to be a storm in a teacup. This belief rested on the conviction, which was only strengthened by faulty secret police intelligence, that Austria and the Holy See shared fundamental values and convictions, whatever the politics of the moment. Quite suddenly, however, events took a turn for the worse. For on the night before Auersperg had composed his rather optimistic report, an incident had occurred which was to persuade him that it was urgently desirable after all to “extend the patrol duties from our side as quickly as possible to the town itself.”55 A Captain Jankovich of the Franz Karl infantry regiment had been threatened by a group of men with hunting rifles and swords while returning home to his quarters in the citadel. The men had whistled on others to help them, until eventually a crowd of 50 to 80 people had assembled barring Jankovich’s way and shouting “Evviva Italia! Evviva la libertà! Evviva Pio Nono!” Jankovich, not unnaturally, had gone to the nearest barracks, assembled a patrol, and made his way back, whereupon the crowd dispersed. The next day, therefore, having dispatched his optimistic report to Radetzky, Auersperg saw Ciacchi in order to demand a full investigation of the incident. He also declared that on every night in future, he would send out his own patrols, particularly in the area of the esplanade, in order to clear it of people who had nothing better to do than loiter there. He was informing the papal authorities of this, he claimed, so that they might keep out of the road of his own patrols and avoid conflicts over passwords and selections. Ciacchi, for his part, expressed horror and disgust at what had happened, promised a full investigation of the incident, albeit with little hope of finding those responsible. He made no protest about the proposed patrols of the esplanade, but once again declared that he would have to protest if these were extended to the town. Auersperg replied that he was awaiting higher instructions on that matter, to which Ciacchi responded that he would have to report to Rome. After the meeting, Auersperg informed Radetzky that things had changed. He needed to patrol the city to protect the Austrian inspection officers that visited the barracks at night, to safeguard communications, and to cut down the number of murders in the town, which the young, inexperienced men of the civic guard patrols were ineffective in combatting. He suggested that the patrols should be undertaken jointly with papal troops at alternating hours according to the usual arrangements;

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the password could be changed at every watch or every month, being chosen alternately by the papal and the Austrian authorities. Finally, a papal carabiniere could accompany the Austrian patrols in order to avoid any conflicts occurring or any difficulties over speech. Auersperg’s report ended with a request for Radetzky to make arrangements quickly, before the legate had time to protest. Yet, although a protest was clearly expected, Auersperg revealed a rather curious assessment of the cardinal. He wrote of Ciacchi: “Although the legate certainly recognizes the justice of the matter, he is boxed in by the general view that he misplays his cards on account of his pliability in affairs which has not been true for years; inwardly, however, he will certainly be happy if [everything] occurs despite his protests.” Auersperg, therefore, still shared Radetzky’s optimistic assumption about common values.56 The field marshal replied to Auersperg on August 4, telling him that he was to send out patrols of not less than six men and a noncommissioned officer (to be of moderate character and able to speak Italian) to all parts of the town frequented by officers and men. The cardinal-legate was to be told “most politely and firmly” that he could select the passwords and names; however, the field marshal predicted that, on orders from Rome, he would refuse to do so. Radetzky also ordered Auersperg to ensure that all civic patrols were led by either carabinieri or men of the line with military service, because the Austrian troops would cooperate better with these than with armed peasants. On no account, however, were the troops to be mixed up in ordinary police patrols, although if someone were caught attempting to murder someone else, the suspect was to be taken alive and handed over to the usual authorities.57 Regarding Ciacchi himself, Radetzky was no longer prepared to be as generous as Auersperg. “The cardinal’s regret at every incident which arises,” he wrote at one point in the letter, “no longer satisfies me.”58 At another point: “If the cardinal must or can allow it to happen that peaceful citizens are murdered with impunity, perhaps because they have principles which only a short time ago were those of the Rome government, then let him square it with his conscience.” The only excuse Radetzky could find for Ciacchi was that he was forced to submit to a mob of fanatics. Yet the field marshal continued to make it plain to Auersperg that the legate was to be treated with honor: “Once again I remind you, although I am in any case convinced of your prudence, to employ the most courteous and considerate terms respecting the cardinal.” On the other hand, he stressed: Make him firmly aware that Austria will not allow herself to relinquish her rights through mob action. Make him see that this agitation, which is controlled by the leaders of the sects, this planned


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stirring up of the people, which the cardinal can only passively oppose or watch, must drive things to a climax. Refuse any responsibility for the consequences which result from it. Justice and strength are on our side; the only thing is not to be found wanting in the formalities.59 Radetzky, therefore, was a diplomat after all. His final advice to Auersperg concerned what should happen in the event of any “formal popular uprising” that the revolutionaries might attempt. In that eventuality, Auersperg was to take command of the main and tower watches, prohibit any assembly of the national guard as incompatible with security needs, and to offer the cardinal any protection that he might demand either for his own person, for private or public property, or for the security of peaceful citizens. Radetzky, as usual, reported all these instructions to Hardegg, who passed them on to Metternich. Matters had now deteriorated. The Jankovich incident had forced the Austrians to patrol the town at night and to assert their rights as they saw them. Meanwhile, the cardinal-legate, who had warned of an official protest, had written to Rome for instructions. Still, Radetzky saw him as being fundamentally on the same side as the Austrians, who, after all, were in Ferrara precisely to offer him official protection should “a formal popular uprising” break out.60 The field marshal did not yet see cardinals or the pope himself as revolutionaries. The official protest, when it came, reviewed events in Ferrara and condemned the occupation as “entirely illegal and contrary to agreements subsequent to the Treaty of Vienna and to long unbroken custom.”61 Drawn up in Ciacchi’s name, it ended: “I do solemnly and in the most emphatic manner protest against the illegality of such an act and of every ulterior act which may be committed in prejudice of the said right, and of these pontifical subjects entrusted to my administration and guardianship.” But Lützow learned, to the astonishment of the Austrians, that the document had been dictated not by Ciacchi, but by the pope himself.62 Nor was the protest allowed to remain a local affair. For on August 9 (the day before the protest was officially published in Rome), the new papal secretary of state, Cardinal Ferretti, made an appeal to Europe. Three days later, Ferretti again wrote to the nuncio in Vienna, condemning “the carefully-planned entry of the Austrian reinforcements for His Imperial Majesty’s garrison (in Ferrara); especially as it was carried out with every appearance of a hostile entry, the troops being preceded by vedettes, the cavalry carrying their carbines in their hands, the colours flying, and the longest way being selected for the march to the citadel.”63 In Ferrara, meanwhile, affairs deteriorated further. The night patrols that Radetzky had ordered went out from August 6 onward, but with

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predictable results. On August 7, Auersperg reported to the field marshal that no agreement could be reached with Ciacchi.64 Two days later, Radetzky responded, writing that the cardinal-legate “was as little master of his negotiations as was his government in Rome.”65 Yet, “however much I take his pitiable position into account,” added the field marshal, “I can still only regard him as the lawful authority and not the leaders of the sects or the mob-rulers of Ferrara.” Radetzky still assumed, therefore, that it was political pressure, rather than the genuine political views of the cardinal and indeed the pope (which he assumed were pro-Austrian), that was directing the flow of events. A lack of reliable intelligence led to crucial misperceptions concerning the intentions of the papacy, and thus to flawed policy making. Radetzky’s advice to Auersperg was to stick firmly to what he had done and to make no concessions, because these would only lead to further trouble. Meanwhile, he was to report all incidents directly to Lützow in Rome, because “a precise knowledge of the position of things” in Ferrara was vital to the ambassador’s task. Auersperg, finally, was reminded once again “to maintain the spirit of moderation which he had displayed up till now.” Radetzky himself, however, was showing signs of impatience. In his letter to Auersperg, and more especially in a letter of the same date in which he forwarded the fortress commander’s report to Hardegg, the field marshal not merely condemned Ciacchi’s “bungling” and opposed concessions, but added a new threat. As he put it to Hardegg: “It is . . . not improbable . . . that people are seeking a conflict with our troops. Regarding the outcome of any struggle, I am quite calm. But I am fully determined,” he added, “to place Ferrara under martial law.” In his letter to Auersperg, he had threatened first of all to send reinforcements, and then to declare martial law.66 Another report from Auersperg, dated August 9, encouraged Radetzky to write him a second letter that same day. In it, he agreed with his fortress commander that Ciacchi was intent on ignoring Austria’s rights, but this time Radetzky blamed the fact on a secret council of advisers: “That the cardinal’s secret council is composed of the leaders of the sects,” wrote the field marshal, “is clear.”67 This information almost certainly came from the Austrian secret police. The field marshal consequently held out no hope of any agreement being reached with Ciacchi and told Auersperg that he alone would have the task of maintaining order. Given this scenario, Radetzky issued new instructions concerning the watch. Henceforth, he wrote, the main and tower watches would have to be filled by Austrian troops. The whole Austrian garrison, therefore, was to be paraded on the esplanade, and these posts were to be taken over during this display of the Austrian military


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presence. The garrison itself would remain under weapons until this had been done, and if the cardinal demanded an explanation, he was to be told it was simply “a regulation based on the obvious principles of garrison duty.” Thereafter, Auersperg was to ensure that the main watch was always commanded by reliable officers. Radetzky instructed that these orders were to remain top secret until carried out. Radetzky also issued instructions regarding the city jail and the palace of the Archduke d’Este, which looked rather like a castle, but which served as the residence of the cardinal-legate. According to the field marshal, Auersperg did not actually need to be in command of either of these buildings, but should be aware of what, at least in military terms, was going on there. For example, if the palazzo were turned into a fort, the Austrians were to occupy it. The field marshal, likewise, had new instructions regarding Ciacchi: Auersperg was told to have as little to do with the cardinal as possible. “Tell him only things which you can say in the open street. . . . [I]n all matters relating to duty, choose to communicate only in writing, albeit with the greatest circumspection.”68 Radetzky explained his reasoning for this to Hardegg. The legate, according to Radetzky, was surrounded by a secret committee whose orders he had to take; like his superiors in Rome, he was the “powerless puppet” of the mob. In his letter to Hardegg, however, Radetzky reported that the cardinal had made the written demand that the civic guard should man the main and tower watch, and his same note referred to Austria’s garrison rights as “lapsed.”69 It was as a result of this, therefore, that Radetzky had “anticipated” events by ordering Auersperg to take over these watches himself. Aware, however, that this move on his part would create uproar in Italy and Paris (where, he complained, the politicians deliberately misrepresented his “reinforcements” as an “occupation” force), he beseeched Hardegg to counter the hostile criticism expected with more favorable propaganda from the Austrian side. “It is extremely necessary for our police here to double their vigilance and energy,” he wrote. “I cannot suppress this remark, even though it falls outside my sphere of authority.”70 One might think that the Austrian police had already caused him enough trouble. Their flawed intelligence reports had contributed significantly to what was becoming a European crisis. Radetzky again concluded his report with the threat of imposing martial law on the town. If neither his energy nor the fear of his power could bring the authorities and masses in Ferrara to their senses, then anything might happen, and he would be compelled—“against my will”—to place the fortress under martial law. He assured Hardegg he would resort to such an “unpalatable step” only “in circumstances of the greatest need.” Still he maintained that “it [was] necessary to raise the matter in advance.”71

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In Ferrara, meanwhile, the field marshal’s instructions were being carried out. On the morning of August 13, Auersperg paraded the garrison under arms on the esplanade and took over the watch posts of the city. “The papal troops had to be withdrawn from their posts in broad daylight before an immense crowd. The citizens saw all these things and made no resistance, because none was possible, but they put up their shutters and here and there were heard shouts of ‘Viva Pio Nono!’”72 Cardinal Ciacchi, meanwhile, drew up a second solemn protest.

Metternich, Radetzky, and the Need to Find an Exit Strategy Metternich had kept in touch with events through Hardegg, who passed on all the field marshal’s reports to him. On August 20, the chancellor returned several of them with comments on the Jankovich episode: I see from Your Excellency’s report number 1287CK of the fourteenth of this month which I have likewise not failed to enclose, that the cardinal-legate of Ferrara has protested against the night patrols, which the field marshal has ordered on account of Captain Jankovich having been attacked by a mob. [He has done this] in spite of the necessity and appropriateness of such military measures, which, under the circumstances, are both simple and completely justified. That Field Marshal Radetzky is determined not to be diverted by the cardinal’s rash step from fulfilling his duty regarding the security of the imperial and royal garrison at Ferrara was only to be expected from [a man] of his energy and can only be approved of by any impartial observer.73 Metternich also informed Hardegg that the papal government in Rome had summoned Lützow and had reinforced Ciacchi’s protest. Yet “however unpleasant this might be,” wrote Metternich, it could not change the fact that Austria had a treaty right to occupy Ferrara and would do everything “just and reasonable” to uphold the consequences of that right. He continued: Austria’s just rights will not be infringed, the less so since I can only concur with the field marshal’s view of the serious consequences of any untimely conciliation. This is the tone that the imperial cabinet will adopt in Rome. Moreover, Count Radetzky has behaved very prudently because he has ordered Count Auersperg to inform the imperial and royal ambassador in Rome of all incidents directly. Such arrangements can only make Count Lützow’s task easier.


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Austria’s position in Ferrara, therefore, seemed to be rock solid. However, on the very next day, August 21, Metternich again wrote to Hardegg, this time expressing doubts about Radetzky’s position; the field marshal’s instructions to Auersperg on August 11 had clearly influenced the chancellor’s thinking. As far as the Austrian takeover of the main and tower watches in Ferrara was concerned, Metternich stated that he “did not hesitate to agree” that such a step was “necessitated both on account of Austria’s garrison rights as well as the fluctuating nature of things in the town itself.” On the other hand, he disagreed with Hardegg in simply dismissing Ciacchi’s description of such a right as having “lapsed.” He had obviously paid close attention to the legate’s note to Auersperg, and drew Hardegg’s attention to a passage in it which ran: “Il governo Pontifico eserciterebbe del suo pieno diretto, senza dare causa ad infrangere quei patti scadenti anche degli Accordi posteriori al Trattato di Vienna e sanciti da una lunga successiva consuetudine.”74 According to Metternich, this passage was unclear on two accounts. First, he correctly pointed out that the Italian was ungrammatical—it should have read “il,” not “del suo pieno diritto”; more important, however, was the fact that the meaning was unclear. Yet Metternich interpreted it as follows: That the papal government [is] fully within its rights [and is causing] no infringement of any treaty-type arrangements (Vertragsmässigen Zustandes) stemming from agreements made after the acts of the Vienna Congress, and that in this sentence, the cardinal by no means seems to have the intention to declare our garrison right to be obsolete, but only intends to point out that according to the customary exercise of this, not the papal government, but much more so, the imperial and royal garrison, has seen fit to introduce changes.75 Metternich, therefore, was coming to the conclusion that the dispute as such was not one of principle, but merely one of detail and custom. If the principle could be saved, then perhaps Austria should not persist too stubbornly over the details. The rest of the letter hinted that although Vienna had backed Radetzky to the hilt so far, the field marshal should do nothing to make life more difficult for Austria’s diplomats in the future: In all events it seems to me that through the complete occupation of the main and tower watches by our troops, the limits have been reached of those measures which the discipline and the security of the imperial and royal garrison demand. It only remains now to succeed in reaching an understanding with the local authorities

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over the garrisoning arrangements, which would be best designed to obviate any conflict with the civil guard. Until now, however, as emerges from Count Radetzky’s reports, Cardinal Ciacchi has shown not the slightest inclination to move towards such a necessary understanding. Because the Roman court, moreover, has approved Cardinal Ciacchi’s protest, I do not know how we may hope that the cardinal will receive more reasonable and appropriate instructions from Rome, save as a result of the need for one being indicated by the nature of things.76 He enclosed a copy of the Austrian reply to Ciacchi’s protest, which Lützow would be handing over to the cardinal secretary of state. Although the reply backed up Radetzky completely, Metternich expressed the wish that the field marshal should continue to attempt to reach agreement with Ciacchi before taking any further steps in Ferrara. In his letter to Hardegg, however, he stated: “It was with reassurance, moreover, that I saw in the field marshal’s report, that while he included martial law among the possible eventualities of the future, that he nonetheless declared that he would resort to this, to him an unpalatable measure, only in the greatest need. Such an extreme decision would only seem to be justified if our troops were to be openly attacked with armed force.”77 Hardegg passed on this message to Radetzky, but in a way that seemed deliberately designed to play down the chancellor’s restraint. Metternich, he conceded, had indeed given “a different interpretation” to Ciacchi’s use of the word “lapsed.” Yet “whatever happens,” continued Hardegg, “the intentions of the leaders of the sects can no longer be doubted, and it is therefore equally certain that conditions in Italy, as a result, demand the greatest firmness on our part.” He himself felt sure that Radetzky could be relied upon to know how and when to apply this.78 Auersperg, meanwhile, had received a letter from Lützow dated August 13, which also indicated, like Metternich’s letter of August 21, that the diplomats were less resolute than the soldiers in safeguarding imperial rights. Lützow apparently had been summoned by Cardinal Santucci, the papal deputy secretary of state, and had been asked to put pressure on Auersperg to end his dispute with Ciacchi over the civic guard. It was, he claimed, a body “in which the pope himself had invested high hopes for the protection of the Papal States.” Santucci further hinted that the papal government had enough to worry about already without the problem of Ferrara. Lützow explained to the cardinal that Auersperg received his orders solely from Radetzky, but that in any case he “should not entertain the thought that Austrian troops would disarm papal militiamen” or that “the troops of the most mighty


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Catholic prince would commit hostilities on the territory of the head of our Holy Church.” Such orders would never be given by the field marshal, who was at pains to protect the best interests of both Austria and Rome. The ambassador nonetheless concluded his letter with the advice to Auersperg—who was asked to pass it on to Radetzky—that if he “were to back up his threats, a further protest from His Holiness would be dispatched to the imperial court.”79 Auersperg, who realized that Lützow’s letter had arrived too late to influence events, replied by sending him a copy of a letter dated August 13 with instructions from Radetzky not to infringe papal rights, but to stick to his guns concerning Austria’s own garrison rights. He now asked the field marshal for advice concerning another aspect of these rights.80 Working on the original principle laid down by Metternich that a fortress commander should have foreknowledge of any military arrangements concerning his fort, Auersperg argued that no Austrian, foreign, or allied troops should be allowed to enter Ferrara without informing him first. Accordingly, he had instructed his main watch (1) that individual Roman troops were to be allowed to enter the town only in numbers equal to the detachment on watch; and (2) that larger bodies of troops, if not reported by him to the tower watch, were to remain outside the city under their commander till the pass-word was given, their arrival reported, and permission given for them to enter in military formation. These arrangements, Auersperg believed, would in no way burden the Roman authorities, because changes among the Roman troops had traditionally been reported to the Austrian commander of the fortress. Moreover, he again declared that garrison security and military discipline required them.81 Inevitably such arrangements led to another clash with Ciacchi, with whom Auersperg had raised the matter as a “polite request” only to have it rejected by the cardinal as “a new act of force by a superior power.” Auersperg countered this with a note that pointed out that “there [was] no objection to any increase or change in the papal garrison,” stating that there had “never been any intention to limit the numbers or hinder the free movement of papal troops.” The objective, rather, had merely been to remove misunderstandings by introducing the same military regulations that were employed in Austria. But to this, too, the cardinal delivered a “tart reply,” in which he characterized the arrangements as a pretext for knowing papal troop movements and damned them, like the occupation of he town itself, as “arbitrary, illegal, and insulting to the Papal See,” which alone could give orders to papal troops. Auersperg, perhaps slightly despairingly, then forwarded his correspondence with Ciacchi to Radetzky, asking whether these new arrangements should continue.82

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Radetzky’s reply was rather interesting. He agreed that Auersperg had been “absolutely right” to suggest new arrangements, but at the same time advised him to “let the matter rest” and to ignore Ciacchi’s reply. The position of the garrison was secure and—as was rumored widely at this time—if the papal government intended to send a large armed force to Ferrara, the town could be reinforced in a matter of hours from the left bank of the Po. Auersperg, in any case, would hear of any papal troop movements in advance and would be able to take appropriate steps to deal with the matter. The field marshal, therefore, had clearly accepted the point made by Metternich and Lützow, namely that Austria should not press her claims any further. Indeed, he told Auersperg that he himself would write to Lützow, which he did that very day.83 It should not be thought, however, that Radetzky was in any sense having second thoughts about the Ferrara episode. Far from it. In a letter to Auersperg on August 21, he had blustered at great length over the papal attitude, and was to do the same on August 23 in his letter to Lützow. To Auersperg, for example, he wrote that he simply could not understand Rome’s point of view. For 33 years, nobody had protested about Austria strengthening or reducing her garrison at Ferrara according to circumstances. Nor was it unreasonable for night patrols to protect officers and men, or for their commander to control the main and tower watches. Indeed, the field marshal demanded to know whether anyone had ever heard of a fortress commander who did not exercise such power. “I challenge the Roman government to show me where we have overstepped our rights,” he wrote. If papal troops had previously been entrusted with the watches, it was simply because heretofore they had always been regarded as allies and had never pretended to be independent of the Austrian commander in any case. Yet the situation had now changed. “Do people in Rome not know what is happening in the provinces?” he asked. Radetzky also criticized Ciacchi. Auersperg had tried as hard as possible to establish a working relationship with him, to no effect. If the cardinal really wanted to be friendly, he should “leave things they way they stood for 33 years. . . . Have we ever interfered, even in the smallest way with the territorial sovereignty of the Holy See?” thundered the field marshal.84 What then were the alternatives? What would have happened, Radetzky now asked, if the garrison had relinquished its positions to a hostile militia? His answer was that either it would have had to take them over again bloodily and with force, or it would have had to surrender the occupation right altogether and quit Ferrara—something he was not inclined to do. For Rome should not forget that what occurred in the Papal States affected Austria’s own Italian provinces or that the


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unfettered papal press, which was preaching murder and uprising, could actually bring this about. His letter to Auersperg ended, therefore, with this typically Radetzky flourish: His Majesty the Emperor has placed the maintenance of law and order in his Italian states in my hands; I will defend them to the last drop of blood—if events in Ferrara should disturb the good relations between us and the Roman court, then let the world judge which side is wrong; I do not fear this tribunal. I made the difficult decision to do what I did because I understood the position of the Roman government; I was forced to make it [ich ward mit Gewalt dazu gezwungen]. Had the same spirit consumed the cardinal-legate which did me; were he not, let me not mix my words, in the hands of the mob agitators, then no misunderstanding would have arisen.85 Once again, therefore, Radetzky revealed his assumption that the cardinal was not a free agent and was acting against his will. This misperception, which rested in part upon Habsburg preconceptions and in part upon misleading intelligence reports about the political situation in Italy, underpinned the decision to occupy Ferrara and was an important cause of the crisis that resulted. In his letter to Lützow on August 23, he displayed a similar robustness. If a prince of the Church knew nothing about fortresses, that, he maintained, was one thing, “but he labors under the delusion that Austria has usurped rights which do belong to her, transfers the question to another sphere, and gives his reply and the style in which it is composed a greater significance.”86 Radetzky continued: “If the present Roman government has changed its principles, it does not thereby follow that Austria’s rights should also be infringed.” According to him, they remained exactly as they had been under Gregory XVI. Moreover, if Austria were exerting the standards as fully as other legates (he referred to Cardinal Albani) had interpreted them, the imperial troops would now be guarding Ciacchi’s official residence, the jails, and other buildings. Yet Ciacchi’s stubbornness was threatening to make Austria’s position “untenable in the long run.” Radetzky, on the other hand, clearly did not want to be intransigent. He merely wanted Ciacchi to show some flexibility. One single step towards reconciliation, even a verbal promise to give Auersperg prior knowledge of any changes he intended to introduce, would, wrote the field marshal, suffice to aid a compromise. He added: “In my sense of power and justice, perhaps I assumed a greater responsibility than I was capable of. But I do not intend to allow myself to be duped.” He hoped,

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therefore, that Rome would appoint an independent mediator in the matter, who would take a different line from Ciacchi. For if not, “it will come to the point when I shall have to employ my right to place Ferrara under martial law. What is certain is that I shall not budge a hair’s breadth from the rights of my Lord and Emperor.” He assumed, he wrote, that Lützow shared his views. If not, Radetzky reminded him that “never could we be less in a position to give in over this matter than at present.” For, as he put it: “Much, very much, the repose of Italy is at stake; whoever is capable of divining the spirit of public opinion as expressed in Italian newspapers, will not be able to contradict this.” The field marshal raised this latter issue in a letter to Hardegg, dated August 24, in which he drew particular attention to the activity of the government-controlled Piedmontese press, adding that, in order to balance accounts, he was publishing the Austrian version of events the following day in the official Milanese Gazette. He concluded, therefore, that “any step which under these circumstances would force me to retreat, would constitute a moral defeat.”87 Thus, although there were glimmerings in Radetzky’s mind that he might have bitten off more than he could chew, and although he hoped that the papal authorities would compromise, he was not prepared to surrender the emperor’s rights and was prepared to place Ferrara under martial law. Clearly, therefore, any exit strategy would have to be designed by Metternich.

Statecraft: Finding a Solution By about August 22, 1847, deadlock had been reached between the Austrian and papal governments concerning the occupation rights which Austria enjoyed in Ferrara. Austria’s claims, based not merely on the 1815 settlement, but on the manner in which her rights had been exercised since then, had been reinforced by the strictly military interpretation, given originally by Metternich but supported by Auersperg and Radetzky, of the position of any commander in a garrison fort. The pope and his legate, on the other hand, defined their position by a narrowly legal view of the relevant clauses of the relevant Vienna Act. By August 22, however, Austrian confidence had begun to be undermined by the hostility of papal, not to mention international, reaction. Radetzky himself had expressed doubts to Lützow as to whether he had exercised too much responsibility. Metternich had informed the military that no further steps were to be taken in Ferrara that could not be justified by an appeal to security; and the field marshal had advised Count Auersperg that he should not insist upon foreknowledge of papal troop movements. Radetzky, however, hoped that his own position—by


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now public, given his decision to publish his case in the Milanese press—would be taken into account in some future compromise by some independent mediator from the papal side. As it happened, it was Metternich who sent an independent mediator to review the situation, no doubt having been encouraged to do so by his interpretation of Cardinal Ciacchi’s note. The person he sent to review the position was his right-hand man, a diplomat and cavalry general, Count Karl Ludwig Ficquelmont. Ficquelmont was something of a puzzle to the army once he arrived in Milan. “I do not trust myself to give any judgement about the activity of the latest expositus Count Ficquelmont,” wrote one army captain to another as late as November 21. “Up till now people do not see much change because he did not trust himself to give definitive replies to some significant questions.”88 Radetzky, however, soon came to loath the emissary and for obvious reasons. For despite the gushing letter of introduction sent by Ficquelmont to the field marshal—“Your Excellency has given the first proof of strength and decision in Ferrara. It is already sure that it will bear good fruit. With regard to Roman Italy, Ferrara is the citadel of our rights”—it must have been very clear to the old man that Ficquelmont had been sent down to Italy to keep him under control.89 Metternich’s instructions to his “expositus” had stressed the need to maintain a defensive policy, the “basis” of which was “not to intervene in either the Kingdom of Naples or in the Papal States . . . but to erect the strongest barrier to disorder and to defend [Austrian] rights wherever they [were] attacked.”90 This, of course, had also been Radetzky’s viewpoint—hence the fact that the two men had originally been in agreement concerning reinforcements for Ferrara. Yet in his instructions to Ficquelmont, Metternich could write: Marshal Radetzky . . . has stretched his authority to the limit and has adopted a very pronounced position. . . . There can be no question of military measures at the moment: these measures will have to be taken within the context of a sane policy. The marshal will be ordered by the Hofkriegsrat to reach an understanding with you about these should they become necessary.91 Exactly a year after Metternich had given him these instructions, Ficquelmont himself wrote that the mission that he had undertaken to Italy in 1847 had “had the objective of centralizing observations and bringing more unity into the reports of the government and the military commander.”92 What perhaps Radetzky could not have expected was the fact that the Ferrara affair was not the only or even the most important

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part of Ficquelmont’s mission. For Metternich’s only comment about it in his instructions to Ficquelmont was: “The occupation of Ferrara presents an incidental question which shall have to be resolved,” its resolution to be effected by a simple military convention such as existed with many other towns.93 What happened next is not completely clear. Radetzky’s natural bluster concerning the Ficquelmont mission misled certain people about his intentions, just as it had on other occasions in the past and would in the future. The old field marshal’s bark, in fact, was always worse than his bite. Yet, surprisingly, even Auersperg misread his pessimism over the Italian situation (which Radetzky interpreted much more accurately than Metternich and some of his advisers), to the extent of believing that the war, which Radetzky often predicted would break out, was actually one that he wanted to precipitate. Thus in a letter to his wife, which was intercepted by the secret police, the fort commander wrote: I intend to make my position clear about R[adetzky] very clear to you. He sees everything with a soldier’s eyes and heart in the usual old way and cannot submit at all to the views of the cabinet if they differ from his own. He persists in and holds fast to his own opinion, hopes for interventions in Rome and Tuscany, and wilfully ignores everything that the diplomats say or assure him with to the contrary. Ficquelmont very clearly expresses the view that we shall in no case become involved in external affairs, that up till now our experience has been that intervention in Naples and Rome has only cost everybody money, and that after our departure, affairs have only returned to their former situation. This is the view of our cabinet, and it is almost childish of R. to go around everywhere saying that he is not satisfied with Ficquelmont sharing these views. My God, what can he expect from an emissary of the same cabinet than that he be directed in this sense, and had Radetzky known of this sooner and not acted so quickly against Ferrara, the outcry against us might not have reached the stage where we are threatened with losing the rights we have exercised here for 33 years.94 This smacks of special pleading, of course. Still, Radetzky, who may or may not have been shown the letter, continued in his dealings with Auersperg, to show the same respect for papal rights (as he interpreted them) as he always had done. Thus, on September 3, 1847, he furnished Auersperg with fresh instructions regarding the treatment of papal troops, should these be sent to Ferrara:


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First of all, I remind you of the instructions in my above-mentioned dispatch, namely that these troops are to be treated with all military honor and every possible respect as those of an allied prince. Give your own troops the strictest instructions in this regard; and suggest to them that between them and the Swiss a comradely relationship should prevail if possible. Any conversations between officers concerning the political relations of the two governments are to be forbidden, since tempers can easily be raised and friction caused thereby.95 Radetzky did not expect that a papal detachment could amount to more than 400 to 500 men—that is to say, about one-third the size of the Austrian garrison. As such it could “not endanger [Austrian] security,” especially “because we are the masters of the citadel and are adequately supplied with guns.”96 Indeed, he ordered Auersperg to take the opportunity of remarking to the Swiss, if they should come, that it would please the Austrians if they would take a proportionate share of garrison duties—provided that they should be subordinated to Auersperg as fort commander, who would choose their passwords and select their patrols. The difficulty was that the field marshal did not believe that the cardinal-legate, who had protested over so many lesser things, would allow this to happen. Still, it was a suggestion that Auersperg was ordered to make, if the appropriate time arrived. Indeed, the whole tone of the field marshal’s letter was moderate: Show yourself responsive to any friendly approach, so long as nothing is infringed. It is in our interest to prove that we have no hostile feelings toward the Roman government, but that we have acted as we have so far only to preserve our rights and to maintain the law and order of our own states; that we have reason to do so, even the cardinal himself will not deny, if I may presume that he knows what is presently occurring not only in Rome but in a large part of Italy. Radetzky, therefore, still assumed that the cardinal at heart must share his political outlook. Not that he really expected a change of heart in Rome—“but at least,” he wrote, “we can show the world on what side justice and moderation lie.” He concluded: “Cardinal Ciacchi still seems so very pleased with the rare success which his two peculiar protests have had that we for our part must get down to ensuring that we do not give the appearance of feeling that we ourselves are in the wrong or of fearing the consequences of our actions.”97

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The archives reveal almost nothing more of Radetzky’s views on the Ferrara negotiations or of his relations with Ficquelmont. The Radetzky-Ficquelmont correspondence on Ferrara has disappeared, so we may only guess what happened next. Yet there are two vital questions that remain: When did Metternich and Ficquelmont decide to capitulate to papal demands? And why did they decide to do so? It is clear that Metternich believed from a fairly early stage in the crisis— probably after reading Ciacchi’s letter—that the dispute could be satisfactorily resolved because the papal authorities were objecting not to Austria’s right to occupy in principle, but merely to the manner in which that right was exercised. He agreed with Radetzky that a fortress commander should be in charge of all military movements concerning his fort—indeed, he himself had immediately laid this down as a principle. On the other hand, he had also admitted his ignorance of what, over the previous 33 years, this principle had implied for Ferrara. Until Metternich knew what the precedents were, he completely backed all measures taken by Radetzky, who took his stand on principle alone. Yet even Radetzky had urged caution on Auersperg regarding the logical consequences of the principle involved, and it may be the case that— despite Auersperg’s petulant letter to his wife—it was the fortress commander, not Radetzky, who had botched the entry of the reinforcements in the first place and had stimulated the charge of Austrian aggression. By the middle of September, in any case, the dispute was no nearer solution. On September 12, Radetzky reported to Hardegg that Ficquelmont, at Metternich’s request, had ordered Auersperg to consult all the documents in his archive to establish what precedents there were for Austrian behavior in Ferrara.98 Presumably this took some time to sort out. And, thereafter, Ficquelmont and Metternich would have had to decide how to interpret these precedents. Meanwhile, also on September 12, the pope himself had raised the problem in separate and personal letters to the emperor and empress of Austria.99 To the emperor, he wrote that it was “daily making our position regarding our subjects more difficult,” and requested once again that Austrian troops be restricted to the citadel. His tone was firm, and even in this, his very first letter to Ferdinand, he added: “We shall pass over in silence the consequences which could accrue from a negative response, not wishing to torture your soul and in the hope of restricting to ourselves the bitterness of other considerations.”100 To the devout and religious empress, Maria Anna, he wrote in a style more in keeping with his position, as he put it, of “representative of Christ on earth,” demanding the same concession. Metternich prepared draft replies for both. Ferdinand’s merely declared, in the usual fashion, that the enemies of the


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Church were also those of Austria and of the social order, and that the emperor would consider it his duty to meet the wishes of the pope if that were possible. The Austrian ambassador, he wrote, would be presenting compromise proposals that very day and this, he hoped, would guarantee his friendly intentions. The empress declined to use Metternich’s draft, insisting instead on writing a personal answer to the Pontiff. In it she said that there really was nothing she could do save hope that the two governments would reach an agreement. However, she sincerely hoped—and her sincerity was transparent—that the Holy Father would not think that she had lacked respect for him or his wishes. “To suspect that,” she wrote, “would be intolerable for me.”101 Metternich’s compromise proposals clearly achieved nothing. Indeed, only on December 16 was the final agreement reached. By then both Ficquelmont and Metternich may have decided that many of the precedents were against them. Certainly, they knew that all Europe was against them. Finally, the pope and his new secretary of state, Cardinal Ferretti, simply would not compromise. One other factor may have been of importance also: by arranging for an increase in Radetzky’s troop strength at the beginning of December 1847 and by bringing to the final stages the defensive treaties he had been negotiating with Parma and Modena, Metternich had enhanced Austrian security to such a degree that he could afford to retreat over Ferrara.102 In the final agreement, it was arranged that the dispute over rights should be waived in favor of a working arrangement between the soldiers on either side. The watch and the gates were to be handed back by the Austrians to be occupied by papal regular troops, not civic guards; but the pope maintained his right to place civic guards there if he wished. The Po Gate was always to remain open with two sentries, one Austrian, one Italian, to prevent desertion from their respective corps, along with a guard of pontifical Finanzieri (customs officers). The Austrians were not to send out patrols into the town. Their soldiers were to have free passage between the barracks and the citadel; they were allowed to have guards in the barracks, but the main body of their forces was always to be in the citadel. The papal-legate was to give the password each night; “this marked him out as the supreme authority.”103 On 23 December before a large concourse of people, the Austrian troops were withdrawn from the guard and from the four gates as publicly as when they had taken possession of them, and these posts were occupied by pontifical troops. This was a striking scene and marked a very definite success for the pontifical government.104

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The Austrian army, not surprisingly, felt humiliated. General Baron Constantin D’Aspre, head of the Venetian army corps, wrote to Captain Huyn of Radetzky’s general staff: In Ferrara our rights are trampled on. Our troops—I should say “we soldiers”—maintained our rights (perhaps because we had fought for them with our blood). The bureaucrats decided otherwise; we had to give up our rights—after we had clearly demonstrated them before all Europe. Scorn and derision was the result.105 And there can be little doubt that Radetzky agreed with him. Still, as I have shown elsewhere, it was the field marshal’s firmness that would ultimately triumph. And Metternich and Ficquelmont themselves would soon fall out.106

Conclusion In retrospect, however, the “occupation” of Ferrara in 1847 was a blunder, one that came about largely due to unjustified assumptions and poor intelligence. Radetzky could not believe that papal policy had freely changed and the Austrian secret police clearly misread the fear of the Ferrarese that Radetzky would intervene in their city as the hope that he would do so. Metternich—old, wise, and much more flexible than he is usually given credit for, despite his initial welcome for the move—was forced, in the light of papal and international reaction, to find an exit strategy. However humiliating for the military, his exit strategy did postpone war in Italy, albeit only for three months. The “occupation of Ferrara” served merely to weaken Austria’s position in Italy on the eve of the 1848 revolutions and the outbreak of war with Piedmont. Today, the United States and Britain may be in a similar position in the Persian Gulf. Poor local intelligence, combined with a political rigidity in enforcing an ideology that sadly remains unacceptable to a large part of the local population, may undermine their military and diplomatic authority even in the very near future. The errors of the Habsburgs in Italy in 1847 are by no means isolated examples of imperial powers basing their policies on flawed intelligence that complements existing preconceptions and prejudices.

CHAPTER 3

Sanctioned Spying: The Development of the Military Attaché in the Nineteenth Century Maureen O’Connor Witter

Lord Lyons found his duties as the British minister to the United States during the Civil War to be most taxing. During the period from 1861 to 1865, he represented Britain’s interests in such areas as the Trent Affair, the career of the British-built Confederate raider Alabama, U.S. designs on Cuba, the conscription of British subjects, the status of British consuls in the Confederacy, and Union army deserters in Canada. In addition to these traditional diplomatic concerns, he had to report the war’s military events to the Foreign Office. While reporting the progress of a war had long been a part of the responsibilities of a diplomat based in a country under arms, this proved increasingly distracting to Lyons over time; as his superiors in Great Britain came to appreciate the growth of U.S. military might, they began to pepper him with requests for specialized military information. The pressure on Lyons began to build in early January 1862, when the Foreign Office instructed him to procure information on artillery developments in America. The minister fulfilled the request as best he

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could, but he suggested that it might be advisable to send a trained army officer to investigate the subject. Or, he added, “Perhaps by bribery or other underhanded practice the working drawings might be obtained. Should it be deemed expedient by the War Office to resort to any practices of this kind, I consider it to be of the utmost importance that they should be conducted not only without the instrumentality but absolutely and bona fide without the knowledge of myself or of any member of this Legation.”1 The British government considered his aversion to espionage and settled on the more aboveboard method. In May of that year, the commanding general of British forces in Canada sent three officers to the United States to report on Union artillery. They provided temporary relief to Lyons, but returned to Montreal in August, leaving the minister with no one to whom to delegate any subsequent similar projects. In November 1863, he began to press the Foreign Office for action, writing to Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell: “To give anything like a systematic or practically useful account of the naval and military progress of this Country would require a professional knowledge in which I am totally deficient.”2 Moreover, his making extensive inquiries about American military matters “might be ill-looked upon by the Authorities” even had he time to do so, which he did not, for “the regular business of this Legation has become so large that it is quite as much as any man of ordinary health and strength can hope to get through satisfactorily.”3 Lyons suggested a halfway step. “Sending from time to time intelligent officers, coming of course quite openly, but without any very marked official character . . . without bustle or fuss, and reporting directly to their Superiors in their own professions, would be the most efficacious means of obtaining useful information.”4 He preferred that the Legation not be involved: “I have no fancy for having a Military or Naval Attaché and I am not certain how the appointment of one might be taken here. . . . It might create suspicion—on the other hand it might be taken as a compliment.”5 In any case, Britain needed someone on the scene: “I doubt whether people in Europe are aware of the extent of the progress of this Country in military strength or of the preparations which have been made for the contingency of a war with a European Power.”6 In early 1864, help arrived first in the person of Captain Goodenough, sent by the Royal Navy to gather information on its U.S. counterpart. Next to arrive were Lieutenant Colonel Gallwey and Captain Alderson, of the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery, respectively, who reached the capital in mid-February. Lyons obtained for them access to all that they desired in Washington while the officers awaited the chance to see the army in the field. Everything proceeded according to the observers’ plan until April, when U.S. secretary of war Edwin Stan-

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ton declined to renew the British officers’ previously granted, but unused, passes to visit the Army of the Potomac. The refusal to approve Gallwey and Alderson’s application sent a surprised Lyons to visit Secretary of State Seward in person to express regret at what, he wrote, seemed to be an interruption of the kindness and courtesy with which the officers sent by Her Majesty’s Government had hitherto been treated. I reminded him of the cordial reception which had been given to the officers sent by the United States Government to Her Majesty’s Army in the Crimea and observed that it was very unusual to refuse to allow officers sent by friendly Governments to accompany armies in the field.7 An embarrassed Seward cited compelling military reasons for keeping visitors away from the main Union army at that time, and he assured Lyons that the United States meant no disrespect toward the British government or its emissaries. Later that day, Lyons wrote to Russell of American hostility to Great Britain. “In this state of things it appears to be of the utmost consequence that Her Majesty’s Government should be regularly furnished with detailed information as to the amount and distribution of the naval and military Forces of the United States.”8 Soon all three officers would be back in Britain, but the reasons “which led to the mission of Captain Goodenough and of Lieut. Col. Gallwey and Captain Alderson to this country still exist in full force.”9 Lyons recommended that only a short interval pass before sending both army and navy officers back to the United States for similar purposes. The experience of the previous week with retracted permission and passes had taught the minister a lesson. “It would now, I think,” suggested Lyons, be better that they should come with a distinct official character, either as naval and military attachés to this Legation, or with any other official designation usual in such cases. They would keep Her Majesty’s Government constantly in possession of such details and information respecting the distribution of the United States Naval and Military Forces, and the forwardship of the perfection of the preparation for war, as would enable the Admiralty and War Department to take proper measures at a moment’s notice, if hostilities should suddenly break out.10 This would leave the rest of the legation staff free to pursue their diplomatic duties, while the task of obtaining military information in the United States would be more thoroughly performed.

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The foreign office approved efforts to sound out the American government on its attitude toward Britain stationing one or more attachés in Washington. One month later, Seward informed British chargé d’affaires Burnley, (manning the legation until the arrival of Lyons’s replacement) that the war and navy departments had raised no objection to the posting of a British military attaché at the legation in Washington and would likely want to reciprocate, but that no definitive decision could be made until the next congressional session began. The war ended, however, before the appointment of attachés by either country. The foregoing account of British efforts to monitor the Civil War in America encapsulates well the larger story of the growth of military intelligence collection over the course of the nineteenth century. Ad hoc, sporadic efforts to investigate military improvements abroad had, by century’s end, yielded to a regularized system of international informational exchanges because the old methods of data collection proved inadequate in an age of unprecedented technological innovation. This new military attaché system promised to overcome many of the limitations of the older forms of collecting intelligence, but it discovered its own limitations as it developed. This chapter will trace the transition from the unsystematic sending of officers abroad to study various foreign military advances or wars to a regular military attaché system, with a particular emphasis on Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Open military intelligence gathering (or what one might call “sanctioned spying”) came in three principal forms in the nineteenth century: ad hoc observers sent in peacetime; ad hoc observers sent in wartime; and an amalgam of the two, the military attaché. Because the three types coexisted for much of the period, it is impossible to follow one strand without making reference to the others. Interconnectedness does not in this case imply continuing equal importance; examination of the three strands shows the gradual thinning and weakening of the role of the ad hoc military observer as the military attaché coopted much of the mission of the peacetime and wartime observers.

Type I: The Peacetime Ad Hoc Observer For much of the century, armies responded to improvements in military technology abroad by periodically dispatching specially appointed commissions in peacetime to countries in the vanguard of weapons development. The various military archives attest to the habit that developed of sending officers abroad in an informal manner to observe the maneuvers of foreign armies, to improve their knowledge of their

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specific branch of service, and to report on new inventions showcased at international exhibitions. This was predominantly an intra-European flow of military information. However, much earlier than the other European powers, Britain monitored the American military establishment, both because it was important to national security and because it presented fewer logistical difficulties: the island nation maintained, until the immediate post-Civil War period, a substantial army contingent in Canada. Throughout this era, countless British officers traveled through parts of the United States, some in professional capacities, but most in personal capacities, gathering information on the American military and its equipment. The United States followed a slightly different pattern from that of the European powers, because in this period, America had few military pretensions and was separated from Europe by a month-long sea voyage. American military missions sent abroad, therefore, went less frequently, but for longer periods of time and with broader mandates in general than comparable contemporary European missions.

Type II: The Wartime Ad Hoc Observer States naturally were keen to send observers abroad to view armies at war as well as in peace. Each successive war of the nineteenth century saw greater numbers of neutral military observers at the headquarters of the contending armies. Classification of these wartime missions is in many cases difficult because it was quite common for observing officers to visit nonbelligerents en route to or from the seat of war. Much more than the peacetime missions, it was the wartime observation efforts that most directly stimulated the growth of the permanent attaché. There were two reasons for this: first, the comparison of another country’s performance in war with prewar intelligence estimates often pointed to shortcomings in ad hoc forms of information gathering; second, nations found the precious observation time lost while commissions sought their credentials both frustrating and costly.

Type III: The Military Attaché The military attaché is a relatively recent development in the history of warfare; scholars of the institution trace modern notions of military attachés to the era of Napoleon I and modern implementation of the system to that of Napoleon III.11 Prussia and France gave their first serious consideration to the establishment of military attachés after Waterloo. In 1816, Prussian Chief of Staff Grolman submitted a proposal to War Minister von Boyen; that same year Prussia named six officers to

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various legations, but financial considerations seem to have induced the early abandonment of the system.12 The instructions given these officers formed the basic definition in Prussia of a military attaché’s duties, as they were to confine themselves to “purely military-technical matters,” a policy more easily definable in theory than in practice.13 Three years later, in France, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr recommended to the minister of foreign affairs, the Marquis Dessole, a similar permanent stationing of officers in French legations abroad.14 The latter opposed such institutionalization, for diplomatic rather than financial reasons, but voiced no objection to shorter military missions.15 The one exception to this rule was the special position of the military plenipotentiaries exchanged between the king of Prussia and the tsar of Russia, an expression of friendship and of monarchical solidarity dating from the War of Liberation against Napoleon. These officers were the personal emissaries of the rulers to one another, accredited personally from the king to the tsar and vice versa, in no way affiliated with the respective diplomatic services. The men did not function as military attachés, and they reported as often on the political intrigues at the court as they did on military affairs.16 Apart from these military plenipotentiaries, the financial and moral exhaustion of the Great Powers in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars worked against the early establishment of a system of official military attachés.

Rudimentary Beginnings Until mid-century, both American and European armies sporadically monitored foreign wars, mostly without the aid of military attachés. One of the earliest recorded efforts emanated from the United States. In 1815, U.S. Army Captain Sylvanius Thayer successfully lobbied the War Department to sponsor his trip to Europe to observe Napoleonic warfare.17 He and Major William McRee sailed from New York on June 10, 1815. Eight days into the crossing, the Allies defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Though frustrated in their plan to witness Continental armies in action, the pair transformed from ad hoc wartime into ad hoc peacetime military observers and toured European military establishments for nearly two years, purchasing over a thousand volumes, maps, and charts for the West Point library. The first steps toward permanent military attachés came a decade and a half later when, in May 1830, Prussia sent Captain von Cler of the General Staff to accompany the French expedition to Algeria, a trip that promised to provide a “rich field for observation” and therefore an excellent “means of furthering his military knowledge.”18 Soon thereafter, France’s July Revolution gave King Frederick William of Prussia

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pause. “It is imperative, in light of the probable coming changes in French military organization and all things of military importance that could arise, to have a source of accurate reports,” the monarch argued. “I have therefore decided that Captain von Cler should not return to Prussia upon returning from Algeria, but remain in Paris and be attached to the legation there.”19 As evidenced by the Prussian enthusiasm for observing the French in Algeria, war-weary Europe provided few opportunities for military officers to observe armies in action for nearly four decades after the fall of Napoleon. Like Prussia, France looked for opportunities abroad, sending the lone official foreign observer to the Mexican-American War of 1846–48; the Marquis de Radepont, however, was not a serving military officer and reported to the Foreign Ministry, not to the army.20 While keeping their eyes open outside of Europe, the French did not overlook prospects closer to home. In 1851, twenty-one years after the Prussian establishment of an attaché in Paris, the French reciprocated by attaching General Staff Captain de Foucauld to Berlin.21 This decision, coinciding with the return of Napoleonic rule to France, marked the outset of the decades-long transition from old to new ways of monitoring the growth of foreign military establishments; this particular action also coincided with, but was not driven by, the beginning of an acceleration of technological changes in warfare.22 The United States delegated a trio of Army officers in 1855 to travel to the seat of war in the Crimea.23 The nascent, or, rather, nonexistent, nature of regulations governing neutral observers meant that the Delafield Commission encountered unnecessary red tape and delays, and consequently missed the main events of the war, arriving in the main theater only after the decisive fall of Sebastopol, an all-too-familiar occurrence in the days before the attaché. In sending these observers, the Americans were more forward-thinking than the contending armies (British, French, Turkish, and Russian), as the latter proved ill-prepared for the Americans’ requests and quite uncoordinated in their responses. Another neutral, Prussia, gathered information differently, establishing a military attaché, Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, in Vienna in 1854, at the outset of the war, from where he was able to provide his home country with valuable information on Austrian troop movements that might compromise the latter’s neutrality.24 Although Britain did not prepare well for the eventuality of foreign neutral observers, its army did seek direct military contact with its allies during the Crimean War, sending commissioners to Sardinia, Turkey, France, and the French contingent at the seat of war.25 These commissioners functioned in practice as military attachés, and the post of military attaché at Paris, filled by Colonel Edward Stoppard Claremont,

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survived the war’s end. A naval attaché was added in 1860.26 The attaché position at Turin went unfilled between the end of the Crimean War in 1856 and the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian War in 1859, when Colonel George Cadogan was reattached “temporarily” to Turin (Britain was already represented on the French side by Colonel Claremont, who traveled to the seat of war from Paris); this time Cadogan was maintained when the war was over.27

Early Adopters The end of the 1850s was a watershed in France for the institution, as General Staff Major Count d’Andlau went to Vienna, Lt. Col. Colson to St. Petersburg, and Major d’Andigné to London.28 Within a few months of d’Andigné’s January appointment, the French military doubled its representation in Britain with a naval attaché, Commander Pigeard.29 These decisions aroused little controversy in Napoleon III’s France, where the military had both significant political clout and great interest in monitoring the armed strength of its potential rivals and allies.30 Military attachés faced a somewhat harder sell in Britain. The attaché to Turin, Colonel Cadogan, prepared, at Foreign Secretary Lord Russell’s request, a report in 1860 on the “subject of foreign military correspondence.” In it he noted that, with a couple of exceptions, the burden of collecting this information in peacetime had always fallen to a civil diplomatic representative; this person, “however able and whatever his opportunities, may not on all occasions be able to estimate and draw correct conclusions from what he sees going on around him, or the information he receives on military matters.” Not a trained soldier, the representative could not “satisfy the demands of a well-understood system of military information, without having recourse to extraneous aid.” This surreptitious gathering of information could be both expensive and appear suspicious. In the absence of permanent military missions abroad, Britain had sent occasional short-term commissions, who had the disadvantage of being “local and temporary in their actions, tardy in their results, and so expensive as naturally to limit the number of subjects thus gone into.” Cadogan praised the measures taken by the war office for rationalizing the organization of foreign intelligence received in London with the 1855 creation of the Topographical and Statistical Department. “But I should not be performing my duty to your Lordship,” he continued, “were I not to state that the able and well directed measures thus set on foot for the classification of the information received contrasted greatly with the information itself, the desultory and insufficient nature of which baffled for the moment all efforts at obtaining anything like a desir-

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able result.” If Britain continued to accept foreign military attachés at London without reciprocating, it “would leave her at an obvious disadvantage.” A regular system of attachés would result in reliable reporting on a broader range of subjects at no increase in cost and without raising suspicions of spying; the government would furthermore have someone in place for all contingencies and would have the “power of commanding information from many quarters at once on the same question.”31 Cadogan’s letter to Lord Russell was dated Turin, May 13, 1860. Just over two weeks later, the Foreign Secretary addressed a letter on the same subject to the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief of the British army. “I wish to send a Military Attaché to Berlin, to be appointed at first for six months, and to remain if he is found useful,” Russell wrote; “Perhaps Y.R.H. knows of some officer who speaks German well and is capable of seeing and reporting what he sees in a plain, sensible style.”32 The Duke’s primary hesitation seems to have been whether the Foreign or War Office should pay for such an attaché’s expenses. Britain nonetheless sent a short-term attaché to Berlin.33 Several years later, in March 1864, the duke wrote to Lord de Grey, the secretary of state for war. “In the present most disturbed state of Europe, when military operations and preparations are going on in so many States,” the commander-in-chief suggested, “I think it really would be of the greatest importance that we should have a Military Attaché at all our principal Missions, such as Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, etc. Indeed, I think it would be very well to extend this system even to America.” As Britain was “ill-informed . . . on purely military subjects,” attachés, not commissioners, were required to study all aspects of foreign armies. Despite the best efforts of the diplomats, the ablest of them “cannot acquire half the military information which it is essential for us in the present critical state of affairs to possess”; this argument resembled both Cadogan’s 1860 plea for a permanent military attaché system and Lord Lyons’s wartime entreaties from the United States.34 It would be several years, however, before this vision became a reality for the island nation. During this period, successive Prussian military attachés to Paris, Major Stein von Kaminski and Captain von der Burg, accepted the French army’s invitations to accompany its expedition to Mexico in 1862–63.35 Prussian Major Baron von Loë arrived in Paris in March 1863 to take over the duties of military attaché from Captain von der Burg, and von Loë accompanied the French to Algeria in 1864 without relinquishing the post.36 Prussia, in turn, learned what it was like to be the fighting rather than the observing country when it went to war with Denmark the same year as the Algerian expedition. A number of neutrals, including

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Baden, Bavaria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Serbia, and Hesse, applied for permission to observe the operations (and possible occupations).37 Prussia denied the Serbian request “due to overcrowding at the allied headquarters in Schleswig,” while granting permission to the Bavarian, Austrian, and British observers, and allowing a French military attaché to be present in Berlin.38 The French sent a military attaché to the Danish side also, but for the length of the war only.39 The introduction to this chapter provides vivid illustration of the inchoate state of protocols governing foreign observers at the headquarters of nations at war. Although the British observation team left the United States before receiving permission to visit Grant’s armies in the summer of 1864, a contemporary pair of French officers persevered and succeeded in witnessing the operations of the Army of the Potomac for part of the war’s final year. The reason for the one nation’s failure and the other’s success appears to be purely a matter of timing rather than favoritism. None of the German states sent an official military representative to witness the conflict, though individuals from a number of nations, including Prussia, managed to observe the war at close range in purely personal capacities.40 After a half-decade of debate, the “blossoming” of British military experts stationed abroad finally came on April 26, 1865, when Lt. Col. Crealock, Col. The Hon. St. George Foley, and Colonel C. P. Beauchamp Walker were appointed military attachés to the British embassies at St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Berlin, respectively.41 The previous month, in a response to Lord Lyons’s request for professional help in monitoring American military activities, Lord Russell approved Captain Bythesea “being temporarily attached to Her Majesty’s Mission at Washington.”42 The 1866 Austro-Prussian War prompted a new series of requests, from Switzerland, Braunschweig, Spain, Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Belgium, to attach officers and doctors to the Prussian army.43 King Wilhelm granted France and Britain’s requests that their military attachés to Berlin, Comte Clermont-Tonnere and Colonel Beauchamp Walker, be allowed to accompany the Prussian army, as well as granting their requests to send an additional officer each, Colonel Stoffel, aide-de-camp to Napoleon III, and Lt. Colonel William Reilly, of the Royal Artillery, to the seat of war.44 Colonels Schmitz and Merlin, the French military attachés to Florence and Vienna, were permitted to follow the headquarters of those armies in the conflict.45 The Prussians stationed an “attaché for military affairs,” Theodor von Bernhardi, with their allies in Florence for the duration of the war, but he was not a serving military officer.46 The Austro-Prussian war, along with the earlier Civil War and later FrancoPrussian War, highlights the transitional nature of military observation of

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foreign wars. It marked the first time that, at the war’s outbreak, both Britain and France had attachés in position in the belligerent capitals who could follow the armies they knew into the field. The United States, on the other hand, just missed having an eyewitness at the scene. At the end of the Civil War in April 1865, the United States became determined to expel the French from Mexico and took several measures to accomplish this purpose. Less well-known than General Grant’s appointment of General Sheridan to head a body of U.S. troops stationed on the Texas-Mexican border was the mission of General John M. Schofield to Paris, initiated in July 1865, when Sheridan’s threatening posture on the Rio Grande yielded no results. Schofield had the backing of the federal government to use force or diplomacy to change French minds; he opted for the latter and traveled to Paris.47 Schofield conducted his subtle diplomacy in the French capital from early December of that year until early April 1866. From London in early May, he wrote to his wife: “There is no longer much doubt of my going home this month. . . . I have had bad luck enough about letters lately. An important one from Washington has gone to Italy. I have written and telegraphed for it and hope to get it back soon but there is no certainty about it.”48 He had written to Grant earlier of the impending war between Austria and Prussia: “That letter which was carried off to Italy by a friend of General Grant, to whom he had entrusted it because he was not willing to send such a letter even in the diplomatic bag, proved to be permission for me to remain in Europe long enough to witness the operations of the Prussian and Austrian Armies then impending.” Schofield added to this letter long after his return, “As a consequence of that great caution, I lost the coveted opportunity of witnessing the first display by the Great Von Moltke of his masterly skill in battle, to which native genius has been supplemented by a . . . lifetime of the closest study of the art of war.”49 In the last days before the completion of the transatlantic cable, Schofield, unaware of the contents of Grant’s letter, embarked for New York, and arrived in Washington in early June. The predicted war broke out the following month, so Schofield narrowly missed the chance to observe the Prussians at war. On October 31, 1867, the French ministry of the navy and colonies inquired of the foreign minister the prospects of attaching an officer in Washington who could keep the navy ministry au courant of the “progress that American industry makes daily in naval construction, both in ships and artillery.”50 The foreign minister responded within the week, expressing full agreement with the “advantages that the naval service could derive from the proposed plan”; he felt certain that the Americans, who had always “proved most liberal in accommodating the various temporary French naval and army missions to their

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country” would raise no objection to a permanent military representative.”51 If the chief diplomatic and naval officials shared the opinion that a French naval attaché in Washington could be quite useful, why did five years elapse before France sent a service attaché to Washington, and why was it then an officer of the army, not the navy? Presumably for the same reason that five years passed between Lord Russell’s initial sounding-out of the Duke of Cambridge on this issue and the British appointment of attachés to Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg: who was going to pay the bill? Although the French foreign minister heartily agreed in 1867 that posting a naval officer in Washington was a good idea, he was not willing to underwrite the post. “By a unique exception,” he advised, “Captain Pagead, the naval attaché to the Embassy in London receives an allocation from my department, but I must anticipate that it would be impossible to tender the same treatment to the officer sent to Washington.”52 The navy must have weighed the expense against the expected profits of the mission and decided not to pursue the matter. Although Prussia had led the rest of Europe in establishing the first modern military attaché in Paris in 1830, it was slow in expanding the institution. Only in the spring of 1869 did it send its third and fourth officers abroad (with the exception of the military plenipotentiary at St. Petersburg), to Florence and London, some 15 years after the establishment of the position at Vienna.53 In terms of the practice of the observation of wars, the Franco-Prussian War marked a middle point between an informal, ad hoc manner of sending observers to foreign wars and the modern institution of military attachés. Here, the United States acted much more in the old style, sending observers almost on a whimsy, whereas Great Britain had a military attaché system already in place, with officers permanently stationed in Paris and Berlin, among other capitals. The American effort to observe the Franco-Prussian War was more limited than that of the British, consisting of three semiofficial observers: General Philip H. Sheridan; his aide, James W. Forsyth; and a later arrival, Lt. Col. William B. Hazen. These men were on paid leave from the war department, but they were in no way bound officially to report their observations to the government. In fact, their only responsibility while abroad was to give notice of their whereabouts on a monthly basis. Britain, in contrast, had a basic apparatus ready to observe the war in the persons of Colonel Edward S. Claremont, military attaché to Paris since 1858, and Colonel Beauchamp Walker, serving in the same capacity in Berlin since 1865.54 These men were thus well acquainted with the armies of France and Prussia, respectively, and comprised Britain’s entire observation effort in the war’s earliest stages; they were not, however, the only men to serve as British observers. On the official level, Britain named several

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additional (or assistant) military attachés to follow the operations of both armies later in the war. Also representing the country were several medical officers officially commissioned to study hospital and sanitary conditions. Despite all of this apparent professionalism driving the British effort, the actual practice of observing the war remained somewhat informal, both on the side of the nations watching and on the side of the nations at war. One could find all sorts of people hanging about an army’s field headquarters—foreign officers on leave of absence, members of the press, minor nobility—this nonuniform process by which countries allowed observers from neutral powers to accompany their armies would not, however, last much longer in Europe. The French defeat in 1870–71 at the hands of the Germans and the subsequent publication of French attaché Colonel Stoffel’s 1866–70 reports from Berlin brought the developing institution into the spotlight and convinced France that it needed to be more systematic in its collection of data about other armies.55 The year after the German occupation saw a significant expansion in French military representation abroad; the foreign ministry created posts in Brussels, the Hague, Madrid, Peking, Tokyo, and, finally, Washington.56 At the same time, France attached a second army officer to the embassies at Berlin and Vienna.57 Though the stationing of military attachés abroad by various countries did grow more regular as time passed, the development of the institution continued in fits and starts. The Germans, for example, sent a naval officer to their Washington legation in 1873, but a shortage of qualified men caused them to recall Corvette Captain von Eisendecher two years later, whereupon the post went unfilled until the time of the SpanishAmerican War.58

Ascendancy of the Attaché The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 was the object of serious international scrutiny. The number of foreigners accompanying the troops in the field far outnumbered that of previous wars, as the headquarters of the Russian and Turkish forces in both Asia and Europe accommodated military attachés and correspondents from nations as distant as Japan and the United States and as small as Denmark. The conflict occurred at a doubly intriguing historical juncture, as it was the first war to take place in the era of widely established attachés prepared to study a war intensely, and, as it turned out, it was the last European war, until the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, from which to draw lessons. Military representation at the seat of war unsurprisingly reflected the interests of the different nations in the relative power of the belligerents. At the beginning of 1877, Britain had a pair of attachés stationed in

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these countries, Colonel William Lennox in Constantinople and Colonel F. A. Wellesley in St. Petersburg. By war’s end, Britain still maintained one attaché with the Russian armies, but had increased its presence with the various Turkish armies to just over a dozen officers from different branches, due to the nation’s proximity to crucial shipping lanes. Germany at the war’s outbreak had three officers permanently stationed in these countries. The two regular military attachés, Major von Hirschfeld and Major von Lignitz, reported from Constantinople and St. Petersburg, respectively. General von Werder provided additional German military representation in Russia, as Kaiser Wilhelm’s personal emissary to Tsar Alexander II. Majors von Wedell and von Villaume later joined the Russian army in Europe as official observers, and Prince Arnulf of Bavaria traveled to the seat of war in a quasi-official capacity, reporting back to Germany the findings of his two-month sojourn.59 Colonel Gaillard and Captain de Torcy, France’s military attachés accredited to the legations in St. Petersburg and Constantinople, accompanied the armies to the field and bore the primary responsibility of reporting the war’s progress back to Paris. France increased its coverage of the war when it granted to General de Courcy and his aide, Commandant de Randal, official sanction to accompany the Russian army in Asia.60 1877 marked the first time that the United States officially assigned military attachés to foreign legations. Done specifically for the purpose of observing the war between Russia and Turkey, this decision is noteworthy for two reasons. First, the title assigned to the officers is significant, for this was not the first time that American officers had been sent abroad to observe a foreign war; the fact that the United States assigned its observers as “attachés” shows the degree to which the institution had become established in the space of the previous decade and had spread beyond the core military powers. The sending of attachés had a second importance, one that indicates that the U.S. army, although it was displaying interest in international military affairs by stationing three officers abroad, was still not accustomed to thinking or acting globally; the idea of studying the war did not originate in the war department, but rather in the suggestion of the acting chargé d’affaires at the U.S. legation in St. Petersburg.61

Late Bloomers The United States attached the three officers to Vienna, Constantinople, and St. Petersburg only for the duration of the Russo-Turkish War. When it was over, Lt. Greene stayed in the Russian capital until December 1878, collecting information for his report on the war. In his final

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dispatch as attaché to the U.S. legation to Russia, he took the opportunity to discourse to Secretary of State Evarts on the “general duties and position of Military Attachés in Europe, which may possibly be of service upon a future occasion in the event of officers being sent abroad.”62 This memorandum began with a list of the British, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Austrian military posts in various legations in 1878; distinguished them from the military plenipotentiaries in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna; and described their ranks, functions, and the paths of their reports home to military authorities.63 Their duties were, broadly put, “to keep their own Governments always informed of the course of military affairs and the military strength of the countries to which they are accredited”; they did this by perusing official documents, attending drills, parades, and maneuvers, reading widely in the military press, and cultivating the acquaintance of officers in the nation in which they were stationed.64 Greene emphasized that accurate and timely information on military developments in a foreign country had little value if the intelligence were improperly handled at home; in each of the “five great military nations,” a special section of the General Staff was charged with organizing the reports flowing in from various legations and making accessible the data contained therein.65 Recent wars had confirmed the wisdom of this practice: The valuable service which this section of the Prussian Staff rendered to their army in 1864, 1866, and 1870 is well-known, and it is also well-known that the French entered into the war of 1870 in great ignorance of the military strength of their enemy, principally because Marshal Le Boeuf, the Minister of War, refused to credit the valuable reports of Baron Stoffel, the Military Attaché in Berlin— which reports were subsequently verified by the facts. Greene considered the American practice of military intelligence gathering to have a “very different nature” because it relied, from Jefferson’s presidency onward, on sending commissions abroad rather than permanently attaching officers to legations. While the “best-known” of these was the Delafield Commission to the Crimean War, Greene noted “numerous other” delegations sharing certain characteristics: [They] have had a special technical object, have usually visited more than one country, have been presented to the Military Authorities by the U.S. Legations or Consulates, have made their notes, then returned home at once and there composed their reports; which were submitted to the Chiefs of the Departments or to the Adjutant General, and deposited among their archives— usually being also published.

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But, he added, the information was not processed in any statistical section of the war department and thus rendered into a more usable form. Having offered these notes on military attachés, “which although a novelty in our service is a custom of long established usage in Europe” (somewhat of an overstatement of the institution’s stage of development in 1878), Greene ventured to speak about the wisdom of America following the Old World’s example. First, he pointed to the United States’s advantageous geography, with militarily unthreatening nations to the north and south and oceans to the east and west. From this it followed that “information concerning the strength of European armies has the same interest for us—but no more—than other statistical information, such as population, public debt, revenue, expenditures, &c.”66 The Continental armies (and Britain) lacked that luxury and hence found it crucial to have a “trained officer constantly on the spot” to report all notable military news. “This state of affairs not existing for us,” Greene asserted, “the prime necessity for these officers has also no existence.” There was a secondary purpose for maintaining officers abroad, that of “keeping up with the times in the technical part of the military profession.” The lieutenant had complete faith in American small arms, but American field and siege artillery were “inferior in every respect to that of every great nation and at least fifteen years behind the age.” This datedness was not attributable to ignorance of European artillery, for ordnance officers kept themselves well informed, but the rate of weapons development was so rapid that “were an officer, properly qualified to report on these matters, stationed permanently in Berlin or Paris to take note of these changes . . . he would collect a great deal of information of the greatest utility to our service” not merely in artillery but in a variety of other technologies as well.” In making his closing argument, Greene invoked the same themes as had the British and French officials to justify the establishment of military attachés: They would cut down on the need for special commissions and increase the quantity, quality, and variety of information provided in a measure great enough to justify their expense.67 His modest proposal was to appoint attachés to U.S. legations in the “leading military nations” and the “great naval nation”—that is, army officers in Berlin and Paris and a naval officer in London. Despite Greene and fellow officers’ professed belief that America should follow Europe’s lead in this regard, the United States sent its first permanent military attachés abroad only in 1889, when officers took up posts in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, and St. Petersburg.68 Attachés followed in Rome in 1890, Brussels in 1892, Madrid in 1893, and Japan and Mexico in 1894.69 The United States may have been slow in adopting the practice, but it caught up rapidly.

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Contrary to what one might expect of the preeminent military power at the end of the nineteenth century, there was nothing remarkable about Prussia/Germany’s development of this institution in terms of time or numbers; neither was it the first country to expand the practice to several courts at once nor did it expand particularly rapidly once it followed the French example. What was notable about the German military attaché service (apart from the fact that it kept Berlin “astonishingly well-informed” of its neighbors’ military developments) was its attempts in the 1880s and 1890s, as Waldersee took over from Moltke as chief of staff, to supplant the regular diplomatic service, expanding its area of concern beyond “pure military-technical” questions, a subject that has been studied extensively elsewhere.70 There was no single pattern among or within nations for creating these new diplomatic posts. In certain cases, the impetus came from a nation’s foreign service when career diplomats found themselves unable adequately to fulfill this portion of their duties.71 In other instances, the military or naval departments pressed the foreign service to accede to their wishes to send representatives abroad.72 Sometimes, it was a simple matter of reciprocity—when France attached a naval attaché to London in 1860, the British shipped one of their own across the Channel. Likewise, no single country emerged as the trendsetter in this field, though it certainly started out as something done by major powers; by the early 1890s not only had Germany, Austria, Russia, Britain, Italy, Turkey, and the United States established permanent attachés at Paris, but Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Holland, Persia, Peru, Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Romania, and Belgium had, at least intermittently, sent attachés to the French capital as well.73 By the outbreak of World War I, by one scholar’s count, there were in all nations a total of 214 military and 85 naval attachés; America and Russia tied for the largest number, with 31 service attachés apiece.74 Britain followed with 26, Germany 25, France 24, Italy 18, Austria-Hungary 17, Japan 16, and Spain 15.75

Acceptance of Military Intelligence Like most institutions, the military efforts did not develop in a perfect linear pattern. The practices that it was designed to supplant—that of ad hoc wartime observation and of the short-term commission to study specific subjects in several countries—did not disappear overnight. The development of the institution of permanent military attachés did not bring an end to, but rather a reduction in, temporary missions monitoring technological developments and war-waging abroad. The French attached a pair

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of officers to the General Staff of Sir Robert Napier during the 1868 Abyssinian expedition. In 1876–77, the commanding general of the U.S. army, William T. Sherman, sent the Upton Commission around the world to less-often visited powers, such as China, Japan, India, and Persia; these officers saw the theater of war during a short armistice in the Serbo-Turkish War of 1876. Temporary observers and attachés found their way to the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese and the 1912–13 Balkan Wars. Military attachés appeared in an era when Western nations increasingly turned to war to resolve international differences and to achieve national unity. The Mexican-American, Crimean, and Russo-Turkish Wars belong under the first category, whereas the Franco-Austrian War, the Italian wars of unification, the American Civil War, and the German wars of unification of 1864, 1866, and 1870–71 exemplify the latter trend. Although Europe experienced a long peace of sorts, of comparable duration to the peace between the Congress of Vienna and the Crimean War, between the end of the Russo-Turkish War and the Balkan Wars that preceded World War I, the pace at which new attaché posts were created did not slacken, but rather accelerated in the century’s last two decades. More than belligerency was at work in driving the development of this institution. Countries justified the need for attachés primarily in terms of keeping up with the latest military technology. The second half of the nineteenth century saw military powers struggle with the implications of rapid technological development. Officers in Western armies who had been trained to consider the human element the most decisive factor in determining victory on the battlefield had to face the humbling reality that less–well-trained men with superior weapons might prevail over better-trained men with outdated equipment. Taking advantage of the customary willingness of other countries to exhibit their latest weaponry advances carried with it an implicit cost: the host country would eventually want to reciprocate. These years, therefore, saw give-and-take on the parts both of nations sending and of nations accepting foreign military representatives. These negotiations took place within countries as the military representatives and diplomats debated the financial and supervisory responsibility for the officers sent and discussed the advisability of permitting outsiders into their national military establishments. In the transitional years of the mid-century, for example, the Russians refused and the French obstructed the American officers’ wish to visit their respective headquarters during the Crimean War; the United States delayed the admittance of French and British observers to the Army of the Potomac in the spring of 1864; and the French Imperial government forbade all foreign officers to accompany their armies in the FrancoPrussian War. Nations restricted access not only to field armies but also

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to military establishments: the Prussians kept secret from the Delafield Commission the plans of their needle-gun when visited during the Crimean War; the Americans withheld certain plans from the British during the Civil War, prompting Lord Lyons to suggest the employment of a spy; and Austria denied American military attaché Col. Hazen information on its “steel-bronze” cannon during the RussoTurkish War. Some observers and attachés found access to many establishments arbitrarily restrictive, arguing that a private citizen often could learn more from casual observation than an officially accredited military officer. Restrictions placed by one nation on access to its places of military interest prompted others to do the same. Major Delafield returned from the 1855–56 tour to Europe convinced that America was too liberal in admitting foreign officers into its fortifications and arsenals. He forwarded copies of the permits issued by the British and French to officers seeking to visit such places partly to show the obstacles the commission had faced and partly to “suggest the propriety of our sea coast and frontier defenses being by some arrangement closed to persons who would make an improper use of the present license to everyone to visit the same at pleasure as individuals.”76 In a manner reminiscent of current efforts both to capitalize on and to restrict the content of the information available on the Internet, the various militaries of the nineteenth century had to improvise measures to monitor the rapidly changing military technologies elsewhere even as they realized the prudence of controlling foreign access to their own inventions and discoveries. The technological changes of the second half of the nineteenth century—transportation and communications advances delivered more men to the front more quickly than ever to confront weaponry advances that enabled armies to kill more of the enemy more rapidly than ever— forced armies to upgrade the quality, quantity, and frequency of their intelligence collection. “Modern war calls for a larger measure of intelligence on the part of the individual officer and soldier than it did twenty years ago,” wrote General William T. Sherman in 1879, “and although the great principles of strategy continue the same, tactical changes are forced on us, the knowledge and practice of which must be acquired beforehand, thus necessitating more study and preparation on the part of the professional soldier than in former times.”77 Sir Garnet Wolseley, one of the leading military thinkers of the day and future commanderin-chief of the British army, addressed the pace of technological change in correspondence in 1875 with his publisher about his work, The Soldier’s Pocketbook, originally published in 1869. “The book is one that should have a new edition every two years or three at the outside, for to be worth anything,” Wolseley urged that “it must be kept on a level with

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modern military ideas and they change with every new great invention or discovery.”78 Sherman and Wolseley hailed from countries that were geographically isolated from mainland Europe, that maintained volunteer armies (in contrast to the Continental model), and that had built-in technological advantages over their enemies of the time, as they were then fighting non-European peoples who had non–European-style military forces, and yet both officers found it imperative to keep up with the latest technology. These examples illustrate two important points: First, military intelligence collection acquired a new sense of urgency in this era, and second, the collection of that intelligence stemmed from much more than just military attaché reports. These supplemental sources of intelligence were numerous: personal correspondence and meetings between high-level officers from different countries, war correspondents, popular and service journals, and proceedings of professional associations, to name a few. As unprecedented amounts of data became available on other armies in the mid- to late nineteenth century, the armies naturally had to evolve to handle the influx of information. General staffs and intelligence departments developed, expanded, and merged in response to the imperative to know one’s enemies (and allies). Armies without general staffs created them. Armies with general staffs evolved to a higher level of sophistication. The British were slower than their Continental counterparts in creating an intelligence department, at least partly out of misguided scruples about what constituted “spying.” “There is nothing new or un-English in the idea of studying, by means of the Quartermaster-General’s Department, such features of country and such statistics as must be known in order to make sound plans for the eventualities of war,” opined a Royal Artillery officer assigned in 1874 to report on intelligence collection.79 “This has been done in former days, though, at that time, war was not opened by such rapid strokes as are now the rule, and the necessity for preparation was not so urgent.” In the four profiled countries, the accumulation of data on foreign armies derived in different proportions from a pair of fears. They kept one eye on nations that posed a potential threat to their national security and the other on those that might teach them about new military technologies. The shortcomings of the old, ad hoc system of collecting military intelligence were several, as we have seen. Because these missions were short-term, the observing officers could not study foreign armies first hand over time, get to know their officers intimately, or earn the trust necessary to gain admission to every military establishment the observers might like to see. The sporadic nature of these missions gave little incentive to the armies to establish formal methods for cataloging and making available this information gathered abroad. And, finally, given

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the travel and communication times of the mid-nineteenth century, only through tremendous good luck would temporary observation missions find themselves able to witness the crucial events of foreign wars. The new military attaché system that first supplemented and finally replaced the old way of doing things had challenges of its own. These challenges fall into two categories: the generation and the acceptance of quality intelligence. The best illustration of the difficulty facing attachés in establishing themselves as solid sources of information is the work of French attaché Colonel Stoffel in Berlin leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. Although the French at that point had had an attaché in Prussia for nearly two decades, Stoffel’s repeated, on-target assessments of Prussian abilities and intentions went ignored by authorities in Paris. The generation of accurate intelligence proved difficult at times as well. The full implications of the lessons of the Russo-Turkish War went unheeded by European and American attachés due to cultural stereotypes and embedded traditions. The fact that it was not considered a bona fide “European” war and the fact that it came on the heels of the Franco-Prussian War, called by Greene “the military marvel of modern times,” meant that the lessons of the war went inadequately examined.80 This is not to assert that the Russo-Turkish War had an unprecedented predictive value for future wars—no wars excel at that—but that wars can give an idea of the range of strategic and tactical possibilities, establishing certain parameters within which the patterns of the next big war will probably fall. The attachés did not give the Russo-Turkish War the chance to stretch their imaginations in this regard; intellectually they were more bound to the known facts of the past than to the uncertainties of the future. The great changes of the mid-century in international relations, new political boundaries and the speed of transportation and communication, produced corresponding changes in military organizations: the rise of the military attaché and peacetime war preparations emphasizing speedy mobilization and weapons development. The March 1878 Treaty of San Stefano brought to a close the third war of the century between Russia and Turkey. It also ended a 25-year disruption to the peace established at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Another long peace came to the European continent, but it was quite deliberately an armed peace. The lessons learned in the era between 1846 and 1878 mandated that countries keep up their defenses and continually improve their intelligence collection—for no amount of individual will and genius could overcome material or organizational unpreparedness for war.

CHAPTER 4

Russian Intelligence and the Younghusband Expedition to Tibet David H. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye

In 1808, William Moorcroft, an English veterinary surgeon, left his prospering Oxford Street practice in London for Calcutta.1 The British East India Company, at that time the subcontinent’s ruler, was having problems maintaining a supply of horses sufficiently hardy to carry cavalryman and kit in the ’tropical climate, and it turned to the eminent veterinarian for his help. The situation was urgent, because news had just reached the company of a plan by Napoleon and his ally, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, to mount an overland invasion of British India. During his first few years as superintendent of the company’s stud, Moorcroft came to the conclusion that somewhere to the north, in the uncharted wilderness beyond the Himalayas, horses of great stamina and speed roamed the plains. If a few specimens of this legendary breed could be found and brought back to Calcutta, he might succeed in reinvigorating the cavalry’s bloodstock. Accordingly, in early 1812, Moorcroft set off for the Kailas region of southwestern Tibet. By July of that year, the intrepid veterinarian had crossed a pass into Tibet and stopped at a border hamlet to seek permission to proceed to the town of Gartok, some 70 kilometers to the north.

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In the house of a local official, where Moorcroft had been invited to present his request, two small dogs that were clearly Western in origin enthusiastically greeted the Englishman. Moorcroft later recounted that the pug and the terrier, overjoyed at seeing a fellow European, “suddenly rushed towards me, fondled, caressed me, frisked, jumped, barked, and appeared as much rejoiced at seeing me as if they had recognized in me an old and favoured acquaintance.”2 The dogs next performed a trick they had been taught by their previous owners: “sitting on their haunches and pushing forward their forelegs,” they imitated the military drill for presenting arms. The animals had clearly been the pets of soldiers. Much to his alarm, Moorcroft was informed by his host that the dogs had been owned by “Ooroos,” which, to the veterinarian’s active imagination, was clearly derived from “Ruskii.” The news that Russian troops had been having dealings with a minor official in southern Tibet, only some 600 kilometers from Calcutta, came as a shock to Moorcroft. Unaware that Napoleon had now turned on his former ally (Alexander I), the company’s representative concluded that Cossack scouts were reconnoitring Inner Asia to plan an invasion route into India for the Grande Armée. Yet Moorcroft’s warnings about the threat to the subcontinent fell on deaf ears. The company was preoccupied with consolidating its position over the immense territory it already owned, and refused to worry about bazaar rumors. For the time being, in the warm afterglow of the victory at Waterloo, Britain and Russia were on excellent terms with each other, and the veterinarian’s urgent dispatches about tsarist intrigues in the Himalayas were dismissed by his superiors. Moorcroft was the first Englishman to worry publicly about plots in St. Petersburg to subvert Tibet as a prelude to the invasion of Britain’s most precious overseas possession. But as the twentieth century dawned, many of his compatriots began to share these concerns. Not long after the veterinarian’s expedition, Tibet’s borders were virtually sealed off from the European world, and, in the absence of any reliable information, it was altogether too easy for Britons to fear the worst about the terra incognita beyond the Himalayas. This lacuna became a matter of more than academic concern within a decade of Moorcroft’s death in 1825, when Great Britain found itself engaged in the contest with Russia for dominion over Central Asia. To its Victorian spectators, the struggle came to be known as the “Great Game.” Until the turn of the century, the playing fields of this imperial match lay outside of Tibet. In 1901, however, the Buddhist theocracy suddenly found itself in the spotlight of Anglo-Russian rivalry. Rumors of tsarist subversion of the Potala and secret arms shipments led to a British military expedition in 1903, under the command of Colonel

Russian Intelligence and the Younghusband Expedition to Tibet

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Francis Younghusband, which shot its way to Lhasa to preempt the establishment of another Russian puppet in Inner Asia. Shortly thereafter, the two powers agreed to cease their squabbling in the face of the more immediate danger of Prussian bellicosity, and the Great Game formally ended with the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907.3 Much has been written about Britain’s involvement in this endgame of the Victorian cold war.4 Yet because the relevant archives were as inaccessible to foreigners in the twentieth century as Lhasa was to Europeans in the nineteenth, until very recently there had been little research into Russia’s involvement in Tibetan affairs during the years leading up to 1903.5 Consequently, there is considerable controversy over the true nature of St. Petersburg’s activities, if any, at the Potala. Was “Russia’s success in Tibet entirely due to proceedings of the Oriental kind, secret missions, secret corruption, secret armaments, shameless denial and shameless bluff,” as a French contemporary argued?6 Or did it take the more benign form suggested by a Canadian historian: “While Russia did have interests in Tibet, it was unlikely to exert much effort to pursue them; Tibet simply was not important enough”?7 Now that the more important collections are open, it is finally possible to make a reasonable effort at studying this question. This chapter, based on work at the archives of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg, as well as those at the Imperial Foreign and War Ministries in Moscow, will provide a tentative answer. To the historian of intelligence, a look at the role of Tibet in tsarist affairs is particularly interesting. As during the twentieth-century Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, a nation that sought nothing more than to remain aloof from great-power rivalry found itself inexorably drawn into the quarrel, largely due to the unrealistic and exaggerated fears of the main combatants. The reclusive Himalayan theocracy thereby unwillingly became the object of secret reconnaissance, covert operations, and armed intervention. At the same time, the story of St. Petersburg’s involvement in the Buddhist realm also tells us something about the development of Russian intelligence in the nineteenth century. More importantly, the story is a reminder that the most significant elements of the intelligence cycle often are not collection and collation, but analysis and dissemination.

Victorian Cold War For much of the nineteenth century, Russia and Great Britain were engaged in a cold war. Like the eponymous conflict a hundred years later, the adversaries competed not for each other’s territory, but for

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hegemony over third parties. This Anglo-Russian rivalry can be roughly divided into two phases: the “Eastern Question” and the “Great Game.” The former concerned tsarist ambitions on the decaying Ottoman Empire, particularly the maritime passage from Constantinople to the Dardanelles, and lasted approximately 25 years, until Russia’s resounding defeat in the Crimean war in 1856 against a coalition involving Britain. Effectively thwarted in the Near East, St. Petersburg redirected its imperial ambitions to Central Asia and the Great Game. Despite the sobriquet’s gentlemanly connotations, the Great Game was a deadly serious struggle for mastery over the Asian heartland. To Queen Victoria, the stakes were nothing less than “a question of Russian or British supremacy in the world.”8 The playing fields stretched from the ancient empire of Persia in the west, through Afghanistan and the immense noman’s-land in the east that separated Russian Siberia from British India.9 Although the rivals had met on the battlefield in Crimea during the 1850s, the Great Game involved remarkably little direct armed conflict. Military operations were carried out primarily against third parties, to secure allegiance, as in the case of Persia and Afghanistan, or to effect outright annexation, according to a strategic calculus British contemporaries termed the “Forward Policy.”10 This doctrine held that hostile tribes on the colonial periphery must be pacified in order to stop their raids across the border into that colony. In practice, such tribes could only be subdued by incorporating them under the colony’s military and political aegis. At that point, the newly pacified tribes would now be threatened by marauding bands beyond their frontier. Thus the consolidation of colonial authority entailed an unceasing expansion of military responsibilities. To the British, the Forward Policy was relevant to the northwest frontier of India, and the Russians employed a similar strategy in Central Asia.11 Another aspect of the Great Game was the preemptive nature of many of its moves. Britain, in particular, became enmeshed in the affairs of Persia and Afghanistan largely on preventative grounds. As one British scholar observed: “[British] policy, in the language of games, was to play one’s correct move now so as to make it impossible for the enemy . . . to play his correct move at some later date.”12 The result was that perceptions, often based on intelligence of the most rudimentary kind, played a key role in the strategies developed in London and St. Petersburg. This desire to beat the adversary to the punch influenced great gamesmanship nearly as often as more primal imperial urges. Consequently a move anywhere on the game’s field by one side might neces-


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sitate reactions by the opponent among any number of its “pieces.” It goes without saying that the players gave little, if any, consideration to the wishes of the inhabitants of these “pieces.” The best metaphor for the Great Game was chess, as suggested by this verse from the medieval Persian poet Omar Khayyam: But helpless pieces of the game he plays Upon his checker board of nights and days. Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the closet lays.13 Although the tactics both sides employed were similar, the object of the Great Game was seen in an entirely different light by Britain and Russia. Whereas the latter’s motives still engender lively debate among historians, a fear of tsarist designs on India guided British actions.14 Until 1907, halting what appeared to be Russia’s inexorable advance on “the noblest trophy of British genius and the most splendid apanage of the British Crown” was the prime directive of Britain’s policy in Central Asia.15 The remorseless character of its rival’s southward drive was seen by some in terms remarkably similar to twentieth-century domino theory: Once having embarked upon a career of Transcaspian conquest, [Russia] could not possibly stop at either Geok Tepe, or at Baba Dumaz, or at Sarakhs, or at Merv. Each link in the chain as it has been forged has already found itself intertwined with its successor. . . . The fact remains that in the absence of any physical obstacle . . . Russia was as much compelled to go forward as the earth is around the sun.16 British concerns were not entirely groundless. In the eighteenth century, Empress Catherine the Great had flirted with the idea of a conquest of India. Her hapless son, Tsar Paul I, actually ordered a sizable host of Don Cossacks to assemble at the western Siberian garrison of Orenburg in 1800 in preparation for an assault on the British colony. In the event, Paul’s unplanned retirement from the throne a year later led to the abandonment of the scheme, and his successor, Tsar Alexander I, recalled the troops to their garrison. At various times in the nineteenth century, Russian generals nevertheless fantasized about fording the Indus.17 General Mikhail Skobelev, for instance, dreamt about the day when he would “organize masses of Asiatic cavalry and to hurl them into India as a vanguard, under the banner of blood and rapine, thereby reviving the times of Tamerlane.”18 Yet

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during the course of the Great Game, such plans never progressed beyond staff-school exercises, barracks bravado, and, on occasion, disinformation.19

Tsarist Intelligence The Great Game coincided with important reforms in Russian military intelligence. Until the latter half of the nineteenth century, tsarist generals gathered information about the adversary and the theater much the same way as all commanders had since the dawn of organized warfare: with spies, reconnaissance, and by interrogating captured enemy troops. Despite some administrative innovations that began in the early eighteenth century during the reign of Peter the Great, collection was largely ad hoc and was rarely carried out in peacetime. As for analysis and dissemination, the other two components of the intelligence cycle, these activities were rudimentary at best.20 Russia’s humiliating defeat against a coalition of Turkey, Britain, and France during the Crimean War of 1853–56 signaled the need for major reforms to modernize the autocracy. During the next twenty years, Tsar Alexander II radically changed the very foundations of his regime, most dramatically by abolishing serfdom in 1861. Among the most enthusiastic innovators was his war minister, Dmitrii Miliutin, who did much to restructure the army along Western lines.21 Although Miliutin’s introduction of universal military service in 1874 attracted the most attention, the minister’s improvements to military intelligence were also invaluable.22 Miliutin was not the only European military official who sought to reform intelligence. The Crimean conflict had exposed the inadequacies of the intelligence establishments of the victors and vanquished alike.23 European powers increasingly began to understand that the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution were making warfare more complicated. Improvements in transportation and communication, together with the rise of large conscript armies armed with the increasingly complex machinery of war, which required a sophisticated manufacturing sector, all began to blur the lines between front and rear. The traditional trinity of captives, spies, and a look at the battlefield on the eve of combat no longer sufficed to provide generals with adequate details to prepare for a clash. It became evident that only a systematic, ongoing effort by a permanent establishment to collect a wide range of data about all other powers, whether foe, neutral, or friend, as well as their lands, could properly inform commanders about the capabilities of potential adversaries.24 In Prussia (and, after 1871,


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Germany), the General Staff had been responsible for this function, among others, since the early nineteenth century.25 Meanwhile, the British army set up the Topographical and Statistical Department in 1855. Subsequently styled the Intelligence Branch, its mandate was to “collect and classify all possible information relating to the strength, organisation and equipment of foreign armies.”26 Miliutin’s interest in intelligence long antedated his appointment as war minister in 1861. As a professor of military geography at the General Staff Academy in the 1840s, he vigorously advocated a more comprehensive approach to his subject. In an influential article he wrote shortly after joining the school’s faculty, Miliutin argued, [t]o wage war effectively, we must have essential information about where we will fight, including capabilities and other statistics about the theatre of operations, in addition to the material and moral resources of both sides.27 Both at the academy and, later, as the head of his ministry, Miliutin’s efforts resulted in a proper establishment for intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination. Thoroughly revamping the Russian army’s General Staff, in 1865 the war minister set up a Main Staff (Glavnyi Shtab), which, like its Prussian analogue, oversaw such functions as administration, training, and intelligence. Although the Main Staff’s primary responsibility with regard to intelligence was gathering information about the European powers, a separate section, the Asian Department (Aziatskaia Chast’ ), studied the empire’s neighbors to the east.28 As with the West, the latter dealt with some governments that maintained formal ties, including Turkey and Persia. However, the Asian Department also dealt with states that did not follow the established conventions of diplomatic intercourse, such as Afghanistan, and with the enormous expanses of uncharted terrain in Inner Asia. Here the Asian Department’s task often involved collecting the most rudimentary geographical data by exploration on horse, camel, and foot. The gradual conquest of Central Asia, beginning in the mid 1800s, and the annexation of vast territories from China on the Amur and Ussuri Rivers in Eastern Siberia at around the same time both generated ambitious topographical missions to those regions.29 At the same time, political unrest, commercial possibilities, and the simple desire to fill the blank spots on its maps encouraged the Main Staff to mount expeditions to Asian regions in which the empire did not have any immediate territorial ambitions. Not surprisingly, British curiosity about some of the very same lands also played a role in the Great Game.

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Forbidden Realm At first glance, Tibet would seem to have been an ideal candidate for Victorian anxieties about the security of India’s frontier. With the addition of Nepal and Bhutan to its empire by the end of the nineteenth century, British rule in India extended to the foothills of the Himalayas. What lay beyond this sheer wall of rock remained largely a mystery to India’s overlords. In the late 1700s, Lhasa had declared all Europeans persona non grata and thereafter did its best to keep them off its soil. Geography simplified this task considerably. The most effective sentinel was the forbidding ring of mountains that virtually surrounds Tibet. The country itself is constituted of an enormous plateau at extreme altitudes averaging 12,000 feet above sea level. Although the native inhabitants are hardened to its austere conditions, Tibet’s rarefied atmosphere and frequent storms provided further impediments to European interlopers. As a result of its isolation, Tibet had developed a unique political system that can best be described as “papo-caesarism.” Government authority was comprised of parallel clerical and lay administrations, which were both headed by the Dalai Lama, a tulku (or incarnate lama) of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Also known as Lamaism, this faith permeated all aspects of life. The overwhelming importance of religion to Tibet was indicated by the extent of monasticism among the male population: nearly one out of every five men was tonsured.30 Tibet’s relationship with neighboring China before the twentieth century remains a source of lively controversy. In theory, the Dalai Lama was a vassal of the Qing emperor, but the reality was that imperial authority over Tibetan affairs waxed and waned according to the cycle of dynastic ascendancy and decay.31 By the end of the nineteenth century, Chinese suzerainty over the reclusive theocracy was a diplomatic fiction. Although the European powers still officially recognized Chinese dominion, the British political officer in Sikkim admitted: “The Tibetans will not obey [China], and the Chinese refuse to give orders. China is suzerain in name only.”32 If there was one matter on which lama and mandarin agreed, it was the need to keep Europeans out of Tibet. Until the nineteenth century, Tibet’s borders were relatively porous, and during the preceding two hundred years, a number of Westerners had journeyed throughout Tibet. The Gurkha invasion of the 1780s led to a change of heart. Chinese suggestions that Britain had supported the Nepalese were readily believed. Tibetans had no interest in coming under the sway of the British army, which was already beginning to subdue its neighbors in the Himalayan foothills. At the same time, the Buddhist clergy preferred to


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avoid competition from Christian missionaries. Beijing was happy to keep its political monopoly over the reluctant vassal uncomplicated by European meddling. Tibet’s exclusionary policy was effective. During the nineteenth century, only three Westerners are known to have reached Lhasa: an Englishman, Thomas Manning, in 1811, and two French missionary friars 35 years later.33 During most of the Great Game, London returned the compliment, and largely ignored India’s northern neighbor in favor of Persia, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian khanates, where it presumed the principal axis of any Russian advance lay. Tibet’s geography was simply too forbidding. The many Russophobic tracts that came off British presses during the nineteenth century made virtually no mention of Tibet, and as late as 1896, a British military intelligence report dismissed concerns about Cossacks breaching the Himalayas: “From a purely military point of view, their position would be faulty. A large force would starve and a small one could be easily crushed or driven out by a superior force from India” it stated, cautiously concluding that the possibility of Russian military involvement was “remote but not one to lose sight of.”34 Until the 1890s, Russian diplomats were equally disinterested in Tibet. In the eighteenth century, Catherine the Great had tried to set up trading links with Lhasa, and she corresponded regularly with its leading clergy.35 The tsarina’s heirs, however, did not continue her efforts to establish ties with Lhasa, and until the reign of Nicholas II, Tibet was largely peripheral to Russian foreign affairs. Diplomacy during the years from 1812 to 1895 in particular was marked by a high degree of “continuity and methodical cautiousness.”36 Only three men—Count Karl Nesselrode, Prince Aleksei Gorchakov, and Nikolai Giers—served as minister of foreign affairs, and they maintained Russian diplomacy on a relatively pragmatic course. With the sole exception of the Crimean debacle, these men sought to avoid dangerous military entanglements. As the British military attaché to St. Petersburg reported in 1896, “On the principle . . . of not being in too great a hurry, Russian statesmen prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, to do one thing at a time when possible, and that under favourable conditions.”37 Thus, while Russia’s Asian territories were expanding at a prodigious rate throughout this time, very few of these conquests involved direct confrontation with the other major powers, including China, to whom Tibet still nominally belonged. Furthermore, unlike the leading colonial empires of Western Europe, all of the tsar’s conquests were contiguous to the imperial landmass. Under such conditions, there was no room for adventures in an unknown land far beyond Russia’s border like Tibet.

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Przhevalskii One group of Russians that did begin to pay attention to Tibet in the late nineteenth century was the Imperial Geographical Society. Founded in 1845, the organization’s chief raison d’être was mapping the Asian hinterland. Although the society was a private foundation under the patronage of a grand duke, its activities were motivated by more than purely scientific curiosity. It enjoyed close ties with the army, and officers serving in the Main Staff often organized its expeditions. Because of its semiofficial status and its enthusiasm for Russian imperialism, it was not inaccurate for foreigners to conclude that the Imperial Geographical Society’s “talented members played the Great Game of Central Asia.”38 Perhaps no one better exemplifies this dual academic and military nature of the society than its celebrated explorer, Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalskii. His four major journeys in the 1870s and 1880s through largely uncharted territory in Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet were of inestimable value to science, and Europe’s leading geographical societies showered him with gold medals for his discoveries, such as the primitive horse that bears his name.39 But Przhevalskii was more than a geographer. Eventually rising to the rank of major-general, Nikolai Mikhailovich also happened to be an officer attached to the Asian Department of the Main Staff.40 Although, to the public eye, the Geographical Society sponsored Przhevalskii’s travels, the War Ministry largely supplied money, personnel, and material.41 As the officer wrote his superiors before setting out on one of his trips: “[My] scientific research will camouflage the political goals of the expedition and should discourage any interference by our adversaries.”42 Thus, in addition to enriching geography, Nikolai Mikhailovich was also engaged in a military reconnaissance of Inner Asia.43 During his first journey to the region, in 1870 through 1873, for example, he was the first to provide details about a major Muslim rising in western China, while his next trip, seven years later, included a covert embassy to the court of the insurgency’s leader, Yakub Beg. In 1878, Przhevalskii proposed a new expedition, this time with the Potala as its goal. As he wrote to the head of the Asian Section, Colonel Aleksei Kuropatkin: “The aim of my journey will be Tibet. Along with scientific work, I propose to conduct, inasmuch as it may be possible, intelligence concerning the political structure of Tibet, its relations with its neighbours and, finally, the possibility of establishing relations with the Dalai Lama.”44 Recognizing that a European would face many obstacles in the capital of the reclusive theocracy, Nikolai Mikhailovich proposed that a trusted Mongolian lama be dispatched to Lhasa ahead of time in order to conduct an initial political reconnaissance and liaise with the explorer when the latter reached the city.45


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Przhevalskii was interested in Tibet for several reasons. The inaccessibility of the mysterious land clearly was a challenge to the explorer, and one biography about him is appropriately entitled The Dream of Lhasa.46 There were also rumors of vast gold deposits in northern Tibet,47 and there were sound strategic grounds to gain the goodwill of the Dalai Lama, whose influence extended far beyond his own realm.48 However, the most compelling argument was that Britain was thought to have its eyes on Tibet too.49 Przhevalskii urged his superiors to preempt their British rivals by getting there first.50 However, although the war minister fully supported Przhevalskii’s expeditions and valued his reconnaissance reports, the explorer was considered something of a hothead by his superiors, and they were quick to disown any of his more aggressive proposals. In any event, Przhevalskii was unsuccessful: His caravan had come within 250 kilometers of the capital when a detachment of Tibetan soldiers barred his way, citing fears that the Russian might kidnap the Dalai Lama Nikolai. Mikhailovich did not give up, and in 1883 would make another unsuccessful attempt to reach the Potala. Finally, in 1888, Przhevalskii set out once more “to have a look at the Dalai Lama,” but contracted typhus and died before even crossing the Russian border.51 The Geographical Society mounted a number of further explorations of Tibet during the 1890s, led by such officers as Przhevalskii’s former aides Petr Kozlov and Vsevolod Roborovskii, as well a young Buriat, Gonbojab Tsybikov. The only one of these to succeed in reaching Lhasa was Tsybikov, who traveled as a Buddhist pilgrim.52

Badmaev The publication of Przhevalskii’s celebrated accounts coincided with the growing popularity of a clinic on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Operating as an apothecary specializing in Tibetan herbal medicine to treat “stubborn nervous diseases, mental maladies, and disturbances of the female physiology,”53 the practice was run by a Buriat physician, Zhamsaran Badmaev. Badmaev enjoyed impeccable social connections. When baptised into the Orthodox Church as Peter Aleksandrovich, Tsar Alexander III stood as his godfather, and as mark of imperial favor, the tsar granted the convert permission to use his given name as patronymic. Peter Badmaev was able to use his access to the tsar and his most senior officials to play an unusual role in Russia’s Far Eastern policy at the turn of the century. The poet Alexander Blok called Badmaev a “wise and cunning Asiatic,” whereas Whitehall dubbed him “the Architect of Russia’s Tibet policy.”54 In 1893, Badmaev approached Alexander III with an unusual plan. His scheme, as outlined in his memorandum to the tsar, “On the Task of

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Russian Policy in the Far East,” proposed taking advantage of the Qing dynasty’s growing infirmity.55 Badmaev suggested adding a spur to the Trans-Siberian Railway, then under construction, to connect the Buriat homeland on the shore of Lake Baikal with the western Chinese city of Lanzhou, nearly 2,000 kilometers across the Gobi Desert. Badmaev went on to detail how the southern terminus could function as a dispersal point for thousands of Buriat fifth columnists. These tsarist agents would subvert their Lamaist coreligionists in Tibet, Mongolia, and western China, eventually raising a force of 400,000 horsemen, which would march on the Forbidden City and overthrow the Manchus. Having seized power, “selected members of the Mongolian, Tibetan, and Chinese nobility and leading Buddhist priests would set off for St. Petersburg to supplicate the White Tsar to accept their submission.”56 As would often be the case during the twentieth century’s Cold War, Russian subversion would be conducted under the cover of a legitimate commercial enterprise. Although the tsar was skeptical, his finance minister, Sergei Witte, strongly endorsed the proposal and convinced his sovereign to approve a two-million-ruble subsidy to set up the enterprise. “P. A. Badmaev and Co.” was duly incorporated later in 1893, with offices in St. Petersburg and the Buriat city of Chita. The enterprise was neither a commercial nor a political success. When its owner requested a second two-million-ruble infusion of capital a few years later, Witte turned him down, and by 1900, Badmaev himself had abandoned the venture.57 Apart from vague references to clandestine groups of armed Buriat agents being dispatched to Tibet and elsewhere, it appears that P. A. Badmaev and Co. achieved little beyond a few investments in Chita. The Bolshevik editor of Badmaev’s papers sarcastically suggested that the “fairy tale plan” was an elaborate swindle, whose object was not to join Tibet to Russia, but to “unite . . . a few million rubles to Badmaev’s pocket.”58 Despite the meager results of his baroque project, Badmaev managed to retain the court’s good graces, and took care to befriend Alexander III’s heir, Nicholas II. Having known Buriat since childhood, the new emperor readily turned to him for advice on matters pertaining to Far Eastern policy. Aleksei Kuropatkin, Nicholas’s war minister during the early years of his reign, repeatedly complained in his diary about the Buriat’s influence on the tsar.59 Given the hothouse atmosphere in St. Petersburg on the eve of the revolution, when such questionable figures as Madame Blavatsky (the French hypnotist), Philippe de Lyon, and Grigori Rasputin attained prominence, it would not be surprising for a practitioner of Tibetan medicine to have had a role in Russian foreign affairs.60 However, there is no evidence that Nicholas II did more than lend a sympathetic ear to Badmaev as far as Tibet was concerned.61


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Dorzhiev Nicholas’s succession to the throne in 1894 was accompanied by a diplomatic turn to the East. The new strategic emphasis on the Orient was largely the result of the Qing dynasty’s growing infirmity. China’s disastrous war with Japan in 1895 altered some basic assumptions throughout Europe about the Manchus’ abilities to maintain their empire’s cohesion. Yet while Russian diplomacy took an alarmingly aggressive turn in Manchuria and Korea, it continued to ignore Tibet. As they had throughout the nineteenth century, the emperor’s strategists refused to look much further than those lands on their borders. Manchuria and Korea were directly contiguous to the empire; Tibet was not. For example, Finance Minister Sergei Witte, the architect of tsarist policy in Asia at the turn of the century, turned down a request for a 5,000-ruble appropriation to employ a professor of Tibetan at the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok, arguing that “the study of Tibetan can hardly be considered of sufficient practical value . . . to warrant the establishment of a special chair [of the language].”62 Meanwhile, War Minister Aleksei Kuropatkin opposed any further exploration to Tibet on the grounds that it was irrelevant.63 The Main Staff’s massive 87-volume survey of Russia’s Asian neighbors, begun in 1884, had no articles about Tibet until 1905, one year after the Younghusband Expedition.64 Count Vladimir Lamsdorf, Foreign Minister from 1900 through 1905, was equally disinterested. One of his aides recalled that his master was “painfully ignorant of the geography and history of Tibet.”65 Great Britain, whose empire in India now touched Tibet’s southern border, did not pay particularly close attention to it in the years leading up to 1900 either. The colonial government in Calcutta had made a few desultory attempts to open Lhasa to exports of British wool and Indian tea, and there had been some diplomatic irritation when Tibetans had not respected the border with Sikkim. Overall, Britain, like Russia, was content to let the Dalai Lama and his subjects live in their self-imposed “splendid isolation.” A few clippings from the Russian press in summer 1901 changed all of this. The items in question included some laconic accounts in an Odessa paper and two St. Petersburg dailies. The first was a small feature in the June 12 issue of Odesskie Novosti about an “Extraordinary Mission from the Lama of Tibet” that had landed at the Crimean port en route to the Russian capital with unspecified “instructions of diplomatic importance.” The group carried letters from the thirteenth Dalai Lama, and its aim was said to be “the rapprochement and strengthening of good relations with Russia.”66 The St. Petersburg papers confirmed the story, adding that the tsar and the Dowager Empress Marie Fedorovna had granted audiences to the dignitaries.67

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The leader of the group was a remarkable Buriat monk, Agvan Dorzhiev.68 Born in 1854 in eastern Siberia, Dorzhiev had gone to Tibet in his youth to study at the great monastic center of Drepung, whence he graduated with the degree of Ngawang Lobsang, the Lamaist equivalent of professor of metaphysics. Academically and politically highly gifted, the Buriat gained the confidence of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, who sought his counsel on both spiritual and temporal matters. The most pressing among the latter was Tibet’s fragile independence. The principal threats to Lhasa’s sovereignty came from China in the east and the British in the south. The Manchu emperors had intervened militarily in Tibet on several occasions during the eighteenth century, and they still claimed the nation as their vassal. A hundred years later, however, as the Qing dynasty decayed inexorably , its capacity to meddle in Lhasa’s affairs was practically nonexistent. Now the British and their sepoys posed the greatest danger. The systematic annexation of Nepal, Darjeeling, Bhutan, and the other Himalayan principalities over the course of the nineteenth century had brought the British army right to its border. Given the logic of imperial expansion, it was not hard for the Dalai Lama to conclude that his domain would be next. Tibetan attitudes to Russia were more positive. Pilgrims to Lhasa from Russia’s Lamaist minorities, the Buriats and Kalmyks, often told their Tibetan hosts about the benign nature of tsarist rule.69 Moreover, unlike the Manchus or British India, the distant power to the north was in no position to bring armed pressure to bear on the Potala. As early as 1774, a Tibetan official had told his British visitor George Bogle of his affection for the Russians “for their enmity to the Chinese, who were a base, treacherous and scoundrelly people.”70 One scholar aptly concluded, “It needs no conspiracy theory to explain why Dorzhiev encouraged the Tibetan government to offset the threat from Britain by contacts with Russia.”71 Dorzhiev was a strong proponent of the idea that Tibet should turn to Russia to seek protection from Britain and China, much as at that time Siam banked on creating closer ties with St. Petersburg in order to ward off the attentions of London and Paris. In 1898, Dorzhiev traveled to the Russian capital, ostensibly to raise funds from Kalmyks and Buriats for his monastery in Tibet. During the visit, he met with a number of government officials, including his Buriat compatriot Peter Badmaev. According to his autobiography, Dorzhiev was also granted an audience with Nicholas II in December of that year.72 There appear to be no official records of what transpired at this meeting, but it is likely that the Buriat asked for Russia’s help. Although the tsar gave him a friendly welcome, he was noncommittal, and Dorzhiev returned to Lhasa with nothing more than a gold watch engraved with the imperial double-headed eagle.73


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Two years later, Dorzhiev returned to Russia, now as the head of an official Tibetan embassy. Again, the purpose of his journey, as described by the Foreign Ministry, was to seek “the intercession of Russia for Tibet, which is menaced . . . by England, mainly from Nepal.”74 There was another audience with Nicholas II, this time at the Black Sea Palace of Livadia, as well as meetings with Witte, Kuropatkin, and Lamsdorf.75 The Russian response to the Buriat’s appeals was a suggestion to establish a consulate in Lhasa. Dorzhiev, however, demurred. If Tibet allowed Russian diplomats on its soil, soon other powers would demand official ties as well. There was no way that the reclusive theocracy was willing to contemplate lifting its ban on foreign nationals. Instead, Dorzhiev proposed, why not set up a consulate in China, just across the Tibetan border?76 Dorzhiev was after more than just diplomatic links, for in 1901 he made yet another visit to Russia. In his previous audiences with the tsar, he had made his requests for assistance verbally. This time, the Buriat carried a written appeal from the Potala. “The Buddhist faith of the Tibetan people is threatened by enemies and oppressors from abroad— the English,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “Be so kind as to instruct my ambassadors how they may be reassured about their pernicious and foul activities.”77 According to the tsarist diplomat Ivan Korostovets, a special conference of senior officials discussed the question of Russian ties to Tibet. Although the tsar had great sympathy for the charismatic Buriat, his ministers were reluctant to antagonize Britain by becoming involved in a nation so close to Britain’s most important overseas possession. The assembled bureaucrats resolved not to become involved.78 As a result, Nicholas’s response was noncommittal, although he did offer some hope. In his reply to the Dalai Lama, he wrote: “I was pleased to learn about your desire to establish ongoing ties between the governments of Russia and Tibet and have deigned to explain to your ambassador how he may communicate my wishes to you. [May I express] the strong hope that, under the friendly and benevolent favor of Russia, no harm may come to Tibet.”79 The only concrete result of Dorzhiev’s embassy was the establishment of a confidential consulate at the Sichuanese city of Ganding, near the Yangzi River. It cannot be said that the tsarist bureaucracy moved with great alacrity. Although the post was authorized by the Chinese emperor in early July 1901, Buddha Rabdanov, the Foreign Ministry official appointed for the job, only managed to reach Ganding two years later, in autumn 1903.80 His instructions were quite clear: Rabdanov was to liaise with a Tibetan, who would also be stationed in the city, and perhaps try to persuade the latter to press for a more pro-Russian

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orientation in Lhasa.81 To forestall similar moves by the British, the consulate had to operate in the strictest secrecy.82 The covert mission was not a success. Rabdanov’s Tibetan counterpart failed to turn up, his translator died, and the Younghusband Expedition soon made the enterprise entirely irrelevant. By December 1904, Rabdanov had left Ganding and was on his way back home.83 George Curzon, the Russophobe extraordinaire who had been appointed viceroy of India in 1899, at first discounted the importance of Dorzhiev’s trips to Russia. “Tibet is, I think, much more likely in reality to look to us for protection than to look to Russia,” he concluded upon learning of the mission of 1900.84 When the viceroy received news of another embassy, not more than a year later, his reaction was rather different. The presence of a Russian citizen at the mission’s head was obviously not coincidental, and the viceroy strongly suspected tsarist collusion. Reports by the Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi—who was quite possibly also an agent sent by Tokyo85—of Russian caravans bearing rifles to Lhasa did little to allay Curzon’s fears.86 “I regard it as our duty to frustrate this little game while there is still time,” he declared to London.87 Against its better judgment, the home government gave the viceroy its assent, and in 1903, Colonel Francis Younghusband was dispatched along with an escort of 1,000 Gurkha and Sikh troops to parlay with the Tibetans. Defended by a medieval force armed with matchlocks and charms bearing the Dalai Lama’s personal seal, Lhasa was in no condition to enforce its exclusionary policy, and on August 3, 1904, Younghusband marched into the capital. Despite rumors of Russian agents and secret arms shipments, Younghusband found no evidence of any tsarist intrigue. The antiquated weaponry brandished by the Dalai Lama’s troops provided the clearest proof that Lhasa had not been the recipient of any clandestine aid from its northern neighbor.88 As for the Russian tsar’s promises to protect Tibet, these proved to be nothing more than diplomatic bluster. Except for some tepid complaints to the British, the only move St. Petersburg made in response to the news that Younghusband was moving towards Lhasa was to send a Kalmyk cavalry officer, Naran Erentsenovich Ulanov, to “find out . . . what is happening in Tibet.”89 The mission was carried out covertly on direct orders of War Minister Kuropatkin, who specified that “Ulanov must go entirely as a private individual, at his own peril and risk.” 90 Once again bad luck hampered the venture. Less than three months after setting off from Siberia in February 1904, Ulanov fell ill and died. Some members of his party trudged back to Russia, and a few hardier participants managed to reach the Tibetan capital 16 months later, in May 1905.91


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Colonel Younghusband’s march on Lhasa presented Russia with a fait accompli, and the Tibet question receded into obscurity once again. When a special conference was called in June 1906 by the new foreign minister, Aleksandr Izvolskii, to discuss the importance of the Himalayan nation, its members readily agreed that “Russia has no direct interests [there].” Aside from ensuring access to Lhasa for the tsar’s Buddhist subjects and geographers, the group decided that Britain should be allowed to have the upper hand in Tibet.92 The following year, the Anglo-Russian Accord resolved the issues of Persia, Afghanistan, as well as Tibet, sounding the closing bell of the Great Game’s last round. The specter of Prussian militarism in Central Europe now seemed much more threatening than the strategic balance in Inner Asia.

A Tournament of Shadows Britain’s decision to invade Tibet was motivated more by Curzon’s Russophobia than by a realistic assessment of tsarist policy. As the archives show, aside from the travels of such officers as Przhevalskii and the schemes of the Buriat adventurer Badmaev, tsarist interest in Tibet during the nineteenth century was minimal. Even when the Dalai Lama took the unprecedented step of dispatching an envoy to St. Petersburg at the turn of the century, the response was lukewarm. At the same time, it would be going too far to argue that Russian intentions in the Himalayas were entirely benign. Indeed there were prominent proponents of a forward policy in Tibet, not least among them the emperor himself. Nevertheless, more cautious officials at the Foreign Ministry and the Army successfully advocated restraint in dealings with the Dalai Lama. Until the British actually began their march to Lhasa, Russia never did anything more than set up a listening post on Tibet’s border. The Younghusband Expedition is a classic example of allowing exaggerated fears and misperceptions to dictate intelligence assessment. Count Nesselrode, Tsar Nicholas I’s foreign minister, grasped the essence of this perverse logic well when he called the Great Game “a tournament of shadows.”93

CHAPTER 5

Training Thieves: The Instruction of “Efficient Intelligence Officers” in Pre-1914 Britain Jennifer Siegel

The British army became increasingly professionalized over the course of the late nineteenth century. With the elimination of purchased commissions in 1871, one of the principal obstacles to the development of a professionalized officer corps was removed.1 In this same period, the War Office took its first steps toward the standardization of intelligence operations with the transformation of the Topographical and Statistical Department, which had been created after the intelligence shortcomings of the Crimean War, into the Intelligence Branch of the War Office in 1873.2 The comprehensive late-Victorian professionalization of the military officer corps, however, did not have a corresponding impact on the intelligence operations and capabilities of the British army. The Intelligence Branch, although broadly charged with the gathering, appraisal, and assessment of military intelligence, was practically confined to Britain’s imperial affairs rather than being focused on its growing Continental concerns. More significantly, the creation of this Intelligence Branch did not signify a service-wide acceptance or recognition of the

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necessary contribution of intelligence operations to either wartime operations or peacetime planning. The rude awakening Britain’s military experienced in the Boer War revealed the army’s failures to incorporate intelligence operations in its strategy and implementation; in the aftermath of the Boer War, the military establishment was forced to reassess both the wartime and peacetime uses of intelligence in military planning. One of the principal challenges facing those considering the practical place of intelligence operations in the twentieth-century British army was the delineation of the objectives of intelligence operations and, more directly, the determination of what kind of person would be required to effect those objectives. In a time when the utility of peacetime preparation for field intelligence operations had not been clearly established, when peacetime military intelligence gathering was still of a relatively ad hoc and overt nature, when wartime interactions between intelligence officers and their fellow soldiers were frequently laced with mutual skepticism and mistrust, universal agreement within the military establishment on the prudence and methodology of training a professional intelligence corps was nonexistent. The period from the Boer War to the outbreak of the First World War was marked by the development of an institutional commitment to intelligence and of a corresponding appreciation of the need to train a professional intelligence officer corps. This commitment and appreciation, however, were not adequately translated into policy implementation, and the outbreak of war in 1914 found Britain’s military intelligence preparations to be woefully inadequate for the challenges ahead. It was clear, from the outset, that Britain’s field-intelligence requirements would demand an unusual type of officer. Colonel Edward Gleichen, the head of the Directorate of Military Operations’ Foreign Intelligence Section (Europe), outlined the requirements for the ideal British Intelligence Officer: He should be physically perfect, with good eyesight and an iron constitution. He should be of active, open-air habits, and he should be not only a good horseman but a good horsemaster as well. He should be physically plucky, and not afraid of tackling others by himself where necessary: but he should also remember that in many cases discretion is the better part of valour, and that on occasion he may be of more use to his side by running away than by taking unnecessary risks.3 Gleichen and his colleagues did recognize, however, that this description covered only the ideal intelligence officer. Such men possessed of

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“perfect judgment and tact,”4 who were “cool, courageous, and adroit, patient and imperturbable, discreet and trustworthy”5 rarely came out of even the most British of households fully formed. Lucky it was for the British, then, that the dawn of the twentieth century brought a growing conviction that one could be trained to fit many of the aforementioned qualifications. It was vital that the apprentice spy have natural intelligence and perception, for, as Gleichen noted, “you will never make a decent Intelligence Officer out of a really stupid man.”6 However, if the necessary attributes were present, the proper independent and organized training could be expected to churn out sufficient field intelligence experts to contribute to British victory in whatever military conflicts might be awaiting them. Precisely what constituted proper training, though, was a point of some debate. Neither the method of instruction nor the lessons to be learned were immediately obvious to the turn-of-the-century War Office. The outset of the Boer War had found British military intelligence in a tremendous state of disarray. Entirely inadequate in their ability to predict and prepare for the outbreak of war, the Intelligence Division’s early efforts were severely hampered by a lack of both training and resources, and the unwillingness of the army’s leadership to make adequate use of what intelligence resources were available to them.7 Although, by the end of the Boer War, British tactical intelligence had evolved into a relatively efficient force, this development had not guaranteed that Britain’s newfound proficiency in field intelligence would become a permanent state of affairs. On the contrary, the expertise that had been painstakingly acquired during wartime was quickly de-emphasized in the post-war demobilization. The Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, which reviewed all aspects of the origins and conduct of the war, had been overall pleased with the prewar efforts of the intelligence department and its eventual transition to wartime efficiency; they accordingly recommended no need for either general departmental reform or a more permanent or consequential peacetime intelligence establishment.8 The ad hoc nature of British wartime intelligence appeared, therefore, to have been reinforced by Britain’s experience in the South African war. Similarly, the Hardwicke Committee, which had been appointed by Secretary of State for War St. John Brodrick in August 1902 to review the “Permanent Establishment of the Mobilisation and Intelligence Division,” conducted a detailed study of the necessity for task-specific training for field intelligence officers. The committee gathered evidence from numerous commanders in the South African war, who almost universally maintained their conviction that field intelligence officers need not have any special training in the Intelligence Division.

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Although the commanders deemed greater intimate knowledge of the country in which the officer was serving to be desirable, prior experience in the specific tasks of the intelligence officer was not seen to have contributed to greater efficiency.9 The attitude of the upper echelons of the British army command to specified intelligence training was best exemplified by Lieut.-General Sir Ian Hamilton in his evidence before the committee: “Intelligence work in the field was a different class of work from that performed in the Intelligence Division at Headquarters, and . . . the best training for the former was the local knowledge and experience acquired by having actually lived on the spot.”10 Nevertheless, as the British military began to reorient itself towards the possibility of a European war, a growing appreciation arose for the crucial role intelligence would play in such a conflict. In the course of the shift in orientation following the Boer War, it became readily apparent that intelligence in a European war would be a vastly different venture than in the colonial wars Britain was accustomed to fighting. There were some within the War Office who felt that preparation for conflict against other leading nations with organized military forces would be a much simpler intelligence undertaking than preparation for what Colonel C. E. Callwell termed “Small Wars.” In his 1906 General Staff publication of that title, Callwell outlined the twofold challenges of preparing for small wars: (1) the difficulty of dealing with those he called “Orientals and savages”; and (2) that small wars tended to break out unexpectedly and in unexpected places.11 Callwell and his followers, therefore, anticipated that a war in Europe, with familiar and predictable opponents and theaters of operation, would be a much more straightforward undertaking than any colonial war could be. The more commonly held opinion, however, was that the true challenge to British military intelligence would come in a war against one or more European powers. As Lt.-Col. J. E. Edmonds stressed in his “confidential” lecture to an audience of British officers in January 1908, “in European warfare, if we are ever engaged in it, far greater vigilance, far closer watching of the enemy and far greater secrecy will be required than against the foes we have been accustomed to meet.”12 Edmonds noted that it had been nearly one hundred years since Britain had been forced to deal with an enemy equal to themselves in terms of leadership, initiative, and strategy, and he proposed that the compensation for this shortcoming would have to come from increased vigilance and preparation in peacetime by the secret service;13 whereas the enemy in colonial wars had often waited for Britain to take the combat initiative, a European opponent would not allow Britain any leisure at the outset of the conflict to acquire information about its forces and capabilities or about the military theater.14 This opinion contradicted the Hardwicke

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Committee, who had concluded that it was impossible to avoid a period of adjustment at the outset of war, during which junior officers would need to become accustomed to their intelligence duties and would thus be unable to accomplish their intelligence-gathering and appraising roles.15 With the recognition that intelligence in European warfare had its own peculiarities, which would place increased strains upon British military-intelligence capabilities, came a necessary acknowledgment that wartime intelligence requirements would have to be prepared for during peace. Since the Boer War had pointedly demonstrated that junior officers could not be transformed into “efficient Intelligence Officers” with the speed that would be demanded by a transition to a European war, military policy shifted away from the traditional doctrine, under which field intelligence units were created only in the face of imminent or actual hostilities.16 The publication of field intelligence manuals by the War Office and the establishment of a training course concerning wartime duties for field intelligence officers by the British army’s Eastern Command clearly indicate a shifting of attention toward the peacetime preparation of military intelligence for war. Most notable among the War Office intelligence publications is the manual first published in 1904 by Lt. Col. David Henderson entitled Field Intelligence, Its Principles and Practices. Henderson had been Commander-in-Chief Lord Kitchener’s director of military intelligence during the Boer War from October 1900 to September 1902, and his observations on reconnaissance, detailing the standard functions and practices of an intelligence department in war, are clearly developed from his experiences in the field. In this manual and in his later, popularly produced book, The Art of Reconnaissance, Henderson gives a basic outline of guidelines for intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination that he gleaned from the war. His books were considered fundamental texts for intelligence officers up to the outbreak of the First World War.17 The most cogent aspect of Henderson’s two books lies in their underscoring of the strengths and weaknesses of British intelligence during the Boer War. After defining the innate characteristics necessary to the successful intelligence officer and his subordinates, such as fidelity, discretion, and the ability to suffer the suspicions and criticisms of his fellow officers, Henderson turned to the established relationship between the intelligence officers and the rest of the army—a tenuous one at best. Based on his observations in South Africa, he outlined the appropriate conduct for a field intelligence officer, which would be designed to instill confidence in both the officer’s abilities and his crucial role within the military:

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He should let his outdoor work be observed; he, himself, and his scouts should show themselves freely in camp when starting for, or returning from reconnaissance. The spectacle of an Intelligence man entering camp in the early morning on a tired horse tends to raise the Intelligence Corps in the esteem of the army, and there will always be occasions when the display of a little personal gallantry or the cheerful endurance of exceptional fatigue or discomfort, on the part of the Intelligence officers or men, will have a good effect in inspiring that confidence which is required.18 He further stressed the importance of good manners, writing: “Soldiers, both officers and men, are apt to connect pompousness with inefficiency, and an air of secretive importance with an actuality of ignorance.”19 Henderson’s portrait of the intelligence officer and his recommendations for conduct and performance in the field clearly point toward the professionalization of intelligence work, providing a preliminary model for his vision of the development of a permanent field intelligence organization. Although the War Office produced other handbooks concerning intelligence duties during this time, not all of their efforts were as informative as Colonel Henderson’s. In the same year that Field Intelligence appeared, the War Office published another manual entitled Regulations for Intelligence Duties in the Field.20 As Edmonds later acerbically critiqued this effort in his 1908 General Staff lecture on “Intelligence in European Warfare,” the Regulations “cannot be accused of disclosing any official secrets.”21 Little is offered in the Regulations in terms of guidelines or recommendations for the successful collection, analysis, and dissemination of field intelligence. Instead, the manual is most noteworthy in its codification of the organizational hierarchy of a wartime intelligence department and the provision of detailed instructions for accurate accounting and the filling out of forms.22 For example, the discussion of the employment of interpreters is representative of the seemingly basic nature of the manual’s instructions: 1. Civilian interpreters should be divided into classes, according to their proficiency and ability . . . 2. Interpreters must be carefully selected . . . One of the easiest and most effective methods of placing a spy in the enemy’s lines is by procuring him an engagement as interpreter.23 Henderson, in his 1904 manual, had urged the British army to increase its level of preparation for war during peacetime, calling for the

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creation of a permanent intelligence corps.24 However, he had stopped short of recommending a formal commitment to the establishment of general intelligence training prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Rather, he advised all officers detailed for intelligence work to take advantage of every opportunity before them to acquire or refresh their knowledge about the potential enemy and its country from newspapers, maps, and the resources of the General Staff at the War Office. As Henderson warned: “They [intelligence officers] should start fully equipped for their mission; although a knowledge of these subjects may be acquired in the field, yet any admission of ignorance in the early stages of a campaign, tells heavily against the prestige of an Intelligence officer, and delays the establishment of that confidence which is necessary for the success of his work.”25 This conviction, although based on Henderson’s experiences in the same war that had shaped the conclusions of the Hardwicke Committee, was a radical departure from the dominant philosophies governing peacetime preparation for war that the committee had expressed. Although Henderson’s coveted corps was not established until 1913,26 in 1907 it was deemed necessary to supplement the existing manuals with the Eastern Command’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course and other lectures specifically designed to prepare British army officers for tactical intelligence in a European war.27 The establishment of these courses, which were held annually after 1907, was significant in two ways. First, the courses clearly represent growing institutional commitment to intelligence and recognition of the necessity for preparation in peacetime; lectures entitled “Acquisition of Intelligence,” “Organization of the Secret Service,” and “Intelligence in Peace: Work Junior Officers are Likely to be Called Upon to Carry Out” distinctly display the newfound organizational and institutional interest in intelligence. Secondly, the examples from which the lessons are drawn—although still to a great extent grounded in British experiences in South Africa, as exemplified by the lecture “On Intelligence Duties and on the Organisation of the Intelligence Department in the South African War”—were broadened to include the Russo-Japanese War. Whereas the utility of the Boer War as a model for intelligence training lay in an emphasis on military reconnaissance as a contributing factor to both victories and defeats, the Russo-Japanese War was seen as an excellent indicator of the decisive role secret intelligence could play in determining the outcome of military conflicts. First in Edmonds’s 1907 lecture on “Intelligence in European Warfare,” and later in a lecture given by Colonel J. A. L. Haldane, the assistant director of military operations and intelligence, in March 1909, entitled “Japanese and Russian Intelligence Systems,” participants in the Intelligence and

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Reconnaissance Courses were treated to a close examination of the strengths and limitations of the intelligence systems of these two nations. Similarly, the Indian army received a discussion of intelligence in the Russo-Japanese War as part of a lecture given by Captain C. H. G. Black at the Staff College in Quetta.28 Of course, the Indian army’s emphasis on intelligence had for a long time been admittedly greater than that of the home army due to the peacetime intelligence demands inherent in the colonial administration and strategic defense of the subcontinent.29 In addition, a formal Intelligence Branch of the Indian army Quartermaster General’s department had been in existence since 1892.30 Therefore, the inclusion of such a lecture in the officer training program of the Indian army indicated less of a shift in policy than was occurring in the home army. In these instructional lectures, a great deal of credit for the Russian defeat was given to the prowess of Japanese intelligence; the Japanese are praised for what Haldane called “their natural aptitude for spying. . . . They are, as a nation, well-endowed with Oriental cunning, self-control and that reticence which becomes less and less a distinguishing feature the further west in the world one travels.”31 Although no one was suggesting that it would be possible to retrain the British national psyche to be more in tune with what was perceived to be the Japanese way of thought, Japan’s emphasis on peacetime intelligence preparation was stressed as being the greatest contributing factor to its wartime successes. Haldane, who had been with the Japanese troops during the war as an observer, described their training standards: “It was recognised in the Japanese army, that an untrained spy, equally with an untrained scout . . . who has no knowledge of the language, organization, dress and characteristics of the army which he is intended to report upon is likely to be of very little use, and indeed will be a danger rather than otherwise.”32 In contrast, the Russians were dreadfully unprepared for the war in Manchuria, having neither a network of itinerant spies nor any sort of guidance in place for the intelligence sections of the field army. Furthermore, Russian officials readily offset tales of systemic inefficiency by leaking accounts of what intelligence successes they did manage to score, undermining any chance that Russian intelligence would overcome its legacy of deficient peacetime planning.33 Thus, the greatest lesson to be gleaned from the Russo-Japanese War by those members of the British military who were interested in issues of intelligence was that no level of preparation could be too great. Furthermore, this preparation should be oriented in two directions: toward the grooming of specialists who would gather intelligence concerning the enemy, and toward the inculcation of the military establishment as a whole as to the necessity for secrecy and the prevention of enemy intel-

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ligence gathering.34 As for the latter, the importance of censorship, observation of foreigners, restriction of written orders, and troop concealment was stressed, and officers were urged to impress upon their troops an awareness of intelligence issues. The collection of information regarding the enemy was to be the responsibility of every man, not just those in the intelligence department. Habits of observation were to be developed in both officers and men; Edmonds suggested that Britain follow Germany’s lead by requiring its sentries to describe in meticulous detail anything that passed while they were on duty, even in peacetime, thus daily strengthening the powers of surveillance in even the lowest ranks.35 Haldane emphasized the crucial importance of secrecy within the military establishment, comparing the levels of Japanese and Russian success in maintaining secrecy even at home: It is said that if two Japanese Officers meet at a railway station neither thinks of asking the other where he is going or what duty he is on, as he would not be told if he did ask; whereas a Russian Officer has recently written ‘You need only to sit in the train from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo (the equivalent of London to Windsor) to hear all that is being done or even thought of in the highest military circles.’36 It was clear, in Haldane’s opinion, that the tasks of secrecy and observation needed to be vital concerns of the military establishment well beyond the limited official intelligence community. In contrast to the raising of the British military’s general “intelligence consciousness,” the grooming of intelligence specialists demanded a far more concerted effort of instruction. As previously mentioned, standard British army procedure was frantically to reassign junior officers to intelligence duties upon the outbreak of hostilities, and not before. Once, however, it was acknowledged that such a system could not work, that it would take more than “a moment’s notice” to transform “any clever Officer . . . into an efficient Intelligence Officer,” questions arose as to not only what these men would need to know, but how they were to acquire this knowledge.37 As Lord Gleichen conceded, intelligence work is an inexact science, lacking rules—a fact that rendered the compilation of a syllabus for instruction on intelligence duties overwhelmingly difficult.38 Therefore, the topics that the Intelligence Branch chose to cover in the educational lectures and manuals before the First World War demonstrate both the priorities of the contemporary military establishment and the expectations for the role and responsibilities of intelligence in a

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future European war. However, despite the apparent newfound commitment to the training of junior officers for intelligence duties, the actual instruction continued to be surprisingly basic; on a thematic level, not much progress had been made from the Regulations of 1904, and there were few departures from Henderson’s field intelligence primer. Starting from the presumable truisms that the business of an intelligence officer is solely to acquire information relative to the enemy, and that all information should be passed on at once, no matter how seemingly “trivial, incorrect, or incredible,” these lessons often included admonitions for the cultivation of good manners and polite behavior towards colleagues and prisoners alike.39 On a similarly practical note, intelligence officers were warned to always have cash on hand for the payment of agents.vv Concerning preparations for specific theaters of war, officers were advised to be well acquainted with the command and fighting systems of the enemy and with the languages necessary to assess the material gathered, although no provisions were made for formal instruction for the acquisition of this knowledge. And, as Count Gleichen proposed, powers of observation and accuracy should be honed through a close examination of the adventures and methodology of Sherlock Holmes; the officers were, however, urged to avoid imitating Dr. Watson.41 Upon the outbreak of hostilities, the intelligence officers would need to know everything possible about the enemy, much of which could be acquired by studying intelligence handbooks, topographical descriptions, language books, and reading newspapers and articles. Similarly, the Indian army could undertake a close reading of the Old Testament in order to gain insights into the “life and character of orientals.”42 Gleichen, however, felt that no longer period of time should be devoted to this type of detailed examination than the last few days in which an officer remained in England before deployment. Intimate acquaintance with a potential enemy was still not considered to be a priority of intelligence training, and the General Staff felt, as Henderson had, that officers should study these subjects in their own spare time. Rather than devoting greater time to the development of a high level of expertise on a possible foe, the British army was content to limit its peacetime instruction of intelligence officers to matters of practical field intelligence duties.43 Thus, by the admission of the General Staff, the primary focus of the educational efforts exemplified by the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Courses rested on defining the practical duties of the intelligence officers in the field.44 The report on the 1908 Eastern Command course outlined the skills that were imparted to the members of the course:

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They were taught how to elicit, deduce, collate, and render in concise and comprehensible form the information obtainable from reconnaissances, from reports from their advanced troops, from inhabitants of the country of all sorts and of varying credibility, from secret agents from prisoners of war, from deserters, from documents, &c. They were taught how to deal with different kinds of people, both of the civil population and of their own army. They were taught how to reconnoitre, how to organize reconnaissance, and how to utilize scouts, &c. They were taught how to keep and register correspondence and information, how to keep their intelligence diaries and their intelligence accounts, and how to keep and render summaries of intelligence They were taught the importance of organization and method, and how to let their brains save their hands and feet.45 There are two primary shortcomings inherent in this system as it developed. First, the level of instruction was far too basic and far too general to engender any significant advance in Britain’s intelligence preparation by the outbreak of war in 1914. Secondly, for all the signs of a newfound commitment to intelligence preparation in peacetime and the ardent claims for the primacy of such intelligence preparation by the practitioners within the British army, the training program upon which they embarked was far too modest to make a significant dent in Britain’s deficiencies; the Eastern Command’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course sounds like a magnificent idea until one realizes that the actual course trained only eight officers per year. British intelligence training before the First World War is, therefore, an excellent example of “too little, too late.” The publication of the War Office manuals and the institution of regular courses and lectures on the subject of field intelligence do point to the evolution of an intelligence ethos in prewar Britain. These attempts to create guidelines for practical field intelligence based upon the wartime experiences of Britain and other powers demonstrate a new commitment to intelligence issues in peacetime, indicating a fresh awareness of the unique role intelligence can play in modern warfare. However, as late as 1913, the director of the Indian army’s Intelligence Division was still bemoaning the absence of task-specific training for intelligence officers: if any of us were ordered on service tomorrow, many of us would find that, instead of having the details of our work at our fingers’ ends, and being of immediate assistance to the General Officer

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Commanding and to the troops, we would be picking up our business slowly and gaining experience and their expense. We would thus be making them the victims of our ignorance—ignorance which might easily have been transformed into knowledge had we received some previous training in the special technique of our work.46 Britain’s inability to translate its commitment to intelligence into actual training and preparation on a broad scale resulted in the traditional wartime scramble to establish an effective intelligence division. The British military had clearly been aware that the coming war would demand a level of expertise they had theretofore been unable to manage at the outset of hostilities, yet this awareness produced insufficiently substantial results. Captain Black of the Indian army had noted: “Modern war will not be heralded by a flourish of trumpets but will come like a thief in the night, and to catch this thief you must set a thief.”47 Perhaps the British intelligence mobilization in World War I would have been far more effective had they said instead, to catch this thief, you must train a thief.

CHAPTER 6

The Royal Navy, War Planning, and Intelligence Assessments of Japan, 1921–1941 Christopher M. Bell

In the two decades prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, the Royal Navy devoted more energy and resources to preparing for war with Japan than it did for war with either Germany or Italy. Yet when hostilities finally broke out in the Pacific in December 1941, Britain’s naval resources were fully committed to operations in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The result was a series of humiliating naval defeats in the Far East. The navy’s critics have often linked faulty intelligence assessments to defects in the Admiralty’s strategic appreciations during the 1930s, and to the operational failures of 1941–42. Thus, it is alleged that the failure to discover the characteristics of Japanese warships and to estimate the quality of the Japanese navy crippled British naval planning against Japan and ultimately led to the destruction of the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse off the Malayan coast in December 1941. This chapter examines the influence of intelligence on the Admiralty’s Far Eastern war plans between 1921 and 1941. It will show that

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the nature of the war the Admiralty expected to fight against Japan is often misunderstood, and that interwar decision-makers grasped the requirements of a Far Eastern conflict better than is usually allowed. As a result, historians have generally misconstrued the links between naval intelligence and war planning. The navy’s basic strategy was in fact formulated largely without reference to intelligence assessments of foreign naval capabilities, and economic intelligence often had a greater impact on strategic calculations than did technical data on foreign warships. Intelligence failures were undeniably part of this process, but none of the failures of the 1920s or 1930s had much effect either on Britain’s maritime decisions or on the events of 1941 and 1942. When judging British naval intelligence, one should pay as much attention to the intelligence required for an offensive strategy of economic blockade in the 1930s as to that for defensive naval operations in 1941. Students of strategic intelligence should examine the strategy first and the intelligence second. In this case, serious errors surround our understanding of the strategy. It is generally accepted that the interwar navy believed that any future maritime conflict would be settled by the big guns of opposing battle fleets. In fact, British naval leaders had learned two important lessons from the First World War—lessons that fundamentally shaped their thinking about the next naval war. First, the failure to annihilate the German High Seas Fleet had driven home the truth of Sir Julian Corbett’s dictum that a weaker fleet cannot be expected to oblige its opponent by sailing to its certain destruction.1 This realization weakened the role of the idea of the single decisive battle in British naval doctrine, and it led officers to expect future wars at sea to be prolonged struggles of attrition. Second, naval decision makers were strongly impressed by the role that economic warfare could play in such a conflict. When naval planners began to consider their requirements for a Far Eastern war, they assumed that Japan would be particularly susceptible to economic pressure applied through sea power. Japan was, like Britain, an island nation and the center of a maritime empire. As Britain was vulnerable to this form of warfare, it was thought that Japan, with its weaker economy and smaller navy, must be even more susceptible. Around this assumption of Japanese economic vulnerability, British naval planners developed a series of contingency plans for a Far Eastern war. The nature of these plans varied widely between 1920 and 1941, but historians have traditionally lumped them all together under the heading of the “Singapore Strategy,” with particular emphasis on the dispatch of a battle fleet to Singapore.2 This has obscured the differences between the various strategies that were developed during these years, and fixed attention on the question of whether Britain

The Royal Navy, War Planning, and Intelligence Assessments of Japan

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could ever have sent a large fleet to the Far East. As a result, the strategy the fleet was meant to adopt once it arrived has received little serious attention. The great naval base at Singapore was intended to provide essential docking and repair facilities for a British fleet operating in East Asian waters, but its distance from Japan clearly made it unsuitable as a base for offensive operations. For this purpose, the Admiralty initially expected to use Hong Kong and then to seize another base even closer to Japan.3 Only from an advance base to the north of Hong Kong did it expect to exert decisive pressure on the enemy. This pressure would take a variety of forms. The most direct method, an invasion of the Japanese home islands, was dismissed out of hand. Planners believed, however, that it might be “necessary to undertake smaller scale operations in order to establish ourselves on Japanese territory.”4 They also hoped to launch raids on Japanese possessions with the object of effecting “as much lasting damage as possible by sea and air bombardment and by a raiding party landed for purposes of destruction and demolition.” Most importantly, the navy would attempt to destroy the enemy’s overseas trade. Economic pressure appeared to offer the key to ultimate victory. The main fleet would tie down the bulk of Japanese naval strength, thus preventing it from endangering British interests. Meanwhile, detached cruiser squadrons in the Pacific would cut the arteries of Japanese commerce, while massive naval construction would begin at home.5 Over the next few years Britain would become steadily stronger while Japan was bled into submission. This, the navy’s basic strategy for winning a Far Eastern war, was formulated in the early 1920s. It rested on the twin assumptions of British quantitative superiority and Japanese economic vulnerability. Qualitative assessments of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) played no discernible role in its development. The navy’s confidence stemmed principally from its numerical superiority over the Japanese fleet, rather than from any systematic tendency to downgrade Japanese capabilities. In fact, the Admiralty was not inclined to disparage Japanese efficiency at this time. Throughout the 1920s, British naval attachés in Tokyo enjoyed good access to Japanese naval establishments, and they often described the Japanese navy in favorable terms. As one attaché noted, in a characteristically mixed assessment: It appears to me that the Japanese Navy is an efficient weapon of war which in the hands of a leader of imagination might yield great results; but that in the absence of such a leader it might be expected to be somewhat stereotyped in its methods and unable to adapt itself to changed conditions or unexpected difficulties.6

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British naval planners clearly viewed their own fleet as superior to that of Japan, but they also regarded the latter as being qualitatively equal to the other great navies of the 1920s, and they intended to fight Japan with at least equal fleet strength, and preferably with more. For planning purposes it was assumed that a British fleet would be superior to a numerically equal Japanese force, but that Britain should not take the risk of fighting with numerical inferiority. Throughout the 1920s, the Admiralty’s Plans Division was preoccupied with the movement of a fleet to the Far East and the defense of Singapore and Hong Kong during the period before the fleet’s arrival. Naval intelligence played only a minor role in these calculations. The fundamental assumptions underpinning the Admiralty’s Far Eastern plans—assumptions about Japan’s vulnerability to maritime blockade and the strength of its maritime resources—were not the result of a thorough analysis of the available information, but were rather an essentially instinctive response to well-known facts about Japanese warships, naval armament facilities, and the Japanese economy. Only at the end of the decade, when the Plans Division began to consider in detail the offensive stage of an Eastern war, did intelligence begin to shape naval plans. From 1929 onward the importance of intelligence in naval planning against Japan steadily rose. In determining the navy’s objectives following the relief of Hong Kong, Plans Division drew heavily on detailed statistical information about Japan’s economy and patterns of overseas trade. This intelligence was compiled from a wide range of sources, virtually all of which were in the public domain. Most of it came from the Board of Trade and the Department of Overseas Trade, and was supplemented by the press, the British naval attaché in Tokyo, and other similarly placed sources. On the basis of this information, the naval staff affirmed what it had assumed from the outset: that “the Japanese industrial system [was] ill-equipped to withstand any great dislocation of trade such as would occur in the course of a war with the British Empire.”7 Moreover, this intelligence indicated that “Japan lack[ed] most of [the] raw materials necessary for industry and for the manufacture of those articles necessary for waging war.” Consequently, Japan’s imports of strategic raw materials were identified as the navy’s most promising target. Naval planners compiled statistics detailing the sources of Japan’s principal imports in peacetime, and estimated where it might turn for these supplies in wartime. It was calculated that Japan would rely principally on China and the United States to make up any shortages following from its loss of trade with the British Empire, which accounted for around 27 percent of its total imports. The effectiveness of British economic pressure would, therefore, depend on the navy’s


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ability to cut these channels of trade, particularly those carrying certain key materials, including ores and metals, machinery, chemicals, oil, rubber, cotton, and wool.8 In the course of preparing its 1931 Eastern War Memorandum, the planning division grappled for the first time with the problem of how to interdict this trade.9 It concluded that only “a constant patrol of surface craft off the focal points on the coast of Japan, particularly the entrances to the Inland sea,” could disrupt enemy trade sufficiently to cripple the Japanese war economy.10 This could not be accomplished, however, until the main Japanese fleet had been destroyed or neutralized. The British fleet was always to be at hand to seize such an opportunity, but it seemed unlikely that the Japanese would be willing to accept battle with superior forces. Naval planners therefore intended to establish an economic blockade of Japan from distant bases. By their own calculations, this measure held little prospect of immediate or decisive results. Even if the navy could operate from a base north of Hong Kong, it probably could not significantly reduce Japan’s access to northern China and Korea. Curtailing Japanese trade with the United States would be nearly as difficult. Planners hoped that naval forces operating off the west coast of North America and at the Panama Canal could intercept some of the trade bound for Japan across the Pacific, but the remoteness of British naval bases and the vast areas involved would limit the effectiveness of any such operations.11 Throughout most of the interwar period, a naval blockade was expected to be able to dislocate the Japanese war economy in order to weaken it in general terms and, ultimately, to induce the Japanese fleet to accept battle with superior British forces. To achieve this, the Admiralty’s 1931 War Memorandum contemplated “a progressive campaign from Hong Kong to the Northward”: This would, in the first place, be directed against Formosa and the Pescadores unless in the meantime the Japanese have seized a base on the coast of China between the Pescadores and Hong Kong. Any success against these is likely to bring the Japanese fleet to the southward whether it be to relieve the pressure by fighting a fleet action or to cover the arrival of military reinforcements. If the Japanese refuse to expose their Main Fleet to the risk of a fleet action we can proceed with our progressive campaign to the northward until they are forced to accept action. This suggestion does not preclude raids against Japanese lines of communication, trade, focal points, harbours, but it does imply that the use of an advanced base to the North of Formosa from which our Main Fleet can carry out extensive operations to the Northward is unjustified while Formosa and the Pescadores remain unmolested.12

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The nearer British bases were to Japan’s home waters, the greater the pressure British forces could bring to bear on Japanese national life, and hence the more inclined the enemy would be to take risks with its forces. If the Japanese fleet were destroyed, Britain could then begin to inflict decisive pressure immediately; if the enemy declined battle, the British advance would gradually wear down Japanese strength and ultimately achieve decisive results on its own. This strategy was remarkably optimistic. It assumed not only that a large battle fleet would be available for dispatch to the Far East, but also that Hong Kong could be relieved or recaptured; that the fleet could operate safely from this base; and that military forces would be available for combined operations north of Hong Kong, and possibly for the relief or recapture of Hong Kong itself. At the time this plan was drafted, these requirements did not seem unrealistic. As the decade progressed, however, Japan’s expansion into China left Hong Kong increasingly vulnerable. The Admiralty gradually lost confidence that an advance from this base would be feasible, or that the fleet could be maintained there except under the most ideal circumstances. At the same time, it discovered that the scope of combined operations subsequent to the fleet’s arrival would be curtailed, if not precluded, by a shortage of military and air forces.13 In 1931, the Admiralty had assumed that the army and the air force would supply the resources required to seize and hold an advance naval base, and for raids against Japanese territories. But when this question came before the Joint Planning Committee ( JPC) and the Chiefs of Staff Committee (COS) in 1934, the War Office and Air Ministry maintained that they could not meet any of these needs.14 Meanwhile, during the mid-1930s the Admiralty was increasingly aware that the need to maintain a sizable naval force in European waters would make it difficult to dispatch a fleet numerically equal to that of Japan during the initial stages of a war. Even so, it still hoped to dispatch a fleet to Singapore not far below the size and firepower of the Japanese navy and to achieve parity, and then superiority, within a year or so. By the mid-1930s, these developments forced the Admiralty to reconsider its basic strategy. The problem of how to defeat Japan decisively without an advance base north of Hong Kong, and possibly without Hong Kong itself, was worked out in 1937 during the preparation of the JPC’s Far Eastern Appreciation.15 Whereas the 1931 War Memorandum assumed that destruction of the Japanese fleet must precede a decisive economic blockade, the Joint Planners now suggested that the navy might inflict crippling economic pressure without first fighting a fleet action.


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This revised assessment was not the result of new intelligence about the state of the Japanese economy, but rather arose from a new interpretation of old information. Economic intelligence for strategic purposes was being supplied to the service departments at this time by the Industrial Intelligence Centre (IIC). Regarding Japan, the IIC’s assessments rested on the same sources that the naval staff had used, and it drew similar conclusions concerning Japan’s vulnerability to economic pressure.16 A comprehensive report on Japan’s economic position in late 1936 maintained that decisive results could “only be attained through the virtual stoppage of trans-Pacific trade in addition to that of Europe and the British Empire, and by a serious interruption of communications with Formosa, China and Korea.”17 The Joint Planners, however, derived a more optimistic appreciation from the same information. Their 1937 Far Eastern Appreciation concluded that Japan could not make up all of its deficiencies in essential raw materials from the Asian mainland. They calculated that after approximately six months of war, Japan would have to begin “importing raw materials by the long sea routes [across the Pacific or Indian oceans] at the rate of at least half a million tons a month, if she is not to suffer severe industrial restriction and a consequent cumulative economic embarrassment.”18 This conclusion appeared to reduce the problems facing Britain to manageable proportions. Even if Japan’s shipping lanes with China remained relatively secure, which would be the case as long as the its main fleet remained afloat, it now seemed possible that Japan could be forced into submission if its trans-Pacific trade were sufficiently curtailed. Planners hoped to accomplish this using a variety of means. Most importantly, British patrols in key locations would intercept enemy vessels and contraband runners. Naval forces maintained off of the Panama Canal and Cape Horn would “effect a large measure of interception” of vessels proceeding along these routes, while strong patrols off American ports would intercept trade originating along the west coast of the Americas. The latter would be supplied with information by an intelligence network set up in American ports shortly after the outbreak of war.19 Besides these purely naval measures, the JPC also recommended that “every effort should be made to hamper both the placing and the finance of Japanese orders in the United States.”20 This would be facilitated by Britain’s control of certain important commodities—including manganese, nickel, tin, and rubber—which would enable it to restrict exports that might reach Japan. Planners also recommended that an attempt be made to restrict the supply of neutral tonnage available to the Japanese “by such methods as refusal of insurance to ships trading with Japan, black lists, chartering shipping, and other measures [of]

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which we had experience in the last war.”21 The JPC calculated that it might take two or more years to achieve victory in this manner. How long Japan could sustain its war economy would depend on both the scale of reserves that had been built up before the war began and the effectiveness of the British blockade. Decisive results could be expected sooner only if the Japanese fleet were destroyed. This understanding of Japan’s economic vulnerability was later incorporated directly into the Admiralty’s 1937 Eastern War Memorandum.22 This assessment, which remained in force until the outbreak of the European war, envisaged two means to win a war with Japan. The first was the traditional plan to provoke a fleet action in order to open the prospect of cutting Japan’s short sea routes to Asia. This might produce a rapid decision, but, as ever, there was no guarantee that the Japanese would accept battle with superior British forces, whereas the likelihood that a fleet action could occur under conditions favorable to the British declined because of the decreased possibility of operating from Hong Kong or further north. Nevertheless, the possibility still existed and the navy intended to pursue it. The second course was to interfere with Japanese trade in order to disrupt the enemy’s war economy, thereby forcing it to seek terms. This appeared to be a slower but more certain route to victory. As these strategies were complementary, the Admiralty intended to pursue them simultaneously. The economic underpinnings of British naval planning have received little attention from scholars. Most have simply ignored them, whereas others have acknowledged them without examining their implications.23 The few who have considered this topic have generally misunderstood it, for two reasons. First, they have not examined British naval planning during the entire interwar period, and thus view the Admiralty’s high hopes for economic warfare during the 1930s as a late development brought on by Britain’s declining strategic position. Second, they have wrongly charged that the Admiralty’s optimistic assessment of Japan’s vulnerability to economic pressure was belied by contemporary appraisals produced by the very bodies charged by the government with evaluating this question—the Advisory Committee on Trade Questions in Time of War (ATB) and the Industrial Intelligence Centre.24 These critics maintain that the economic appraisals produced by these organizations during the 1930s correctly stressed the strength of the Japanese economy and Britain’s inability to disrupt it to any significant degree without the full cooperation of the United States. If true, then the Admiralty’s strategy was not only unworkable, but should have been recognized to be so at the time. In fact, this charge is wrong because it confuses the imposition of a wartime blockade with the enforcement of economic sanctions in


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peacetime. These are entirely different matters. In the case of sanctions, everyone, including the Admiralty and the Chiefs of Staff, regarded the voluntary cooperation of the United States as essential. Economic intelligence made it clear that even if all British Imperial trade with Japan ceased, the enemy could still acquire the raw materials it needed from the United States and that Britain could not stop this. In the case of a wartime blockade, however, Britain could exercise its belligerent rights to interfere with U.S.-Japanese trade and seize contraband goods. It was this capability that underlay the navy’s high hopes for economic pressure. Whether economic blockade could have proven an effective weapon for Britain against Japan is a moot point—but the intelligence record of the time certainly does not demonstrate that it was infeasible. The Admiralty’s exaggerated hopes for economic warfare fundamentally shaped Britain’s appreciation of its requirements for a Far Eastern war before September 1939. In hindsight, its estimate was seriously flawed. Japan was not as vulnerable to economic pressure as naval decision makers believed, nor could the navy hope to defeat Japan without considerable assistance from the other two services and the mobilization of national resources on a major scale. As a result, the Admiralty consistently underestimated the resources required to achieve Britain’s goals in an Eastern war, and overestimated its freedom to deploy the maritime forces it did possess against Japan. However, the Admiralty’s appreciation was based on fundamental preconceptions regarding the nature and efficacy of sea power. These mistakes cannot be blamed solely, or even principally, on a failure of intelligence. The information available to the Admiralty on the Japanese economy (and, for that matter, on Japanese naval resources as a whole), was, in fact, reasonably accurate. The real problem was that the navy consistently overestimated its ability to capitalize on the weaknesses it detected. Naval decision makers interpreted economic intelligence in ways that reinforced their belief that the navy could retain center stage in the Pacific and conduct a war against Japan virtually single-handed, but these beliefs would have existed no matter what economic intelligence suggested. Because the economic dimension of British naval strategy has not been fully appreciated, historians have often misread the Admiralty’s intelligence priorities during this period. Economic intelligence on Japan was always high on the navy’s list of priorities, and throughout the 1930s the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) monitored Japan’s purchases of strategic raw materials and industrial activity as a key indicator of its future intentions.25 Similarly, the Admiralty watched carefully for signs that a Japanese expeditionary force was being assembled. Given the narrow time margins on which British calculations hinged for the period before relief, the length of warning of a Japanese attack on

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Singapore was a matter of great concern, particularly after intelligence sources failed to provide any warning of the Japanese expedition to Shanghai in 1932. Thus, the Admiralty observed Japanese merchant shipping and ports for signs of unusual activities pointing to the assembly of an invasion force.26 While the economic aspect of war planning was central to the navy’s calculations of its strategic requirements, both this strategy and the Admiralty’s economic intelligence assessments proved to be of little relevance in 1941. This information was intended to serve an offensive strategy against Japan, yet when the Pacific war began, the navy found itself engaged in a desperate defensive struggle. Naval planners had foreseen this possibility—indeed, by 1939, this was the type of war they most expected to face in the Far East. The objective of the Admiralty’s defensive strategy was simply to preserve a foothold in the region from which to launch offensive operations once sufficient strength could be built up. Economic intelligence was not expected to contribute to Britain’s ability to achieve this defensive goal, and it did not. It continued to be of interest to naval planners, however, because if the United States actively supported Britain against Japan—which appeared likely in 1941—an offensive strategy was still possible. Indeed, the whole basis of the American-British-Dutch-Australian plans of 1941 was that a combination of British and American naval forces in the Pacific would provide the material strength needed either to deter Japanese aggression or to defeat it. This calculation was only upset by the American disaster at Pearl Harbor. Economic intelligence was largely irrelevant to the navy in December 1941, and so was virtually all of the intelligence on the Japanese navy collected by the Admiralty between 1919 and 1939, for essentially the same reason: When the Pacific war began, the navy was not in a position to capitalize on what it knew of Japan’s weaknesses. Conversely, in 1941–42 it did not suffer particularly badly from its miscalculations and mistakes of the interwar years. When Britain and Japan went to war, significant gaps existed in the British navy’s knowledge of its enemy, but it is wrong to assume that all of the errors made by naval intelligence contributed to the naval disasters of 1941–42. In fact, some of these mistakes mattered more than others, and most did not matter at all. The navy’s intelligence failures stemmed primarily from the difficulties in acquiring reliable information on the Japanese navy in the decade preceding the Pacific war. During the period of the AngloJapanese Alliance, the British and Japanese navies had enjoyed a close relationship. In 1921, Britain possessed an accurate picture of Japan’s naval armaments capacity, the Japanese navy’s size and capabilities,


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and its progress in the field of naval aviation, which a British training mission was helping to organize.27 From the early 1920s, however, access to Japanese naval establishments steadily diminished, and by the mid-1930s, good intelligence on important issues was seldom obtained. In 1935, the British naval attaché in Tokyo could report without embarrassment that “the whole trouble is that I have no knowledge of the weapon efficiency of the [ Japanese] Fleet and I doubt if anyone else has.”28 This statement was true for every nation gathering naval intelligence regarding Japan during these years.29 The security surrounding Japanese naval establishments was far higher than with any other navy on earth, except those at the Soviet Union. Britain never penetrated this veil of secrecy to any significant degree, and neither could any other state. The most frustrating gaps in the Admiralty’s knowledge concerned Japanese naval construction. Traditionally one of the NID’s most important tasks was to prevent a foreign power from stealing a lead over Britain through either a burst of warship construction or technological innovation. The NID’s record in this task as regards Japan during the 1930s was not impressive. The greatest problem lay in assessing developments on the leading edge of technology. Here, handicapped both by the sheer difficulties in acquiring information and from ethnocentric beliefs that the Japanese lagged in original thought and were not gifted in the use of machines, the Royal Navy was surprised by important Japanese developments, most notably the Zero fighter and the “Long Lance” torpedo.30 More generally, it seriously underestimated the quality of Japanese naval aviation. These errors were significant and costly, and they contributed directly to the destruction of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, and to subsequent naval debacles. However, they were contributing factors rather than fundamental causes. The NID’s record in the estimation of warships is rather better. Wesley Wark has shown, for example, that naval intelligence tended to overestimate the number of major warships the Japanese were constructing, and that this tendency became more pronounced over time.31 This quantitative problem, however, proved to be insignificant. The scale of British naval rearmament during the 1930s was determined not by intelligence on foreign naval construction, but by the limited capabilities of the British shipbuilding industry, which had declined considerably since 1918. In 1935, the Admiralty calculated that its construction programs for 1936–39 could produce no more than seven battleships, which would suffice only to match the new construction of similar vessels by Germany and Japan during the same period.32 Because this output stretched British shipbuilding to its utmost, the Admiralty could not have built more ships than it did during the late

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1930s. At the same time, these new capital ships were regarded as replacements for aging vessels, and hence only sufficient to maintain Britain’s fleet at the existing level of 15 capital ships.33 Consequently, it would not have elected to build fewer battleships than it actually did, even if Japan’s new construction had been correctly estimated. Potentially more serious problems arose from qualitative assessments of new Japanese construction. In particular, from 1922 onward, the Admiralty grossly underestimated the tonnage and combat characteristics of newly built Japanese cruisers, which were not merely better warships than the British thought, but also better than the “treaty cruisers” being built by Britain and the United States. Similarly, naval intelligence underestimated by a considerable margin the size and armament of the two battleships laid down as part of Japan’s Third Replenishment Program. The Admiralty predicted that these vessels would be built with 16-inch guns and a displacement of around 40,000–45,000 tons. In fact, both battleships were armed with 18-inch guns and displaced over 60,000 tons, whereas Britain’s King George V class possessed 14-inch guns and displaced only 35,000 tons. This mistake proved to be of little consequence, though. The King George V-class battleships never engaged Japan’s mammoth battleships in a gunnery duel, and the British never suffered from their opponent’s success in gaining a qualitative lead in this class of vessel. It seems unlikely, moreover, that more accurate intelligence on these vessels would have substantially affected the design of the King George Vs, Britain’s first post-treaty battleship class. These ships were fashioned to fit the Admiralty’s definition of the best solution to Britain’s needs and the best use of its naval armament resources, rather than to surpass the design of new foreign battleships. Nor was Japan the only state whose warships Britain had to take into account. The Admiralty’s aim was to build a good, cheap general-service fleet suited to the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Atlantic. The means was a quick fix—to provide several good capital ships that were well within the accepted parameters of design and that could be at sea and replace the oldest of Britain’s battleships as soon as possible. Beyond this, the Admiralty wished to limit the size and armament of these battleships so as not to provoke a qualitative race among European powers.34 Only after these aims had been met did the Admiralty intend to turn to matching the individual warships of foreign states. Admiral Sir Ernle Chatfield, the First Sea Lord, informed Norman Davis in 1937 that the King George V class battleships were being built for Europe and particularly to match the five German battleships which will be completed in 1940–1; that particular


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consideration had been given against damage by mines and aircraft and that their design had not been materially affected by what the Japanese might do. He said that in the next class of battleships laid down it would probably be necessary to take into consideration the ships which Japan might build.35 Britain was only ready to begin its next class of battleships in 1939–40, and by that time, accurate knowledge of Japanese warship dimensions would undoubtedly have been important. How the Admiralty would have responded to accurate information is uncertain. In all likelihood, it would simply have moved to 16-inch guns and a displacement of around 43,000 tons for its battleships—that is, approximately the same as the projected Lion class, which was under consideration at that time. Naval opinion was clearly reluctant to consider anything greater because, as Chatfield remarked, “apart from their vast expense, there would be considerable difficulty in docking and berthing ships of 45,000 tons in our congested harbours at home and abroad.”36 The Admiralty also entertained serious doubts about the technical feasibility of the 18-inch gun.37 In any event, some planners were even prepared to allow Japan a slight qualitative lead in individual capital ships, as long as this was counterbalanced by an overall quantitative advantage, which would also be beneficial to Britain’s position vis-à-vis Germany and Italy. As one official noted, “Our position in the world is unique as we alone have commitments in both hemispheres and we may eventually have to take our own line and build smaller ships and more of them if the tonnage in the eastern hemisphere continues to rise.”38 In any case, post-King George V classes of British battleships never materialized, because in 1940–41, Britain diverted its limited shipbuilding resources away from new battleships in order to repair damage to existing warships and merchant vessels. With the Japanese (as with German) capital ships, then, accurate British intelligence could have mattered only if Britain had been in a position to build a post-King George V class, which it was not. It ultimately proved to be fortunate for Britain that the details of Japan’s new battleships remained unknown, as the Admiralty might otherwise have increased the size and guns of its own battleships at an advanced stage of construction, or have continued on with post-King George V classes. This would have meant delay in the construction of the King George Vs themselves (which were essential to the maintenance of British sea power in 1941–1943), and in more British shipbuilding resources being tied up in the construction of this class of vessel at the expense of others. Ironically, then, in the case of technical intelligence on battleships, flawed assessments actually led to a more satisfactory response than an accurate appreciation might have done.

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This was not the end of British intelligence needs or of its failures. In the absence of hard data on the Japanese navy, ample scope existed for British appraisals to be distorted by ethnocentric bias.39 Historians have rightly criticized the navy’s tendency during the 1930s to deprecate the overall quality of the Japanese navy. In particular, they have pointed to the navy’s reluctance to appreciate Japan’s many technical accomplishments and major developments in its tactical thought, most importantly relating to naval aviation, but also in areas such as night fighting.40 The navy’s propensity to underrate its Japanese opponents undoubtedly resulted in British forces experiencing unpleasant tactical surprises, both in December 1941 and for some time after. But these failures should not be held responsible, either individually or collectively, for the disasters the navy suffered off the coasts of Malaya and Indonesia in 1941–42. It has been suggested that faulty estimates of the Japanese navy were an important factor contributing to Britain’s “reliance on inadequate military forces in the Far East, which ended in the shocking fate of Force Z.”41 This claim is unfounded. The British did not deliberately choose to rely on inadequate forces in this region—this was forced upon them by circumstances and the dictates of grand strategy. Leading decision makers clearly regarded the resources available for the Far East in 1941 as being inadequate in the event of war. The ill-fated decision to dispatch Force Z to Singapore was not the product of the navy’s faulty estimation of the Japanese navy. Given complete freedom of action, the Admiralty would not have sent these ships to Singapore at all. Orthodox naval opinion shrank from the thought that such a small force might face the full strength of the enemy’s main fleet, and Force Z was never intended to do so. It was sent for political reasons: to serve as a gesture of British resolve and a deterrent to war.42 If it had been successful in this task, it would not have had to engage Japanese forces at all. Force Z has too frequently been viewed as a substitute for the main fleet that the Admiralty envisaged during the 1920s and 1930s. However, in 1941 the politicians, the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and naval decision makers clearly did not think of it in this way, and intelligence errors about the quality of the Japanese armed forces had nothing to do with its dispatch to Singapore. Nor did the inclination within naval circles to underrate the Japanese navy’s capabilities affect British planning for war against Japan between 1919 and 1939 in a simple fashion. Here three things should be noted: the Admiralty always wanted its naval forces to be larger than they were; it always wished to have numerical superiority in case of war with Japan; and it always calculated the numerical balance through simple bean counting, on the assumption that one Japanese warship was worth roughly one British warship of equivalent size. Yet parallel to this view,


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the underestimation of Japanese fighting qualities certainly led many decision makers to think that the Japanese threat might be more manageable than bean counting would suggest. For example, the 1937 War Memorandum stated: In discussing the operations of our fleet subsequent to its arrival at Singapore it has been assumed that the Japanese approximate to our own standard in naval warfare. If, as may well be the case, they prove to be lacking in enterprise, skill, resource or fighting qualities, we should be prepared immediately to exploit our advantages in these respects and increase the boldness of our conceptions accordingly.43 This was not, in principle, an unreasonable calculation to make. After all, not all navies are equally effective fighting forces, and, as Chatfield once noted, Britain should have lost the Battle of Trafalgar based on a bean-counting estimate.44 The mistake made by the Admiralty was in assuming that the Royal Navy was, sailor-for-sailor and ship-for-ship, always qualitatively superior to every other navy, simply by virtue of being British. This generalization affected British thinking toward all other navies, including those of the United States and Germany. Although Japan’s navy was generally rated slightly below these, it was still considered to be at least on par with the Italian navy, and probably better. And, the Royal Navy always aimed to amass as much numerical superiority as possible against even the Italian navy between 1940 and 1943. When considering the Admiralty’s calculations of its requirements for war against Japan, it is useful to distinguish between the Admiralty’s formal and informal estimates of the Japanese navy, which were often different things. At the formal level, the Admiralty’s calculations were not seriously affected by the predisposition to underestimate Japanese efficiency. Admittedly, it always doubted that the Japanese were as good as the British, and planners felt that the Japanese fleet would be characterized by predictable and routine behavior. The Admiralty even attempted to quantify its assumption of superiority in 1939 by arbitrarily rating the Japanese navy’s efficiency as 80 percent of the Royal Navy’s.45 This formal estimate was not grossly wrong, however, and too much should not be made of it. The naval staff was at this time thinking mainly in terms of a defensive war, fought far from Japanese bases, in waters dominated by British land-based aircraft. In such circumstances, planners always assumed that they could afford a slight inferiority in capital ships at Japan’s selected moment—but only if this could not be avoided. If a superior fleet was available, the Admiralty always intended

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that it would be sent, and it always calculated that a numerically stronger force was essential for an offensive strategy. There was never any question of holding back battleships out of contempt for Japanese fighting abilities. The Admiralty expected to accomplish more with relatively weak forces than it actually proved able to do in 1941–42, but this belief was not the only reason that weak forces were employed. The most notorious statements concerning Japanese inefficiency were usually restricted to informal estimates, and were seldom embodied in the Admiralty’s official calculations because naval decision makers recognized the dangers this would involve. An oft-quoted memorandum by Captain Vivian, the British naval attaché in Tokyo, on the efficiency of the Japanese navy, is instructive in this respect. Vivian’s paper deprecated virtually every aspect of the Japanese navy, largely on the basis of crude racial stereotypes. Unofficially, Vivian suggested to the director of naval intelligence that his investigation indicated that “the IJN is 2nd class.”46 But he also admitted that “to make a statement to that effect, even in a semi-official paper, is too dangerous.” He explained the difficulties he had in gaining access to the Japanese fleet, training establishments, and schools. As a result, although he was inclined to think that “the unwillingness of the [ Japanese] authorities to show more is due rather to the barrenness of the cupboard than to any secrets it may contain’, he warned that ‘the Japanese are past masters in the art of keeping things secret and it may be that the technical efficiency of the Navy is far higher than they lead us to believe.”47 Vivian’s conclusions regarding the Japanese navy found general acceptance within the Admiralty. Chatfield considered the report to be “interesting and valuable” and recommended that it be circulated to the other sea lords.48 Nevertheless, the director of naval intelligence believed that until “we can make a better assessment of the standard of weapon efficiency attained in the IJN, and learn something more about the trend of their tactical ideas, any comparison of the relative efficiencies of the Japanese and British navies must be of very limited value.”49 In a similar vein, Admiral R. G. H. Henderson, the Controller, warned that “one must be careful not to belittle the general efficiency of a possible enemy.”50 After the war, Admiral Sir William Davis, a former deputy director of plans, echoed Henderson’s caution: Many of us [on the naval staff] would not agree with the estimate that the Japanese were only 80% efficient compared with ourselves. We thought that they were tactically rather rigid and also behind us in anti-submarine tactics. But frankly we knew nothing else and many of us thought it was best to over-estimate rather than under-estimate.51


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There was thus a dichotomy between what naval officers instinctively thought about Japanese naval efficiency and the more-conservative estimates on which they based their official calculations. Because official estimates were not systematically distorted by racial stereotypes, a more accurate appreciation of the Japanese navy’s capabilities would not have made a significant difference to the Admiralty’s actions before September 1939 or in December 1941. The loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, like the fall of Singapore, must be attributed primarily to the relative scale of resources available to Britain and Japan in Southeast Asia at this time. No intelligence that the British could have possessed on the Japanese navy, however detailed or accurate it might have been, could have overcome the imbalance in strength between the two combatants. If the Royal Navy had better appreciated its enemy’s capabilities, British forces might have been able to put up a marginally better fight than they did in the opening months of the Pacific war; the ultimate results, however, would not have been much different. Failures in intelligence certainly played a part in the destruction of Force Z, but these were primarily failures in operational intelligence, in particular miscalculations of the types and strength of Japanese aircraft based in Indochina. Britain’s political leaders also miscalculated the willingness of the Japanese to start a war against both Britain and the United States. These failures owed nothing, however, to the navy’s intelligence activities of the interwar years. The Prince of Wales and the Repulse were dispatched to deter Japan from war, not to fight the Japanese fleet. They were not a substitute for the navy’s main fleet, and once they arrived at Singapore, intelligence probably could not have saved them. Moreover, the fate of Force Z indicates nothing about the value of strategic intelligence to the Admiralty in planning for a war with Japan. If the Admiralty could have dispatched a fleet to the Pacific of roughly the size it wanted in 1941, strategic intelligence would have led the navy to overestimate significantly the effect of a maritime blockade on the enemy’s economic power. And until the first clash of British and Japanese naval units, many naval officers would have substantially underrated the fighting qualities of their opponent, particularly its naval aviation capabilities, owing to the effect of the informal views then prevalent in British naval circles. But these errors need not have produced any serious consequences, had Britain been able to dispatch large naval and air forces to the Pacific to implement a defensive strategy. The Admiralty’s intelligence was good enough to meet the needs of war planners during the interwar period, at least until the navy no longer had the strength to act on that planning. British naval intelligence is often presented as a matter of incompetence leading to disaster, but it is better seen as a case of mediocrity leading nowhere at all.52

CHAPTER 7

Soviet Intelligence on Barbarossa: The Limits of Intelligence History

David R. Stone

The opening of Soviet archives, while promising stunning new revelations on previously closed chapters of Soviet history, has left many of those promises unfulfilled, especially on the central questions of war and peace. The origins of the Second World War from the Soviet side, both the creation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 and the subsequent German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, remain deeply shrouded in mystery and controversy. In the continuing absence of easily accessible and comprehensive archival sources, quite radical theories and approaches can take root. For example, Icebreaker, the work of Soviet émigré Viktor Suvorov (the pen name of Viktor Rezun), argues that Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, only preempted Stalin’s own plans to attack Germany and thereby launch European revolution.1 Most serious historians, in Russia and the West, find Suvorov’s methods and conclusions beneath contempt, but the amount of effort devoted to proving them false is truly staggering.

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In Russia, for example, the chief Russian military history journal published May 1941 directives from the Ministry of Defense ordering its military districts to draw up “a detailed plan to defend the state border” to “cover the mobilization, concentration, and deployment of troops,” along with the defense plans themselves of the Baltic, Western, Kiev, Odessa, and Leningrad Military Districts.2 The publication’s goal was clear and explicit: to refute Suvorov’s notion that Soviet war plans were anything other than defensive. In the West, the most vigorous attacks on Suvorov’s thesis have come from Gabriel Gorodetsky, who has written numerous books and articles defending Stalin and the Soviet Union against Suvorov’s accusations. His latest work, Grand Delusion, takes advantage of truly unprecedented access to Russian archives, including the holdings of Soviet military intelligence, foreign intelligence, and the Russian Presidential Archive, the holy of holies of Soviet archival collections. Gorodetsky’s conclusion is clear: Suvorov’s thesis is nonsense.3 David Glantz’s Stumbling Colossus, a detailed study on the state of the Red Army just before Operation Barbarossa, finds complete chaos and concludes specifically that in the spring and summer of 1941, the Red Army was utterly incapable of the kind of offensive operations that Suvorov envisioned.4 Despite all the intellectual firepower brought to bear on Suvorov, disquieting questions remain about Soviet intentions in 1941. For example, although Glantz’s work on the prewar Soviet Army conclusively demonstrates its disorganization, Red Army Chief of Staff Georgii Zhukov, who was presumably well-informed on the army’s shortcomings, in May 1941 advocated a spoiling attack against the Nazi onslaught that he correctly saw approaching. Despite the Red Army’s terrible state, Zhukov considered a preemptive attack far preferable to waiting for the long-prepared German blow to fall. Soviet military doctrine had always emphasized defense through counterattack; Zhukov took that logic one step further. The 1940 defense plan, drawn up in September, had envisaged a transition to a counteroffensive 30 days after the onset of hostilities. Zhukov attempted to revise that plan in his “Consideration of the strategic deployment plan of the Soviet Union in the event of war with Germany and its allies.” Signed by neither People’s Commissar of Defense Semyon Timoshenko nor Zhukov himself as Chief of Staff, this variant plan contained a key provision: Taking into account that Germany at present is maintaining its army in a mobilized state with a deployed rear, it has the potential to preempt our deployment and carry out a sudden attack. In order to prevent this, I consider it necessary to give the initiative

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to the German High Command under no circumstances, to preempt the enemy during deployment, and attack the German Army at that moment when it is in the process of deployment and will not have time to organize a front.5 Stalin refused Zhukov’s proposal, referring to it as “notes for the prosecutor.”6 In offering his ill-fated proposal for a spoiling attack, Zhukov was likely inspired by Stalin’s own words. Stalin had delivered a speech on May 5, 1941, to the graduates of the military academy in which he expounded a newly offensive and anti-German approach towards questions of military preparedness, including a toast afterwards to an army now capable of moving from defense to attack. Gorodetsky sees this event as a signal intended to deter to the Germans; V. A. Nevezhin, a Russian historian and supporter of Suvorov’s thesis, as a justification for a preemptive strike.7 After Stalin’s speech, Soviet propagandists quickly shifted their emphasis, in part at the behest of Stalin’s chief ideologist, Andrei Zhdanov, to extolling the virtues of offensive warfare and the inherent justice of any war waged by a worker-peasant state. M. I. Meltiukhov, another Russian backer of Suvorov’s conclusions, concludes that the increasingly aggressive nature of Soviet propaganda and rhetoric in May and June 1941 “unambiguously bear witness to the Soviet leadership’s intention in the summer of 1941 to carry out an attack on Germany.”8 To be sure, Zhukov’s advocacy of a preemptive strike, and Stalin’s address that may have inspired it, were in response to an immense German military buildup on the Soviet border with the intention of carrying out an attack that had been decided on months before. The point I wish to make here is not that Suvorov’s portrayal of Soviet policy is correct, but that Soviet policy and particularly Stalin’s frame of mind in the spring and summer of 1941 remain ambiguous, at least at certain key junctures, given the evidence available thus far. There is certainly reason to inquire further. Can the workings of Soviet intelligence throw light on Stalin’s intentions in the last months before war? After all, as one Russian historian put it, “it’s a secret to no one that our intelligence knew of the concentration of German-Fascist troops on our borders.”9 Part of the reason that the allegation of Stalin’s aggressive intentions has drawn such attention, pro and con, is that his conduct on the eve of the war seems utterly inexplicable otherwise. With ample intelligence on Hitler’s intentions, Stalin seems to have been caught off-guard and unprepared for Barbarossa, a fact underlined by the horrific losses the Red Army suffered over the next six months. “Perhaps the reason Stalin was caught off

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guard by Hitler’s offensive,” this line of thought runs, “was that he was planning an offensive of his own.” Unfortunately, though several documentary publications produced under the auspices of Russian intelligence services have presented large numbers of archival documents on the run-up to Barbarossa, they leave many questions unanswered. The chief purpose of these publications is not so much scholarly inquiry into the Soviet Union’s involvement in World War II as an after-the-fact justification of the heroic service of Soviet intelligence officers. Despite this, these new publications do provide some tantalizing hints to help explain the puzzle of Stalin’s action in 1941. The remainder of this essay will examine these sources to see just what information they yield. The chief difficulty in working with this assortment of published documents on Soviet intelligence is that instead of serving as a starting point for further archival research, they instead delimit clearly the set of sources historians have available to them. Gorodetsky’s Grand Delusion is exceptional in its access to archival sources on Soviet intelligence. By contrast, for the vast majority of scholars, documents carefully vetted by intelligence professionals and published in semiofficial collections are the only sources available. After isolated and small-scale publications on Soviet intelligence in Russian journals in the early 1990s, substantive collections of documents began appearing in 1995. Published in that year, Sekrety Gitlera na stole u Stalina (Hitler’s Secrets on Stalin’s Desk) included 83 Soviet intelligence documents along with five German documents on preparations for Barbarossa. The names of its editors and compilers, three of whom later worked on an official history of Soviet foreign intelligence, suggest it was assembled with the assistance and at the behest of the Russian foreign intelligence service. One singular feature of this collection is a number of transcripts of apparently secretly-recorded conversations in Moscow embassies. Unfortunately, the identities of all parties to these conversations and even their nationalities are expunged from the record. Their usefulness to historical inquiry is therefore minimal, though they might provide a vicarious thrill for the popular audience, at whom this book is largely aimed, as the lurid title suggests.10 One extremely helpful mitigating feature is that archival citations for the documents are included, allowing the reconstruction of a partial catalog. In the same year, a volume covering the first half of 1941 appeared as part of the larger collection Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine (The USSR’s State Security Organs in the Great Fatherland War). This publication was much more explicitly linked with Russian intelligence services: the chair of the editorial com-


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mission was Sergei Stepashin, head of domestic counterintelligence as chief of the Federal Counterintelligence Service (later Federal Security Service) in 1994 and 1995. Stepashin later briefly served as prime minister.11 Despite its somber, respectable appearance and scholarly tone, the book is much less useful to scholars than Hitler’s Secrets. It deletes all archival citations, and often prints intercepted foreign telegrams without information about the date of interception or deciphering, providing as a result no information on what Stalin knew or when he knew it.12 In 1997, Volume III of Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki (Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence) was published with Evgenii Primakov, then head of the Russian foreign intelligence service and later prime minister, as general editor. Covering 1933 through 1941, it naturally concerned itself with the origins of the Second World War. Its editorial staff had three members in common with Sekrety Gitlera, and published many of the same documents. Far less scholarly than either of its predecessors, it chiefly contained short essays written in a popular tone, that glorified the achievements of intelligence agents, and it included some documents in an appendix.13 These three publications, along with other articles and memoirs by intelligence officers, leave open as many questions as they answer, and provide insight into the limitations of Soviet intelligence on the eve of war only in spite of themselves. Produced by or on behalf of Russia’s intelligence services, their chief goal is not to further understanding, but to defend their institutions against charges of dereliction of duty in the disaster of 1941. This leads to quite striking examples of what lawyers might characterize as “arguing in the alternative,” presenting a series of alternative and inconsistent defenses. “My client,” an example might run, “was not present at the scene of the crime. Were he present, he was only a horrified witness. If he did participate, he acted in self-defense. In any event, he was temporarily insane.”14 Not surprisingly, the first step of this argument in the alternative is to lay blame for the disasters of 1941 squarely on the political leadership to whom Soviet intelligence reported for creating impossible working conditions. First and foremost of the impossible conditions, naturally, is Stalin’s terror, which killed off a substantial proportion of established officers.15 The NKGB’s French staff, for example, was hammered by political repression and a high level of turnover in its legal residents (five from 1933 to 1941). In addition to the liquidation of skilled intelligence officers, Moscow ordered its representatives in the field to break contact with valuable agents out of paranoid fears that they had been turned. In Manchuria, the residency in Harbin was ordered to cut its number of agents sharply, for fear of tainted information, and the situation in Japan was little better.16

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In some cases, Moscow almost succeeded in entirely wiping out its own residencies. A Berlin resident, B. M. Gordon, was recalled to Moscow and purged in May 1937, and numerous German specialists from Soviet intelligence followed. The residency had numbered sixteen officers in 1935, but rapidly dwindled to ten in 1936, three in 1938, and only two (without a resident) by 1939.17 London was hardly in better condition. The last legal member of the London residency was recalled to Moscow at the start of 1940. The shortage of intelligence officers grew so acute that they were trained in groups, rather than individually, as had been the case previously. The detrimental effects on security were outweighed by the pressing shortage of personnel.18 This line of historiography also claims that Stalin was criminally negligent in evaluating the intelligence presented him. A. G. Pavlov, former first deputy director of Soviet military intelligence, argued that the “basic reason for [lack of preparedness] was the error of the country’s political leadership, headed by J. V. Stalin, in evaluating the situation” and rejecting the information available.19 Blame for intelligence failure, however, does not fall on Stalin alone. The next step of arguing in the alternative blames the leadership of the intelligence services, but not rank-and-file operatives themselves, for failing to properly value the contributions of their subordinates and vigorously present objective evaluations to the Soviet Union’s political leadership. An early journal article publishing intelligence reports, for example, includes a letter from Nikolai Kuznetsov, head of the Soviet navy, to Stalin relaying an attaché report from Berlin. Kuznetsov dutifully gives the account of a Soviet émigré that war with Germany is imminent, but adds “I suggest that this information is false, and specifically intended to reach our government and verify how the USSR will react to it.”20 In Austria, the NKGB resident Spichkin was well-placed to gather information on the approach of war. He reported to Moscow “intensive preparation of the Austrian army and population for war with the USSR. . . . A great demand is observed for those knowing Russian. Those knowing Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian are being mobilized into the army.” NKGB head Vsevolod Merkulov’s response was “Spichkin shouldn’t occupy himself with gossip.”21 The story in Poland was quite similar. German occupation made functioning particularly difficult, and early operations after the outbreak of World War II were largely focused on spying on the Polish exile government in London. Networks in Poland were quickly reestablished, however, and heroic efforts managed to find that two million German soldiers were stationed on the Soviet border by spring 1941. Once again, according to the foreign intelligence service, Merkulov’s cravenness rejected good work.


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His response to reports of German preparations was “You’re strongly exaggerating. All your information has to be reconfirmed. Only then can your information be reported to the leadership of the USSR.”22 Immediately before Barbarossa, in what seems to have been a lastditch attempt to snap Stalin out his lethargy and denial in dealing with the German threat, Soviet intelligence prepared a lengthy calendar of every report that its star agents Corsican and Starshina had filed on German preparations for war, stretching from September 6, 1940, through June 16, 1941, and filling 11 pages. Merkulov refused to sign and present this list to Stalin and his inner circle.23 By contrast, this type of argument often praises by comparison the pre-purge leadership of the intelligence services, whose careful preparatory work allowed good intelligence work to continue despite the purges. Pavlov, for example, praises Ia. K. Berzin and S. P. Uritskii for setting up a network of one thousand intelligence officers, half of whom functioned as illegals. Their successor, F. I. Golikov, “displayed indecisiveness and insufficient devotion to principles, avoiding objective analysis and evaluation of incoming intelligence information.”24 After pillorying poor leadership, the next step in the argument is to claim that, despite failures of political and professional leadership, along with devastating purges, intelligence agencies still worked carefully and effectively to present timely warnings and prepare themselves for war. Pavlov notes that the GRU established radio nets, weapons stores, and other preparations in the immediate run-up to war to prepare for any eventuality. Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti reprints documents to underline a similar point: the Main Directorate of the Border Troops reported on June 20 on the extensive measures it had taken to increase border security, including strengthening watches and canceling training exercises.25 One particular genre of accurate predictions is that of border security reporting German military preparations in the immediate vicinity of the Soviet border. Sekrety Gitlera and Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti contain dozens of such messages from the Ukrainian NKVD or the Belorussian NKGB, detailing German overflights that violated the Soviet border and increasing concentrations of German troops bivouacked within easy reach of Soviet surveillance. 26 Certainly, the claim that accurate intelligence made its way to Stalin despite obstacles is essentially correct. Good material did make it to Moscow. The evidence of ongoing German plans for war with the USSR that Stalin had at his disposal was voluminous. Winston Churchill has described his own warnings to Stalin to beware of German attack; Churchill’s evident interest in seeing Germany and the Soviet Union embroiled in war made his information less than fully

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convincing to Stalin. Soviet intelligence itself, however, provided ample documentation of German activities. Not surprisingly, the document collections prepared by Russia’s successor intelligence services seek to demonstrate by sheer weight of numbers the service they provided. The Soviet Union had a number of remarkable sources, particularly in Germany, where they were often recruited by ideological means from among German Communists. Willy Leman, code-named Breitenbach, was a Soviet agent in the Gestapo. Arvid Harnack, code-named Corsican, worked in the German economics ministry. Harro SchulzeBoysen, Starshina (Sergeant-Major), served in Luftwaffe headquarters. Unfortunately for the Soviets, an equally trusted source, O. Berlings, code-named Lyceeist, was a German double agent feeding the Soviets disinformation.27 The amount of documentation of Soviet intelligence on Nazi intentions, even when limited to those documents released for publication, is truly staggering. Soviet military intelligence, according to Gabriel Gorodetsky’s work in still largely closed archives, added together a number of clues and concluded that Hitler intended to invade the Soviet Union, even before Hitler had informed the Wehrmacht of his plans. On December 29, 1940, only days after Hitler’s December 18 decision to go ahead with Barbarossa, Soviet military intelligence passed word back to Stalin.28 Additional warnings followed steadily.29 The foreign intelligence directorate of the NKGB was not far behind the GRU in documenting German intentions. Separate reports from Berlin documented ongoing German efforts to map out the Soviet economy. Corsican gave notice by February 8, 1941, that Germany’s Statistical Directorate was preparing a map of Soviet industrial enterprises, and that Russian-speakers were being notified of possible mobilization into state service. By early March, the NKGB’s Berlin residency had confirmed that Germany’s Committee for the Four-Year Plan had drawn up projections of what resources would be gained from seizing the western USSR.30 Over the course of April, Starshina kept Soviet intelligence well apprised of the rapid progress of planning for war. At the start of April, he announced that his own division of the air staff had completed its planning; at the end of April, he noted that cooperation with Finnish, Romanian, and Hungarian planners was moving ahead at full speed. Germany’s Balkan allies had requested the urgent provision of antitank and antiaircraft weaponry; war was inevitable. The decision for war was final, for Hitler’s decisiveness had turned all doubters. By June, constant signals of coming war were provided by Soviet intelligence. On June 11, Starshina insisted without question that war was imminent, and repeated his warning on June 16.31


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Soviet sources in Germany were obviously the most important for intelligence on Hitler’s intentions, but Soviet sources around Europe and the world confirmed what Moscow got from Germany. The most famous of these is Richard Sorge’s network in Japan, whose numerous reports included a May 30 account that war would come in the second half of June, and that the staff of the German embassy in Tokyo was directed not to send any further shipments of Asian rubber to Germany across Soviet territory.32 Similar information flowed into Moscow from throughout Europe. Despite political troubles and the constraints of German occupation, the French residency managed to report on the transfer of German troops to the Soviet border beginning in June 1940,33 months before Hitler’s actual decision to prepare Barbarossa. The Soviet military attaché in Belgrade reported in March 1941 that there would be no German invasion of the British Isles, and that Hitler would instead move against the Soviet Union in the late spring of 1941 with the cooperation of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.34 At the end of April, the evidence of extensive German preparations in Poland became overwhelming. German soldiers openly discussed the spring’s forthcoming attack, while observers reported a constant flow of troops east through Warsaw. Saboteurs in Ukraine were ready, and bomb shelters were under construction in Warsaw. Polish railroads had been put under full military control. Soon after, in early May, the NKGB reported that German officers and soldiers were speaking openly about the war to come, and it continued the litany of reports of German troop movements east.35 Later that same month, the Bucharest military attaché reported similar preparations and a constant flow of German troops towards Moldavia.36 Other intelligence sources picked up huge flows of German troops from Bulgaria and Greece towards Romania and the Soviet border, including at least three divisions through Plovdiv alone.37 The official account of Soviet intelligence in Italy on the eve of war provides almost no detail on the years from 1937 to 1941, but it concludes “the most eloquent witness of the high results of the work of Soviet political intelligence in Rome is the telegram to the Center of 19 June 1941 with practically exact indication of the time of Germany’s attack on the USSR.”38 The residency in China served equally effectively, informing Moscow in May 1941 of Germany’s attack and in June 1941 even passing on the operational plans for Barbarossa, obtained through the Chinese military attaché in Berlin. Inside the Soviet Union itself, Soviet intelligence agents who were assigned to monitoring the foreign diplomatic corps noted large numbers of diplomats and their families, together with their personal property, leaving for home. On May 14 and June 18, the NKGB reported an

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exodus from the German embassy and the burning of embassy documents, supplemented on June 19 by word of departures from the Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian embassies.39 In sum, the overwhelming majority of published documents demonstrate exactly what they are intended to demonstrate: that Soviet intelligence performed admirably in providing voluminous and timely information on German preparations for an attack on the USSR. In doing this, though, these documents only deepen the puzzle of Stalin’s actions and indirectly strengthen the case of those who argue for Stalin’s preemptive strike. If the evidence for German intentions was so overwhelming, one might surmise, then the only explanation for Stalin’s lack of concern was his own intention to attack. Some of the published sources suggest, however, another picture. The picture received in Moscow was not as clear as the preceding litany of intelligence reports may suggest. Even documentary publications intended to show the triumphs of Soviet intelligence contain substantial amounts of information depicting just how confusing the true picture was. A second and relatively coherent stream of information suggested that the concentration of German forces on the Soviet border was not a preparation for war, but an ultimatum to demand economic concessions from the Soviet Union. This particular interpretation had much to recommend it: it would naturally explain what seemed the sheer folly of Hitler’s launching a war against the Soviet Union while Britain fought on. If the massing of troops on the Soviet border were merely a bluff, Hitler’s actions seemed much less rash. Some Soviet intelligence stressed, in fact, the particular message that any attack on the USSR would have to wait until Britain’s defeat.40 Such an interpretation of the intelligence available would also fit well with the willful denial Stalin seems to have engaged in where Hitler was concerned. This second stream of intelligence information, which tended to rely on the economic arguments against attacking the Soviet Union, had rationality on its side: the state of the German economy, as the Soviets understood it, made an invasion of the Soviet Union seem utterly irrational. This interpretation of German actions—that they were aimed at an ultimatum demanding more favorable economic relations—is precisely what Berlin wished Moscow to believe. Much of the intelligence that Moscow received, in particular that provided by the double agent Lyceeist, was disinformation intended to throw Soviet policymakers off track. What made this disinformation even more powerful was that such intelligence made a great deal of sense, it came from a far broader range of sources than just the individual double agent Lyceeist, and it matched what the Soviet leadership desperately wished to believe.41


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Even information depicting German preparations for aggressive war contained tantalizing hints that the German economy could not sustain such a war. In March 1941, Corsican, who was regularly sounding the alarm, claimed that the motivation for a possible attack on the USSR was a terrible shortage of foodstuffs, which had already led to famine in Belgium. Germany’s Four-Year Plan Committee had been instructed to compute the resources available from the European part of the Soviet Union. While warning of attack, this information could also fit into a picture of a Nazi ultimatum to obtain further economic concessions without the risk of war during a time of famine.42 Similarly, another March report from Corsican detailed the Ministry of Aviation’s plans for a bombing campaign against the Soviet Union, but it also predicted that the attack would come in April or May. The German goal was not to avoid winter, but to attack early enough to prevent the Soviets from burning their grain in the fields to keep it from German hands. Again, although the information predicted a German attack, aspects of it could easily be made to fit into a differing interpretation that saw the German economy as incapable of sustaining war.43 An April report on German military preparations in Poland noted that the Germans were preparing fortifications using the same engineers responsible for the Siegfried line in the West. If the Germans were preparing defensive works, might they intend something other than an invasion, if only until after the British were defeated?44 On April 22, 1941, Merkulov reported Lyceeist’s information on views inside Germany’s committee on its Four-Year Plan: Germany simply could not accumulate the grain, planners believed, to support Europe’s population. Ukraine, however, if detached from the Soviet Union and under German management, would be quite sufficient for Germany’s food needs. Lyceeist’s tainted report was soon confirmed. The same day, Merkulov passed on NKGB information from Bucharest. A German baron had told a Soviet source that the unexpected clash with Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 had damaged German agricultural plans. “In the opinion of the Germans,” this source claimed, “up to the present time the USSR has exported a completely insufficient quantity of mineral oils and bread. . . . For the resolution of this problem, the Germans intend to create in Europe conditions that will force the USSR to make significant concessions to Germany.”45 In both cases, the intelligence suggested a threat demanding unpleasant economic or territorial concessions, but not a war of annihilation. On April 28, the agent Frankfurter, an officer in German naval intelligence, reported to his Soviet handlers that a military conference on the German war economy had come to startling conclusions. The German military’s monthly demand for rubber amounted to 6,000 tons,

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2,000 more than could be synthesized in Germany. The discrepancy could be made up by rubber from French Indochina transported to Germany via the Soviet Union. Military operations in the Balkans had depleted German stocks of fuel. The situation was desperate enough that Germany would, at any cost, attempt to seize Iraqi oil fields. Given that this operation, likely to go through Turkey, proved successful, only then would Germany attack the Soviet Union from the south, through the Caucasus and Ukraine. German food supplies were also running low, and would not meet the 1942 needs. This suggested German inability to wage war on the Soviet Union in the short term, and perhaps even a degree of dependence on Soviet assistance.46 At the beginning of May, Corsican linked German economic needs to an ultimatum to, but not necessarily a war with, the Soviet Union. Nazi Germany would demand instead that the Soviet Union join the Axis against Great Britain. Germany would insist on occupying Ukraine and possibly the Baltics to take advantage of rich agricultural and mineral wealth. All this was preparatory to a final drive on Suez.47 Confirmation of a sort came soon after. On May 14, a source in the German air staff (perhaps Starshina) reported that an attack on the Soviet Union was indeed in preparation, but that it would not come out of the blue. Instead, “Germany will first present the Soviet Union an ultimatum with the demand to expand exports to Germany and stop Communist propaganda.”48 German representatives would be placed in Ukrainian factories and economic centers, and Germany would occupy several regions of the Soviet Union. The source added that a large part of the German officer corps opposed war with the Soviet Union, going so far as to comment that “in these circles, war with the Soviet Union is considered a senseless enterprise that may lead to Hitler’s downfall.” Only a few days later, Merkulov passed along further information depicting a split within the German leadership. Military circles, according to this report, were pushing an invasion of the Soviet Union, while civilian sources opposed it based on a conviction that whatever economic and political concessions might be necessary could be obtained through negotiation. Hitler himself remained undecided.49 On May 25, Merkulov relayed still more information on Germany’s fragile economy. Lyceeist confirmed that 160–200 German divisions were massed on the Soviet border, but at the same time held that “war between the Soviet Union and Germany is improbable.” From Hitler’s point of view, war with the USSR would destroy the Nazi party’s unity, produce a hungry winter in 1941–42, and likely wreck the Soviet economy and with it any chance of extracting necessary supplies. Hitler’s plan, then, was to demonstrate German resolve and depend on Stalin’s good judgment to obtain a greater flow of goods, especially oil, while at


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the same time forcing the USSR to desist from any intrigues against Germany.50 If the will to disbelieve were present, and it seems that in Stalin it certainly was, even the most alarming message contained seeds of doubt about Hitler’s true intentions. A June 9 report claimed that rumors were widespread in Germany that there would be no war—that the Soviet Union would lease Ukraine to Germany and increase its flow of raw materials to Germany.51 To be sure, the report stressed that these rumors were being deliberately spread by the German propaganda ministry, but given a fervent desire to interpret this information as indicative of an impending ultimatum demanding economic and territorial concessions, the information could easily have been misread. The same report contained a separate account presenting just such a scenario: Germany would present an ultimatum asking for German economic dominion in Ukraine, increased deliveries of food and fuel, and assistance in a war against the British Empire. Political and military intelligence bolstered the economic intelligence suggesting that Germany might not be able to sustain a war. A Starshina report from April 17, 1941, declared that preparations in the air staff were going ahead at full speed, thanks to aerial photographs taken by German overflights.52 At the same time, however, the report noted that German victories in North Africa had strengthened the hand of those pushing for finishing off the British Empire before turning against the Soviet Union. Within the German army, “an overpowering majority of the German officer corps is supposedly in opposition to Hitler, and in their midst, the idea of attacking the Soviet Union is unpopular.” The military was war-weary and less capable of offensive action than in 1939. Intelligence obtained through Finland told the same story. Thanks again to a well-prepared campaign of disinformation, governmental sources believed that war between Germany and the Soviet Union was still not certain. The German military pressed for war, but Hitler and Ribbentrop still opposed such an action. The Finnish finance minister bolstered this conclusion. While revealing to a Soviet agent the mobilization of the Finnish army and the rapid buildup of German troops in Finland, he suggested that this was a “psychological attack” aimed at winning concessions from the Soviets.53 A report from Prague in mid-May contained a similarly mixed message of Germany’s aggressive intentions but inadequate resources. Visitors from Germany had noted the “fall in moral spirit” among the German people associated with the possibility of war on the USSR and the continuing poor situation with living standards.54 Demoralization had set in among German soldiers, who (at least in Prague) suffered

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“massive infections with venereal disease.” These visitors believed that “the material resources of the German economy are quickly coming to an end.” The conclusion to be drawn from this intelligence appeared simple: Germany simply could not afford to break its nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union until its supply situation improved. It was sufficiently convincing that new guidelines for Soviet propaganda, prepared in May and June 1941, emphasized Germany’s rapidly dwindling stocks of fuel and food.55 This simple conclusion conflicted directly, however, with the voluminous intelligence on the ongoing preparations of Barbarossa. How were Soviet intelligence analysts to reconcile the conflicting information? To a large degree, they never did. If military intelligence or the NKGB did in fact analyze their raw data on German preparations for war, those assessments have not been released. Stalin preferred, it seems, raw intelligence unencumbered by analysis. The NKGB did not even have a proper analytical service until 1943. Soviet military intelligence appears to have been slightly more reflective in terms of its approach to information, though how much of its analysis reached Stalin is still unclear. Stalin thus received huge amounts of undigested information and was left to determine its meaning himself. Given the precarious nature of lives and careers in Stalin’s Russia, this produced a natural tendency to avoid analysis and provide data that would serve either to support Stalin’s own beliefs or be so carefully balanced as to provide cover for any possible developments, while decreasing its value for making policy.56 In defending the record of its ancestor, the SVR under Primakov’s leadership (and editorship) concluded, immediately after noting its lack of an analytical division, that “on the eve of war, Soviet foreign intelligence gave the country’s leadership broad and varied information from which it was clear that the deadly danger of German fascist aggression was inevitably approaching.”57 Unfortunately, the information it provided was not clear at all. As is evident even from the limited selection of documents available to scholars, the intelligence provided to the Soviet leadership contained a great deal of contradictory information, and there was substantial evidence pointing towards the incorrect conclusion that Hitler was working towards an ultimatum aimed at political and economic concessions rather than a full-scale assault on the Soviet Union. If any Soviet intelligence evaluated the evidence at its disposal to weigh those two alternatives, that undertaking has not been published. In summary, while historians have to welcome documentary publications on Soviet intelligence before Barbarossa, the particular nature of these publications, sponsored and carefully vetted by intelligence


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agencies themselves, renders them far less useful to historians than they would otherwise be. There remains a great deal that historians have not yet seen. As is evident from reconstructing a finding aid from the archival citations given in the publications discussed here, the documents on offer come from only seven files, all from one subgroup of one record group, of Russia’s Federal Security Service archive. For the three files that appear to be covered most thoroughly, perhaps 15 percent of their pages have been published. Given that level of coverage, we can safely conclude only that Stalin and the Soviet leadership received information pointing in two directions: toward an inevitable German attack and toward an economically weak Germany preparing an ultimatum but not war. Until historians have freer access, it is impossible to draw conclusions even about the relative weight of the evidence pointing in either direction that Stalin had available to him. Without archival access, that is the limit of intelligence history.

CHAPTER 8

Operation Matchbox and the Scientific Containment of the USSR Paul Maddrell

Introduction This chapter delves into the origins of the Cold War. It tells the story of a clandestine British operation in Germany that had the aim of hampering the scientific and military development of the Soviet Union during the early years of the arms race. The arms race lay at the heart of the Cold War and in its earliest phase it was more menacing to Britain than to the mighty United States. It focused on weapons of mass destruction—nuclear weapons, guided missiles, and agents of chemical and biological warfare. The political origins of the Cold War have been examined in a multitude of books. But the arms race, started by Stalin in 1945 and soon run by West as well as East, also generated hostility between the two sides.1 Occupied Germany played a key role in intensifying the early arms race. Both the eastern and the western parts of the country contained valuable scientific and technical resources. The Allies began to fight over German war-related science and technology even before the war

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was over. The postwar policy of the British and Americans was to exploit it for themselves while trying hard to diminish the scientific and technological benefit that the Soviet Union could derive from its zone. This policy ran parallel to British and American efforts to buy up the world’s supplies of uranium and thorium, thus guaranteeing themselves a satisfactory supply of fissionable material, while attempting to deny the same to the USSR and other powers. These activities began in 1944, when Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill established the Combined Policy Trust for this purpose.2 Efforts to contain German science and technology predate better-known steps toward containment of the USSR, such as the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the establishment of the Coordinating Committee for East-West trade. Of course, East Germany represented only a small part of the USSR’s scientific capabilities, and the West’s efforts to persuade East German scientific workers to defect were not going to prevent Stalin from acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although the intelligence services of Britain and the United States were bound to take antiproliferation measures, the Soviet Union’s scientific resources doomed them to failure. In the field of missile technology alone, by the late 1950s some 100,000 scientists and engineers were developing new rocket designs in Soviet research and development (R & D) institutes. More than 350,000 skilled workers were engaged in missile manufacture, which was taking place at more than two hundred factories.3 As British intelligence officers concerned knew, all their work could achieve—at best—was to slow the pace of some Soviet arms development projects. The great Soviet-American arms race of the 1940s and 1950s was just a particular instance of proliferation of WMD. Atomic and thermonuclear weapons were first made in the United States; missiles and the nerve gases were first manufactured as weapons in Germany; biological weapons were developed in a number of countries. Possession of all these spread more widely in the first 15 years of the Cold War, and the superpowers, in particular, developed them. WMD have since been acquired by even more countries, and their proliferation continues. Consequently, the pioneering operation discussed in this article is of considerable contemporary relevance. Little has been written about the methods used by intelligence services to stop the proliferation of advanced weaponry. Today such methods concentrate on denying a country (or any other group, for that matter) identified as actually or potentially hostile the scientific and technical personnel, necessary equipment, and raw materials needed for its development program. The British and US intelligence services used the same methods in Germany in the 1940s and 1950s.

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The Wartime Revolution in Weaponry and the Overrunning of Germany Weapons of mass destruction were born in the Second World War. The last phase of the conflict and the later 1940s saw both a systematic attempt by British intelligence to lay its hands on Germany’s most advanced weaponry and strenuous efforts to deny this material to the Soviet Union. However, these efforts to prevent the proliferation of advanced weapons failed. When Germany was overrun in 1944–45, the Allies’ first task was to find out everything about its armaments and to acquire them for themselves. Intelligence agencies had the task of achieving an intelligence victory over Germany, so that in a future war she would have no weapon unfamiliar to the Allies. A special fighting unit, T Force, was created by the British and Americans to take over and occupy installations engaged in war-related scientific research or weapons development and manufacture. These installations were then visited by Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS) teams, representing a number of British and American government departments, which had the task of finding out all there was to know about German war-related science.4 CIOS, which was a part of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force), concluded its work in the summer of 1945, when SHAEF was dissolved. In its brief lifetime, it produced reports on 3,377 targets.5 In May 1945, SHAEF created an agency to exploit German science on behalf of the three Western Allies. The Field Information Agency, Technical (FIAT) long survived SHAEF itself. After SHAEF’s dissolution, FIAT and its Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section (EPES) were divided into national elements. By August 1946, EPES had accumulated cards on 18,000 German scientific workers.6 From 1945 until at least 1948, Britain used its arm of EPES in its quest to exploit the knowledge of German scientists, engineers, and technicians by offering them work. This unit not only contacted scientific workers in the Western zones, but also sent agents and coded letters into the Soviet Zone. Such operations targeted the German scientific elite, whose efforts could potentially benefit both defense and general industrial research in Britain. They were sent to Britain to work under one of two British schemes. The first was a DCOS (Deputy Chiefs of Staff) program that provided employment in Britain on war-related R & D projects. It targeted German scientific workers with valuable knowledge of military application. The Ministry of Supply and the Service Ministries also sponsored this scheme and instructed EPES to evacuate scientific workers with sought-after know-how. Obviously, they were seeking above all to develop the weapons that the war had brought to the fore.

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The second scheme was sponsored by the Board of Trade. Its Darwin Panel brought scientific workers to Britain to contribute to general industrial progress. However, only two hundred German scientific workers were allowed to enter the country as part of the Darwin Panel scheme and they had to be “key” personnel. Some scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken to Britain for short-term interrogations only (this was the “Bottleneck” scheme).7 Germany was both Britain’s headache and treasure trove. German development of guided and ballistic missiles was ahead of that of any other power. Its submarines, torpedoes, aerodynamics, fuels, infrared detection, and V-1 engines were all superior to the Allied technologies.8 Late in April 1945, CIOS teams overran the main office of I. G. Farben in Frankfurt-am-Main and interrogated the scientists there, who babbled about war gases of unheard-of toxicity. Accordingly, on April 26, 1945, SHAEF was informed of the existence of a German poison gas, alleged to penetrate gas masks, which would be found at the I. G. Farben works at Gendorf in Bavaria. This was tabun, the first of the nerve gases. Its toxicity, although great, was exaggerated in this report. Systematic interrogation of I. G. Farben chemists and administrators revealed the chemical composition of the gases developed, their toxicity and mode of operation, the places where they had been made, the chemists involved in their development and production, and the extent of the company’s collaboration with the Nazi armaments buildup. Such interrogations also revealed the location of buried documents that threw more light on I. G. Farben’s involvement in the Nazi war drive.9 The most profitable interrogation of all was that of the inventor of both tabun and sarin, Dr. Gerhard Schrader, who fell into Allied hands when the region around Leverkusen was captured in mid-April 1945. Allied interrogators also learned from the chemists they questioned of the invention of the most toxic of the nerve gases, soman, the pinacolyl homologue of sarin. Its inventor, Professor Richard Kuhn, was interrogated. As a result of its importance to Germany’s war effort, all factories, properties, and assets of I. G. Farben were taken into the ownership and control of the Allied Control Council in November 1945, under its Law No. 9.10 Admittedly, the German atomic and biological warfare projects had been unsuccessful. But scientific personnel who had worked on them could still be of considerable use to Soviet war-related science. Moreover, one factory that might be of use to Soviet atomic scientists, the Auer Company’s uranium processing plant at Oranienburg, northeast of Berlin, was located in the Soviet Zone. To deny it to the Soviets, the Americans bombed it, destroying all its above-ground installations. When the war ended, the German atomic project was still at a rudimen-


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tary stage. Research in Germany had made good progress until 1942, when the army supervisors of the project concluded that such was the difficulty of making an atomic bomb that none could be made during the war. The prevailing view among them and among the scientists working on the project was that the war could be won in a year or two, with the result that more attention was given after 1942 to the development of advanced weapons which might be brought to completion soon enough to prove decisive. As Germany’s fortunes worsened, evergreater emphasis was placed on swiftly putting “wonder weapons” into service, whereas the atomic project remained a civilian R & D program. Unlike the Manhattan Project, it never moved from the laboratory to industrial-scale production. A self-sustaining atomic reactor was not built. Nor was any fissionable material manufactured for use as explosive in an atomic weapon.11 The German biological warfare project had been a flop, as the British and Americans discovered when they interrogated those who had worked on it. German research into the offensive use, on a strategic scale, of agents of biological warfare had not progressed beyond a primitive stage.12 SHAEF established a Special Detention Center, code-named Dustbin, to hold scientists and administrators from whom information on Germany’s great advances in military technology could be gathered. This interrogation center was first situated at Versailles and was in June 1945 moved to Schloß Kransberg, near Frankfurt-am-Main. The Dustbin interrogators interviewed the leading administrators and scientists of the Nazi military-industrial complex. One important task was the interrogation of members of the special research staff of the Imperial Research Council (Reichforschungsrat).13 Among this group was the director of the Planning Office (Planungsamt) of the Imperial Research Institute (Reichforschungsamt), Professor Werner Osenberg. The Planning Office’s most important files and records (above all, its card indices of German scientific personnel) were flown to Dustbin from Northeim, near Hannover, soon after the town was captured in April 1945. These records allowed German scientists, engineers, and technicians with knowledge of military significance to be identified and tracked down and were therefore of great intelligence value.14 EPES used them in drawing up its denial lists. Personnel from the Ministry of Armaments and War Production were imprisoned and interrogated there for information on the war production that they had directed. Among these people were the minister himself, Albert Speer, Gerhard Steiler von Heydekampf, the chairman of its Main Committee on Tanks and Vehicles, and Otto Merker, the chairman of its Main Committee for Shipbuilding. The interrogators sought information on radar and radio signaling, which had greatly increased the

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effectiveness of airpower during the war. Professor Abraham Esau, for a time the plenipotentiary for nuclear physics and later the supervisor of all German wartime research into radar, was held at the center from October 1945 to March 1946.15 Directors of the Telefunken company, a manufacturer of antiaircraft and fighter control radar sets,16 were also interrogated in the summer of 1945. Electromagnetic radiation allowed distant objects to be remotely controlled and, naturally, Professor Friedrich Gladenbeck, the director of German research into remote control, was admitted to Dustbin in July 1945. Interrogations of leading participants in I. G. Farben’s wartime operations took place there. Industrialists whose companies had been heavily involved in Germany’s war effort, such as Fritz Thyssen of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke, Hermann Röchling of the Röchling Stahlwerke, and Professor Ferdinand Porsche of the Volkswagenwerke, were likewise questioned in Dustbin.17

The Soviet Occupation of East Germany and the Policy of Denial Even as they advanced into Germany, the British and Americans were keen to deny its weaponry and military technology, and those who had developed it, to the USSR. Naturally, their interest focused on the Four Technologies of the Apocalypse—atomic, biological, and chemical weapons (sometimes known as the ABC weapons) and the guided missiles that could carry them—as well as on military electronics and aerodynamics. German scientific personnel with knowledge of all these were available to the Soviets. Events in Germany worked in favor of the Western Allies. Not only did they overrun the larger part of the country, but in the last months of the war, German scientists, engineers, and technicians moved West so as to fall into Western hands. Thus the leaders of the German guided-missile project (including its directing mind, Wernher von Braun) were captured by the Americans, and the leaders of the German atomic and nerve gas projects ended up in Dustbin.18 Intelligence operations encouraged this movement of German scientific workers to the West. Efforts were made to locate and bring West those in the Soviet Zone (SOZ) who had knowledge which would be of value to the USSR. In June 1945, before their withdrawal from central Germany, the Americans evacuated some two thousand German scientific workers from the region, many of them very important. Also evacuated were their families and vast quantities of equipment. The British were also involved in this operation, evacuating some 250 scientists, engineers, and technicians and their families. Those selected for evacuation were, in part, chosen based on information on them provided by such Dustbin detainees as Albert Speer and Werner Osenberg. The Carl-


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Zeiss manufacturing complex at Jena; the Junkers factory at Dessau; the Telefunken research laboratory at Bad Liebenstein; the I. G. Farben factories at Wolfen, Leuna, and Bitterfeld; the V-2 missile experimental establishment at Nordhausen; the Universities of Leipzig, Jena, and Halle; and many other places were all stripped of people and equipment. Some 450 scientists and engineers were taken from the Zeiss and Schott factories in Jena alone. At the Potsdam Conference the following month, the Soviet delegation understandably protested at the removal of scientific personnel and equipment from its zone. But the British and Americans would not do all that was necessary to deny to the USSR German scientific workers with war-related knowledge. They were not looking to find work in their field of expertise for those they had snatched from the NKVD’s clutches. Accordingly, all but the most important of the evacuees had soon to be released. They were very unhappy in American hands, where their skills went completely unused. More than 40 percent of the Zeiss and Schott evacuees had doctoral degrees. Their main aim was to find work in their field, but by the spring of 1946, most had not succeeded in doing so. The Soviets were more single-minded in their pursuit of scientific advantage than their Western rivals. Naturally, on release, many of those evacuated from central Germany made their way back to the Soviet Zone, where good, well-paid jobs in their specialist fields awaited them. The carrot was backed up with a stick: if they did not go back, their relatives in East Germany would be victimized. The policy of control of West German science meant that scientific workers could not find work there in their areas of expertise. Indeed, the limits placed on West German industry meant that even a job in industrial research was hard to come by. Scientific workers had either to go abroad or work for the Soviets.19 At Potsdam in July and August 1945, the victorious Allies agreed that Germany’s capacity to make war would be destroyed. The third of the “Political Principles” set out in the agreement was that the Control Council should ensure “the elimination or control of all German industry that could be used for military production.” The agreement also declared, as an “Economic Principle,” that: To eliminate Germany’s war potential, the production of arms, ammunition and implements of war as well as all types of aircraft and sea-going ships shall be prohibited and prevented. Production of metals, chemicals, machinery, and other items that are directly necessary to a war economy, shall be rigidly controlled and restricted to Germany’s approved postwar peacetime needs. . . . Productive capacity not needed for permitted production shall be removed in accordance with the reparations plan recommended

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by the Allied Commission on reparations and approved by the Governments concerned or if not removed shall be destroyed.20 To control German science, in April 1946 the Control Council adopted Law No. 25, prohibiting applied scientific research in the areas of most concern and permitting it in other areas only under license; the law also prohibited fundamental research “of a wholly or primarily military nature” and forbade the Germans to possess certain kinds of apparatus.21 It applied to all four zones and came into effect on May 7, 1946. Although the Soviets gave their assent to it in the Control Council, they never observed its terms or those of the Potsdam Agreement. Despite American and British evacuations and removals, the Soviet Union’s conquest of Eastern Germany presaged a great increase in its military power. It thus worsened an imbalance of power in Europe, which only an American military presence could correct. Within the Soviet Zone were numerous war-related factories and laboratories, a host of scientific workers with knowledge of military application, and a wealth of advanced weaponry and military technology. Here are some of the most important examples. In July 1945, when the Americans handed “Middle Germany” (Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, and parts of Saxony, and the heart of the Nazi military-industrial complex) over to the Soviets as the Yalta Agreement required, included in the gift were two towns in the Harz mountains, Nordhausen and Bleicherode, and their surrounding villages, that contained nearly all the V-2 and most other guided-missile activity in Germany. The Mittelwerk at Nordhausen was the only German production assembly plant for the V-2 rocket. Nearby Lehesten was a great testing site. The Zentralwerk at Bleicherode specialized in the design of guided missiles. These were not the only key factories of the Nazi military-industrial complex that the Soviets captured intact. Middle Germany had fallen into the hands of the Western Allies without much of a fight and the CIOS teams had had too little time in May and June 1945 to remove everything and everyone worth removing. Most famous among the missiles the USSR could be presumed to have acquired were the surface-to-surface missiles, the V-1 (also known as the FZG-76) and the V-2 (also known as the A-4). Intelligence interest focused not just on these already developed missiles, but also on German plans for future missiles, which the Soviets might be able to take further. These were the A-4b and the A-9 (winged versions of the V-2, with a longer range) and the A-10. The last of these, a design for an enormous two-stage rocket, was only in the early stages of a paper study


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when the war ended and was not being actively developed. American removals meant that the Soviets acquired no completed V-2s, few (if any) components for the V-2’s control system, and probably few technical drawings for the missile, but they nevertheless came by intact production facilities for the V-1 and the V-2, a stock of complete V-1s and components for the missile, as well as large numbers of important components for the V-2.22 Moreover, although the leaders of the German guided-missile project had made their way to the West, the Soviets, in overrunning a host of engineers and technicians, acquired a plentiful stock of know-how. This army was placed under the command of 30year-old Helmut Gröttrup, the former assistant to the director of the Guidance, Control, and Telemetry Laboratory at Peenemünde. Gröttrup was put in charge of the Institut Rabe, and rocket development was resumed in Bleicherode and its environs.23 The Institut Nordhausen was soon founded to give further impetus to rocket work. In the wake of Hiroshima, the Soviet leadership knew that its country was vulnerable to an American atomic strike and could be presumed to be devoting considerable resources to the strengthening of the USSR’s air defenses. German expertise threatened to be of great help. Among the scientific workers who fell into Soviet hands were many who had worked on projects to develop surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles. In 1945, four guided missiles had been under development in Germany (Wasserfall, Enzian, Schmetterling, and Rheintochter) and one unguided missile, Taifun, had almost reached the production stage. With regard to the guided missiles, development work was almost complete as far as aerodynamics, missile design, propulsion, and preliminary flight testing were concerned. The principal missing element was that guidance and control systems had not yet been developed. Despite unfinished aspects, German development work in the field of surface-to-air missiles was well advanced overall. The Schmetterling was probably one year away from completion, but the Wasserfall and Rheintochter, supersonic missiles for use against faster targets than the Schmetterling could cope with, were probably a couple of years from completion.24 Nazi Germany also experimented with hydrogen peroxide drives for submarines and torpedoes, and even for aircraft and guided missiles. Such technology offered the prospect of the first submarine capable of remaining underwater for long periods of time. Hydrogen peroxide, to power any of the above engines, had to be of a concentration of 80 percent or higher. Until 1945, Germany was the only country in which it had been manufactured at this concentration in large quantities. But the I. G. Farben plants at Heydebrecke and Waldenburg fell intact into Soviet hands, together with full details of the company’s process for the manufacture of hydrogen peroxide.25

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Occupation of East Germany brought the USSR much closer to the acquisition of strategic air power. The Soviets took over some 60 percent of the Nazis’ aeronautical industry, including undamaged aircraft and jet-engine factories.26 This sent a shiver down many a British spine, for the blitzed British had a high opinion of German skill in aeronautics. Their scientific intelligence experts believed in 1947 that: German influence in research and design will have a considerable effect for many years to come. . . . The use by another power, and in particular by Russia, of key German Scientists will have a profound influence on the future war potential of that power. So far as Russia is concerned, it is estimated that their utilisation of German experience and scientific ability will allow them to achieve a long range bomber force superior to any other in the world in numbers and speed, although possibly not in training, within a period of a few years, and that this force will be further improved before any other nation can achieve parity.27 Despite its undertakings at Potsdam, the Soviet Union was determined to make full use of German resources in ensuring its own defense. The first postwar Five-Year Plan, for the years 1946–50, gave priority to the advanced technologies that had emerged from the war—atomic energy, guided missiles, radar, and jet propulsion. For the first time, there was a separate Technical Plan.28 Germany had made great progress in three of these fields, and had able atomic scientists as well. British intelligence soon learned that, far from controlling German science, Soviet policy was to make thorough use of it. Not merely was the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) active in Germany, but so was the Control Commission for Germany’s (British Element) own intelligence organization, Intelligence Division. As they discovered, the Soviets exploited German scientific knowledge in a variety of ways, three of which stood out. The Technical Commission of the Soviet armed forces played a key role in each of these activities, indicating that all might have contributed to the USSR’s postwar arms buildup. Firstly, special commissions of the German Standards Committee (Deutscher Normenausschuß), working in collaboration with the Technical Commission, were responsible for the open exploitation of aspects of German science. Each commission prepared a report on the standards in force in a particular German industry for the corresponding Soviet industry. On completion, the report was handed over to the Technical Commission, which sent it on to Moscow. By July 1946, 74 such commissions had been set up for this purpose. Secondly, many USSR ministries (some 40 at least, and perhaps all of them) had established technical offices in


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East Germany, which were administered by the Soviet Technical Commission and which had the task of writing reports on German science and technology of military and of general industrial application and of sending this knowledge back to their parent ministries in Moscow. These ministries’ responsibilities were everywhere on the manufacturing map, and included, among other sectors, communications, machine tools, iron and steel, nonferrous metals, shipbuilding, armaments, vehicles, rubber, pharmaceuticals, and the construction of heavy industrial plants. Thus there was an office for machine tools in Chemnitz, an office for armaments in Dresden, and an office for internal combustion engines in Berlin-Mahlsdorf. Although the Soviets clearly wanted to keep the work of these offices secret, it was unlikely that any of them was charged with work so sensitive that the Soviets were determined that the Western powers should not learn of it. This followed from the fact that the offices commissioned reports from German scientific workers who lived in other parts of Berlin than the Soviet sector, and even in other zones of Germany than the Soviet Zone. This made the offices concerned very different from a third group of establishments, which were charged with the development of weapons for the Soviet armed forces. Their work was meant to be strictly secret and only those who lived in, or were willing to move to, the Soviet sector of Berlin or Soviet Zone were employed at these establishments. Some were merely engaged in R & D work; others had, by the summer of 1946, moved to the stage of production. The most important was the reactivated V-2 factory at Bleicherode in the Harz mountains, the Institut Rabe. The Germans there were given the task of manufacturing a small number of V-2s. To do so they had to make, from scratch, a set of complete working drawings to replace those the Americans had made a point of taking West with them. About forty V-2s were made, mainly using important components found in the area. The Germans also designed a longer V-2 with a range of 600 kilometers.29 The Soviets also showed great interest in German aeronautics, initiating development work at the Research Institute for Aeronautics (Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt) in Berlin-Adlershof. Other establishments that were carrying out development work on weaponry by July 1946 included the Technisches Spezialbüro No. 4 in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, charged with rocket developments; the Technisches Spezialbüro der Gummi-industrie in Berlin-Weissensee, charged with applying rubber to various military purposes; the Ingenieurbüro SKG in Berlin-Köpenick, working on a variety of rocket and radar tasks; the Torpedo Versuchsanstalt at Zwickau in Saxony (developing torpedoes); the Büro für Nachrichtenwesen in Berlin-Ostkreuz, concerned with telecommunications developments; and the SU Werk at Burgstädt in Saxony, responsible,

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among other tasks, for developing a missile-control apparatus.30 Aircraft construction had resumed at such factories as the Junkers plant in Dessau, BMW’s factory in Staßfurt, and Siebel’s in Halle. Among the factories in the SOZ that were manufacturing torpedoes and parts and equipment for U-boats were Brückner-Kanis in Dresden, the AskaniaWerke and GEMA in Berlin, and the Carl-Zeiss-Werke in Jena.31 Intelligence of Soviet war-related R & D projects in East Germany established that the USSR had launched an arms race with the West and that its military capability was growing fast. The Joint Intelligence Committee ( JIC) warned a year after the war’s end that “the alliance of German brain power and Russian resources may well prove to be the most important consequence of the occupation of Germany.”32 Of course, as the British and Americans knew by that time, for acquiring technology Stalin was not wholly dependent on Germans. His intelligence service, the NKGB (from 1946, the MGB), had created spy rings whose activities extended throughout North America. It had even penetrated the Holy of Holies of American science, Los Alamos itself. Counterespionage in North America confirmed that the Soviet Union was seeking to acquire the key military technologies that had emerged from the war, and, above all, the atomic bomb. To cite only the main discoveries, when Igor Guzenko, a cipher clerk in the GRU residency in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, defected in September 1945, he revealed that Soviet intelligence had penetrated the Manhattan Project. On the basis of Guzenko’s information, the British scientist and GRU spy Allan Nunn May was arrested in 1946 in Montreal, where a British, French, and Canadian team had been engaged in atomic research as part of the Manhattan Project. The ensuing investigation by a Canadian Royal Commission established that the spy ring of which Nunn May had been a member had gathered “information of the greatest importance” on such technologies as radar, asdic (sonar), explosives, and propellants.33 Further evidence of the USSR’s determination to acquire advanced weaponry was acquired. The most significant breakthrough of all was the Americans’ decryption of Soviet cables. These decrypts, code-named Venona, revealed that atomic and thermonuclear research at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory had been deeply penetrated. In August 1949, an NKGB message that brought the British scientist Klaus Fuchs under suspicion was decrypted. Between 1944 and 1946, he had worked at Los Alamos. In two meetings with his controller in the first half of 1945, Fuchs had provided the NKGB with a detailed description of the design of the plutonium bomb, including the complicated implosion method of detonation, which was to be tested at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945. The information he provided was detailed enough for an engineer to produce a blueprint of the bomb


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from it. The first Soviet atomic bomb, tested on August 29, 1949, was an exact copy of this plutonium weapon. It is probable that intelligence provided by Fuchs, which included discussions at Los Alamos about whether and how a thermonuclear bomb could be made, initiated the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. When he confessed in January 1950, Fuchs revealed the full extent of the information he had given the Soviets.34 Further Venona decrypts indicated that there had been four more NKGB spies at Los Alamos; they unmasked Donald Maclean, formerly a British representative at the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington DC, as a spy (code-named Homer); and they led to the identification of the Rosenbergs as spies active in scientific intelligence gathering. One of the other spies identified at Los Alamos was the young physicist Theodore Hall, code-named Mlad, who had in fact given the NKGB information on the implosion method of detonation earlier than Fuchs.35 The USSR’s arms buildup seemed particularly menacing when set against clear evidence of its leadership’s hostility towards the West. A buffer zone separating the Soviet Union from the West came into being in the years immediately after the war as Communist one-party states were established by force in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The British, observing political developments in the Soviet Zone of Germany, turned hostile to the USSR by the spring of 1946. A key event, in their eyes, was the “forced unification,” in April 1946, of the Zone’s Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD) and its Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, or KPD) to form the Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED). This seemed a decisive step in the suppression of democracy in East Germany and established that the Soviets had no interest in abiding by the Potsdam Agreement. By the autumn of 1946, the British considered it probable that Germany would be divided and took measures to strengthen their zone as a bulwark of liberal democracy and capitalist economics. Their intelligence policy followed suit, and from the end of 1946 measures were taken to diminish the usefulness of East Germany to the Soviet arms buildup. Worse still, the Soviets seemed to be establishing a position in East Germany so strong that it could be used as a base from which to impose their domination on West Germany. It was clear to the JIC by 1947 that the Soviets would permit a single German state to be re-created only if it were a Communist satellite of the USSR. Rivalries in Iran, Greece, Turkey, and the Far East provided further evidence of Soviet expansionism.36 The JIC, although it saw Stalin’s policy as concerned in the short term with ensuring the USSR’s security, nevertheless held that the long-term Soviet aim was the worldwide elimination of capitalism by Communism.37

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Operation Osoaviakhim During the night of October 21–22, 1946, approximately three thousand Germans working in a range of war-related industries were rounded up and taken East in 92 trains. The operation was code-named Osoaviakhim. It followed a wave of dismantling. In the spring and summer of 1946, war-related factories had been dismantled and research institutes dissolved, and their equipment shipped East. It was believed at the time that the chief motive for Osoaviakhim was fear that the Western Allies would insist on Four-Power rights of inspection of warrelated installations throughout Germany.38 Nevertheless, the British had not foreseen this mass deportation. Only a few months earlier, officials had remarked of the establishment by Soviet ministries of technical offices in the SOZ that “there appears to be no indication that these activities are a prelude to the subsequent transfer to Russia of the technicians employed by these organizations. On the contrary, it is probably more correct to regard them as an alternative solution to the problem of exploiting German technological development to the full.”39 According to one estimate, approximately 84 percent of the German scientific workers deported to the Soviet Union in the years after the war were taken in this operation. Factories from which particularly large numbers of scientific workers were taken were the Junkers factory at Dessau (jet engines and aircraft), the BMW plant at Staßfurt (jet engines and aircraft), the Askania works (radar, automatic piloting systems), the Oberspree works (radio transmitters, radar, and highfrequency apparatus), and the GEMA institute (gyroscopic research, range finders, and sights) in East Berlin.40 Specialists in aircraft or jetengine construction made up the largest group of deportees; specialists in electronics and electrical engineering formed the second-largest group.41 The British later claimed that some of the German development teams deported in Osoaviakhim were not able to carry out the tasks expected of them in the USSR because they lacked scientists, engineers, and technicians who had been evacuated to the West by the British and others in 1945–46. Such operations had weakened the teams working for the Soviets and in a number of cases had even destroyed the development programs entirely.42

The Denial Aspect of Matchbox Operation Osoaviakhim deprived British intelligence of targets in the Soviet Zone. Almost every war-related research center, weapons factory, and weapons-component factory was closed down. Most importantly, the operation ended almost all work there on guided mis-


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siles and the development of jet engines and aircraft.43 But it otherwise played into the hands of the British. Throughout 1946 German scientists, engineers, and technicians (and particularly the younger ones) had tended to accept employment in the Soviet Zone, or even in the USSR itself, because of the lack of work for them in the Western zones. The Soviets offered large salaries and other benefits to induce such people to work for them. For example, the Germans who worked at the Institut Rabe were paid the same as they had been under the Nazis and were given plenty of food and fuel. The Soviets asked no uncomfortable questions about the past political allegiance of those who accepted employment with them. The policies of the British and Americans of suppressing the warrelated science and industry of their zones, and of de-Nazifying them, prevented them from doing much to reverse the flow. However, the forcible deportation of thousands of German scientific workers and their families to the USSR in the dead of night sent a wave of panic through those left working in the Soviet Zone. They now realized that working for the Soviets involved the risk of sudden and compulsory deportation, for an unknown period, to the USSR. In consequence, they were more willing to be evacuated West by the British. In the weeks immediately following Osoaviakhim, the FIAT Forward office in West Berlin was inundated with Germans working for the Soviets applying to be taken to the British Zone (BOZ).44 Intelligence Division seized this opportunity and adopted a more aggressive approach to denial of scientific workers to the Soviets. It launched an operation, code-named Matchbox, to bring to the British Zone German scientists, engineers, and technicians who could add significantly to Soviet military capability. “Industrial scientists” were of as much interest as “defense scientists,” because, if it came to war, the Soviets would recruit the latter from industry.45 The operation drew on the experience of the British, since the war’s end, of persuading scientific workers in the Soviet Zone to leave their jobs there and work in Britain. The offer of a job had been made either by coded letter or by telegram or, most commonly, by an agent who did not know for which country he was working (such agents were called “cut-outs”).46 For example, an unsuccessful attempt had been made by letter to entice Helmut Gröttrup to leave his job as director of the Institut Rabe at Bleicherode and take up work in Britain.47 But the main criterion for making an approach to scientific workers in the Eastern Zone prior to Matchbox was that the target would be of scientific value to Britain. Of course, this was a denial policy of a sort, since such people would also be of value to the Soviets if they remained in their hands or accessible to them. Indeed, even before Matchbox, the need to deny scientists,

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engineers, and technicians to the USSR gave a further spur to measures to exploit them. The FIAT Forward office in West Berlin evacuated from the city scientific workers who were under heavy pressure from the Soviets to work for them and who were important enough to be wanted for work in Britain or the United States. For example, just before Operation Osoaviakhim, Air Intelligence pressed for radar specialists to be denied to the USSR. The Soviets had already put pressure on most to take up employment with them. The Americans evacuated the chief engineer of the Askania works in Berlin (in the US sector), Dr. Kronenberger, who was an expert on the V-2’s automatic pilot and who had received repeated offers from the Soviets of a job in the Soviet sector of the city. In this particular field, the Soviets had not been able to obtain the services of an engineer of Kronenberger’s standing. Osoaviakhim accelerated such evacuation measures. In its wake, the British evacuated all those scientific workers of importance who were in immediate danger of deportation—or thought they were—and who wanted to come West.48 Matchbox was a systematic attempt to deny scientific workers to the USSR and so retard its military-industrial development as much as possible. In the course of this operation, war-potential scientists, engineers, and technicians were evacuated West and provided with work and salaries. Such people had to fall into one of three categories: scientific workers of genuine eminence, who would obviously be of considerable value to Soviet R & D programs; those not actually eminent, but whose removal or denial would “have a serious effect” on Soviet programs; and those who, irrespective of their denial value, could provide the British with intelligence on Soviet-sponsored R & D. Thus the first two categories related to denial value; the third embraced people of great intelligence value. Scientific workers evacuated on the ground of denial were able to provide very useful and penetrating intelligence on Soviet war-related R & D. Osoaviakhim gave the British a chance to evacuate some of the more important Germans working for the Soviets in their occupation zone. Although some evacuations were carried out in the last few weeks of 1946, Matchbox itself formally came into being in January 1947. At the same time, greater measures were taken to prevent scientific workers who were living in the British Zone and had knowledge of military application from going over to the Soviets. The operation received the approval of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet on December 11, 1946.49 Scientists, engineers, and technicians who met the above criteria were selected for evacuation for four years. Government departments in London sponsored the evacuation.50 Even though their flight was enticed, such Matchbox evacuees were still only a few among the many


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refugees, and the intelligence taken from them was merely part of the intelligence benefit to the West of the flight from the Eastern Zone of the late 1940s. Scientific workers tended to flee the Soviet Zone when the factory in which they worked was dismantled and packed off to the USSR.51 Most of those selected for evacuation under Operation Matchbox, together with their families, simply made their way to West Berlin and were then flown out to the British Zone, where a car picked them up and took them to the “Transit Hotel,” spa rooms in Bad Hermannsborn that could accommodate some two hundred people. A second Transit Hotel opened at Bad Driburg in October 1947, and more opened subsequently. There the evacuees were screened for security and interrogated. The intelligence acquired from such interrogations concerned not just Soviet exploitation of scientific and technical expertise in their zone, but also developments in the USSR itself. Others German scientific personnel did not have to be enticed at all. They simply fled to West Germany, using British intelligence to do so as easily and comfortably as possible. They contacted British intelligence in West Berlin and handed over a Lebenslauf (curriculum vitae). This CV was sent on to Intelligence Division’s Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) in Herford. STIB forwarded it to the Joint Scientific and Joint Technical Intelligence Committees ( JS/JTIC) in London, which together comprised Britain’s scientific and technical intelligence community.52 If the committees decided to evacuate the individual in question, he simply made his way to West Berlin (with his family, if he had one) and they were flown to the British Zone.53 The great majority of the evacuees were, on arrival at the Transit Hotels, accepted as “consultants” to the Control Commission for Germany (British Element). Employment was sought for all the evacuees, whether accepted as consultants or not. As many as possible of the consultants were to be found jobs in Britain or her former dominions or the United States, to ensure that their war-related expertise flowed to these countries. The British authorities had not weakened their policy of suppressing war-related research, development, and production in their zone, and a further aim was that the greatest possible number of the evacuees were to be found jobs in the civilian economy of the zone. Acceptance as a Matchbox consultant meant that, while a job was being found for the evacuee in question, he was paid a small salary for being available to the Control Commission for the performance of research tasks. A Matchbox consultancy was therefore a research grant. The consultants’ research became the property of the Control Commission. For as long as consultants stayed at the Transit Hotel, they received a monthly salary of 200 marks. When they left the hotel, they were paid 400 marks per month until employment was found for them. Wherever

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consultants were accommodated, they were well fed, being provided with the equivalent of a heavy worker’s ration. They also received an especially large ration of fuel. The consultancy arrangement and salary were meant to provide them with “employment at reasonable subsistence level.”54 By 1949, the operation was being run down. It was pronounced dead in February 1951.55 Matchbox was discontinued because it was considered to have succeeded in its aims. Almost all the scientists, engineers, and technicians who had come West and still had denial value had by that time been found a job in West Germany. Those still unemployed no longer had much—or, indeed, any—denial value. All the subjects of the operation had been exploited fully for information on Soviet scientific developments.56 By 1951, of course, the West German economic miracle was well underway, so there was less need for Matchbox. West German business was itself very well able to draw highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technicians from East Germany. Some businessmen had a particular incentive to do so, having owned businesses in the East of which they had been deprived either by the Soviet Military Administration or by the SED. An example is Dr. Erich Schott, the son of the founder of Schott und Genossen, Jena, a world-famous glass manufacturer that was taken into public ownership by the Soviet Military Administration for Germany by its Order No. 64 in July 1948. Dr. Schott saw this coming, and at the beginning of 1948 he fled to West Germany, where he established two glass factories, one in Landshut and the other in Mainz. Many of the staff of these factories had been evacuated from Jena by CIOS teams in 1945. Moreover, well-qualified personnel at the Schott works in Jena regularly fled to the West. The East Germans detected Dr. Schott’s hand in this. In the three-and-a-half months after July 1, 1952, alone, 89 employees of various grades left the works and the German Democratic Republic (GDR), including two scientists, four engineers, and fourteen skilled glassmakers and glassblowers whose work was important to production. These were grievous losses to a highly valued works. Most went to one or other of Dr. Schott’s factories in West Germany.57 Operation Matchbox included within its ambit refugees who had fled the East quite independently of STIB: all refugees who entered the British Zone were referred to the nearest intelligence unit and there interrogated on the basis of a standard brief. All such interrogation reports were then assessed by STIB at the Headquarters of Intelligence Division and, if the refugees clearly had denial value, they might be made Matchbox consultants to ensure that they did not go back East. If a scientific worker already working in the BOZ were known to be being induced to move to the SOZ or the USSR, he could be made a consult-


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ant to keep him where he was.58 An example of someone who in 1950 was kept in the BOZ as a Matchbox consultant to save him from the jaws of the Soviets was Dr. Paul Schröder, the wartime chief of the ballistics department of the Army Experimental Station (Heeresversuchsanstalt) at Peenemünde and, in the opinion of a British scientist who advised the Joint Committees on his case, “the greatest mathematical authority on rockets alive.”59 Between 1945 and 1948, he had worked on rocket development in Britain. On his return to Germany, he had fallen on hard times, which were made worse by the introduction of the deutsche mark in 1948. In March 1950, it was decided to deny him to the Soviets for a further two years by making him a Matchbox consultant. Professor Kurt Blome is another example of a significant Matchbox consultant. His expertise lay in the field of biological warfare: In 1943, he had assumed responsibility for all research into biological warfare sponsored by the Wehrmacht.60 During the most important phase of the operation at least, the ratio of those evacuated from East Germany to those kept in West Germany was approximately 2 to 1. The director of the STIB, David Evans, reported to the German section of the Foreign Office in April 1948 that 321 subjects had passed through the Matchbox machinery. Of these, about two-thirds had been evacuated from the East and about one-third were “graded-list” scientists or technicians living in West Germany, who, it was feared, might go and work for the Soviets in East Germany if they were not helped financially. Two hundred and eighty-five of these 321 had been made Matchbox consultants.61 Those who had been kept in West Germany with the aid of Matchbox funds included many specialists in aerodynamics, aircraft design and construction, remote control, and ballistics who had worked on the RAF’s Völkenrode project.62 However, later in the operation’s life, evacuees from the SOZ represented a larger proportion of the total. By November 1949, 332 scientific workers had been evacuated from the Eastern Zone, while Matchbox benefits had been extended to 103 in the British Zone.63 Osoaviakhim showed that the Soviets were willing to take drastic measures to keep hold of German scientific workers. The British knew that the Soviets were quite capable of going even further by kidnapping scientists in the British Zone. This fear applied particularly to atomic scientists. Ten leading members of the German atomic project team were imprisoned in Britain from the summer of 1945 until January 1946. The denial value of some of them—for example, Nobel Prize winners Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn—was very high. To ensure that they did not go over to the USSR, a group of scientific research institutes was established in Göttingen, in the BOZ, and they were given jobs at the complex. The directive to deny them to the USSR came

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from no lesser personages than the president of the United States and prime minister of the United Kingdom themselves. The scientists’ letters were opened and their telephone calls tapped to find out who was making contact with them and for what purpose; a light watch was also kept on them and their associates (this surveillance operation was codenamed Scrum Half). Göttingen’s proximity to the demarcation line dividing the SOZ from the BOZ was always a cause of concern. In 1947, information was received that an attempt might be made to kidnap, or even kill, the atomic scientists at Göttingen, and various aerodynamicists there, too. The former were for a time brought into the compound of the research complex and the latter were warned of the threat to them. The guards at the complex were armed, and an intelligence team was stationed nearby to watch over it. Preparations were made to evacuate all the threatened individuals and their families to Matchbox at Bad Hermannsborn if any attempt were made on them. Intelligence Division also stood ready to evacuate to Matchbox scientists in the rest of the BOZ who might be threatened with kidnap. Had war broken out between the USSR and the West, an even greater evacuation would have been carried out. In the event of war, it was planned to deny to the Soviets some two thousand Germans of outstanding importance, some of them scientists, by flying them to Britain.64 The Americans also had a denial policy of sorts at that time. Their counterpart to the DCOS scheme was code-named Operation Overcast and was first conceived in the summer of 1945. From March 1946, it was known as Paperclip. One thousand German scientific workers were to be evacuated to the United States for short-term employment there. Like early British policy, Paperclip was a mishmash: partly an exploitation enterprise, partly a denial operation. The Americans were, above all, keen to make use of German expertise in rocketry for their own developments.65 However, the Paperclip list of one thousand German scientists who were to be prevented from falling into the hands of a “potentially hostile Power” suffered from two weaknesses as a denial list. In the first place, it reflected American scientific needs, not urgent Soviet needs, which were often more basic, or at least different. Certainly, some of the Germans on the list seemed to the British to meet commercial needs of American industry rather than imperatives of Soviet war-related scientific development. Secondly, the list was fixed. Consequently, the burden of evacuating those who applied to be taken West but were not listed as desirable for denial purposes lay, at the beginning of 1947, on the shoulders of the British. Both Matchbox and Paperclip represented attempts at the scientific containment of the USSR; they anticipated the political containment of the Truman Doc-


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trine, set before Congress in March 1947, and the economic containment of the Marshall Plan, announced in June 1947.66 The first few months of Operation Matchbox were its most active phase. By April 1947, 106 scientific workers had been assessed to determine whether they should be evacuated and some 74, together with their dependents, had actually been brought over from the East. Entire specialist teams were evacuated. Examples are the Schön group, which specialized in the manufacture of the V-2 rocket, the Stenger group, which also specialized in guided missiles, the Agfa color-film research development group, and the 15-member Technical Directorate of the Brückner-Kanis company, headed by celebrated engineer Paul Kanis. Kanis and his colleague Rudolf Friedrich both qualified as outstanding specialists. The Admiralty, which had requested the evacuation of the last group, considered that it had removed an important war-related industry from the SOZ, so that Soviet development of high-speed underwater-propulsion turbines and of all kinds of naval machinery would probably be delayed for a considerable time. Within the second category of those whose evacuation would have a serious effect on Soviet armaments projects were people skilled in such technologies as rocketry, aircraft construction, optical equipment, electronics, radar, remote control for rockets, aircraft engines, and other engines.67 The British targeted specific parts of East Germany’s skills base with the purpose of frustrating the USSR’s exploitation of its zone and thus of retarding its military-industrial development. For instance, machinetool designers were targeted, in the belief that the standard of skill of the Soviet industrial workforce was low. Soviet workers would therefore need German machine tools to make the machinery that would allow them to manufacture weaponry with the necessary precision. In 1947, learning that key machine-tool designers were likely soon to be deported from Chemnitz to the Soviet Union, British intelligence made contact with them and other such designers in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Plauen and offered to fly them to the BOZ if they left their jobs and came to West Berlin. The men originally targeted comprised a majority of the key machine-tool designers in the SOZ (they were some 20 designers, supported by 45 staff). The tools they designed were intended for armament construction.68 The considerable dependence of Soviet workers on machine tools with a high degree of automatic control caused Lieutenant-Commander R. G. Pennell, the intelligence officer for the head of the Berlin naval branch, to conclude optimistically that, “the removal of these men in the Russian Zone would have a strangling effect on the Russian War potential.”69 The operation, codenamed Top Hat, was carried out on September 14, 1947, earlier than planned, because “a state of emergency . . . arose during the first week

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of September 1947.”70 It is unclear what the emergency was, but it may be that Soviet intelligence got wind of the operation. In the operation actually mounted, only 35 men (plus their dependents) were targeted for evacuation, rather than the 65 originally contemplated. The reasons for this were to avoid causing too many people to move at once, which might attract the attention of the MGB, and to give British intelligence the opportunity of deciding whether the evacuation of the remainder would be worthwhile. The operation itself was a great disappointment because only 15 of the targeted 35 arrived in the British Zone as planned.71 All of them, however, were of “high denial value” and most were “irreplaceable in their own particular fields.”72 Some of those targeted had indeed been imprisoned by the Soviets. Many of the evacuees were placed in jobs with engineering or other companies in Britain. The following year, other machine-tool designers at Chemnitz declared their willingness to be evacuated to the West. At least one of these did indeed come West and was made a Matchbox consultant. This was Herbert Biernatzki, who wanted to defect because his machine-tool business in the Soviet Zone had been nationalized and he wanted to refound it in West Germany.73 The British inevitably sought to diminish the Soviets’ ability to use East German skill to acquire the ABC weapons and guided missiles. In July 1948, STIB evacuated from the Soviet Zone Professor Erich Traub, the “key man” at a microbiological research institute on Riems Island, which was a “high priority Intelligence target.”74 He was evacuated because the British feared that the institute was playing a role in the Soviet biological warfare program. He brought with him some of the viruses and serums that he had been developing for the Soviets.75 The aim of the evacuation was both to deny him to the USSR and to find out what was going on at the institute. However, when interrogated, Traub maintained that it was purely a veterinary institute and that the Soviet scientists who had been transferred to it or had visited it were themselves only interested in veterinary science. As a result of this information, STIB officials received word that London no longer considered “the Institute and its workers to be intelligence targets, and that its sole interest was in the future to be on the denial aspects.”76 Development groups working on guided missiles, such as those at Elektrobau Sondershausen and Technisches Büro Nr. 11 (Technical Bureau No. 11, or TB 11), were also targeted. Some of the evacuees were agents-in-place in installations in the SOZ who had to be evacuated, presumably because they were no longer safe where they were.77 The largest number of applications to grant Matchbox consultancies made by STIB in Germany to the Joint Committees in London concerned scientific workers experienced in the design or construction of


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naval craft or weaponry.78 However, these were only applications. Evacuations were a different matter, and consultancies different again. Sometime either late in 1949 or early in 1950, the Matchbox consultants were listed by profession. The largest group on the list of 317 people were stated to be “machine-building engineers” (126 people, including such engineers as Paul Kanis). There were 35 “ship and ship machine building engineers,” 26 “high-frequency and telecommunications” specialists, and 28 working in “aerodynamics and aircraft construction.” There were very few in other fields, in most cases the number of evacuees being in single figures (for example, only six “tool machine building engineers” had been evacuated).79 However, the large categories (such as “machine building engineers”) divided into many, wide-ranging specialities. By the autumn of 1950, when the operation was nearing its end and 461 Matchbox cases had passed through STIB hands, their combined expertise embraced the following fields: electronics (including the development of magnetrons and klystrons80) and high-frequency techniques; dynamics (including aerodynamics and supersonic aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and ballistics); aircraft and jet fighter construction; U-boat and ship-building; submarine and destroyer design; turbines; locomotive construction; helicopter design and development; speedboat design; rocketry; rocket and torpedo construction and steering (including those of the V-2); rocket fuels; remote control (including missile-control systems); biological warfare; television development; telecommunications; radar; acoustics and underwater sounding techniques; machine, machinetool, and precision-machine-tool design and construction; artillery; machine gunnery (including aircraft gunnery); proximity fuses; wind tunnels; navigational instruments; gas dynamics; the design and construction of mining and transport engines, diesel engines, turbojets and internal combustion engines; color-film production and the design of machinery for it; efficiency; physics; mathematics; organic and inorganic chemistry; physical chemistry; photochemistry; explosive chemistry; chemical engineering; metallurgy; fine mechanics and optics; meteorology and geophysics; electrical engineering; and electromedical research.81 The operation was a small-scale one. By the time it came to an end, it had embraced 469 scientific workers (with their families, 1,000 people).82 It had to be small-scale, for it was difficult to find the evacuees jobs in the West. They had to be found work, otherwise they would simply return to the SOZ. In the light of the Western Allies’ determination to suppress their zones’ war-related industry, that was no easy matter. Indeed, some of the evacuees were simply unemployable in Britain or West Germany in their field of expertise. For example, in the late 1940s,

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those who specialized in warship construction were not wanted in Britain and were not allowed to practice their speciality in West Germany.83 By July 1949, 399 scientific workers had benefited from the operation, of whom 241 had found jobs, mostly in West Germany. Sixty-three had found work outside Germany, mostly in Britain, the Commonwealth, or the United States.84 By the autumn of 1950, 461 scientists, engineers, and technicians had passed through STIB hands as Matchbox cases. Twenty-nine were still living in Matchbox accommodation. Three hundred and nine were living in protected accommodation elsewhere in West Germany (if unemployed or only partially employed, they were still being paid consultancy fees). But most (344 out of 461) had found jobs (by the beginning of 1951, the number of unemployed had fallen to 7185). More than two-thirds of these 344 people were employed in West Germany, which indicates a lack of success in finding work for as many consultants as possible in Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand. Only 71 seem to have found work in these countries.86 Despite the small scale of the operation, it succeeded in its aim of denying to the Soviets a considerable number of scientists, engineers, and technicians with war-related knowledge and skills. How much damage it did to the East German war economy is impossible to determine, but it hampered the Soviets’ drive to extract military benefit from their zone, and they made considerable efforts to stop the flow of workers to the West. They reacted to the operation with an enticement program of their own, offering attractive rewards to scientists and engineers who returned to their zone. Those who stayed in East Germany were similarly rewarded.87 All in all, it was concluded that the operation had achieved “to a satisfactory degree” its objectives of denying German scientific and technical skills to the USSR and of gathering intelligence on Soviet development projects.88 At the very least, British intelligence believed that the operation was very successful in disrupting R & D programs in the Eastern Zone by removing key members of the teams concerned. For example, when, in 1947, aerodynamicist Friedrich Keune was forced to defect to the British, STIB interrogated him about the aerodynamics institute where he had worked in East Berlin, the Scientific-Technical Office, Instruments (Wissenschaftlich-Technisches Büro, Geräte), and succeeded in identifying four key technicians in the very large R & D team there, whose induced defection would wreck the institute’s whole program.89 That Intelligence Division chose the right targets for Operation Matchbox is confirmed by the short life of the GDR’s aircraft-manufacturing industry, founded in 1954 and closed down in 1961. Matchbox had been aimed at leaders of research teams, who could train younger and less-skilled


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people. Some 80 specialists in aspects of aircraft and jet-engine development benefited from the operation.90 Brunolf Baade, the leading aircraft designer in the GDR, complained in 1955 that the industry faced grave difficulties because of its crippling lack of experienced technical personnel, which was holding back aircraft production. He contrasted the state of the GDR’s aircraft industry with the conditions that faced German firms such as Junkers and Heinkel in their factories in eastern Germany before and during the war. Because these firms had large numbers of trained personnel during the 1930s, new and inexperienced workers had consistently formed a minority of the workforce and had been trained by the rest. After the war, however, the GDR faced the opposite situation: the majority of the workers lacked technical training. This unskilled majority had to be trained by a small minority of experienced workers, and these experts had many other jobs to do as well, such as planning the development program, supervising it, and correcting mistakes in the work. Because of their heavy responsibilities, their skills were spread too thinly across the work of the factory. Baade remarked pessimistically, but accurately, “It is impossible to expect that the tasks will actually be achieved with this tiny staff.”91 Of course, Matchbox only furthered the depletion of a skill base already greatly weakened by mass flight. Further evidence that Matchbox and Paperclip had some success is provided by information acquired from a refugee, technician Alfons Ruppik. He had worked on the development of antiaircraft-missile control equipment at a center known as TB 11, where manufacture of control systems for surface-to-air missiles continued after Osoaviakhim. Ruppik fled from East Berlin in December 1949. TB 11 had been dissolved in August 1948 and its premises taken over by the Soviet navy ministry’s Technical and Scientific Department. The new center tried to develop radar equipment, but had to abandon this effort because qualified personnel could not be found. Its main work on marine radiocommunication devices was also frustrated by the fact that “suitable personnel for development work of this nature were only available in very small numbers, and it was desired to economise on the high cost of development.” It was therefore proposed to try to import apparatus of this type from the Western Sector of Berlin or the Western Zones, and to copy them. In December 1949, two of the most recent types of all wave ships’ receiving sets were procured, apparently from Siemens.92 The TB 11 project to reconstruct the Wasserfall and Schmetterling antiaircraft missiles had likewise suffered severe damage when two of the four scientists who knew anything about them fled West. One of these two, Dr.Ing. Erich Stegelmann, was made a Matchbox consultant and probably defected in response to a British invitation to do so.93

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British intelligence not only tried to wreck R & D projects in the Soviet Zone, but also attempted to use Matchbox evacuations to disrupt projects in the USSR of which it had knowledge. For instance, an engineer named Wartenburg was evacuated from Dessau in August 1949. Operation Osoaviakhim had struck hard at Dessau, many aircraft workers having been deported from the Junkers factory. The technical personnel who remained, like Wartenburg, clearly performed development tasks connected with projects being undertaken in the USSR by their deported colleagues. Wartenburg was evacuated because he headed up a Soviet-German liaison group at the factory and was connected with the supply to the Soviet Union of parts for Junkers’ Jumo-224 engine.94

The Intelligence Aspect of Matchbox The intelligence benefit of the operation was considerable. The Joint Committees, reporting on Matchbox in 1949, wrote that, “we are satisfied that we have received a very large amount of information on Russian developments which could not have been obtained without the facilities afforded by the Operation.”95 The scientific and the technical intelligence sections of all three services agreed that Matchbox was of “inestimable value.”96 Not merely would intelligence be taken from a Matchbox evacuee once he had defected to the West, but also while he was still an applicant for evacuation (for example, because he had learned he was going to be sent to the USSR to work). While his application was being considered, he would briefly be an agent-inplace. If the candidate had been writing reports on his wartime work or on war-related scientific problems for the Soviets (as was frequently the case), he would hand these reports over to the British in support of his application for evacuation.97 Moreover, Matchbox evacuations were not the only defections of German scientific and technical personnel that brought news of the Soviet arms buildup. Evacuations intended to exploit the scientific or technical knowledge of the defector continued alongside Matchbox evacuations and likewise had an intelligence benefit.98 The FIAT Forward office in West Berlin naturally had many opportunities of forging links with German scientific workers. Many visited it in an attempt to register their patents or to offer them to the Allied powers for commercial exploitation.99 Many applied there for work in the United States or Britain and were willing to discuss their offers of work at Soviet defense research establishments.100 Such men were often sympathetic to the West; perhaps more importantly, they were willing to give information to FIAT Forward’s intelligence group so as to have the


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option of a job in the Western zones. Some of these informants were actual agents. By January 1947, the British section of the FIAT Forward office in West Berlin alone had an agent in “most of the more important factories engaged in warlike production” in the SOZ.101 SIS and the Technical Section of Intelligence Division had their own networks of agents. After Osoaviakhim, many more German scientific workers employed on Soviet projects made contact with FIAT Forward with a view to being evacuated West. They gave the office penetrating and upto-date information on the work their plants and bureaus were doing for the Soviets. Just after Osoaviakhim, important figures at the Oberspreewerk, the great valve-manufacturing factory (which before its nationalization had belonged to AEG), passed information to FIAT Forward on the work of their departments. One scientist gave FIAT Forward a list of all his colleagues, all of whom, he said, would be willing to be evacuated to the West if they were reasonably sure of being given a job there. In 1947, there was a “steady trickle of medium-grade technicians” to the FIAT Forward office from the Oberspreewerk. Although only very few of them were sufficiently qualified to be candidates for evacuation, the information they provided kept the office well-informed of developments at the factory.102 In the spring of that year, intelligence was gathered from a well-placed source on the work of the film department at the Agfa-Wolfen plant following Osoaviakhim and the defection of the color-film development team the previous January.103 An informant called Beust—an employee in the decimeter research department of the Sachsenwerk-Radeberg who feared deportation—brought with him information on the progress of the development and production of radio and radar apparatus at this important factory and on its plans for the future. Those wanting to be evacuated greatly exceeded the room available for evacuees at the Transit Hotel in Bad Hermannsborn.104 Some scientific workers made contact with the FIAT Forward office in West Berlin to apply for evacuation to the West while on their way from one Soviet-controlled factory to another. Such people attracted considerable interest as possible agents.105 Indeed, the JIC supported the launching of Operation Matchbox not on the grounds that it would deny scientific workers to the USSR, but because it would acquire sought-after intelligence. It considered the fear of deportation among scientific workers in the Soviet Zone engendered by Osoaviakhim had created: an opportunity now to obtain high grade Intelligence from these men which will enable us to build up an almost complete picture of Russian scientific and technical activities in Germany, and so make it possible to forecast more accurately than we can at

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present, the progress of Russian development in modern weapons during future years.106 The number of scientific workers from whom vital information could be obtained would be small: “probably as few as 60 would suffice to cover all the important experimental establishments in the Russian Zone.”107 A significant consideration in deciding whether to evacuate a particular scientist in the East was the access he could give British intelligence to the German scientific grapevine. For example, when STIB proposed to the JS/JTIC in 1949 that Dr. Watter, the chief chemist at the I. G. Farben plant in Bitterfeld (the Elektro-chemisches Kombinat), be evacuated, one of the reasons it gave was that he would assist its efforts to penetrate I. G. Farben circles. This would facilitate the gathering of intelligence on the SOZ, where many former I. G. Farben chemists still worked, and on scientific developments in the USSR, to which former I. G. Farben employees had been deported (some were heavy-water specialists, who, it was believed, might be working on the Soviet atomic project). Many of those recommended for Matchbox were of interest to the British not only because of their denial value, but also because they could provide information on other scientific workers at the factories and institutes at which they worked who might be willing to become long-term British agents there.108 As the JIC had specified, Matchbox evacuation operations were used to penetrate key intelligence targets in the SOZ. One of these was Wismut AG, the great Soviet uranium-mining organization in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains). Prior to his flight, Alfred Hertz had been employed in Wismut’s headquarters at “Objekt 176.” Late in 1949, he was made a Matchbox consultant, having probably crossed into the BOZ as a refugee, without prompting from Intelligence Division. He then prepared an administrative survey of “the whole of the Wismuth AG set-up” and a map of the region for STIB.109 He was one of four former Wismut AG employees who had been made Matchbox consultants by the autumn of 1950. Another key target was the Oberspreewerk. At least two of the Matchbox evacuees from the Oberspreewerk must have allowed the factory’s work to be deeply penetrated, as both were stated by STIB to be of “high denial and intelligence value.”110 They were Josef Rudolf, a former laboratory director there, and another well-placed informant, August Korte. Other evacuees who had held important positions at the factory were Dr. Hugo Bausenhart, a department chief concerned with the development of radio antennae, Ing. Heinz Breuer, a production chief, and Ing. Richard Magner, a laboratory chief. Matchbox evacuees came from many scientific and technical installations in many different sectors, about which intelligence must therefore have been gathered.111


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The great evacuation of October 1946 was selective. It focused on research, development, and production that had been forbidden by Law No. 25. East German science and engineering continued to be of value to the USSR after Osoaviakhim, and the Soviet authorities continued to exploit it. Many R & D projects, less highly prioritized than work on guided missiles or advanced aircraft, continued at research institutes, construction bureaus, universities, and technical high schools in the SOZ.112 Among them were war-related projects. For example, Soviet R & D projects involving marine technology survived Osoaviakhim. Work was carried out at Junker-Jörgstraße in Berlin-Karlshorst, in Berlin-Köpenick, in Blankenburg, in Mellensee, at the Riesa Iron and Steel Works, and at Rostock and Warnemunde. All these projects were British intelligence targets in September 1947.113 A development center for marine equipment that was penetrated was that of the Soviet Ministry of Ship Production in Berlin-Köpenick. Naval intelligence had an informant known as Contact 1031 in the ministry’s Konstruktionsbüro (R & D center). At least one of his motives for giving the British information was a desire to be able to flee to the West if deportation loomed. As an agent, he was told to obtain “the theoretical details of Projekt D 401 which is the task of his Group and is an acoustic direction finder for fitting in torpedoes. It is hoped to obtain from him the full data of his work.”114 The Soviet navy’s principal center for armament design was at 9–10, Junker-Jörgstraße in BerlinKarlshorst, within the compound of the Soviet Military Administration. Three British intelligence units in West Berlin—Naval Intelligence, Air Intelligence, and the Berlin Intelligence Staff—together achieved a penetrating insight into the organization, staff, and work of this Konstruktionsbüro. Most importantly, their sources made them aware of important projects for the development of naval technology. Among the weapons and war-related devices on which information was acquired were a towed mine detector, a hand-held version of the same apparatus, a wireless transmitter and receiver immune to enemy interference, a distance detector based on supersonic waves, a device for measuring the pressure of sound waves, and a testing apparatus for registering bomb hits in bombing practice.115 Some simply involved reconstructions of German wartime projects; others required further development work. Workers at the Konstruktionsbüro were willing to become informants for the British, because its planned dissolution by January 1, 1948, threatened a few with deportation to the USSR and many of the rest with unemployment. Evacuation to the BOZ in return for providing intelligence of development projects and of the center’s links with Soviet institutions therefore seemed an attractive option. The memory of Osoaviakhim inspired fear of a further deportation for a long time

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afterwards. At least three members of the staff, Ing. Hermann Meincke, Fräulein Ursula Stiller, and “Source No. 412” (a technician working on radar development), were evacuated to the BOZ, partly in return for information. Stiller, whose specialty was technical drafting, was evacuated to Bad Hermannsborn in August 1947, then Meincke in December 1947. The latter became a Matchbox consultant and was given protected accommodation in Bonn. Meincke had been the head of the ballistics and artillery design section at 9–10, Junker-Jörgstraße, and when he had heard that he, together with some of the other leading armaments designers at the Konstruktionsbüro, would shortly be sent to Leningrad, he applied for evacuation. Among other weapons, he had worked on the development of superior armor-piercing projectiles for an antitank gun and on the manufacture of high-velocity projectiles. The connection between the Konstruktionsbüro in Junker-Jörgstraße and R & D in the USSR allowed him to provide information on Soviet work on projectiles.116 In May 1948, he was taken to London for interrogation at the Admiralty.117

The Coordinating Committee for East-West Trade Matchbox was an attempt to deprive the Soviets of Germans warmaking expertise. Of course, Western countries might themselves have been enhancing that capability by selling weapons or goods of military significance to the Soviet Bloc. So the logical corollary of a policy of denial of scientific workers with knowledge of military application was an embargo on the sale of strategic goods. As soon as the Americans learned that the Soviet atomic program was acquiring materials and industrial equipment in their zone of Germany, they put a stop to such shipments.118 The British were likewise concerned that companies in their zone should not export goods that would assist Soviet development of advanced weaponry.119 The two countries’ blockade became more general on November 22, 1949, when the Coordinating Committee for East-West Trade (CoCom) was brought into being, seven months after NATO’s creation. CoCom was to police the West’s exports. In time, its membership became broadly coterminous with that of NATO. Japan, although not a NATO member, added to its clout. Britain was a founding member, as was the United States. Indeed, CoCom was based at the U.S. embassy in Paris. It was given the task of deciding which technologies were significant for the capacity to make war and for making lists of goods that should therefore be denied to the countries of the Soviet Bloc. The Committee’s heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s; it went into decline in the era of détente, when restrictions on trade with the Soviet Bloc were loosened. Nevertheless, CoCom’s aim throughout


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the Cold War remained to preserve the West’s lead in military technology over the countries of the Warsaw Pact.120

Conclusion: Safeguarding the Empire of Knowledge The Western countries’ attitude towards advanced weaponry, and in particular WMD, resembles Britain’s old attitude toward its colonies: We are entitled to them, but less-developed countries are not, because the West has a better understanding of such weapons. It knows not to use them. At the beginning of the twentieth century, British control in, for example, Egypt was justified on the similar ground that the British imperial administrators understood the Egyptians and what was good for them better than they understood themselves.121 However, developing countries seek to acquire such weapons as determinedly as they once sought their independence from colonial domination. Indeed, they associate possession of such advanced weapons with sovereign and independent power. Stalin’s USSR led this trend. Convinced that it would be attacked and subjugated if it did not have WMD in its arsenal, it threw itself after the Second World War into developing the most advanced weaponry which had emerged from the war: atomic, biological, and chemical weapons, guided missiles, jet engines, and electronic equipment. “A single demand of you, comrades!” said Stalin to the chiefs of his atomic project. “Provide us with atomic weapons in the shortest possible time! You know that Hiroshima has shaken the whole world. The balance [of power] has been destroyed!”122 Stalin’s arms buildup was a contributory cause of the Cold War: the USSR was seen as menacing not only because it was extending its empire and ideological influence, but also because it was greatly increasing its military strength. The arms race continued thereafter to exacerbate hostility between East and West.123 Thus Operation Matchbox was an effort at scientific imperialism. The military-industrial development of the USSR was to be retarded as much as possible in order to preserve the superiority of British weaponry. Like other postwar British intelligence operations, the aim of Matchbox was to maintain British power. It was, in essence, a security operation that yielded an intelligence benefit. However, as a security operation, it failed, for the Soviet Union rapidly developed the most advanced weaponry. To cite merely the most striking examples, the first Soviet jet-powered fighters, the Yak-15 and MiG-9, were tested as early as April 1946; the USSR tested its first atomic bomb in August 1949, some four years before British intelligence had considered probable; it tested the first-ever thermonuclear bomb in August 1953, only nine months after the Americans tested their first thermonuclear device; and

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it test-fired the first intercontinental ballistic missile in August 1957. A few weeks later, in October 1957, such a missile, Sergei Korolev’s R-7, carried the first satellite into space.124 The Soviet command system had an army of scientific and technical personnel at its disposal, and the projects it prioritized highly were likely to be quickly successful. These were, above all, arms-development projects. The West continues today to try to maintain its greater military power in the face of the global proliferation of WMD. Consequently, it is unsurprising that Matchbox-style denial operations are still taking place. Because a key element in weapons development is the knowledge in scientists’ heads, important war-research scientists are still targeted for recruitment—or worse. The murder of Canadian ballistician Dr. Gerald Bull in Brussels in 1990, presumably by the MOSSAD, was both an attempt to stop Iraq from developing the “supergun” that he and his coworkers had designed and a warning to other scientists not to arm Saddam Hussein. Bull was considered by one expert in ballistics to be “the Wernher von Braun of big gun technology,” and in 1988 he had contracted to build for the Iraqi regime the biggest gun ever assembled, no less than 156 meters long, which was—purportedly—meant to fire satellites into space. However, it was not lost on the Israelis that the rocket-assisted projectile fired by the gun could carry not only satellites, but also chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons. The gun had a range of thousands of kilometers, but Dr. Bull’s unfinished design for its projectile died with him. It has even been suggested that the CIA approved the killing.125 When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it was widely feared that its weapons scientists, financially hard hit by the fall of the Communist regime, would find work in terrorist states like Iran, Iraq, Syria, or Libya, thus enabling these countries to develop all sorts of advanced weapons. The claim has been made that Russian scientists and engineers are indeed working on both the Syrian biological and chemical weapons project and the Iranian nuclear program.126 Iran has certainly tried to recruit Russian biological-warfare researchers, and has bought information from others. One reaction of the United States, Japan, and various European countries to this danger was to set up the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow. In 1994, the ISTC began to provide funds for nonmilitary R & D projects that would keep weapons scientists busy in their laboratories. Leading Russian centers of war-related scientific R & D have been among the recipients of the ISTC’s largesse.127 Bad Hermannsborn has moved to Moscow. Intelligence and security services are also involved in efforts to prevent the proliferation of missiles and nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Indeed, this is their main task at the beginning of the twenty-first


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century. They must keep WMD out of the hands not only of rogue states, but also of vicious terrorist networks like al-Qaeda. This is a desperate struggle, because al-Qaeda’s determination to kill rather than bargain may make it more willing to use these weapons than states have been.128 However, if the past is any guide at all, efforts to contain the military power of regimes determined to develop such weapons will not succeed. The best that can be hoped for is that their progress will be slowed down.

CHAPTER 9

Seeing the Cold War from the Other Side: The Stasi and the Evolution of West Germany’s Ostpolitik, 1969–1974 Mary Elise Sarotte Introduction Germany united has provided both scholars and the public with a unique means of examining Germany divided. In 1991, the government of the newly unified Germany decided to make documents from the former East German Ministry for State Security (MfS, or “Stasi”) available for inspection without the usual 30-year delay.1 Whether due to an interest in the advancement of knowledge about the Stasi, as its supporters claim, or due to a kind of victors’ justice, as its opponents insist, this decision institutionalized a process which had begun during the tumult of 1989. It turned one of the most secretive organizations in Europe into one of the most public. This chapter will take advantage of this unique source in assessing the Stasi as a foreign policy actor. First it will discuss the practicalities of using the Stasi files, because they are more than mere details; rather, they influence what materials scholars can find. Then it will look at both the influence of the MfS and the limits on that influence, as the ministry involved itself in détente between the two halves of Germany in the

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early 1970s.2 Such détente efforts mirrored the rapprochement of the superpowers. A close examination of these efforts, called Ostpolitik by the West Germans, can shed light on the process of détente negotiation between the Western and Warsaw Pact alliances as a whole in the middle years of the Cold War.

Historical Background A bit of background about Ostpolitik is in order. The initiator of the German-German negotiations was the West German chancellor Willy Brandt, who did not limit his overtures to just East Germany. During his time in power, 1969–74, Brandt also negotiated significant treaties with Moscow, Warsaw, and Prague.3 One of his main motivations was his memory of the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 “on his watch” as mayor of West Berlin. Seeing the wall go up without any Allied resistance made him realize that the West Germans would have to take the initiative in seeking ways to ease the pain of division in the short term and to overcome it in the long term. As a result, when he was elected federal chancellor in 1969, he decided that West Germany would remain true to the Western Alliance, but would also break with 35 years of Cold War confrontation and instead begin a policy of engagement with its Eastern neighbors.4 Together with his chief negotiator, Egon Bahr, Brandt secured agreements that allowed West Germans to travel into the East on a regular basis, reunited families, established durable cross-border trade and social organizations, and reduced tension on the border. By these means, the West German chancellor sought to limit the potential for deadly conflict on the political fault line that split the nation. He won the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his leadership on this issue. The German-German agreements were more a recognition of superpower stalemate and their worries elsewhere in the world (in Vietnam and China, for example) than anything else, but they were nonetheless the first successful attempts to normalize the status of divided Germany. As Bahr remarked on the day of the signing of the Basic Treaty, “We used to have no relations with East Germany. Now at least we have bad ones.”5 Historical knowledge about Ostpolitik is, ironically, better documented on the Eastern side than on the Western side. Although private papers are available, official West German documents on the negotiations are not yet open (and in some cases have no scheduled date of release at all because they are classified as secret). 6 In contrast, files available not only in the MfS but also—more importantly—in the SED and GDR state archives allow for the narrative of events to be

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written from the Eastern point of view.7 In addition, because the history of events is so recent, research can also draw upon interviews with participants. 8 This history of German-German talks matters not only to the relatively small circle of historians interested in the trivia of diplomatic negotiations. Rather, in an era of superpower confrontation, any kind of clash on the Cold War’s front line carried with it the inherent threat of escalation. The specter of nuclear war hung over Germany, and the world, in this time period. As a result, study of Brandt’s attempts to limit German-German tension increases our historical knowledge of how such devastating escalation was avoided.

Using Stasi Sources One would suspect that the Stasi archive would provide mountains of information on this topic and, indeed, on nearly every aspect of East German life. After all, the Stasi had been omnipresent in the GDR, confined neither to the familiar and distinct categories of internal policing and foreign espionage. Rather, the numerous responsibilities of the MfS included functioning as a domestic intelligence service and police, as the investigating authority in legal cases, and as a foreign espionage agency.9 It worked closely with the political leadership of the GDR, namely the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party, or SED, and its Soviet counterpart, the KGB.10 The head of the MfS for almost the entirety of its existence, Erich Mielke, was also a major party leader, serving after 1971 either as a junior member (Kandidat) or full member of the Politburo (thereby providing personal union between the two branches).11 Important documents landed on the desks of both the head of the party and of the head of the Stasi. The Stasi bore ultimate responsibility for monitoring and providing security for all aspects of foreign relations. Hence Stasi documents contain information on everything from basic event planning (such as which officers would be responsible for which tasks) to the highest level of decision making. The reality of finding Stasi sources on this or any other topic is unfortunately more challenging. Some challenges are of a purely practical nature: Although there are no time restrictions on using the Stasi files, there are massive time delays in getting to them. The wait to gain access, governed by the Office of the Federal Commissioner of the Stasi files (BStU in German), can last years.12 Furthermore, the fact that researchers themselves may not consult finding aids but rather must describe their project to a caseworker (Sachbearbeiter), who then passes a search request to other archive employees, prolongs and complicates research.13 On top of this, archivists now entrusted with the Stasi

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documents, under the leadership of former pastor Joachim Gauck, have not finished cataloguing remaining documents. Still further challenges await those specifically interested in the connection between the work of the Stasi and diplomacy. Users must surmount both Stasi jargon and categorization. For example, documentary references to “friends” denote the Soviets, and the generic term “area of operation” means West Germany.14 In the eyes of the SED, the “area of operation” was a foreign country.15 Hence inter-German espionage fell to the office within the Stasi that was responsible for foreign espionage: the blandly named Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (Main Administration for Reconnaissance, or HV A), headed by Markus Wolf. Unfortunately for historians, this office secured the right to dissolve itself from the interim government of Hans Modrow in 1990.16 It succeeded in doing so, because, in late 1989 and early 1990, East German public criticism had focused on the work of the Stasi within the GDR; the legitimacy of foreign espionage was not contested. Despite the shortness of time and chaotic political conditions, the HV A managed to destroy the vast majority of its files and all of its card catalogues and finding aids. Thus, most of the documents that would have been of interest to scholars of foreign relations no longer exist.17 This means, for example, that the Stasi archive cannot provide users with documentation on Günter Guillaume, the agent whose discovery sparked Willy Brandt’s resignation in 1974.18 Finally, users of Stasi documents must also bear in mind that, in addition to missing files, there are many relevant files that were never in East German collections at all. The GDR’s Ministry for State Security was not its own master. Norman Naimark explains in his history of the Soviet role in establishing East Germany that, although in the course of the 1950s the GDR’s own police and judicial agencies took over the responsibility for political repression, “the Soviets—the MVD and the MGB (later, KGB)—remained very much a part of the picture until the very end.”19 The KGB, for example, maintained a “branch office” in Karlshorst, which had from the 1960s an average of eight hundred official employees.20 As Naimark suggests, the full history of the East German-Soviet intelligence cooperation must await the opening of the relevant Soviet archives.21 So is it impossible to find enough Stasi documents to research the role of the Stasi as a foreign policy actor? Fortunately, no. By piecing together copies of HV A documents that survive in other collections and correlating them with interviews and with documents from the GDR party and state archives, scholars can achieve a partial reconstruction of events.22 This chapter uses such a reconstruction to assess the Stasi as a foreign policy actor by asking the following questions:


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1. How extensive was Stasi surveillance of, and involvement in, GermanGerman negotiations? 2. What was the attitude of the Stasi towards these talks, and how did it change over time? What do Stasi documents reveal about East German attitudes towards Ostpolitik more broadly? Scholars ranging from Timothy Garton Ash to (even more vehemently) Jens Hacker have sharply criticized Brandt and Bahr for paying too much attention to the dictators and not enough to the people of the GDR. Instead, Garton Ash, Hacker, and others suggest that Ostpolitik flattered the SED dictators. Hacker even titled a book about German-German contacts German Mistakes: Whitewashers and Accomplices of the SED-Dictatorship in the West.23 Do Stasi documents support this view that the SED viewed Ostpolitik as a kind of flattery? 3. What impact did the MfS have on the talks? 4. Finally, in conclusion, this paper will address the central issue: Was the Stasi “running” the talks, or were there limits on the influence of the intelligence apparatus?

Surveillance and Involvement Although the phrase “Stasi involvement in German-German negotiations” conjures up cloak-and-dagger images, in fact it is only to be expected that the MfS would both observe and participate in the talks. The ministry served as the primary intelligence-gathering organization in the GDR and as such was responsible for monitoring every event of significance (and many of insignificance). Also, because the MfS played a significant role in controlling issues of transit and visa requirements, it is to be expected that Stasi experts from those areas would be involved in the talks. The question, then, is not whether the Stasi observed and participated in the negotiations, but rather in what ways and to what extent. The GDR Ministry for State Security observed German-German negotiations from the start, when the two German heads of government, Brandt and Willi Stoph, met for the first time in March 1970.24 The value of this meeting was diminished by the fact that the true head of East Germany at the time was not Stoph, but SED leader Walter Ulbricht. However, the GDR wanted to maintain an image of equality and symmetry between the two Germanies. Hence Stoph headed the East German delegation, because he was nominally Brandt’s equivalent in the GDR state, as opposed to more meaningful party, hierarchy. Nonetheless, the Stoph-Brandt meeting represented a dramatic break with the West German policy of tolerating German-German contacts

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only on a low level or over specific issues. The coming together of representatives from the two halves of Germany threatened to be so symbolic that the SED canceled the original plan of holding the meeting in Berlin, settling on short notice for Erfurt instead. What Brandt found on his arrival there, however, surprised him and his East German counterparts alike. He was treated to a rousing welcome by local East Germans, to the intense dismay of the East Berlin and Moscow Politburos. The SED security forces quickly quashed the demonstration in favor of Brandt, but the public relations damage was done.25 There are hints that afterwards, orders came from Moscow to sabotage the talks during Stoph’s return visit to Brandt on West German soil. According to documents circulated by Erich Honecker to fellow Politburo members in 1989, Brezhnev made it clear one week before the Kassel meeting that “We are in favor of a ‘a pause for reflection.’”26 It seems that Stoph, acting on these orders, intentionally made unrealistic demands when he met Brandt in Kassel in May.27 Only after the Soviets completed their own negotiations with the West Germans and signed the Moscow Treaty in August of 1970 did the prospect of an interGerman accord once again become a reality.28 Hence the two Germanies did not begin serious talks until November 1970, more than a year after Brandt’s election. Bahr, who carried the official title of Secretary of State in the Federal Chancellor’s Office, headed the West German delegation in what became nearly three years of painstaking negotiations with their East German counterparts under State Secretary Michael Kohl. Remaining documents suggest that the MfS covered the talks comprehensively. For example, documents from the Stasi’s Department 26, responsible for surveillance of telephone calls and for acoustic and visual surveillance of indoor events, show that the MfS kept close tabs both on what each side had to say to the other, and on what delegation members said among themselves. There exist transcripts of conversations between Westerners and Easterners, Westerners among themselves, and Easterners among themselves.29 Some of the most interesting papers concern talks between the two delegation heads. Kohl and Bahr worked through the thorniest problems in private conversations, often speaking quite openly. In an interview with the author, Bahr called this openness a negotiating tactic, one that was supposed to convince the opposing side of the limitations to Bahr’s room for maneuver.30 Records of these conversations provide an intriguing insight into the extent of Stasi surveillance. These records exist in two forms: numerous summaries written afterwards by Kohl for the Politburo and a few Stasi transcripts that resulted from bugging.31 One especially interesting


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document compared Kohl’s summary of a private conversation with Bahr with the Stasi transcript gleaned from bugging the same conversation. The Stasi comparison noted even the tiniest discrepancies between Kohl’s summary and the spoken word. The MfS seems to have been checking up on its own representative. More interesting than MfS reconnaissance, however, is the Stasi’s active involvement in the negotiation rounds themselves. At the request of the author, the Federal Commissioner’s office (BStU) searched for any records—whether as agent or as object of surveillance—on the nine main members of the East German delegation for the years immediately before, during, and after the negotiations.32 A similar search on the members of the West German delegation, still ongoing, has not uncovered any record of Stasi activity.33 Of the nine East Germans, four searches came up negative, meaning that these delegation members have no “Erfassung” (registration) in the surviving finding aids.34 Such a registration would not have provided much information in any case. It could mean that the person was either an agent or a victim of the MfS. There is no way to tell from the finding aid alone.35 Such was the result of the fifth search. There is a reference to an HV A file on this participant, but the files have disappeared, and there is no way to tell whether he was an agent or an object.36 The sixth and seventh searches revealed that two delegation members were, at the time of the negotiations, Hauptamtliche Mitarbeiter (HMs, or official employees). During the life of the MfS, the number of such employees was one of its best-kept secrets. The Federal Commissioner reports that as of October 31, 1989, the number had reached approximately 91,000, after explosive growth in the 1970s, as discussed above.37 The MfS organized the HMs along military lines, administered an oath at the beginning of service, designated HMs by military rank, and even issued firearms.38 Two members of the East German delegation fell into this category: Alwin Brandt, the specialist for passport and visa issues, and Helmut Nacke, the specialist for customs.39 In the negotiation rounds, they were not identified as HMs but rather as “specialists.” Their work must have been satisfactory, for documentation on both HMs indicate that they received awards and promotions. Finally, searches number eight and nine revealed a more shadowy category: that of Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or unofficial employee. This class of Stasi agent, known only by a code name, ranged from those who merely made their apartments available for “conspiratorial purposes,” to those who actively reported on acquaintances or colleagues—even spouses. One of the delegation members fell into the former category. Under the code name Ingrid, Karl Seidel made his apartment available for conspiratorial meetings through early 1970, although it is unclear

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whether he continued to do so after he began taking part in the negotiations.40 Another IM, code-named Walter Mehlhorn, in reality the traffic expert Heinz Gerber, appears to have reported actively on the negotiations, although only one of his reports has been found.41 A description of his duties states that he was responsible for a “constant information flow” from the talks. Considering how much other official and unofficial material the MfS was gathering, the Stasi must have had a truly detailed picture of the negotiations.42 All nine searches are now accounted for; but the story of active Stasi involvement in the talks does not end there. In Erich Mielke’s files, those of the Sekretariat des Ministers (SdM, or secretariat of the minister), there exist three references to another IM. This IM, called Koran, conversed with both Bahr and Ulbricht and evinced a highly detailed knowledge of the status of the ongoing German-German negotiations. 43 Who was he? Party archive documents nearly (and in some cases absolutely) identical to Koran’s reports suggest that it was Michael Kohl.44 Unfortunately, the search for Michael Kohl’s name in the Stasi archive was one of those that produced no result. It also seems counterintuitive that Kohl would work as an IM; after all, he sent official reports to the MfS regularly, and had a personal connection to Mielke as well: One of his sons was married to a Mielke’s daughter.45 So why would he work— or continue to work—as an IM? I discussed the question of Koran and other issues with Markus Wolf.46 While not confirming outright that Michael Kohl was Koran, Wolf did say that the Stasi had a “relationship of trust” with Kohl and that either Wolf himself or a member of HV A staff consulted with Kohl before and after every important negotiation round.47 The former HV A director also claims that it was the MfS which originally put forward Kohl’s name for the job of delegation leader. Wolf said that, when an IM gained a prominent position (such as Kohl did when he became delegation head), his work as an IM would be officially discontinued, but that his old code name would be used on internal paperwork out of habit. Wolf seems to have been suggesting that Michael Kohl had been Koran before becoming delegation head.

Attitude The fragmentary nature of the documentary collection makes an assessment of the MfS attitude towards negotiations difficult. Searches in the Stasi archive uncovered mostly documents dealing with operational aspects of the German-German negotiations. However, some hints survive. The phrasing of Mielke’s orders, for example, undergoes a notable transformation. In March 1970, in an explanation accompany-


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ing the orders given for security measures at Erfurt, Mielke referred to the talks in the following manner: “The enemy . . . will try to use the meeting to add force to its attempts to weaken and destroy and to inspire illusions in certain segments of our population.”48 He also ordered that, as a cautionary measure, all stocks of weapons, ammunition, and poison in the area should be secured.49 An assessment of Erfurt, produced by the department responsible for observation, arrest, and prosecution of dissidents, summarized the following as the lesson of Brandt’s remarks: “Brandt wants to separate us from the Soviet Union. . . . When, in his opinion, the time is right, he wants the Federal Republic to absorb the GDR, naturally via ‘non-violence and free self-determination.’”50 By mid-1972, however, Mielke’s orders and speeches reflected a slightly milder attitude. The conclusion of a transit agreement between the two Germanies allowed the Four-Power Agreement of 1971 to go into force in summer 1972. In an order from June 1972 giving operational changes to accommodate the new agreements, Mielke referred to them as “an important step in the advancement of the principles of peaceful coexistence and . . . a further strengthening of the positions of the GDR.”51 By the time of the signing of the Basic Treaty, at the end of 1972, Mielke even justified some of its shortcomings. He admitted that the GDR had to make compromises, such as accepting a reference to the open question of the German nation. However, he found that compromises were necessary and “it could hardly have been otherwise.”52 Internal assessments of West German negotiating positions also changed from seeing menace to sensing flexibility as the negotiations wore on. In July 1972, a report of the MfS’s internal legal division summarized the West German stance towards the controversial issue of reunification, suggesting that, unlike earlier assumed, West Germany was not actually trying to achieve reunification with the Basic Treaty. The legal division instead found that FRG hopes were for approximately the following: “The Basic Treaty needs not so much to affirm the ‘unity of the nation.’ Rather, it needs to affirm its own reconcilability with reunification politics.”53 It would be misleading, however, to say that the Stasi attitude toward German-German negotiations was at any time enthusiastic. Rather, the change in attitude seems to be a decline in the degree of hostility, not its eradication. A characterization of Brandt’s Ostpolitik as flattery towards the leaders of the GDR does not apply to the leaders of its secret police. Perhaps enthusiasm for Ostpolitik was limited to those segments of the SED who stood to benefit most from increased financial benefits and international political recognition. The MfS, for its part, had to worry about the impact of the treaties, with their changes to transit and visa regulations. More Western visitors meant more risks.

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The Stasi also clearly worried about the symbolic value of the two Germanies drawing closer together.54 It was especially concerned about a possible repetition of the fiasco of Erfurt. This seems to be the reason that plans to have Brandt come to the capital of East Germany to sign the Basic Treaty were canceled. A report of the Central Assessment and Information Group (ZAIG) claimed to have information that, “alongside the general inclination which exists towards Brandt, there is also the intent of providing him with a ‘suitable’ greeting” when he came to East Berlin.55 Such a visit never took place. The fact that Brandt was never invited to East Berlin seems to be a case where MfS concerns had a clear impact on the course of German-German negotiations, and it is not the only one.

Impact Before examining the impact the Stasi had on the talks, however, a short definition of the concept of “impact” is needed. This concept does not refer to the fact of daily attendance on the part of MfS staff at the negotiating rounds. Existing documentation does not show that the presence of the Stasi agents at the table forced the negotiations on a course distinct from that sought by Bahr or Kohl. Of course, Stasi surveillance and involvement affected the process of the talks in an indirect manner, by providing on-going information to the MfS and Politburo, which then wrote the directives for future rounds. However, that is not what is meant by impact. Rather, it refers to those occasions where the MfS clearly caused a dramatic alteration to the trajectory along which the talks had been headed. In this context, the role of the Soviets must be kept in mind. The files of both the party and Stasi archive are full of correspondence with the Soviets, in which the GDR sought approval of its negotiating concepts. Its seems that only after a vetting by the Soviet “brother party” (often conducted via the MfS) did directions for the next negotiation receive the approval of the SED.56 Bahr was keenly aware of the Soviet role in the German-German talks. When he reached an impasse, he would try to use Soviet contacts as a means of getting the talks moving again. For example, in October 1972, Bahr decided to travel to Moscow personally. According to his memoirs, he had heard via a back channel to the Soviets that he should “try talking to Brezhnev personally.” However, this meant “avoiding the—correct—impression that we wanted to get Big Brother to crack down. So I collected as many open questions as possible,” in order to make his trip to the Soviet Union seem like a meeting to discuss FRG-Soviet bilateral concerns.57 He merely informed Kohl via a note that he was going.58 (Strangely enough, the Soviet report of


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the meeting to the SED echoed Bahr’s “cover story,” although it was clear that the most important topic of conversation had been the German-German negotiations.59) Hence, when one assesses the Stasi’s impact on the talks, one must also remember that the MfS also operated under Soviet guidance. From the existing documentation, four significant ways in which the Stasi had an impact on the course of the talks emerge. The first was one that helped the advancement of Brandt’s politics. In the spring of 1972, when it seemed as if Brandt might lose a no-confidence vote and be ousted from office, the MfS undertook actions that it hoped would increase his popularity. Many participants in events have claimed that the MfS purchased votes of parliamentarians to prevent the vote of no confidence.60 While Stasi documents do not conclusively confirm this bribery, they do show that the general intent of the MfS at the time was to support Brandt, and suggest it might have happened. In addition, the Stasi authorized a “gesture of good will” at this time, temporarily implementing relaxed visiting regulations for West Germans in the GDR ahead of their formal ratification. The importance of this “gesture,” as explained by Mielke when he authorized it, lay in its contribution to the “currently developing positive trend in the direction of détente.”61 Mielke subsequently spoke more bluntly. He stated in November 1972, when Brandt was up for election, that “it is not all the same to us, which party rules in the FRG” and said that a recent meeting with the Soviets showed accord on this point. “There is agreement that we should shape our common endeavors towards the FRG such that we succeed in achieving our political goals with maximum benefit for us, and simultaneously support Brandt in his fight to fend off the attacks of the CDU/CSU.”62 While asserting that he does not remember details, Markus Wolf said that he remembers the desire to support Brandt, especially around the time of the vote of no confidence. As he remembers, Moscow made it clear that the DDR “should do everything to support Brandt.” He recalls that Brezhnev spoke of the Moscow and Warsaw treaties, whose ratification was under debate at the time, as having “historical dimensions,” signifying that they must be encouraged at all costs. “So we made plans, the secret service, the party, everyone made plans, how can one support the Brandt Administration?”63 The MfS impact on the negotiations was not always this supportive. The MfS seems to have hindered the advancement of the talks in three ways. The first, already mentioned earlier, was unintentional. It resulted from the failure of the MfS to contain events in Erfurt. The profound impression caused by the public display of sympathy for Brandt, which through its unpreparedness the MfS allowed to appear, seems to have

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sparked Soviet orders to slow down the progress of the talks. Because of Erfurt, it seems that the nascent German-German conversation stalled for the better part of a year. The memory of events in Erfurt also seems to have definitively precluded any further Brandt visit on GDR soil. The West German chancellor signed the treaty with the Soviet Union in Moscow and with Poland in Warsaw, but could only send Bahr on the corresponding trip to East Berlin. A second MfS hindrance became apparent just before the signing of the Basic Treaty. As part of the talks, but not as a formal portion of the treaty, Bahr had secured from the GDR permission to let several would-be émigrés, particularly those with fiancé(e)s or family members in the West, leave East Germany. Days before the signing, however, and after thousands of East Germans had literally packed their suitcases, the GDR suddenly ceased allowing such emigrations. The cessation caused much frantic activity on the part of the Federal Republic.64 The stoppage of the emigration on the eve of the Basic Treaty signing was a measure of such significance that it came presumably from Honecker or the Soviets. A ZAIG assessment from late August 1972, roughly three months before the controversy erupted, hinted at the motives behind it. This MfS report suggests that those who were separated from their families were themselves to blame for their fate, “because they failed as human beings, carried out criminal activities and escaped their due punishment.” It suggested that requests for emigration be considered “under the principle of the free decision of those involved,” a euphemism for encouraging them to stay in the GDR. The relationships of the would-be husbands and wives should be carefully assessed and emigration would be approved only “if they are cases of honest and serious relationships.” What characterized such a relationship was left undefined.65 So, whereas no document clearly identifies the MfS as the author of the decision to stop emigrations and thereby cloud the German-German reconciliation on the eve of the signing of the Basic Treaty, this ZAIG assessment suggests that Stasi worries about such emigration may have played a role in producing this decision. The most significant impact the MfS had on German-German reconciliation, however, happened in a later stage of talks. The two pseudoembassies, or “permanent representations,” had finally opened on May 2, 1974, when, days later, the news that Brandt’s aide Günter Guillaume was a Stasi agent became public. The tentative beginning in GermanGerman relations received a major setback. As a result of the scandal, and also his own lack of desire to continue in office, Brandt resigned on May 6. In public pronouncements (both at the time and after unification) GDR representatives expressed regret at his resignation. At the time, Mielke suggested in an open letter to the main departments and


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district leaders of the MfS that Brandt was the victim of intrigues organized by Genscher, who reportedly kept suspicious information concealed. (The reality that Guillaume was in fact a figure worthy of suspicion was not addressed.66) After the wall came down, Markus Wolf wrote that he was often asked about Guillaume, “with the underlying suggestion that this was probably the greatest success of my entire career in intelligence.”67 In fact, Wolf claims that “such an intelligence fiasco could never be a success, and that this event, even at the time, was greatly to be regretted.”68 Our usual rule, he says, was “in no case to let a suspicious person near to the first man of state.”69 However, an intriguing MfS document suggests otherwise. This document is a lengthy report from the so-called Juristische Hochschule (Law College) of the MfS, based on information available to the Stasi up to May 1, 1974, five days before Brandt’s resignation. It affirms the importance of having agents in the Federal Chancellor’s Office and recommends the best ways to get them there.70 According to the study, “the recruiting of employees of the Federal Chancellor’s office is one of the central focuses of the work of the HV A,” the department headed by none other than Markus Wolf.71 It goes on to mention Wolf specifically, endorsing his view that “operations to infiltrate the enemy’s center demand the highest quality of preparation [and] effort.”72 Given such statements, it becomes hard to believe that the presence of Guillaume in Brandt’s office was solely an unfortunate accident. Although Guillaume’s entry into the Chancellery actually came as a result of actions by West, not East, Germans, the MfS and HV A under Wolf’s direction did not prevent the entry or recall him afterward. The MfS must therefore be held partly responsible for Guillaume’s unveiling and the resignation of the author of the policy of Ostpolitik. One other topic deserves mention, although the Stasi documentation about it is limited. Even though the East German Politburo was conducting high-level official negotiations with the West, its security apparatus was clearly involved in shadowy acts of terrorism on West German soil and elsewhere. To cite but one example, circumstantial evidence suggests that the Stasi was actively involved in the assassination of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in September 1972—even as negotiations over peaceful reconciliation and renunciation of violence between the Germanies continued.73 Hopefully more documentation on terrorism will be discovered and released as the cataloguing of the Stasi archive continues.

Conclusion: The Limits of Influence The case study of Ostpolitik as viewed through the eyes of the Stasi exemplifies the difficulties facing historians who seek to make use of the

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MfS archive. Fragmentary evidence, and the knowledge that neither Soviet nor West German contemporary materials are available for comparison, hinders scholars’ ability to speak with any assurance on this topic. Given these obstacles, is an attempt to investigate, and draw conclusions from, the foreign espionage activities of the MfS based on the fragments that are available worthwhile? For the following reasons, yes. It is possible to gauge the extent of Stasi observation and participation in the talks. Such an assessment helps to inform us about the roles that secret services played in Eastern Bloc states, a role unfamiliar to the denizens of Western societies. It also helps to sate a basic curiosity about who did what in the Cold War. Next, the image of the Stasi attitude that emerges from this documentation modifies the characterization of Ostpolitik as flattery. Finally, an appraisal of the impact of the MfS on the talks helps us to understand their course. Documents from the party and state archive show that the Politburo, in constant consultation with the Soviets, directed the negotiations. At key junctures, however, the Stasi alternately furthered the cause of Ostpolitik (via support for Brandt) and hindered its progress (via the failure in Erfurt, or by leaving Guillaume in the Chancellery). Finally, an assessment of the role of the Stasi allows us to assess the limits on the influence of a Warsaw Pact intelligence apparatus as a foreign policy actor. This paper has shown that the Stasi was extensively involved in German-German talks. It had a significant impact on them at various junctures. However, the key question, the bottom line, is the following: Did the MfS involvement enable it to control the direction of the talks overall? The answer—in contrast to the oft-voiced notion that the Stasi was some kind of a rogue state within the East German state—is no. Despite the copious information they were receiving from these various sources, documents do not suggest that Stasi chiefs Mielke and Wolf were directing negotiations themselves. Rather, direction came from the SED Politburo in the form of directives to Michael Kohl, which were approved in advance by the Soviets. Furthermore, none of the available evidence suggests that the Stasi as an institution had distinct interests from the Politburo concerning German-German rapprochement. There was certainly worry within the MfS about the security implications of closer cooperation with the West, but that worry was equally strong within the Honecker faction of the Politburo. In summary, the Stasi fulfilled a limited function: It provided intelligence to the East Berlin Politburo, which then made decisions in consultation with the all-powerful Soviet Union.

Notes Introduction 1. D. Kahn, “An Historical Theory of Intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 3 (Autumn 2002), 79. See also the useful discussion in Michael Warner, “Wanted: A Definition of Intelligence,” Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 3 (2002); and Angelo Codevilla, Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century (New York: Free Press, 1992): 1–47. For a thoughtful comparative analysis of the concept of intelligence in different national contexts see Philip H. J. Davies, “Ideas of Intelligence: Divergent National Concepts and Institutions,” Harvard International Review (Autumn 2002): 62–66. 2. James Der Derian, “Anti-Diplomacy, Intelligence Theory and Surveillance Practice,” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 ( July 1993): 32–37. See also Der Derian’s Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed and War (New York: Blackwell, 1992) and Michael Fry and Miles Hochstein, “Epistemic Communities: Intelligence Studies and ‘International Relations,’” Intelligence and National Security 8, no. 3 ( July 1993). 3. F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence and the Second World War, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1979), 4. 4. Alan Dupont, “Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century,” Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 4 (2003): 4. 5. Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 2nd ed. (New York: CQ Press, 2003), 1–2. 6. For adherents to this view see, among others, H. Bradford Westerfield, “Inside Ivory Bunkers: CIA Analysts Resist Managers’ ‘Pandering,’” pt. I, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 4 (1996/97): 407–24; ibid., pt. 2, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 10, no. 1 (1997): 19–54; Philip Davies, MI6 and the Machinery of Government (London: Frank Cass, 2004); and Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 7. Davies, “Ideas of Intelligence,” esp. 62–64. 8. On the evolution of the JIC, see Edward Thomas, “The Evolution of the JIC System up to and During World War II,” in Intelligence and International Relations, 1900–1945, ed. C. Andrew and J. Noakes, 219–34 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1987); and C. Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community, (London: Sceptre, 1985), 238–304. On the role of the JIC as a

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10.

11.

12.

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14.

15.

Notes model for assessment practice in the United States during and after the Second World War, see Larry Valero, “The American Joint Intelligence Committee and Estimates of the Soviet Union, 1945–1947,” Studies in Intelligence, no. 9, Unclassified Edition (2000). This is the approach adopted by most historians of intelligence and international relations. Pioneers of this approach who have produced seminal articles and monographs on British intelligence and policy include Christopher Andrew, Donald Watt, Wesley Wark, and John Ferris. Their works are cited in these notes. Examples of this kind of work on U.S. intelligence include Loch Johnson, America’s Secret Power: The CIA in a Democratic Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Craig Eisendrath, ed., National Insecurity: U.S. Intelligence After the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000); and Rhodri JeffreyJones, The CIA and American Democracy, 3rd ed. (London: Yale University Press, 2003). For the British case, see, among others, Ken Robertson, Secrecy and Open Government: Why Governments Want You to Know (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); Rosamund Thomas, Espionage and Secrecy (London: Routledge, 1990); and Richard Thurlow, The Secret State: British Internal Security in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). For an overview, see Uri Bar-Joseph, Intelligence Intervention in the Politics of Democratic States: The United States, Israel and Britain (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). Examples include Robert J. Goldstein, Political Repression in 19th Century Europe (London: Croom Helm, 1983); Bernard Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987); Amy Knight, The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988); Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Eric Johnson, Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans (New York: Basic Books, 1999). For example, see the special issue of Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 3 (2003), edited by Scott Lucas. There have been important antecedents to this, however. Among the most important of which are Robin Winks, Cloak and Gown: Scholars in America’s Secret War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); and Adda Bozeman, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft (London: Brassey’s, 1992). Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1949), ix. Michael Herman similarly stresses the importance of organization and process as “the key element” in any understanding of intelligence in Intelligence Power, 2. SIGINT is sometimes referred to as communications intelligence, or COMINT. An important subcategory of signals intelligence that has emerged recently is measurement and signatures intelligence (MASINT), which can monitor physical phenomena from the emission of chemical waste to the electronic “signatures” of weapons and tracking systems. On this intelligence, see Lowenthal, Intelligence, 71–74. However, some commentators categorize open-source intelligence (OSINT) as a collection discipline of its own. Two useful discussions of these issues are Lowenthal, Intelligence, 54–86; and William E. Odom, Fixing Intelligence for a More Secure America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 66–74.

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16. The best discussion of these technical issues remains that of Michael Herman in Intelligence Power, 61–81. 17. Michael Herman, “Diplomacy and Intelligence,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 9, no. 2 (1998), 1–2. 18. For an excellent discussion of the evolution of the concept of collective and allsource analysis see Herman, Intelligence Power, especially 100–112. 19. Andrew Rathmell, “Towards Post-Modern Intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 3 (2002): 187–204. 20. On cooperation between French and Tsarist Russian intelligence and police services against anarchist cells see Andrew and Gordievsky, Inside Story, 3–15. On intelligence co-operation against anarchism and revolutionary socialism see also Robert J. Goldstein, Political Repression in 19th Century Europe; and Bernard Porter, The Origins of the Vigilant State. 21. On these issues see the insightful discussion by Richard Aldrich in Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 375–77; and idem, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), 5–6, 639–40.

Chapter 1 1. Quoted in Richard Holmes, Wellington (London: Harper Collins, 2003), xvi. 2. Richard Betts, “Analysis, War and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable,” World Politics 31, no. 1 (1978): 61–89. 3. As in the title of the classic study by Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (London: Oxford University Press, 1977). 4. This point is made most forcefully by Martin van Creveld in his important text on the nature of military command, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). 5. Information concerning the physical world, such as geography, geology, medicine, and disease can be of central importance to intelligence assessments, but, insofar as it affects intelligence work, it is always connected in some way with the intentions or capabilities of other social actors. In an important essay, Ernest May has argued that it is better to focus on the “proclivities” rather than the “intentions” of other political actors, because the former are more consistent and less liable to abrupt change than are the latter. This is true and should be kept in mind. Yet it is also true that intelligence on precise intentions will always more valuable, and thus more sought after, than more general assessments of proclivities. See May’s “Conclusions: Capabilities and Proclivities,” in Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars, ed. Ernest May, 503–42 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). 6. John Ferris, “Intelligence,” in The Origins of World War Two: The Debate Continues, ed. R. Boyce and J. Maiolo (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave, 2003), 308. 7. John Ferris and Michael Handel, who both conceive of intelligence fundamentally as a guide to the use of power, have written extensively on the theory and practice of deception in wartime. See Handel, ed., Strategic and Operational Deception in the Second World War (London: Frank Cass, 1987); and John Ferris,

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8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

Notes “Fortitude in Context: The Evolution of British Military Deception in Two World Wars,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honour of Michael Handel, ed. R. Betts and T. Mahnken, 117–65 (London: Frank Cass, 2003). This is the implicit assumption of Michael Herman in his influential study Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996). Roy Godson, “Intelligence: An American View,” in British and American Approaches to Intelligence, ed. Ken Robertson (London: Macmillan, 1987), 4. Classic discussions of these issues include Betts, “Analysis, War and Decision,” and M. Handel, “Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise,” Journal of Strategic Studies 7, no. 3 (1984): 230–81. On the relative use of short- and medium-term versus long-term “strategic” information, see also the thoughtful and illuminating discussion in van Creveld, Command in War, esp. 19–21. The impact of technology on the latter half of this equation (situational change) is insufficiently appreciated by John Keegan in his otherwise interesting discussion of “real time” intelligence in Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Quaeda (London: Hutchinson, 2003), esp. 20–28. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1962). On this question see Wesley Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Military Intelligence and Nazi Germany (London: I. B. Tauris, 1985); Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London: Sceptre, 1985), 377–433; and Joe Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany (London: Macmillan, 1998) 102–103. See U.S. House and Senate Permanent Select Committees on Intelligence, Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (Washington, DC, July 2003), available at www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/ 911.html. This 858-page congressional report severely criticized both the CIA and the FBI for failing to develop an effective system to coordinate their work and to share intelligence with one another and with other departments concerned with national security. An abridged version has been published as The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004). See especially 254–277 and 339–359. Two indispensable analyses of this problem are Michael Handel, “The Politics of Intelligence,” in War, Strategy and Intelligence, 187–228 (London: Frank Cass, 1987); and Richard Betts, “The Politicisation of Intelligence: Costs and Benefits,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, ed. Betts and Mahnken, 59–79. For a discussion of this point see Christopher Andrew, “Intelligence, International Relations and ‘Under-Theorisation,’” in Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century, ed. L. Scott and P. Jackson, 29–41 (London: Routledge, 2004). Alexander George, “The Causal Nexus between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision Making Behavior: The “Operational Code” Belief System,” in Psychological Models in International Politics, ed. L. Falkowski, 113–19 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979). On the role of belief systems more generally, see Steve Smith, ed., Belief Systems in International Politics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). Handel, “Politics of Intelligence,” esp. 35–38.

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20. David Rudgers, “The Origins of Covert Action,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, no. 2 (2000): 249–62; Len Scott, “Covert Operations, Covert Action and Clandestine Diplomacy,” in Understanding Intelligence, ed. Scott and Jackson, 162–80. 21. For a good discussion of Hume’s critique of inductive reasoning and its importance the theory and practice of intelligence, see Woodrow J. Kuhns, “Intelligence Failures: Forecasting and the Lessons of Epistemology,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, ed. Betts and Mahnken, 88–90. See also the classic study by Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). 22. The literature on these issues is immense. For an introduction, see Jervis, Perception and Misperception; Betts, “Why Intelligence Failures are Inevitable”; and Michael Handel, “Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise.” For further discussion of cognitive dissonance, see Léon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957); and R. Wickland and J. Brehm, Perspectives on Cognitive Dissonance (New York: Halsted Press, 1976). 23. In addition to the scholars cited, see R. Jervis, “Perceiving and Coping with Threat,” in Psychology and Deterrence, ed. Jervis et al., 18–26 (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); and Jervis, “Strategic Intelligence and Effective Policy,” in Security and Intelligence in a Changing World, ed. W. Wark et al., 165–81 (London: Frank Cass, 1991); K. Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm, 1979); and Herman, Intelligence Power, 221–28. 24. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor, passim, but see especially her conclusion. 25. On service intelligence agencies and worst-case thinking see C. Andrew, “The Nature of Military Intelligence,” in Go Spy the Land, ed. Neilson and McKercher, 9–23 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992); and M. Herman, “Intelligence and the Assessment of Military Capabilities: Reasonable Sufficiency or the Worst Case?” Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 4 (1989): 765–99. An excellent historical case study on the impact of worst-case thinking is Wesley Wark, Ultimate Enemy. 26. Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 144–45. Sun Tzu also judged that “secret operations” are therefore “essential in war . . . upon them the army relies to make its every move.” And the concept of “net assessment” is implicit in his oft-cited dictum: “Know your enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril,” quoted in Michael Handel, Masters of War (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 232, 238, respectively. 27. On Sun Tzu and intelligence, the best analysis remains Handel’s Masters of War, 231–55, and his essay “Intelligence in Historical Perspective,” in Go Spy the Land, ed. McKercher and Neilson, 178–86. Sun Tzu’s reflections on the importance of intelligence are an organizing theme in Calculations: Net Assessment and the Coming of World War II, ed. A. Millett and W. Murray (New York: Free Press, 1992). For a useful guide to the literature on intelligence in the ancient world, see Rose Mary Sheldon, Espionage in the Ancient World: An Annotated Bibliography of Books and Articles in Western Languages ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland Press, 2002). 28. Frank Russell, Information Gathering in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999). 29. Rose Mary Sheldon, a leading authority on intelligence in the ancient world, has argued that clandestine operations were an “indispensable part of Roman

226

30.

31.

32. 33.

34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Notes foreign policy.” See her article “The Ancient Imperative: Clandestine Operations and Covert Action,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 10, no. 3 (1997): 299–315; and especially her Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome: Trust in the Gods, but Verify (London, Frank Cass, 2004). Another good analysis of Roman intelligence practice is N. Austin and N. Rankov, Exploratio: Military and Political Intelligence in the Roman World from the Second Punic War to the Battle of Adrianople (London: Routledge, 1995). For more detailed studies, see Sheldon’s “Slaughter in the Forest: Roman Intelligence Mistakes in Germany,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 12, no. 3 (Autumn 2001): 1–38; idem, “Caesar, Intelligence, and Ancient Britain,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 15, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 77–100. Most of this paragraph is drawn from the David Kahn, The Code-Breakers: The Story of Secret Writing (New York: Macmillan, 1967), esp. 1–57. This study remains the classic and indispensable source for the history of signals intelligence. See also the many important historical articles on this subject in the journal Cryptologia, including, for a discussion of Arabic code breaking, Ibrahim A. Al-Kadi, “The Origins of Cryptology: The Arab Contributions,” Cryptologia 16, no. 2 (1992): 97–126. Van Creveld, Command in War, 19–34. Optical telegraphs were used, but these were of limited reach and even more limited value in terms of the kind of information they could transmit. See the discussion in van Creveld, Command in War, Chapter 2. M. S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919 (Harlow: Longman, 1993), 1–20; and Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 10–14. Herman, Intelligence Power, 10–12. Charles Howard Carter, “The Ambassadors of Early Modern Europe: Patterns of Diplomatic Representation,” in From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation: Essays in Honour of Garrett Mattingly, ed. C. H. Carter (London: Cape, 1966). For a more detailed case study, see Alan Haynes, Invisible Power: The Elizabethan Secret Services (Stround: Sutton Publishers, 1992). On the evolution of such practices over time, see Alfred Cobban, Ambassadors and Secret Agents (London: Cape, 1954). Herman, Intelligence Power, 10–11; and André Catthiew, “La cryptologie,” in Le renseignement à la française, ed. P. Lacoste, 287–88 (Paris: Economica, 1998). It was during this period that systems of transposition and substitution were developed to ensure the security of diplomatic messages. Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), 225. Ibid., 209–28. Handel, “Intelligence in Historical Perspective,” 186–87. John Keegan echoes this point in Intelligence and War, 20–28. Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II, 224–50. See also Handel’s comments in “Intelligence in Historical Perspective,” 182, 186. See the discussion in van Creveld, Command in War, 22–23. Excellent discussions of the changes to warfare during this period are in William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 185–222; and Hew Strachan, European Armies and the Conduct of War (London:

Notes

43.

44.

45. 46. 47.

48. 49.

50. 51.

52.

53.

54. 55.

227 Routledge, 1991). On the evolution of command systems, see van Creveld, Command in War, 58–102. An indispensable source on the organization and functioning of the Napoleonic command and intelligence systems is Hermann Giehrl, Der Feldherr Napoleon als organizator: Betrachtungen über seine Verkehrsund Nachrichtenmittel, seine Arbeits und Befehlsweise (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1911); for material on the activity of the Cabinet Noir, see ibid., 55–57. See also Jay Luvaas, “Napoleon’s Use of Intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security 3, no. 3 (1988): 40–54; and van Creveld, Command in War, 65–74. Luvaas, “Napoleon’s Use of Intelligence,” 41–44. It is instructive to compare the French approach with the British intelligence system of the same era, outlined in the useful study by Steven Maffeo, Most Secret and Confidential: Intelligence in the Age of Nelson (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000). Van Creveld, Command in War, 114; and Giehrl, Der Feldherr Napoleon, 56–57. Quoted in van Creveld, Command in War, 68. Quoted in J. Ferris and M. Handel, “Clausewitz, Intelligence, Uncertainty, and the Art of Command in Military Operations,” Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 1 (1995): 11. Van Creveld, Command in War, 68. Hajo Holborn, “The Prusso-German School: Moltke and the Rise of the General Staff,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, 2nd ed., ed. Peter Paret, 281–84 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); and van Creveld, Command in War, 109–15. Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-Prussian War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and van Creveld, Command in War, 115–22. Van Creveld, Command in War, 111. By the turn of the century, the German General Staff was organized into Quartermasters General. Quartermaster General II was responsible for estimates of France, Britain, and Italy; Quartermaster General IV covered Russia and Austria–Hungary. These two sections would evolve into Fremde Heere West and Fremde Heere Ost, respectively. See Holger Herwig, “Imperial Germany,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. E. May (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 66. There remains considerable uncertainty about the precise status of the Nachrichtenbureau through most of the nineteenth century. On its activities before the First World War, see Ulrich Trumpener, “War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914,” Central European History 9, no. 1 (1976): 58–85. Maureen O’Connor Witter, “Sanctioned Spying: The Development of the Military Attaché in the Nineteenth Century,” this volume, 87–108. See also Gordon Craig, “Military Diplomats in the Prussian and German Service: The Attachés, 1816–1914,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 64 (1949): 65–94; Philip Towle, Estimating Foreign Military Power (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 26–29; and Alfred Vagts, The Military Attaché (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). Van Creveld, Command in War, 111–14; and Herwig, “Imperial Germany,” 63–71. German military writer Bonsart von Schellendorf’s widely translated Generalstabsdienst became one of the most influential military texts of the era. For an excellent discussion of these issues, see Dennis Showalter, “Intelligence on the

228

56. 57.

58.

59. 60. 61.

62.

63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

Notes Eve of Transformation,” in The Intelligence Revolution: A Historical Perspective, ed. Walter Hitchcock, 15–34 (Washington, DC: U.S. Air Force Academy, 1991). John Ferris, “The Road to Bletchley Park: The British Experience with Signals Intelligence, 1892–1945,” Intelligence and National Security 117, no. 1: 53–84. See the relevant essays in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. May. See also two outstanding studies of perceptions and policy making among the European powers: David Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War, 1904–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); and David Herrmann, The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). On the spread of the Prussian model, see, among many others, van Creveld, Command in War, 148–50; and Showalter, “Intelligence on the Eve of Transformation,” 17–34. In the Austrian case, the army staff’s Evidenzbureau evolved out of a precursor established during the Napoleonic wars that had been neither permanent nor charged with strategic assessment. See Gunther Rothenberg, The Army of Franz Joseph (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1976), 67–71; and N. Stone, “Austria–Hungary,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. May, 41–43. On military reform and foreign intelligence in Imperial Russia, see David Schimmelpennick van der Oye, “Reforming Military Intelligence,” in Reforming the Tsar’s Army: military innovation in Imperial Russia from Peter the Great to the Revolution, ed. Schimmelpennick van der Oye and Bruce Menning, 133–50 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). On the British side, see Andrew, Secret Service, 20–33; Fergusson, British Military Intelligence; and Herman, Intelligence Power, 16–19. On this question, see the excellent discussions in Stevenson, Armaments and the Coming of War; and Herrmann, The Arming of Europe. See especially David Stevenson, “Militarization and Diplomacy in Europe before 1914,” International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 125–61. France, Ministère de la Défense Nationale, Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, carton 2N 151-3, “Potentiel Militaire de l’Allemagne,” May 1935, cited in Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 84. On this department, see Eugenia Kiesling, Arming against Hitler (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1996), 12–40; and P. Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, 36–38. Robert Young, “Spokesmen for Economic Warfare: the Industrial Intelligence Centre in the 1930s,” European Studies Review 6, no. 4 (1976): 473–89; Andrew, Secret Service, 354–57; and Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 155–87. The best overall analysis of these issues remains Kahn’s in Code-Breakers, 266– 350. The discussion in Simon Singh’s Codebook (London: Fourth Estate, 1999), 101–23, is largely derivative of Kahn’s earlier study. For an excellent discussion of the role of SIGINT in military operations, see John Ferris, The British Army and Signals Intelligence during the First World War (Stroud, England: Sutton Publishers, 1992). Ferris, “The Road to Bletchley Park,” 65. This is one of the most important articles ever written on the history of signals intelligence. Andrew, Secret Service, 259–62, 483–85. For the status of French intelligence, see Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace, 11–44; for the case of Germany, see Michael Geyer, “National Socialist Ger-

Notes

68.

69. 70.

71.

72. 73.

74.

75.

76.

229 many: The Politics of Information,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. May, 310–46; and David Kahn, Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II (New York: MacMillan, 1978), 42–63. See Herbert Yardley, The American Black Chamber (London: Faber, 1931); and Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (London: Harper Collins, 1995), 61–122. For the full Russian names of these agencies, see the list of abbreviations on page vii. The lone exception to this state of affairs was between 1947 and 1951, when foreign intelligence was transferred to the Komitet Informatsii (information committee). In 1953, foreign intelligence was reintegrated into the state security machinery, which became the KGB in 1954. On the role of intelligence in Soviet politics, see, among many others, Amy Knight, The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990); and Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (London: Sceptre, 1990). On the interwar activities of Soviet intelligence abroad, see Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrohkin, The Mitrokhin Archive (London: Penguin, 1999), 30–116; Andrew and Gordievsky, Inside Story, 43–185; and John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, Deadly Illusions (New York: Crown Publishers, 1993), esp. 72–305. On the Comintern and Soviet intelligence, see, in addition to the above, Stéphane Courtois, “Le Komintern à l’action,” Le livre noir du communisme: crimes, terreur, repression (Paris: Seuil, 1997), 299–306; and Jean-Louis Panné, “L’ombre portée du NKVD en Espagne,” ibid. See Geyer, “National Socialist Germany.” For the British case, see Wark, Ultimate Enemy, 37–59. On the French side, see Jackson, “La politisation du renseignement en France, 1933–1939,” in L’exploitation du renseignement, ed. G. H. Soutou et al., 62–81 (Paris: Economica, 2001); and, more generally, idem, France and the Nazi Menace, 122–53. On the use of intelligence in Fascist Italy, see Brian Sullivan, ‘The Impatient Cat: Assessments of Military Power in Fascist Italy, 1936–1940,” in Calculations, ed. Murray and Millett, 97–135; MacGregor Knox, “Fascist Italy Assesses its Enemies, 1935–1940,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. May, 347–72. For Japan, see Michael Barnhart, “Japanese Intelligence before the Second World War: ‘Best Case’ Analysis,” ibid., 424–55. On the British, see Andrew, Secret Service, 374–415; David Dilks, “Appeasement and Intelligence,” in Retreat from Power: Studies in Britain’s Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century vol. I, ed. Dilks (London: Macmillan, 1981); and John Ferris, “Indulged in All Too Little? Vansittart, Intelligence and Appeasement,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 6 (1995): 122–75. On the French side, see Robert Young, “French Military Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1938–1939,” in Knowing One’s Enemies, ed. May, 271–309; and Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace. For British assessments of the Soviet Union, see Keith Neilson, “‘Pursued by a Bear’: British Estimates of Soviet Military Strength,” Canadian Journal of History 28, no. 2 (1993): 189–222. On the French side, see Patrice Buffotot, “The French High Command and the Franco-Soviet Alliance,” Journal of Strategic Studies 5 (1982): 46–59; and Maurice Vaïsse, “Les militaires français et l’alliance franco-soviétique au cours des années 1930,” in Forces armées et systèmes

230

77.

78.

79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

84.

85.

86. 87.

Notes d’alliance, vol. III, 689–704 (Montpellier: Presses Universitaires de Montpellier, 1982). See, among a host of excellent works on this subject, the recent studies by Richard Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 48–64; and Anthony Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia (Basingstoke,: Palgrave, 2002). Quoted in Christopher Andrew and Julie Elkner, “Stalin and Foreign Intelligence,” in Stalinism Redefined, ed. H. Shukman (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 80. A monograph on this subject that is based on extensive work in the archives (including intelligence material) of the former USSR is Gabriel Gorodetsky’s Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (London: Yale University Press, 1999). For an overview of the role of intelligence in the origins of the Second World War, see Ferris, “Intelligence.” Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan, 376–378. Figures from Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan, 9–14, 178–79. On the central role of signals intelligence in the Allied war effort see, among others, Stephen Budiansky, Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II (New York: Free Press, 2000); and Ralph Bennett, Intelligence Investigations: How Ultra Changed History, (London: Frank Cass, 1996). Soviet intelligence had recruited at least one well-placed agent in the French air ministry named André Labarthe. See Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 370–71. For an interesting study of British naval intelligence and German weapons design, see Joe Maiolo, “‘I Believe the Hun is Cheating’: Admiralty Technical Intelligence and the German Navy, 1936–1939,” Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 1 (1996): 32–58. R. V. Jones, quoted in Handel, “Intelligence in Historical Perspective,” 190. Professor Jones has written what is still the standard study of British scientific intelligence: Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978). Paul Maddrell, “Operation Matchbox and the Scientific Containment of the USSR,” this volume, 173-206. Also by Maddrell are “British-American Scientific Intelligence Collaboration during the Occupation of Germany,” Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (2000): 74–94; “Einfallstor in die Sowjetunion: die Besatzung Deutschlands und die Ausspähung der UdSSR durch den britischen Nachrichtendienst,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 2 (2003): 183–227; and especially the forthcoming Scientific Containment: Western Scientific Intelligence in Divided Germany, 1945–1961 (Oxford: Oxford Unoversity Press, 2005). On these issues, see Aldrich, Intelligence and the War Against Japan. Christopher Andrew, “The Making of the Anglo-American Sigint alliance,” in In the Name of Intelligence, ed. H. Peake and S. Halperne, 95–109 (Washington, DC: NIBC Press, 1994); and, more generally, Brad Smith, The Ultra-Magic Deals and the Most Secret Special Relationship, 1940–1946 (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, 1993). On intelligence sharing with the USSR, see Bradley Smith, Sharing Secrets with Stalin: How the Allies Traded Intelligence (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1996).

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88. On Soviet strategic intelligence during the Second World War, see especially Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 117–60. On its role in military operations, see David Glantz, The Role of Intelligence in Soviet Military Strategy in World War II (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990); and Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War (London: Frank Cass, 1989). 89. Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray, 2001), 5. 90. Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, 2–3. See also Jack Blum, “Covert Operations: The Blowback Problem,” in National Insecurity, ed. Craig Eisendrath, 76–91 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000). 91. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 642. 92. Ibid., 5. 93. Michael Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 159, 161. 94. The origins of both of these concepts lie in the Truman administration. “National intelligence” was given concrete form in the National Intelligence Estimate, prepared first by the Office of National Estimates. The ONE was abolished in 1973 and replaced by National Intelligence Officers and the National Intelligence Council. The objective was always the effective synthesis and analysis of all incoming intelligence. The “daily brief” was also initiated by Truman, who had difficulty making sense of the mountain of information that reached him each day from the intelligence services and the Department of State. On these issues see Herman, Intelligence Power, 261–78; Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, 162–71; and Bruce Berkowitz and Allan Goodman, Strategic Intelligence for American National Security, Chapter 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 95. Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, 125–27. 96. See Herman, Intelligence Power, 265–66. 97. James Bamford, Body of Secrets (London: Arrow Books, 2002), 584–88; see also the quotations from the NSA internal history of 1986 in Aldrich, Hidden Hand, 637. 98. The estimate of the current total intelligence budget is from the Washington Post, “House Passes Intelligence Bill,” June 28, 2003. The figure for the late 1980s is from Herman, Intelligence Power, 37. 99. Figures drawn from Herman, Intelligence Power, 40; and from the widely cited Web site of the Federation of Atomic Scientists, www.fas.org/irp/agency/ budget1.htm. See also Matthew Aid, “The National Security Agency and the Cold War,” Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 1 (2001), 27–66; Odom, Fixing Intelligence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 53–88, 105; Robert Dreyfus, “Techint: The NSA, the NRO and NIMA,” in National Insecurity, ed. Eisendrath, 149–71; and the ever-useful Jeffrey Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community (Cambridge, MA: Bullinger, 1985), esp. 111–29. 100. S. Diamond, Compromised Campus: The Collaboration of Universities with the Intelligence Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Bamford, Body of Secrets, 578–613; the official NSA Web site, www.nsa.gov; and Odom, Fixing Intelligence, 72–76. 101. Herman, Intelligence Power, 37–38; and UK House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report 2002–2003, Cmd. 5837, 8. 102. This trend is illustrated in great detail throughout Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive.

232

Notes

103. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 439–61; David Kahn, “Soviet Comint in the Cold War,” Cryptologia 22 (1998): 1–24; Desmond Ball, “Soviet Signals Intelligence: Vehicular Systems and Operations,” Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 1 (1989): 5–27; and D. Ball and R. Windren, “Soviet Signals Intelligence (SIGINT): Organisation and Management,” Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 4 (1989): 621–59. 104. Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, 72. A fascinating account of Anglo-American intelligence relations in all their complexity is Aldrich, Hidden Hand. See also J. Richelson, The Ties that Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UK/USA Countries, rev. ed. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1990). For an excellent conceptual discussion of intelligence cooperation, see Herman, Intelligence Power, 200–18. See also the important special issue on “American–British– Canadian Intelligence Relations, 1939–2000,” ed. David Stafford and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (2000). 105. Relatively little detailed research has been done on intelligence cooperation within the Soviet bloc. For a general impression of the level of cooperation, see Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive; and Mike Dennis, The Stasi: Myth and Reality (London: Longman, 2003). 106. An important point made repeatedly by Herman in both Intelligence Power, 37–38; and Intelligence Services in the Information Age, 29–48, esp. 31–32. 107. Important recent discussions of the impact of the Internet and online information systems are Gregory Treverton, Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Bruce Berkowitz, The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century (New York: Free Press, 2003). 108. Alan Dupont, “Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century,” Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 4 (2003): 19. 109. Bill Sweetman, “Spy Satellites: The Next Leap Forward,” Jane’s International Defence Review ( January 1997): 24–28; and Dupont, “Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century,” 18–19. 110. See the useful discussion in Dupont, “Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century,” 17–20. 111. On this doctrine see two recent analyses by John Ferris, “A New American Way of War? C4ISR, Intelligence and Information Operations in Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’: A Provisional Assessment,” Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 4, (2003): 155–74; and “Netcentric Warfare, C4ISR and Information Operations: Towards a Revolution in Military Intelligence?” in Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Scott and Jackson, 54–77. 112. See the report of the Aspin-Brown Congressional Commission on intelligence reform, Preparing for the 21st Century: An Appraisal of U.S. Intelligence, report of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, Chapter 13 (March 1, 1996). 113. The estimate for 2004 is from the Federation of Atomic Scientists, “Tracing the Rise and Fall of Intelligence Spending as Portrayed in Official Publications,” available at http://fas.org/irp/budget/index.html#6. On the disclosure of the 1998 intelligence budget, see “Statement by the Director of Central Intelligence Regarding the Disclosure of the Aggregate Intelligence Budget for Fiscal Year 1998,” CIA press release, March 20, 1998, no. 03-98.

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233

114. UK House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report 2002–2003, Chapter 13, Cmd. 5837, 8. 115. For detailed accounts of the functioning of the Echelon network, see, among others, Bamford, Body of Secrets, 404–28; and Duncan Campbell, “Interception Capabilities: Impact and Exploitation,” report for the Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System, commissioned by the Directorate-General for Committees and Delegations of the European Union, Brussels Meeting, January 22–23, 2001. 116. Desmond Ball persuasively stresses the importance of intelligence cooperation in “Desperately Seeking Bin Laden: The Intelligence Dimension in the War against Terrorism,” in Worlds in Collision, ed. K. Booth and T. Dunne, 60–73 (London: Palgrave, 2002). For an interesting discussions of the dynamics of intelligence cooperation, see also Björn Müller-Wille, “EU Intelligence Cooperation: A Critical Analysis,” Contemporary Security Policy 23, no. 2 (2002): 61–86; and Herman, Intelligence Services in the Information Age, 228–31. 117. Betts, “Politicization of Intelligence,” p. 62. 118. From Henry De Wolf Smyth’s report to the U.S. government, “Atomic Energy for Military Purposes,” quoted in Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 3rd ed. (London: Palgrave, 2003), 33. 119. For a good discussion of these issues, see James Wirtz, “Theory of Surprise,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, ed. Betts and Mahnken, 101–17. On nuclear deterrence see, among many others, Freedman, Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. 120. Treverton, Reshaping National Intelligence, 127. See also Dupont, “Intelligence for the Twenty-First Century,” 17–19. 121. Aldrich, Hidden Hand, 12, 13. 122. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, 278. 123. See the discussion in Odom, Fixing Intelligence, ix–xxxi, 1–7; and Treverton, Reshaping Intelligence, 1–19. 124. U.S. House and Senate Permanent Select Committees on Intelligence, Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (Washington, DC, July 2003), available at www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html. 125. From the White House “Fact Sheet” release regarding the creation of the TTIC, available at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/2003012812.html. 126. See especially Lawrence Freedman, U.S. Intelligence and the Soviet Strategic Threat (London, 1986); and John Prados, The Soviet Estimate: U.S. Intelligence Analysis of Soviet Strategic Forces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 127. Lawrence Freedman, “The CIA and the Soviet threat: the politicization of estimates, 1966–77,” in Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA, ed. C. Andrew and R. Jeffreys-Jones, 122–42 (London: Frank Cass, 1997). 128. U.S. National Security Council, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” September 17, 2002, available at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ nss.html. 129. UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government (London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, September 24, 2002), available at www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/iraqdossier.pdf. Two separate independent inquiries have been mounted into this affair, and the result has been to bring the relationship between intelligence and policy making

234

130.

131.

132. 133.

134.

135.

136.

137.

Notes in the United Kingdom under unprecedented public scrutiny. For a sample of press coverage of the political fallout of this affair, see Alan Rusbridger, ed., The Hutton Inquiry and Its Impact (London: Politico’s and Guardian Books, 2004). U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, 108th Cong., 2nd sess., July 7, 2004, available at www.gpoaccess.gov/ serialset/creports/iraq.html. For contending accounts of the activities of the Office of Special Plans before the war, see Seymour Hersh, “Selective Intelligence,” The New Yorker, May 12, 2003; and Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 288–89. Hersh stresses the importance of the Office, whereas Woodward plays down its influence on policy making. Wesley Wark, “Learning to Live with Intelligence,” Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 4 (2003), esp. 10–11. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor; Betts, “Analysis, War and Decision”; Handel, “Intelligence and the Problem of Strategic Surprise”; and Ephraim Kam, Surprise Attack: The Victim’s Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). See, especially, a recent essay by James Wirtz, “Theory of Surprise,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, ed. Betts and Mahnken, 101–16. On the Tet Offensive, see Andrew, President’s Eyes Only, 340–45; and especially James Wirtz, The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). Uri Bar-Joseph, “Intelligence Failure and the Need for Cognitive Closure: The Case of Yom Kippur,” in Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, Betts and Mahnken, 166–89; quotation, 184. See also Kam, Surprise Attack; and Michael Handel, “The Yom Kippur War and the Inevitability of Strategic Surprise,” International Studies Quarterly 21 (1977): 461–501. U.S. House and Senate Permanent Select Committees on Intelligence, “Abridged Findings and Conclusions,” Report of the Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (Washington, DC, July 2003), available at www.gpoaccess.gov/ serialset/creports/911.html. See also The 9/11 Investigation: Staff Reports of the 9/11 Commission, New York, Public Affairs [Perseus], 2004 and The 9/11 Report. Daniel Morris, “Analytical Challenges of Strategic Warning,” unpublished manuscript, 2004. Morris is an analyst within the Canadian intelligence community. See also Kam, Surprise Attack, 87.

Chapter 2 1. Letter from M. Dumon to the Comtesse de Boigne, London, September 21, 1848, in Recollections of a Great Lady, Being More Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne, ed. M. Charles Nicoullaud (London: William Heinemann, 1912), 339. 2. Bernard Duhr, ed., Briefe des Feldmarschalls Radetzky an seine Tochter Friedericke, 1847–57 (Vienna: Josef Roller and Co., 1892), 45–46. 3. Emphasis added. Carte Secrete della Polizia Austriaca in Italia Estratte dell’Archivio di Venezia e publicate per commissione di D. Manin, vol. III, doc. 555 (Capolago: Tipografia Elvetica, 1851), 104. The timing of the reinforcements seems to have been triggered by the assassination in Ferrara by “patriots” of the suspicious, but pro-Austrian figure, Baron Baratelli, on June 14. See Friedrich Engel-Janosi,

Notes

4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

235 Österreich und der Vatikan, 1846–1918, vol. I, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 1846–1903 (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1958), 28–29, hereafter “Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII.” The works most influential for this introductory section were Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIIIDie Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII; and George Fitz-Hardinge and Joan Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1846–1848, vol. II, June 1846–1 January 1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936; repr. 1968), hereafter “Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making.” Also illuminating was Sandro Bortolotti, Metternich e l’Italia nel 1846 (Turin: Chiantore, 1945). “Questo sant’uomo ci ha lasciato senza un bajocco, senza credito, senza uomini capaci, senza truppa e colla morale pubblica carrotta”; quoted in Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 5. Massimo D’Azeglio, Degli ultimi casi della Romagna (Lugano, 1846), 6f. Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 17. See A. J. Reinermann, Austria and the Papacy in the Age of Metternich, vol. 1, 1809–1830 and vol. 2, 1830–1838 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1979 and 1989, respectively). Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 26, note 18: “Non vogliamo un papa Giobertino: l’unità dell’Italia non ci sedurrà.” Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 17–18. As it turned out, Bernetti failed to receive a single vote. For Lützow, see Alois Hudal, Die Österreichische Vatikanbotschaft, 1806–1918 (Munich: Pohl, 1952), 74–138. Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 23: “je suis à la lettre isolé.” Letter from Metternich to Lützow, Vienna, July 12, 1846, in Mémoires, Documents et Écrits Divers laissés par le Prince de Metternich, ed. Prince Richard Metternich and A. de Klinkowstroem, vol. VII, doc. 1557 (Paris: E. Plon and Co., 1883), 251–56. Metternich was to describe himself to Lützow in October 1847 as “a man of the Church, an upright and strict Catholic” (quoted in EngelJanosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 24). For Metternich’s general principles, see Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, “Der Ideengehalt des ‘Metternichischen Systems.’” Historische Zeitschrift CXXXI (1925): 241–62. Letter from Pius to Rossi, August 1846, quoted in Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 25. Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 19: “Avremo delle strade di ferro, de l’amnestie: faremo qualche cosa.” Quoted in Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 26. Quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 217. Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 216. Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 29, and note 26 on the same page. For example, Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Praesidial-Elenchi Centralkanzleiakten (CK) 1847: CK 1137, 1157,1170, 1176, 1200, 1211, 1253, 1287, 1327, 1333, 1334,1371,1372,1443, 1451, 1486,2224,1507, 1544, 1549, 1552, 1558, 1580, 1594, 1726, 1755, 1830, 1846, 1865, 1984, 2019, 2076—all of these entries summarize

236

22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

Notes the contents of the documents they register. Hereafter, letters in the Kriegsarchiv’s CK 1847 collection will be indicated by KACK (Präs), followed by their CK number, correspondents’ names, city of origin, and the date. Berkeley and Berkeley, 225, note 1. Emphasis added. I touch on the episode in passing in The Survival of the Habsburg Empire, Radetzky, the Imperial Army and the Class War, 1848 (London: Longman, 1979), 96–97. Count Hartig, “Genesis or Details of the Late Austrian Revolution by an Officer of State,” appended to Archdeacon Coxe, History of the House of Austria (London: Henry Bohm, 1853), 63. Ibid. KACK 1137, Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, July 17, 1847. Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Praesidial-Elenchi Centralkanzleiakten (CK) 1847: 1170, Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, July 26, 1847. A good account of international reaction can be found in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, Chapter 15. For a good account of Metternich’s policies, see Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, Chapter 11. All this was set out in a memorandum to his right-hand man, Count Ficquelmont, on August 22, 1847, in which he described “the basis” of Austrian policy as “not to interfere in either the Kingdom of Naples or in the Papal States . . . but to erect the strongest barrier to disorder and to defend [Austrian] rights tenaciously wherever they [were] attacked.” He also regarded it as “essential” to save Piedmont “from herself” and to win her back to the conservative camp (letter from Metternich to Ficquelmont, Vienna, August 22, 1847, in Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, Staatskanzleiakten, Provinzen, Lombardei-Venezien, 1847, K 23). Hereafter, letters in this Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv collection will include only their K number, correspondents’ names, city of origin, and the date. Memoir annexed to a confidential letter to Apponyi, April 12, 1847, in Metternich and de Klinkowstroem, eds., Mémoires, Documents et Écrits Divers, vol. VII, doc. 1604, 395–400. Ibid. Metternich was now clearly very dependent on Guizot, who, fortunately, remained on side. On September 27, 1847, the French premier wrote to Rossi: “We are at peace and have good relations with Austria and want to keep things that way. Bad relations and war with Austria would signify war in general and revolution in Europe. We are convinced that the Pope too has a great interest in living in peace and in good relations with Austria, which is a great Catholic power in Europe and a great power in Italy. War with Austria would mean the enfeeblement of Catholicism and the destabilisation of Italy. I believe the Pope can desire neither the one nor the other” [quoted in A. Filipuzzi, Pio IX e la Politica Austriaca in Italia dal 1815 al 1848 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1958), 176–77]. Quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 70. Ibid., 197. Ibid., 201. Ibid., 202.

Notes

237

37. Metternich, who said of the Pope that “the greatest enemy of Pius is his heart,” had no doubt of the significance of the creation of a national guard: “ce qui c’est produit dans cet état, c’est une révolution.” Also: “L’État de l’Église est à nos yeux en proie à une revolution flagrante.” See Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 27, and note 20 on the same page. Ever since Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been taken back to Paris from Versailles by the Paris national guard and put under its “protection,” the establishment of such a body in a monarchical state was viewed by European conservatives as the prelude to bloody revolution. Radetzky was later to blame the 1848 Revolutions on “the freethinking of Pius IX,” who he called “the supreme head of the revolutionary party.” See Oskar Regele, Feldmarschall Radetzky: Leben, Leistung, Erbe (Vienna: Herold, 1957), 242. Typically, the Duke of Wellington supported Radetzky. According to Philipp von Neuman, he told him on September 3, 1847, that “it would be ridiculous not to have advanced posts in that town, being by treaty in possession of the citadel.” See E. Beresford Chancellor, ed., The Diary of Philipp von Neumann 1819–1850, vol. II, 1834–1850 (London: Philip Allan, 1928), 268. 38. Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, K 38, Metternich to Emperor Ferdinand, Vienna, July 17, 1847. 39. For the discussions on this between Metternich, Hardegg, and Kübeck, representing the state chancellery, the war office, and the treasury, respectively, see the protocol of the meeting that took place on July 20, 1847 (Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, K 38). 40. A good summary of these issues can be found in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 226–27. 41. See Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 235. 42. Carte Secrete della Polizia Austriaca in Italia, vol. III, doc. 555, 104. 43. Translated by the author; all emphases added. For Radetzky’s instructions, see KACK (Präs) 1137, Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, July 16, 1847. 44. KACK (Präs) 1137, Hardegg to Radetzky, Vienna, July 27, 1847. Emphasis added. 45. KACK (Präs) 1170, Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, July 26, 1847. Emphasis added. 46. KACK (Präs) 1176, Hardegg to Metternich, Vienna, July 28, 1847, quoted in CK 1200, Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, July 31, 1847. 47. KACK (Präs), Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, July 31, 1847. 48. KACK (Präs), Hardegg to Metternich, Vienna, August 2, 1847. 49. Ibid. In fact, the suspicion that Ciacchi had received “confidential instructions” to help the Austrians had its origin, according to Hardegg, in a note from Lützow. 50. KACK (Präs) 1257, Auersperg to Radetzky, Ferrara, August 2, 1847. 51. Ibid. “Den Brief an Seine Excellenz den Gesandten am römischen Hofe Baron Lützow habe ich durch derselben Quelle durch welche ich dessen Schreiben empfing nämentlich durch den Herrn Cardinal Legaten selbst expediert” (I have sent the letter to His Excellency, Baron Lutzow, the Ambassador at the Roman Court, through the same source from which I received his letter, namely the Cardinal Legate himself.) This in itself must have consolidated the Austrian assumption that secretly the papal authorities were on side.

238

Notes

52. KACK (Präs), Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 2, 1847. This report is officially registered as missing in the archives, but is included with those returned by Metternich to Hardegg under 1257. Several files registered as missing (“C” for cassiert) seem to have been refiled after having been returned by Metternich. 53. KACK (Präs), Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, July 31, 1847. 54. Ibid. 55. KACK (Präs), Auersberg to Radetzky, Ferrara, August 2, 1847. 56. KACK (Präs), Hardegg to Metternich, August 14, 1847, containing the latest reports from Auersperg and Radetzky, and which were returned by Metternich on August 20, 1847 (in KACK [Präs] 1333). These contain the second report of Auersperg (Auersperg to Radetzky, Ferrara, August 2, 1847), as well as Radetzky’s response. Emphasis added. 57. KACK (Präs), Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 4, 1847. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61. Quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 220–21. 62. Engel-Janosi, Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX und Leos XIII, 30. On the copy preserved in the Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv are written the words of Staatskanzleirat von Pilat: “A more impertinent and undiplomatic document you will have real difficulty in finding among all the masses of those which have been through your hands.” Presumably this was meant for Metternich. Lützow had written to Metternich from Rome on August 10: “It was the Pope himself who dictated the note which the Cardinal Secretary of State addressed to me. It is merely another concession dragged from him” (quoted in Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 221–22). Again the assumption is that the pope was being forced to act against what he must have known to be his true interests. 63. Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 222. 64. KACK (Präs) 1287 (returned under CK 1333), Auersperg to Radetzky, Ferrara, August 7, 1847. 65. KACK (Präs) 1287 (returned under CK 1333), Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 9, 1847. 66. KACK (Präs) 1287 (returned under CK 1333), Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, August 9, 1847; and Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 9, 1847. 67. KACK (Präs) 1287 (returned under CK 1333), Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 9, 1847. 68. Ibid. 69. KACK (Präs) 1333, Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, August 14, 1847. 70. Ibid. Emphasis added. 71. Ibid. 72. Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 223. 73. KACK (Präs) 1333, Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, August 20, 1847. Emphasis added. 74. Quoted in KACK (Präs) 1333, Metternich to Hardegg, Vienna, August 21, 1847. 75. Ibid. Emphasis in original.

Notes 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103.

239 Ibid. Ibid. KACK (Präs) 1333, Hardegg to Radetzky, August 22, 1847. KACK (Präs) 1371, Lützow to Auersperg, Rome, August 13, 1847, returned to Hofkriegsrat by Metternich without comment on August 31, 1848. KACK (Präs) 1371, Auersperg to Radetzky, Ferrara, August 20, 1848. Ibid. Ibid. KACK (Präs) 1371, Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 23, 1847; and KACK (Präs) 1371, Radetzky to Lützow, Milan, August 23, 1847. KACK (Präs) 1371, Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, August 21, 1847. Ibid. KACK (Präs) 1371, Radetzky to Lützow, Milan, August 23, 1847. KACK (Präs) 1372, Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, August 24, 1847. Emphasis added. Letter from Captain Rossbacher to Captain Huyn, November 21, 1847, in Joseph Alexander Freiherr von Helfert, “Casati und Pillersdorff und die Anfänge der italienischen Einheitsbewegung,” Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte 91 (1902): 468–72. Letter from Ficquelmont to Radetzky, no date, in Helfert, “Casati und Pillersdorff und die Anfänge der italienischen Einheitsbewegung,” 331. Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, K 23, Metternich to Ficquelmont, Vienna, August 22, 1847. Ibid. Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, K 23, Ficquelmont to Wessenberg, Vienna, August 22, 1848. Haus-Hof-und Staatsarchiv, K 23, Metternich to Ficquelmont, Vienna, August 22, 1847. Helfert, “Casati und Pillersdorff und die Anfänge der italienischen Einheitsbewegung,” 454–56. Auersperg did not want to be separated from his wife by serving in Ferrara. While he believed that it was “quite right” to stand up to the revolution, he thought Radetzky to be “confused in his ideas.” KACK (Präs) 1443, Radetzky to Auersperg, Milan, September 3, 1848. Ibid. Ibid. KACK (Präs) 1471, Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, September 12, 1847. Friedrich Engel-Janosi, Die Politische Korrespondenz der Päpste mit den österreichischen Kaisern, 1804–1918 (Vienna: Herold, 1964), 26–27. Ibid. “Passiamo sotto silenzio le consequenze che derivar angustiare l’animo suo e volende risparmiare a Noi stessi l’amerezza di alter considerazioni.” Ibid. On these arrangements, see, among others, KACK (Präs) 2093, Hardegg to Radetzky, Vienna, December 14, 1847; Imperial Handbillet to Metternich, Vienna, December 5, 1847; Metternich’s notes for the State Conference, December 1, 1847; Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, November 25, 1847; and Radetzky to Hardegg, Milan, November 13, 1847. Berkeley and Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 235.

240

Notes

104. Ibid. 105. Quoted in Helfert, “Casati und Pillersdorff und die Anfänge der italienischen Einheitsbewegung,” 484–86. 106. Alan Sked, “Metternich and the Ficquelmont Mission of 1847–48: The Decision against Reform in Lombardy-Venetia,” Central Europe 2, no. 1 (May 2004): 15–46.

Chapter 3 1. Lyons to Russell, January 20, 1862, FO5:824, Records of the Foreign Office, National Archives of the United Kindgom (NAUK), Kew, London (hereafter FO). 2. Lyons to Russell, November 3, 1863 (CONFIDENTIAL), FO5:896. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. Emphasis in original. 5. Lyons to Russell, November 3, 1863 (PRIVATE), FO5:896. Emphasis in original. 6. Ibid. 7. Lyons to Russell, March 4, 1864, FO5:946. 8. Lyons to Russell, April 25, 1864, FO5:948. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Gordon Craig, “Military Diplomats in the Prussian and German Service: the Attachés, 1816-1914,”Political Science Quarterly, LXIV (March 1949), 66; Paul Armand Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, Attachés Navals, et Attachés de l’Air (Paris, Presses Modernes, 1937), 13; Alfred Vagts, The Military Attaché (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 17; Gerhard Ritter, Die deutschen MilitärAttachés und das Auswärtige Amt. Aus den verbrannten Akten des Großen Generalstabs. (Heidelberg, Carl Winter- Universitätsverlag, 1959), 5; Heinrich Otto Meisner, Militärattachés und Militärbevollmachtigte in Preussen und im Deutschen Reich (East Berlin, 1957), 8. 12. See Craig, “Military Diplomats,” 66 (footnote). 13. Quoted in Gerhard Ritter, Die deutschen Militär-Attachés und das Auswärtige Amt (Heidelberg, 1960), 6. 14. Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 13. 15. These missions of short duration, Beauvais argues, “continued as they did in the 18th century, with the difference being that now they were cloaked with a more official character.” Attachés Militaires, 14. 16. See Meisner, Militärattachés, 67–71; Craig, “Military Diplomats,” 70; Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 34. 17. See James William Kershner, “Sylvanius Thayer: a Biography,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University, 1976, 82–83. 18. See Auswärtige Amt to Werther in Paris, May 1, 1830, “Teilnahme preussischer (deutscher) Militärangehöriger an Kriegen anderen Staaten (1830–1867), III HA 10447, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preuβischer Kulturbesitz, Dahlem, Berlin (hereafter Dahlem). 19. Friedrich Wilhelm to Staats- und Cabinets-Minister von Bernstorff, August 28, 1830, “Acta betreffend die Attachirung des Hauptmanns von Cler bei der

Notes

20.

21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

241 Königlichen Mission zu Paris,” III HA 4844, Dahlem. Meisner argues that this appointment, not the first Militärbevollmächtigte at the Russian Court, was the “first Prussian military attaché in a true sense,” Militärattachés, 10. For more on this, see Maureen P. O’Connor, “In the Eye of the Beholder: Western Military Observers From Buena Vista to Plevna,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1996, Chapter 1. Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 19. On regularization, see Vagts, The Military Attaché, 30. Gerhard Ritter, H. O. Meisner, and Paul Armand Beauvais all noted the importance of Napoleonic rule as well as technological changes for the creation of the attaché system. The first of the three linked the rise of attachés explicitly to the “increasing mechanization of the nature of war in the age of railroads and the rapid succession of new technological inventions in weaponry,” Ritter, Die deutschen Militär-Attachés und das Auswärtige Amt, 5. Meisner credits the increase in military attachés to the “accession of Napoleon III to the throne and the related French military tendencies, the struggles for Italian and German unity, and the developments in means of transportation (railroads and telegraphs) and the refining of weapons technology,” Militärattachés, 8. Beauvais credited “the arrival of Napoleon III . . . the success of the Prussian armies . . . and the perfection under the Second Empire of certain engines of combat, notably the appearance of rifled artillery, the construction of the first armored ship, and the establishment of iron-clad batteries and rotating ship turrets” with the development of military attachés. Attachés Militaires, 22. Davis to Marcy, April 2, 1855, Reel 36, Microcopy 6, Record Group 107, Records of the Secretary of War, United States National Archives (hereafter M6); Alfred Mordecai, “The Life of Alfred Mordecai as Related by Himself,” James A. Padgett, ed., The North Carolina Historical Review 17 ( January 1945): 104. See Meisner, Militärattachés, 12; Craig, “Military Diplomats,” 67. Vagts, The Military Attaché, 27. See also Lothar W. Hilbert, “L’origine du service des attachés militaires en Grande Bretagne (1855–1874),” Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique (April–June 1961): 155. Hilbert, “L’origine du service des attachés militaires,” 155–56; Commander Hore, R. N., was named Naval Attaché to the British Legation at Paris on June 21, 1860. See “Notification of the Appointment of Attachés from the Under Secretary of State (March 1860 to July 1872),” FO 366/319. E. Hammond at Foreign Office to Col. the Hon. George Cadogan, May 2, 1859, FO 366/318. For Claremont, see Vagts, The Military Attaché, 260. For their reports, see “War with Austria, Military Attaché Reports,” Records of the War Office, Public Record Office, Kew, London (hereafter WO), 33/18; E. Hammond to Col. Cadogan, May 2, 1859, FO366/318. Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 24; Vagts, The Military Attaché, 26. See Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 24. Vagts, The Military Attaché, 26. “Colonel Cadogan’s Report on Foreign Military Correspondence System,” Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1861, Volume VI, Appendix 9, 495. Russell to Duke of Cambridge, Foreign Office, London, May 29, 1860, quoted in Colonel Willoughby Verner, The Military Life of H.R.H. George, Duke of Cambridge (London: John Murray, 1905), 361.

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33. Ibid., 361, 362. See also “Notification of the Appointment of Attachés from the Under Secretary of State (March 1860 to July 1872),” FO 366/319; “Papers relating to the Question of Arming the Infantry with Breechloaders,” March 22, 1865, Confidential Prints, WO33/17B, 3. 34. Duke of Cambridge to Lord de Grey, London, March 8, 1864, quoted in Verner, The Military Life of H.R.H. George, Duke of Cambridge, 362. 35. Bismarck in Paris to Ministerium der Auswärtigen Angelegenheiten, July 17, 1862; and Roon to Bernstorff, August 2, 1862, “Acta betr. Die Attachirung eines Offiziers bei der Königl. Mission zu Paris,” III HA 4845, Dahlem. 36. Craig, “Military Diplomats,” 68. 37. See “Zulassung ausländischer Militärangehöriger und Militärbeamter zu preuβischer Truppenübungen und Feldzugen (1864–1866),” III HA 10455, Dahlem. 38. For Serbia, see Roon to Bismarck, March 7, 1864, “Zulassung ausländischer Militärangehöriger und Militärbeamter zu preuβischer Truppenubungen und Feldzugen (1864–1866),” III HA 10455, Dahlem; for the others, see Vagts, The Military Attaché, 258; for Walker, see “Papers relating to the Question of Arming the Infantry with Breechloaders,” March 22, 1865, Confidential Prints, WO33/17B, 3. 39. Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 26. 40. Among these individuals was Justus Scheibert, a Prussian engineer officer, who traveled to the South halfway through the war. See Justus Scheibert, Mit Schwert und Feder: Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, and Scheibert, Im Feldlager der Konföderierten: Denkschrift über den nordamerikanischen Krieg (Wyk auf Föhr, Verlag für Amerikanistik, 1991); Jay Luvaas, “A Prussian Observer with Lee,” Military Affairs 21 (Fall 1957). Because no European state officially recognized the independence of the South, these governments had no official communications with the Confederacy during the course of the war and therefore could not send official observers to accompany the Southern troops. 41. See letters to each of the three men of that date in “Notification of the Appointment of Attachés from the Under Secretary of State (March 1860 to July 1872),” FO 366/319. 42. See Foreign Office to Captain Bythesea, R. N., March 4, 1865, “Notification of the Appointment of Attachés from the Under Secretary of State (March 1860 to July 1872),” FO 366/319. 43. See Zulassung ausländischer Militärangehöriger und Militärbeamter zu preuβischer Truppenübungen und Feldzugen (1864–1866),” III HA 10455, Dahlem. 44. See Roon to Bismarck, June 20, 1866, ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. See Meisner, Militärattachés, 14. 47. Folder: “Journal and Account,” 1865–66, Subject File: “French Occupation of Mexico and Schofield’s Mission to Paris, 1865–66,” Container 77, The John M. Schofield Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress. 48. J. M. S. to wife, London, May 4, 1866, ibid. 49. Marginal notation added later, ibid. 50. L’Amiral, Ministre Secretaire d'État au Département de la marine et des colonies to Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, October 31, 1867, “Nomination d'un attaché

Notes

51.

52. 53. 54.

55. 56.

57. 58. 59.

60.

61.

243 naval à la Légation de France à Washington, 1867,” Affaires Diverses Politiques États-Unis 13: 75, Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Quai d’Orsay, Paris, France (hereafter ADP EU). Ministre des Affaires Étrangères to Ministre de la Marine, November 5, 1867, “Nomination d'un attaché naval à la Légation de France à Washington, 1867,” ADP EU 13: 75. Ibid. For Major von Lattre, the attaché to Florence, and Major Roerdanß, his counterpart in London, see Meisner, Militärattachés, 14, 16. Walker served in the Crimean War and accompanied the Crown Prince’s armies in the field in 1866; he was fluent in German. Claremont had been the military attaché in Paris in Paris since 1858 and accompanied the French Army in1859; he was fluent in French. See Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 62; Craig, “Military Diplomats,” 68. For the establishment of the attaché at Washington, see Le Marquis de Noailey, Ministre de France aux États-Unis to le Comte de Rémusat, Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, Washington, August 10, 1872; Le Ministre de la Guerre, de Cissey, to le Comte de Rémusat, Paris, September 7, 1872; Le Marquis de Noailey, Ministre de France aux États-Unis to le Comte de Rémusat, Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, Washington, January 10, 1873, “Nomination du premier attaché militaire à la Légation de France aux États-Unis (1872–73),” ADP EU 15: 133. For the others, see Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 31. Beauvais, Attachés Militaire, 31. See Meisner, Militärattachés, 21; Vagts, The Military Attaché, 36. Prince Arnulf’s trip was one of the few vestiges of the old, ad hoc method of sending military observers. The Russian headquarters gladly welcomed him out of both professional and, more importantly, royal courtesy. For reasons of royalty, not profession, the German War Ministry permitted this excursion. All arrangements were made through Berlin, not directly between Munich and St. Petersburg. He spent just over two months in the Balkans, visiting the major military points of interest at the time, Plevna and Shipka Pass, and meeting with Tsar Nicholas, Prince Gortschakov, Grand Prince Nicholas, Prince Charles of Romania, Generals Todleben, Skobeleff, Gourko, and Radetzky and witnessed the surrender of Osman Pasha to the Tsar. See “Acta betreffend die Betheiligung deutschen Offiziere in den Feldzuge Ruβlands gegen die Türkei” I.A.B.i59. Politisches Archiv des Auswäritges Amt, Bonn; “Kriegsgeschichte. Denkschrift S.K. des Prinzen Arnulf von Bayern. Russ.Türk. Krieg 1877/78” Generalstab 253, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Abteilung IV, Kriegsarchiv, Munich, Germany. See Ministre de la Guerre to Ministre des Affairs Etrangères, November 23, 1877, dossier “General de Courcy. Mission en Russie,” Affaires Diverses Politiques: Russie, Archives Diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris, France. See Atkinson to Evarts, April 25, 1877, “Despatches from United States Ministers to Russia, 1808–1906,” Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, National Archives Microfilm Publications (hereafter M35); U.S. National Archives; Microfilm; Secretary of War McCrary to Lt. Co. Alexander Chambers, June 16, 1877, M6.

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62. Greene to Evarts, U.S. Legation, St. Petersburg, December 26, 1878, M35/Reel 33. 63. Ibid. 64. Greene to Evarts, “Memorandum Concerning the Position and Duties of Military Attachés,” Enclosure to Military Dispatch No. 21, U.S. Legation, St. Petersburg, December 26, 1878, M35/Reel 33. 65. Ibid. The five were Italy, France, Austria, Russia, and France. 66. Ibid. Emphasis in original. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid. Greene speaks in his letter of other American officers having clamored for the Americans joining Europe’s moves to establish attachés. 69. See Vagts, The Military Attaché, 33. 70. Ritter, Die deutschen Militär-Attachés und das Auswärtige Amt, 5. See also Craig, “Military Diplomats,”65, 69–70, 75–76, 93; Vagts, The Military Attaché, 177; Ritter Die deutschen Militär-Attachés und das Auswärtige Amt, 7–13; Meisner, Militärattachés, 8, 53. 71. This was clearly the case in the request of British Minister Lord Lyons during the Civil War and of the American Chargé d’affaires at St. Petersburg in 1877. Meisner points to instances in the German service when diplomats asked first for a military attaché, as in the creation of such a post at Madrid in 1883. Militärattachés, 18. 72. This was clearly the design behind the first modern military attaché; when Prussia stationed Major von Cler in Paris in 1830, it was certainly not in response to an overworked ambassador’s complaints. 73. See Beauvais, Attachés Militaires, 31–34. 74. For the grand total, ibid., 34; for corroboration of the number of Russian and American attachés, see Meisner, Militärattachés, 36. 75. Meisner, Militärattachés, 36. 76. Delafield to Secretary of War Davis, New York, May 19, 1856, Reel 513, Microcopy 567, Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General Main Series, 1851–1860, Record Group 94, Records of the Adjutant-General’s Office, U.S. National Archives (hereafter M567). Britain struggled at the same time with this issue. See, for example, Memo for Mr. Moussell, April 26, 1856,WO 6: 196. 77. William T. Sherman to Lt. Francis V. Greene, Washington, October 20, 1879, Reel 46, Sherman Papers. 78. Sir Garnet Wolseley to Mr. Macmillan, January 18, 1875, The Macmillan Archive, add. MS 55,252, Manuscripts Room, the British Museum, London. 79. Major C. B. Brackenbury, R. A., “Report on the Departments of Foreign States Corresponding with the Intelligence Branch of the QuartermasterGeneral’s Department,” 31, November 1874, Confidential Print Series, WO33/28 PRO. Thomas G. Fergusson makes a compelling case that there were many discontinuities between the Topographical and Statistical Department and the subsequent founding of the Intelligence Branch: “Overlooked, or at least downplayed, by those who consider 1855 to be the great watershed in the history of British military intelligence, is the decline and near collapse of the T&S Department in the thirteen years between 1857 and 1870,” British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914: The Development of a Modern

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Intelligence Organization (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984), 23–24. 80. Francis V. Greene, The Russian Army and Its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877–78 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1879), 367.

Chapter 4 1. I am grateful to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the Bradley Foundation for funding the research on which this paper is based. An earlier version of this paper appeared in Toronto Studies in Central and Inner Asia, which kindly granted permission to republish it here. 2. Gary Alder, Beyond Bokhara: The Life of Willam Moorcroft (London: Century, 1985), 147. 3. However, the rivalry continued informally. See Jennifer Siegel, Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002). 4. Among the better examples of this literature are Premen Addy, Tibet on the Imperial Chessboard (Calcutta: Academic Publishers, 1984); Alistair Lamb, British India and Tibet (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986); V. P. Leont’ev, Inostrannaia Ekspansiia v Tibete v 1888–1919 g. (Moscow: Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1956); and Derek Waller, The Pundits (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1990). Recent articles include Helen Hundley, “Tibet’s Part in the Great Game,” History Today 43, no. 10 (October 1993): 45–50; E. Belov, “Na zare rossiisko-tibetskikh otnoshenii,” Aziia i Afrika segodnia 4 (April 1994): 64–66. For a good popular account, see Peter Fleming, Bayonets to Lhasa (New York: Harper, 1961). Rudyard Kipling’s Kim conveys the atmosphere of this period quite well. See also Gerald Morgan, “Myth and Reality in the Great Game,” Asian Affairs 60, part 1 (February 1973): 55–65. 5. The only works based on archival research that study Russian involvement in Tibet are A. Popov, “Rossiia i Tibet,” Novyi Vostok 18 (1927–1928), 101–19, vv. 20–21 (1928), 33–54; N. S. Kuleshov, Rossiia i Tibetv nachale xx veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1992); and Tatiana Shaumian, Tibet: The Great Game and Tsarist Russia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000). The latter is a revised edition of Shaumian’s doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Oriental Studies, which was published in a restricted edition (spetsbiulleten) as T. L. Shaumian, Tibet v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniiakh v nachale XX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1977). 6. Alexandre Ular, Un Empire russo-chinois (Paris: Félix Juven, ca. 1900), 24. 7. A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1987), 52. 8. David Fromkin, “The Great Game in Asia,” Foreign Affairs (Spring 1980): 951. 9. Much of this no-man’s-land was governed by states with a long history, such as the Central Asian khanates and Tibet. In the eyes of such European parvenus as Britain and Russia, however, any militarily weak nation not already colonized was considered no-man’s-land, and therefore constituted fair game. 10. For an explanation of this term’s origins, see Peter C. M. S. Braun, Die Verteitigung Indiens 1800–1907 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1968), 2. 11. The classic statement of Russian Forward Policy is Prince A. M. Gorchakov, “Memorandum to Diplomats,” November 13, 1864, in British Documents on Foreign

246

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

Notes Affairs, Part I, Series A, Russia, 1859–1914, vol. 1, ed. D. C. B. Lieven (Frederick, MD: University Press of North America, 1983), 287. Alistair Lamb, British India and Tibet (London: Routledge, Kegan & Paul, 1986), 62. Quoted in Gerald Morgan, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia (London: Collins, 1981), 215. On the question of Russan motives, perhaps the most original explanation is a diary entry made in 1865 by Count A. Valuev: “General Cherniaev took Tashkent. Nobody knows why and for what purpose. . . . There is something erotic in all our activities at the distant periphery of the Empire,” quoted in Milan Hauner, What is Asia to Us? (Boston: Unwyn Hyman, 1990), 45. George Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 (London: Cass, 1967), 14. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889, 318–19. For a summary of such schemes, see N. V. Krenistyn, Polet russkogo orla v Indiiu (Moscow: Obshchestvo rasprostraneniia poleznykh knig, 1903); and Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889, 323–31. Fleming, Bayonets, 24. The best account of this rivalry, albeit from a British perspective, is Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Another good survey, again from the British point of view, is David Gillard, The Struggle for Asia 1828–1914: A Study in British and Russian Imperialism (London: Methuen & Co., 1977). See also Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Bryssac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999). Two works by Russian contemporaries are A. E. Snesarev, Indiia kak glavnyi faktor v Sredne-Aziatskom voprose (St. Petersburg: A.E. Suvorin, 1906); and V. T. Lebedev, V Indiiu: Voenno-statisticheskii i strategicheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia A. A. Pokhorovshchikova, 1898). Mikhail Alekseev, Voennnaia Razvedka Rossii ot Riurika do Nikolaia II, vol. I (Moscow: Russkaia Razvedka, 1998), 8–51. The definitive study remains A. Zaionchkovskii, Voennye reformy 1860–1870 godov v Rossii (Moscow: Izd-vo Moskovskogo Universiteta, 1953). David Rich, The Tsar’s Colonels: Professionalism, Strategy, and Subversion in Late Imperial Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 2; Alekseev, Voennaia Razvedka, 51–61; David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, “Reforming Military Intelligence,” in David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Bruce W. Menning, Reforming the Tsar’s Army: Military Innovation in Imperial Russia from Peter the Great to the Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 133–150. Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15. On the British more specifically, see Stephen M. Harris, British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War 1854–1856 (London: Frank Cass, 1999). Dennis Showalter, “Intelligence on the Eve of Transformation,” in The Intelligence Revolution: A Historical Perspective, ed. Walter T. Hitchcock (Washington, DC: U.S. Air Force, 1991), 15–37. Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 109–14.

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26. Peter Gudgin, Military Intelligence: A History (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999), 16–25. 27. Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin, “Kriticheskoe issledovanie znacheniia voennoi geografii i statistike,” Voennyi zhurnal 1 (1846): 125. 28. Edwin George Bilof, “The Imperial Russian General Staff and China in the Far East 1880–1888” (PhD Thesis: Syracuse University, 1974), 21–23. 29. Mikhail Rafailovich Ryzhenkov, “Rol’ voennogo vedomstva Rossii v razvitii otechestvennogo vostokovedeniia v XIX- nachale XX vv.” (Candidate’s Dissertation: Institut Vostokovedeniia, 1990), 130–34. 30. Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), 5. See also Tsepon W. D. Shakapba, Tibet: A Political History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967). 31. The Qing had a highly elastic concept about who were the Middle Kingdom’s vassals. The eighteenth-century British envoy, Lord George Macartney, for example, was also deemed to be a “tribute emissary,” Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990), 122. 32. Quoted in Addy, Tibet,. 49. Most studies of Tibet’s status are written either from the point of view that the nation has almost always been an independent state or that it is historically part of China. For a study by a specialist in international law sympathetic to the Tibetan perspective, see Michiel van Walt van Praag, The Status of Tibet (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987). The Chinese argument is sketched out in Li Tieh-Tseng, The Historical Status of Tibet (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1956). 33. On Manning, see Clements Markham, Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet and the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa (London: Trübner & Co., 1876). Abbé Huc describes his journey in Evaris Régis Huc, Souvenirs d’un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet, pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846 (Memoir of a Voyage in Tatar and Tibet in 1844, 1845, and 1846) (Paris: Gaume frères et J. Dupsev, 1860). Studies of Western exploration of Tibet include Peter Hopkirk, Trespassers on the Roof of the World (London: John Murray, 1982) and John McGregor, Tibet: A Chronicle of Exploration (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970). 34. Lamb, British India, 49. Examples of such British alarmist literature abound. See Archibald Colquhoun, Russia against India (New York: Harper, 1900); H. Sutherland Edwards, Russia against India (London: Remington, 1885); George Makepiece Towle, England and Russia in Asia (London: Grant Richards, 1899); and Arminius Vambéry, The Coming Struggle for India (London: Cassell, 1885). Major-General Sir Charles MacGregor, quartermaster general of India in the 1880s, ignored the nation in his classified polemic, The Defence of British India (Simla: Government Central Branch Press, 1884), and even the hawkish George Curzon only referred to it en passant when he published Russia and Central Asia. 35. Such eighteenth-century British visitors to Tibet as Captain Samuel Turner and George Bogle wrote of Siberian caravans bearing furs, hides, silver, and chess sets to Lhasa and Shigatse. See Samuel Turner, An Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet (London: Bulmer, 1806), 273. 36. A. Lobanov-Rostovsky, Russia and Asia (Ann Arbor, MI: George Wahr, 1951), 214. 37. Lieven, British Documents, I/A/2, 306.

248

Notes

38. Hauner, What Is Asia to Us?, 41. On the Imperial Geographical Society, see Petr Petrovich Semenov-Tian-Shanskii, Istoriia poluvekoi deiatel’nosti imperatorskogo russkogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva 1845–1895 (St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Bezobrazova, 1895). Russian scientific interest in Tibet during the nineteenth century is described in B. Bartold, Istoriia izucheniia Vostoka v Evropa i Rossii (Leningrad: Leningradskii institut zhivykh vostochnykh iazykov, 1925), 273–75. 39. The definitive biography remains N. F. Dubrovin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalskii: Biograficheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg: Voennaia tipografiia, 1890). The only full English-language account is Donald Rayfield, The Dream of Lhasa: The Life of Nikolai Przhevalsky (London: Elek Books Limited, 1976). See also the relevant chapter in David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire on the Path to War with Japan (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), 24–41; Sven Hedin, General Prschewalskij in Innerasien (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1928); A. V. Zelenin, Vsemirnyi puteshestvennik: Puteshestviia N. M. Przhevalskogo (St. Petersburg:P. Soikin, 1900); Petr Kuzmich Kozlov, Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalskii, pervyi izsledovatel prirody Tsentralnoi Azii (St. Petersburg: Elektro-Tipografiia N.Ia. Stoikovoi, 1913); Eduard Markovich Murzaev, N. M. Przhevalskii (Moscow: Geografiz, 1953); and Vasilii Mikhailovich Gavrilenkov, Russkii puteshchestvennik N. M. Przhevalskii (Moscow: Rabochii, 1989). 40. For details about his military career, consult the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennoistoricheskii arkhiv, fond 400, opis 21, delo 1692. Hereafter, RGVIA. 41. For example, details about funding for his fourth Inner Asian expedition are in RGVIA, f. 401, o. 4/928, d. 36, ll. 19–21; those for his fifth Inner Asian journey are in the Nauchnyi arkhiv Rossiiskogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, (hereafter RGO) f. 13, o. 1, d. 93, l. 1. See also Ryzhenkov, “Rol’ voennogo vedomstva Rossii,” 139. 42. RGVIA, f. 400, o. 1, d. 553, ll. 3–4. 43. Bilof, “General Staff,” xx. 44. Przhevalskii to Main Staff, secret memorandum, November 16, 1878, RGVIA, f. 400, o. 1, d. 553, l. 10. 45. Ibid. 46. Rayfield, Dream. 47. The explorer foresaw a gold rush to Northern Tibet, which could soon become “a second California.” See the letter from Przhevalskii to G. G., August 8, 1884, GARF, f. 601, o. 1, d. 1329, l. 18. The clearest explanation is in his memorandum, “New Thoughts about the War with China,” in RGO, f.13, o. 1, d. 43, ll. 1–12. 48. Report from Przhevalskii to Main Staff, 25/8/1878, RGVIA, f. 400, o. 1, d. 553, l. 2. 49. The explorer’s colleague Mikhail Veniukov repeated warned him about the British. See the letter from Veniukov to Przhevalskii, April 23, 1877, RGO, f. 13, o. 2, d. 41, l. 2; and Veniukov to Przhevalskii, letter, September 11, 1885, RGO, f. 13, o. 2, d. 41, l. 30. 50. Przhevalskii, “Novaia,” ll. 19–20. 51. Dubrovin, Przhevalskii, 437. 52. His account is in G. Ts. Tsybikov, Izbrannie trudi (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1991). For an English-language summary see his article “Lhasa and Central Tibet,”

Notes

53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61.

62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68.

249 Smithsonian Institution Annual Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904). René Füllop-Miller, Rasputin, the Holy Devil (New York: Viking, 1928), 127. His grandson’s biography provides some useful background about the Buriat’s career, but is rather hagiographic. B. S. Gusev, “Moi ded Zhamsaran Badmaev,” in Doktor Badmaev: Tibetskaia meditsina, Tsarskii dvor, sovetskaia vlast, ed. M. S. Chernikova (Moscow: Russkaia Kniga, 1995), 3–104. See also the editor’s foreword, “Tibetskii vrach i russkaia monarkiia,” in Za kulisami tsarizma: Arkhiv tibetskogo vracha Badmaeva, ed. V. P. Semennikov (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izd-vo, 1925), iii–xxxiv. Bloc is quoted in Boris Gusev, “Moi Ded Zhamsaran Badmaev” Novii Mir, 11 (November 1989), p 210; Whitehall is quoted in Addy, Tibet, 70. Semennikov, Za Kulisami, 49–75. Semennikov, Za Kulisami, 72. Emphasis added. Andrew Malozemoff, Russia’s Far Eastern Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 49. Semennikov, Za Kulisami, xx. Diary entry by Aleksei Kuropatkin, September 22, 1899, RGVIA, f. 165, o. 1, d. 1889, l. 36. Closer to 1917, the chameleon-like Buriat assumed yet another guise, this time as an ally of Rasputin. Felix Yussupov claimed that Badmaev colluded with the monk’s quackery, covertly administering herbs and roots to the hemophiliac tsarevitch to induce hemorrhages, which Rasputin could then “cure” by administering a suitable antidote. See Victor Alexandrov, The End of the Romanovs (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), 118. Badmaev’s personal papers at GARF deal primarily with this period and contain little of interest about his activities before 1903. See GARF, f. 713, o. 1. See also Prince Esper Ukhtomskii’s correspondence with the emperor about the Buriat in GARF, f. 601, o. 1, d. 1370. Witte, memorandum, September 6, 1902, RGIA, f. 565, o. 8, d. 29/725, l. 9. Letter from Kaznakov to Kozlov, December 17, 1899, RGO, f. 18, o. 3, d. 265, l. 22. Kuropatkin’s lengthy memorandum of 1900 to the emperor about Russia’s strategic interests makes no mention of Tibet. See GARF, f. 601, o. 1, d. 445. Sbornik Geograficheskik, topograficheskikh, i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii (St. Petersburg: Voennaia tipografiia, 1883–1914). Tibet also merits scant mention in the compendium published by the Russian army’s local headquarters during the latter stages of the Great Game, Svedeniia kasaiushchiiasia stran, sopredelnykh s turkestanskim voennym okrugom (Tashkent: Staba Turkestanskogo voennogo okruga, 1897–1901). C. Nabokoff, “Russia and India” The Contemporary Review 130 (1926): 480. Great Britain. East India Office, Papers Relating to Tibet (London: HMSO, 1904), 113–14. East India Office, Papers, 117–18. A good biography is John Snelling, Buddhism in Russia (Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, 1993). Some very useful material may also be gleaned from the work of the St. Petersburg-based scholar, Aleksandr Ivanovich Andreev. See Andreev, The Buddhist Shrine of Petrograd (Ulan Ude: EcoArt Agency, 1992);

250

69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

90. 91.

Notes idem., “Agvan Dorzhiev’s Secret Work in Russia and Tibet,” Tibetan Review 28, no. 9 (September 1993): 11–14. Snelling, Buddhism, 1–10. See also Hans-Heinrich Nolte, Religiöse Toleranz in Rußland 1600–1725 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt Verlag, 1969), esp. 36–52. George Woodcock, Into Tibet: The Early British Explorers (London: Faber & Faber, 1971), 131. Rayfield, Dream, 207. A. Dorzhiev, “Autobiography,” n.d. (probably written in 1901), Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (AVPRI), f. 143, o. 491, d. 1448, l. 163. The ame document can also be found in RGIA, f. 560, o. 28, d. 64, ll. 11–15. Shaumian, Tibet, 23–24. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Memorandum, September 28, 1900, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1448, l. 2. Ministry of Foreign Affairs to V. B. Frederiks, ibid., l. 5. Dorzhiev, “Autobiography,” l. 164. Dalai Lama to Nicholas II, 1901, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1448, l. 70. Ivan Iakovlevich Korostovets, Von Chingis Khan zur Sowjetrepublik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1926), 208. There appear to be no records of such a conference either in AVPRI or RGVIA. Nicholas II to Dalai Lama, July 4, 1901, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1448, l. 100. Lamsdorf to Witte, confidential letter, July 18, 1901, RGIA, f. 560, o. 28, d. 64, l. 5; B. Rabdanov, “Travel Notes of a Pilgrim,” secret manuscript, December 20, 1903, AVPRI, f. 491, d. 1449, l. 99. Memorandum, November 1902, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1449, l. 31. B. Memorandum, July 2, 1901, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1449, l. 9. Rabdanov, “A year in Datsian-lu[Galdan],” manuscript, December 15, 1904, AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1449, l. 132. Addy, Tibet, 69. Lamb, British India, 251. Anthony Verrier, Francis Younghusband and the Great Game (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991), 175. Lamb, British India, 60. Lamb, British India, 252. Ulanov to Kuropatkin, memorandum, December 5, 1903, RGVIA, f. 447, o. 1, d. 77, l. 17. Aleksandr Andreev spotted a document in the Geographical Society’s archives that supports this mission as well: “On the English Military Expedition to Tibet and the English Position in Inner Asia,” memorandum, n.d. (Andreev estimates that it was written around November 1903), RGO, f. 18, o. 1, d. 40. Kuropatkin to Head of Main Staff, top-secret memorandum, January 3, 1904, RGVIA, f. 447, o. 1, d. 77, l. 25. Arash Bormanshinov, “A Secret Kalmyk Mission to Tibet in 1904” Central Asiatic Journal 36, nos. 3–4 (1992): 181. A fuller description is in A. I. Andreev, Ot Baikala do sviashchennoi Lkhassu (Samara: Agni, 1997), 9–60. For an account by a participant, see Danbo Ulianov, Predskazaniia Buddy o Dome Romanovykh (St. Petersburg: Tsentralnaia tipo-litografiia, 1913). A less-reliable retelling of this tale is given in Chapter 26 of E. M. Primakov, ed., Ocherkii istorii rossiiskoi

Notes

251

vneshnei razvedki, vol. 1 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyie otnosheniia, 1996), 183–91. 92. The June 6, 1906, conference was chaired by the foreign minister and included many key players, including Petr Semonov-Tian-Shanskii, who was the vice president of the Geographical Society, Prince Ukhtomskii, the Orientalists Aleksandr Pozneev and Sergei Oldenbourg, as well as the explorer Petr Kozlov. The tsar noted on the report “I approve” (“Odobriaiu”). “Report of the Conference of June 6, 1906, on Tibetan Affairs,” AVPRI, f. 143, o. 491, d. 1468, ll. 8–11. 93. Michael Edwards, Playing the Great Game (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975), viii.

Chapter 5 1. For a discussion of the impact of the abolition of purchase on the social composition of the army, see Hew Strachan, The Politics of the British Army (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 20–21. Strachan considers the role of purchase in guaranteeing an aristocratic officer corps to be overrated, insisting that the financial resources required for the purchase of commissions ensured that the ranks of the officer corps would be as, if not more likely to be stocked with the scions of new entrepreneurial wealth as of old aristocratic money. 2. For a useful analysis of the state of intelligence during the Crimean War, see Stephen Harris, British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War, 1854–1856 (London: Frank Cass, 1999). 3. National Archives of the United Kingdom (formerly Public Records Office), Kew, War Office 106/6151 (hereafter NAUK and WO)—Lord Edward Gleichen, “Lecture on Intelligence Duties in the Field,” March 15, 1908, 5. 4. Ibid., 4. 5. Brevet Lieut.-Col. David Henderson, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Field Intelligence: Its Principles and Practices (For Official Use Only) (London: HMSO, 1904). 6. NAUK, WO, 106/6151, 5. 7. For British intelligence efforts during the Boer War, see Jock Haswell, British Military Intelligence (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), Chapter 4; and Thomas G. Fergusson, British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914 (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1984), Chapter 6. 8. See Fergusson, 118. 9. NAUK, WO279/537—Evidence of Lieut.-General Sir T. Kelly-Kenny, December 8, 1902. Included in “Permanent Establishment of the Mobilisation and Intelligence Division,” Report of Lord Hardwicke’s Committee, March 1903, 45. 10. NAUK, WO279/537—Evidence of Lieut.-General Sir Ian Hamilton, December 8, 1902, included in Report of Lord Hardwicke’s Committee, 47. 11. Colonel C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (London: General Staff-War Office, 1906, reprinted 1909), 49 and 43, respectively. 12. NAUK, WO106/6149—Lt. Col. J. E. Edmonds, “Intelligence in European Warfare,” (Lecture), General Staff, January 1908, 5.

252

Notes

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Ibid., 5–6. Ibid., 2. NAUK, WO279/537—Evidence of Lieut.-General Sir T. Kelly-Kenny, 45. NAUK, HD3/124—“Secret Service in the Event of a European War,” 10. David Henderson, The Art of Reconnaissance (London: John Murray, 1907, 1914). Henderson, Field Intelligence, 3. Ibid., 4. Regulations for Intelligence Duties in the Field, War Office, 1904. NAUK, WO106/6149, 1. The proper methods for the preparation and style of intelligence reports were frequent themes for War Office and Indian Army publications. See Intelligence Corps Museum (hereafter I-Corps) #2082—“Notes with Regard to the Collection of Intelligence in Peace Time. (I) Memorandum on the preparation and Transmission of Intelligence Reports. (II) Organization and work of the Military Operations Directorate of the General Staff,” General Staff, War Office. April 1907. See also I-Corps #265—“Instructions for Intelligence Reports,” no date, issued under the orders of the Quarter Master General in India, Intelligence Branch. Regulations, 11–13. Henderson, Field Intelligence, 6. Ibid., 4–5. In 1913, the War Office provided for the establishment of a formal Intelligence Corps, in contrast to the ad hoc corps that the War Office had advocated in its 1904 Regulations for Intelligence Duties in the Field, 11. Under the terms outlined in 1913, the Intelligence Corps would be comprised of personnel encompassing all branches of the military, who would have unit affiliations, but would be solely responsible for intelligence duties within those units. See Arthur Swinson, ed., A Register of the Regiments and Corps of the British Army (London: The Archive Press, 1972), 310. For the reports on the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course, see I-Corps #2082—Report on the Eastern Command Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course, April 1907; I-Corps #608—Report on the Eastern Command Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course, April 1908. Part I. General Staff, War Office, February 18, 1909. NAUK, WO106/6148—Captain C. H. G. Black, 34th Horse, “Secret Service,” lecture delivered at Staff College, Quetta. For a comparison of the distinct needs of wartime versus peacetime intelligence work in India, see the material in the India Office Library (hereafter IO), L/MIL/17/11/47—Introductory Lecture by Director, Colonel A. H. Bingley, Report on Intelligence Exercise, Army Headquarters, India, 1913, General Staff India. IO, L/MIL/7/7810—Reorganisation of Intelligence Branch and Mobilisation Section of QMG’s Dept. Telegram to Viceroy, March 31, 1903. NAUK, WO106/6150—Colonel J. A. L. Haldane, “Japanese and Russian Intelligence Systems,” March 1909, 2–3. Ibid., 9–10.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

Notes 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

253 Ibid., 36–37. NAUK, WO106/6149, 20–21. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 20. NAUK, HD3/124, 10. NAUK, WO106/6151, 1. Ibid., 2, 9–10; quote from NAUK, WO106/6149, 7. NAUK, WO106/6151, 11. Ibid., 5, 37. IO, L/MIL/17/11/47. NAUK, WO106/6151, 12. I-Corps #608, 3. I-Corps #608, 4. IO, L/MIL/17/11/47, 1. NAUK, WO106/6148, 16.

Chapter 6 1. Sir Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (London: Brassey’s, 1988). Original edition: London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1911. 2. For the orthodox view of British Far Eastern naval strategy, see Arthur J. Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); Paul Haggie, Britannia At Bay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); Ian Hamill, The Strategic Illusion (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981); and Malcolm Murfett, ‘Living in the Past: a Critical Re-examination of the Singapore Naval Strategy, 1918– 1941, War and Society 9, no. 1 (May 1993): 73–103. Christopher M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy Between the Wars (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000) offers a revisionist interpretation. 3. On British plans for operating from Hong Kong see Christopher M. Bell, “‘Our Most Exposed Outpost’: Hong Kong and British Far Eastern Strategy, 1921–1941,” Journal of Military History 60, no. 1 ( January, 1996): 61–88. 4. War Memorandum (Eastern), July 1931, Admiralty records (hereafter ADM) 116/3118, National Archives of the United Kingdom (formerly the Public Record Office, hereafter NAUK), Kew. 5. In 1925, for example, the Plans Division considered the details of the building program that would be implemented on the outbreak of war with Japan. The minimum new construction it regarded as essential, including any vessels building at the time, was: Capital ships, 7; aircraft carriers, 2; cruisers, 30; destroyers, 40; submarines, 32; depot ships, 2; minesweepers and antisubmarine vessels, as many as possible. These calculations were based on its estimate of the strength required to ensure the defeat of Japan and leave the Royal Navy equal in strength to the United States Navy at the end of the war. Plans division memorandum, “Shipbuilding Policy in War,” May 8, 1925, ADM 116/3747, NAUK.

254

Notes

6. Captain Colvin, “Report No. 12 of 1922,” May 19, 1922, FO 371/8051, NAUK. See also “Japan, Annual Report, 1922,” March 26, 1923, FO 371/ 9233, NAUK. 7. ATB 89, “Dependence on Overseas Trade and the Possibilities of the Exercise of Naval Pressure on such trade: memorandum prepared in the Plans Division, March 1929, for the Advisory Committee on Trade Questions in Time of War,” Cabinet Office records (hereafter CAB) 47/4, NAUK. 8. Ibid. 9. War Memorandum (Eastern), July 1931, ADM 116/3118, NAUK. On the evolution of naval war plans during the 1920s, see also Christopher M. Bell, “‘How are we going to make war?’: Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond and British Far Eastern War Plans,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 20, no. 3 (September 1997): 123–41. 10. Ibid. 11. War Memorandum (Eastern), July 1931, ADM 116/3118, NAUK. 12. Ibid. 13. Bell, “Our Most Exposed Outpost,” 68–75. 14. COS 132nd Mtg, July 24, 1934, CAB 53/5; COS 347, NAUK; “Strategic Position in the Far East with Particular Reference to Hong Kong and Air Requirements for the Far East,” October 29, 1934, CAB 53/24, NAUK. 15. COS 579 ( JP), May 7, 1937, CAB 53/31. This appreciation was revised and reissued as COS 596, ”Appreciation of the Situation in the Far East, 1937,” June 14, 1937, CAB 53/32, NAUK. 16. See the IIC Paper ICF/448, “Japan: General Survey of Material Resources & Industry in their Bearing Upon National War Potential,” November 2, 1936, AWM 124 (3/139). On the IIC, see Robert J. Young, “Spokesmen for Economic Warfare: The Industrial Intelligence Centre in the 1930s,” European Studies Review 6 (1976): 59–80. 17. IIC Paper ICF/448, [Australian War Memorial] AWM 124 (3/139). 18. Materials for which Japan would probably have to rely on imports included iron and ferro-alloys, nonferrous metals, textile raw materials, petroleum, rubber, coking coal, salt and certain varieties of timber. COS ( JP) 579, CAB 53/31, NAUK. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. On the methods planners intended to adopt in a future war and the lessons they derived from Britain’s experiences with economic warfare in the First World War, see W. N. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade, vol. I (London: HMSO, 1952), Introduction. 22. Naval War Memorandum (Eastern), ADM 116/4393, NAUK. The first sections of this document were issued in December 1937 and new sections were added regularly until February 1939. 23. For examples of those who ignored it, see Murfett, “Living in the Past”; and Russell Grenfell, Main Fleet to Singapore (London: Faber and Faber, 1951). For those who did not thoroughly examine the planners’ economic assumptions, see Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars (London: Collins, 1968 and 1976); and Neidpath, Singapore Naval Base; Marder, Old Friends, 62–65.

Notes

255

24. Wesley K. Wark, “In Search of a Suitable Japan: British Naval Intelligence in the Pacific before the Second World War,” Intelligence and National Security, 1, 2, (1986): 189–211; and Haggie, Britannia, 108–9, 117–20. 25. See, for example, the NID memoranda of September 15, 1932, and January 20, 1933, “Japanese Recent Abnormal Activities,” ADM 116/3116, NAUK. 26. Key indicators included ships being fitted out as transports, berths at wharves with railway lines being kept free, refusal of docking facilities to foreign merchant vessels, closing of docks to the public, and so on. See the “List of subjects in regard to which information should be supplied by HM’s Consular officers in Japan to HM’s Embassy, Tokyo, especially in times of crisis,” document distributed by the Ambassador in Tokyo in January 1934, FO 371/18187, NAUK. 27. John R. Ferris, ‘A British ‘Unofficial’ Aviation Mission and Japanese Naval Developments, 1919-29’, Journal of Strategic Studies 5, no. 3 (1982): 416–39. 28. Captain Vivian to DNI, undated private letter accompanying Vivian’s memorandum of 18 February 1935, ADM 116/3862, NAUK. The problems confronting intelligence-gatherers in Japan are discussed in Marder, Old Friends, and Geoffrey Till, “Perceptions of Naval Power Between the Wars: The British Case,” Estimating Foreign Military Power, ed. Peter Towle (London: Croom Helm, 1982): 172–93. 29. On American assessments of the Japanese navy during this period, see Thomas G. Mahnken, “Gazing at the Sun: The Office of Naval Intelligence and Japanese Naval Innovation, 1918–1941,” Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 3 ( July 1996): 424–41; Malcolm Muir, Jr., “Rearming in a Vacuum: United States Navy Intelligence and the Japanese Capital Ship Threat, 1936–1945,” Journal of Military History 54, no. 4 (October 1990): 473–85. 30. On ethnocentrism and its effect on assessments of Japan, see in particular Ferris, "A British ‘Unofficial’ Aviation Mission”; idem, “‘Worthy of Some Better Enemy?’: The British Estimate of the Imperial Japanese Army 1919–41, and the Fall of Singapore,” Canadian Journal of History 28 (August 1993): 223–56; Marder, Old Friends; Wark, “In Search of a Suitable Japan.” 31. Wark, “In Search of a Suitable Japan.” 32. See DRC (Defence Requirements Committee) 18th Mtg, October 14, 1935, and DRC 33, “Naval Defence Requirements,” memorandum by the First Sea Lord, October 9, 1935, CAB 16/112, NAUK. 33. This fleet might have been increased by retaining overage battleships after new ones had been completed, but because the Japanese could do the same, this would not necessarily result in any relative gain for Britain. 34. The minutes in ADM 116/3735 (NAUK) illustrate this concern. See also Lord Chatfield, It Might Happen Again (London: Heinemann, 1947), Chapter17; Roskill, Naval Policy, vol. II, 220–21, 279–80, 328. 35. Norman Davis to the U.S. Secretary of State, April 16, 1937, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1937, vol. I (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1954), 626. 36. Chatfield minute, May 26, 1938, ADM 116/3735, NAUK. 37. See the Admiralty memorandum “Size of Japanese Ships,” January 6, 1938, ADM 116/3735, NAUK. 38. Minute of May 18, 1938, ADM 116/3735, NAUK. 39. See Marder, Old Friends; Wark, “In Search of a Suitable Japan.”

256

Notes

40. See especially Till, “Perceptions of Naval Power Between the Wars,” and Marder, Old Friends, Chapter 12. On the failure to anticipate Japanese proficiency in night fighting see also Bruce Loxton, The Shame of Savo: Anatomy of a Naval Disaster (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994). 41. Wark, “In Search of a Suitable Japan,” 206–7. “Force Z” was the code name given to the Prince of Wales, Repulse, and their destroyer escort when they sailed from Singapore on December 8, 1941. 42. Christopher M. Bell, “The ‘Singapore Strategy’ and the Deterrence of Japan: Churchill, the Admiralty and the Dispatch of Force Z,” English Historical Review 116, no. 467 ( June 2001): 604–34. 43. ADM 116/4393, NAUK. 44. CID (Committee of Imperial Defence) 348th Mtg, February 24, 1939, CAB 2/ 8, NAUK. 45. War Memorandum (Eastern), Section XVI, revised August 1939, ADM 1/9767; COS 931, “Situation in the Far East,” CAB 53/50. It is worth noting, however, that when the 80 percent rating first appeared, it was applied not to the IJN’s fighting efficiency, but only to its maintenance efficiency. See COS 303rd Mtg, June 19, 1939, CAB 53/11, NAUK. 46. “Extract from a private letter to DNI from NA Tokyo,” no date, ADM 116/ 3862, NAUK. 47. Memorandum by Captain Vivian, February 18, 1935, ADM 116/3862, NAUK. 48. Minute by Chatfield, June 29, 1935, ADM 116/3862, NAUK. 49. Memorandum by the DNI, June 20, 1935, ADM 116/3862, NAUK. 50. Minute by Admiral R. G. H. Henderson, July 5, 1935, ADM 116/3682, NAUK. 51. Davis to Captain Stephen Roskill, April 16, 1975, ROSK 4/79, Roskill Papers, Churchill College Archives Centre, Cambridge. 52. I would like to thank John Ferris for his assistance in the preparation of this chapter.

Chapter 7 1. V. Suvorov, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990). 2. “Konets global’noi lzhi,” Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal (1996) no. 2, 2–14; no. 3, 4–17; no. 4, 2–17; no. 5, 2–15; no. 6, 2–7. 3. Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); see also his Mif ‘Ledokola’: Nakanune voiny (Moscow: Progress-Akademiia, 1995). 4. David Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998). 5. Iu. A. Gor’kov and Iu. N. Semin, “O kharaktere voenno-operativnykh planov SSSR nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny: Novye arkhivnye dokumenty,” Novaia i Noveishchaia Istoriia no. 5 (1997): 109–11; Gorodetsky, 238–39. 6. Ibid. 7. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 208–10; V. A. Nevezhin, “Rech Stalina 5 maia 1941 goda i apologiia nastupitel’noi voiny,” Otechestvennaia Istoriia no. 2 (1995): 54–66.

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8. M. I. Meltiukhov, “Ideologicheskie dokumenty maia-iiunia 1941 goda o sobytiiakh vtoroi mirovoi voiny,” Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 2 (1995): 70–85, quote from 82. 9. V. I. Chukreev, “Zagadka 22 iiunia 1941 g,” Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal no. 6 (1989): 37. 10. Sekrety Gitlera na stole u Stalina (Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 1995). 11. For the permutations of Russia’s intelligence services, see Amy Knight, Spies without Cloaks: The KGB’s Successors (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). 12. Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine, vol. 1, bk. 2, January 21 to June 21, 1941 (Moscow: Kniga i Biznes, 1995). 13. Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, vol. 3 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniia, 1997). 14. Before proceeding further, a few words on the structure of Soviet intelligence are in order. Until February 3, 1941, intelligence, counterintelligence, and security matters were handled by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). At that point, however, responsibility for foreign intelligence, domestic counterintelligence, and security of party and state leaders was split off from the NKVD and handed over to a newly created People’s Commissariat of State Security (NKGB). The NKVD maintained control over border security, and thus retained some intelligence role after February 1941. Naturally, the Red Army maintained an independent intelligence capability through the General Staff’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). 15. See, for example, A. G. Pavlov, “Voennaia razvedka SSSR v 1941–1945gg,” Novaia i Noveishchaia Istoriia no. 2 (1995): 27–28; also the introduction to Sekrety Gitlera, 8–9. 16. Ocherki, 66, 231. 17. Ocherki, 329. 18. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 85, 89. 19. Pavlov, “Voennaia razvedka,” 26. 20. Kuznetsov to Stalin, May 6, 1941, “Voennye razvedchiki dokladyvali,” VoennoIstoricheskii Zhurnal no. 2 (1992): 39. 21. Ocherki, 262. 22. Ocherki, 262, 291–94. 23. Organy, doc. 273, 286–96; Ocherki, 432; and doc. 19, 487–88. 24. Pavlov, “Voennaia razvedka,” 26–27. 25. Pavlov, “Vneshniaia razvedka,” 26; see June 20, 1941, reports from the NKVD Border Troops: Organy, doc. 266, 270–8. 26. See, for example, Strokach (NKVD Ukraine) of June 16 and June 17, and Tsanava (NKGB Belorussia) of June 19: Organy, docs. 252, 256, and 259, 239, 251–52, and 254–64. Also, May 5, 1941, report by Golikov (head of GRU) in “Voennye razvedchiki,” 39. 27. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 51–52; Ocherki 347–48, 422; Sekrety 14–15; Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 255–56. 28. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 38. A small excerpt from this has been published. See Berlin Attaché to Director GRU, December 29, 1940: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 36.

258

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29. In addition to the discussion below concerning published information, see also Gorodetsky, 130–36, citing archival documents unavailable to other Western historians. 30. Berlin residency to NKGB by February 8, 1941, Organy, doc. 153, 30–31; Berlin residency report, by March 6, 1941, ibid., doc. 160, 44–45. 31. Starshina report before April 9, 1941, Organy, doc. 173, 70–73; April 30, 1941, Starshina report included in ibid., doc. 195, pages 122–23, “Voennye razvedchiki dokladyvali,” 38, and Sekrety, doc. 15, 60–62, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, ll. 1028–30; June 11, 1941, Starshina report, Organy, doc. 241, 219–20, also in Ocherki, doc. 18, 486–87; June 16, 1941, Berlin residency to Moscow, Organy, doc. 250, 236–37, also in Ocherki, doc. 251, 237–38, and Sekrety, doc. 72, 161–63, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, ll. 1914–16. 32. Sorge to GRU, May 30, 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 41. 33. Ocherki, 69. 34. Belgrade attaché to GRU, March 9, 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 37. 35. Merkulov (NKGB) to Central Committee, Council of People’s Commissars, Defense, Internal Affairs, May 5, 1941: Organy, doc. 200, 134–6, and Sekrety, doc. 21, 71, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, ll. 1164–67. 36. Bucharest attaché to GRU, May 28, 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 40. 37. Kobulov (NKGB) to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, June 6, 1941: Sekrety, doc. 62, 142–43, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op 8, d. 58, ll. 1765–67. 38. Ocherki, 172, 213. 39. May 14 (Merkulov), June 18 (Merkulov), and June 19 (Kobulov) 1941, reports to Stalin, Molotov, Beria, in Sekrety, doc. 34, 97–98; doc. 73, 163–66; doc. 75, 168–69, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d., 57, ll. 1287–88; ibid., d. 58, ll. 1945–8; ibid., 1968–69. 40. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 41. 41. On this last, see Gorodetsky, 134–35, 180. 42. Berlin to Fitin (1st Dir NKGB), relayed to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, March 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 37. 43. Fitin (1st Directorate NKGB) to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, and Beria, March 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 37. 44. Ukrainian NKVD report on situation in Poland, April 30, 1941: Organy, doc. 196, 123–7, also in Sekrety, doc. 7, 40–45, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 59, ll. 152–9; Fitin to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, April 30, 1941: “Voennye razvedchiki,” 38. 45. Two reports from Merkulov to TsK, SNK, and NKVD, April 22, 1941: Sekrety, docs. 4 and 5, 31–34, citing TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, ll. 789–91; and ibid., ll. 792–95. 46. Merkulov to TsK, SNK, NKO, and NKVD, May 1, 1941: Ocherki, doc. 11, 476–77, and Sekrety, doc. 16, 62–64, both citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, l. 1037–40. 47. Merkulov to TsK, SNK, and NKVD, May 5, 1941: Sekrety, doc. 18, 65–66; also Ocherki, doc. 12, 478, both citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, ll. 1157–59; see also Ocherki, 454. 48. Merkulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, May 14, 1941, and Fitin report: Ocherki, doc. 14, 480–81, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 57, ll. 1277–80, also in Sekrety, doc. 36, 102–04; Ocherki, 454.

Notes

259

49. Merkulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, May 19, 1941 (passing on Fitin report): Ocherki, doc. 15, 482–83, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 57, ll. 1373–77. 50. Merkulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, May 25, 1941: Ocherki, doc. 16, 483–85; and Sekrety, doc. 51, 124–27, both citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 57, ll. 1500–04. 51. Fitin report relayed by Deputy NKGB Kobulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, June 9, 1941: Sekrety, doc. 65, 148–50, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, ll. 1841–45. 52. Merkulov to TsK, SNK, NKO, and NKVD, April 24, 1941, relaying Sudoplatov report from Starshina, April 17, 1941: Sekrety, doc. 6, 34–37, citing TsA FSB, f. 3os, op. 8, d. 56, ll. 886–90. 53. Fitin report through Kobulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, June 11, 1941: Sekrety, doc. 67, 151–53, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 58, ll. 1847–50; Sudoplatov report through Kobulov to Stalin, Molotov, Beria, and Timoshenko, June 13, 1941; ibid., doc. 70, 156–57, citing ibid., ll. 1861–62. 54. Merkulov to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria, May 14, 1941, relaying May 10 report: Sekrety, doc. 33, 86–87, citing TsA FSB f. 3os, op. 8, d. 57, ll. 1271–73. 55. Mel’tiukhov, “Ideologicheskie dokumenty,” 74. 56. Ocherki, 446, 458–60; Sekrety, 11–12; Andrew and Mitrokhin, 54; Gorodetsky, 54. 57. Ocherki, 460.

Chapter 8 1. See G. Kennan. “Reflections on Containment,” in Containing the Soviet Union: A Critique of U.S. Policy, ed. T. Diebel and J. L. Gaddis (London: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1987), 15–19. Kennan is describing his own view of containment and in the year 1946. The political origins of the Cold War are discussed in such works as J. L. Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972); idem, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997); and M. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992). The reasons for Britain’s entry into the Cold War are discussed in such books as V. Rothwell, Britain and the Cold War, 1941–47 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982); A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951 (London: Heinemann, 1983); and A. Deighton, The Impossible Peace: Britain, the Division of Germany and the Origins of the Cold War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 2. M. Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939–45 (London: Macmillan, 1964), 297–319. 3. M. Uhl, “Stalins V-2,” Osteuropa 51, no. 7 (2001): 863. 4. “A History of ‘T’ Force,” FO 1031/49, National Archives, London (hereafter, all cited files are held at Britain’s National Archives, unless otherwise stated). “T” stood for “Target.” CIOS scientific intelligence teams were soon supplemented by British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (BIOS) teams that did the same work in Britain’s interest alone. Some priceless finds were made. For

260

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Notes instance, when Kiel fell, Allied forces not only overran the great Waltherwerke, but also captured Helmuth Walther himself. Although he had burned all his records, he had microfilmed the most important of them. A prototype of his greatest creation, a Type XXVI hydrogen-peroxide–powered submarine capable of twenty-five knots underwater, was found in the works. Minutes of BIOS meeting, September 12, 1945, FO 1031/50. Letter from Maj. E. C. Malet-Warden, FIAT Forward, to Chief, FIAT Main (British), Appendix B2, December 18,1946, FO 1031/68; directive GBI/FIAT/ 322-17, June 1945, FO 1031/69; and letters from Lt.-Col. P. M. Wilson, Head, EPES, FIAT (British) to Chief, FIAT (British), July 23, 1946, and August 10, 1946, FO 1031/75. “Proposed Functions of Intelligence Staffs at FIAT Liaison Offices in Berlin & Vienna,” brief, August 14, 1946, FO 1031/59; Deputy Chiefs of Staff Committee on “Russian Enticement of German Scientists and Technicians,” précis attached to a November 21, 1946, letter from Permanent Secretary, Control Office for Germany and Austria, to Acting Deputy Military Governor, FO 1032/251A. R. V. Jones, introduction to S. Goudsmit, Alsos, 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: Tomash Publishers, 1983), xvii. CIOS Evaluation Report 26, May 21, 1945, FO 1031/81; letter from Major E. Tilley to Lt.-Col. D. J. Nielson, October 22, 1945, ibid. Specifically, nerve gases attack the enzyme cholesterase, which is essential to nerve function. The code names given to the two principal nerve gases invented by Gerhard Schrader were legion. The gas generally known as tabun was first synthesized late in 1936, and was originally code-named Le-100 (for Leverkusen-100) and also had the code names Gelan, Trilon-83, T-83, and P-100. Sarin, first synthesized in 1938, was variously known by that name and as Le-213, Trilon-146, and T146. Tabun is the ethyl ester of dimethylaminocyanphosphoric acid; sarin the isopropyl ester of methylfluorophosphoric acid. See the abstract from “Notes on Interrogations at Frankfurt: 21 April–4 May 1945,” May 18, 1945, FO 1031/ 81; see also a letter from Tilley to Wilson, September 18, 1945, ibid. Also illuminating are: another report of September 26, 1945, FO 1031/82; and the reports made on the interrogations of Dr. Gerhard Schrader, FO 1031/239. Ulrich Albrecht and Randolph Nikutta state that sarin is six times as toxic as tabun and soman three times as toxic as sarin, in their work Die Sowjetische Rüstungsindustrie (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1989), 75. Overall, Schrader synthesized some 400 organic phosphorus compounds. Control Council Law No. 9, November 30, 1945, in Documents on Germany under Occupation 1945–54, ed. B. Ruhm von Oppen (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 91–92. M. Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 44–51, 149–52, 156, 173–75; Jones, introduction to Goudsmit’s Alsos, xii. Alsos report on the interrogation of Prof. H. Kliewe, May 13, 1945, attached to letter from Lt.-Col. G. Eckman to Assistant Chief of Staff [hereafter, ACS], May 25, 1945, FO 1031/83; Alsos report, June 25, 1945, attached to letter from Eckman to ACS, June 24, 1945, FO 1031/83. Report from Wilson to Chief FIAT (Br.), November 9, 1946; report from Chief, FIAT (Br.), to Office of the ACS, December 2, 1946, G-2, USFET, FO 1031/69.

Notes

261

14. Letter from Lt.-Col. A. Vaughan-Jones to Library & Documents Centre, Intelligence Division, August 8, 1946, FO 1031/26. 15. Periodic State Report No. 43, March 21, 1946, FO 1031/70; Walker, German National Socialism, 88, 130. 16. A. Price, Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare (London: Kimber, 1967), 60, 64. 17. These and many other arrivals and departures are recorded in the Periodic State Reports in FO 1031/52. Gerhard Schrader was taken into Dustbin in August 1945 and not released until May 1946 (Periodic State Report No. 47, April 25, 1946, FO 1031/70). He wrote nine reports on his organic phosphorus compound insecticides during his time in the center. News of the invention of the nerve gases must have come as an unpleasant shock to some British military planners, who had only two months earlier believed that there would be no developments in chemical warfare beyond the level of advancement known to the British during the war. See the Tizard Committee draft report, attached to a cover letter, February 19, 1945, CAB 137/19; the Tizard committee was charged in 1945 with predicting what developments would take place in weapons and methods of warfare over the following ten years. This statement did not appear in the report actually submitted in June 1945 [“Future Developments in Weapons and Methods of War,” June 16, 1945, COS(45)402(0), CAB 80/94]. By contrast, T. Bower maintains that the British suspected during the war that the Germans had developed new poison gases. See Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy (London: Michael Joseph, 1987), 90. 18. F. I. Ordway III and M. R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (London: Heinemann, 1979), 1–11; Goudsmit, Alsos, 123. 19. Letter from Wilson to Chief, FIAT (Br.), August 14, 1946; and EPES, FIAT report of same date appended to it as Appendix B; memorandum from Maj. C. S. Weaver and Lt.-Col. N. D. Crane, Signal Corps, for Chief, FIAT (US), March 1, 1946, FO 1031/67; DCOS minutes, October 22, 1946, CAB 82/8. 20. Ruhm von Oppen, ed., Documents, 42–44. 21. Articles II and III, Control Council Law No. 25: Control of Scientific Research, April 29, 1946, in Ruhm von Oppen, ed., Documents, 132; Dr. B. K. Blount, “The Work and Future Policy of Research Branch,” report attached to letter from President, Economic Subcommission, to Foreign Office (German Section), June 9, 1948, FO 371/71040. 22. “A Study of the Soviet Guided Missile Programme: Joint Anglo–American Conference,” Appendix C, para. 19, and Appendix D, para. 75, DEFE 41/160. 23. “Rabe” stood for “Raketenbau und Entwicklung” (Missile Construction and Development). 24. “A Study of the Soviet Guided Missile Programme,” Appendix A, paras. 1–2, 15, 19–26, and 28. 25. Ibid., Appendix P, para. 11; and “Study of Soviet Guided Weapons,” Section C, para. 38, DSI/JTIC(52)18, DEFE 10/499. 26. U. Albrecht et al., Die Spezialisten: Deutsche Naturwissenschaftler und Techniker in der Sowjetunion nach 1945 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1992), 124; N. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1995), 215.

262

Notes

27. TS/STRB/P(46)17 (Amended), attached to a letter from the President, Economic Sub-commission, to the Deputy Military Governor, March 7, 1947, FO 1032/251B. Emphasis added. 28. D. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: the Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 144–49. 29. “A Study of the Soviet Guided Missile Programme,” Appendix D, paras. 78–81. 30. Economic Information Section, CCG, “Russian-controlled Research Activities in Berlin and the Soviet Zone,” reports from July 19, 1946, and September 6, 1946, FO 371/55906. 31. JIC, “Evidence of Russia’s Contravention of the Potsdam Agreement,” June 27, 1946, JIC(46)61(0), CAB 81/133. 32. JIC, “Russian Attempts to entice German scientists and technicians from the British Zone of Germany,” para. 3, July 2, 1946, JIC(46)51(0), CAB 81/133. 33. C. M. Andrew and O. Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), 258, 307–13. The GRU was the Soviet army’s intelligence staff; the NKGB (from 1946, the MGB) the Soviet intelligence and security service. 34. D. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 107, 138, 222, 295–97. 35. R. L. Benson and M. Warner, eds., introduction to Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939–57 (Washington, DC: CIA, 1996), xix, xxv, xxvi; and J. Albright and M. Kunstel, Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy (New York: Times Books, 1997), 122–27. 36. D. Reynolds, Britannia Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century (London: Longman, 1991), 157–58; and V. Zubok and C. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (London: Harvard University Press, 1996), 92–93, 98. 37. JIC, “Soviet Interests, Intentions and Capabilities,” paras. 145, 271, 275, August 6, 1947, JIC(46)7/2, CAB 158/1; and G. Heydemann, “Ein deutsches Sowjetrußland? Zur britischen Beurteilung der Entwicklung in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone,” in Großbritannien und Ostdeutschland seit 1918, ed. A. M. Birke and G. Heydemann, 81–92 (München: K. G. Saur Verlag, 1992). 38. Albrecht et al., Die Spezialisten, 176–78; N. Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 168, 183, 225. The British, in the months leading up to Osoaviakhim, had been planning a diplomatic campaign against the Soviet exploitation of German war-related science. Bernard Burrows, of the German Section of the Foreign Office, wrote to Christopher Steel of Political Branch in Berlin in August 1946, stating that some of the intelligence that had been sent to London on Soviet armaments projects would be useful in the “gradual campaign which we intend to run about Russian breaches of the Potsdam Agreement” (letter from Burrows to Steel, August 16, 1946, FO 371/55906). 39. Economic Information Section, CCG, “Russian-Controlled Research Activities in Berlin and the Soviet Zone,” para. 17, July 19, 1946, FO 371/55906. 40. FIAT, Special Intelligence Report No. 2 (October 1, 1946, to November 5, 1946), list 2 (November 14, 1946), FO 1031/59; FIAT Forward, “Periodic Intelligence Report No. 4,” October 28, 1946, ibid.; and Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 222. In “Report No. 4,” FIAT Forward’s American intelligence

Notes

41.

42.

43.

44.

45. 46.

47.

263 officer, F. J. Biermann, expressed the view just after the operation that few scientists much sought after by FIAT had been lost to it. B. Ciesla, “Der Spezialistentransfer in die USSR and seine Auswirkungen in der SBZ and DDR,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B 49–50/93 (December 3, 1993): 24, 26. The first deportation of a substantial number of German scientific workers had occurred between May and November 1945, when scientists, engineers, and technicians involved in the German atomic program were taken to the USSR; there was a further deportation of some 30 or 40 scientists, mostly chemists and chemical engineers, in 1947–48 (Albrecht et al., Die Spezialisten, 176, 12). STIB Director, notes for the MI10 Technical Intelligence Conference for Assistant Military Attachés, June 1951, DEFE 41/125. The British took intelligence from the deportees on their return to Germany in the 1950s. On this question, see my Ph. D. thesis: “Britain’s Exploitation of Occupied Germany for Scientific and Technical Intelligence on the Soviet Union” (PhD, Cambridge University, 1999) and my forthcoming book, “Scientific Containment: Western Scientific Intelligence in Divided Germany, 1945–1961” (Oxford University Press, 2005), Chapter 1. A. W. Bechter, Special Reports Branch memorandum, October 24, 1947, FO 1032/246; “A Study of the Soviet Guided Missile Programme,” Appendix D, para. 82; and JIC, “Soviet Interests, Intentions and Capabilities,” para. 46. F. J. Biermann, 1st Lt. MI, Periodic Intelligence Reports from Chief, Scientific Section, to Chief FIAT (US), No. 2 (August 6, 1946) and No. 3 (September 9, 1946); FIAT, Special Intelligence Report No. 2, October 1, 1946, to November 5, 1946; Naimark, The Russians in Germany, 217–19. See also T. Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy, 138–40. By early January 1947, some 150 scientists, engineers, and technicians had either applied for evacuation to the BOZ or for employment with the British military government [report from Wilson to Chief, FIAT (Br.), January 9, 1947, FO 1031/67]. DCOS minutes, October 22, 1946, CAB 82/8. Letter from Malet-Warden to Chief, FIAT Main (Br.), Appendix B2, December 18, 1946, FO 1031/68. Whether the aim was to benefit British science or to deny scientific workers to the Soviets, until September 1, 1947, identifying, locating, contacting, and extracting targets from the SOZ were all tasks for the British section of FIAT’s Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section. Its denial operations it performed at the direction of JS/JTIC. On September 1, 1947, the intelligence functions (such as Matchbox) of EPES, FIAT, were separated from its exploitation functions and handed over to the Berlin Intelligence Staff (letter from MaletWarden to “T” Force HQ et al., November 26, 1947, FO 1031/68). But its exploitation of German science continued. Letters between Wilson and Malet-Warden, May 15, 1946; May 24, 1946; May 31, 1946; and July 29, 1946, FO 1031/59. Gröttrup’s importance led the Ministry of Supply to request that EPES, FIAT (Br.) acquire his services. His name was accordingly placed on the DCOS list of targets. Gröttrup was so important that he would be closely watched, so the enticement attempt was made with a letter. The recruitment was unsuccessful because Gröttrup told Soviet intelligence of the attempt. The Soviets told Gröttrup to arrange a meeting in Berlin with the enticer. Fearing a kidnap attempt, the FIAT Forward office decided to abandon its efforts. He finally came West of his own accord in December 1953.

264

Notes

48. “Attachment of Personnel of Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section to FIAT Forward (British),” memorandum, August 14, 1946; “Proposed Functions of Intelligence Staffs at FIAT Liaison Offices in Berlin & Vienna,” brief, August 14, 1946; letter from Malet-Warden to EPES, FIAT Main (Br.), October 4, 1946, FO 1031/59; Special Intelligence Report No. 3, January 1–31, 1947, FO 1031/60; and letter from Wilson to EPES, FIAT (US), July 30, 1946, FO 1031/63. 49. Top Secret Matchbox Directive, January 10, 1947, DEFE 41/122; letter from G. Jenkins, Permanent Secretary, COGA, to Lt.-Gen. Sir Brian Robertson, HQ CCG(BE), January 6, 1947, FO 1032/251B. British companies, on their own initiative, enticed German scientific workers to leave the SOZ and come to Britain to work for them ( JIC-Germany minutes, November 8, 1949, DEFE 41/64). Operation Matchbox is briefly summarized in my article, “La Pénétration de la Zone Soviétique de l’Allemagne et de l’Union Soviétique par les Services de Renseignement Britanniques, 1945–1955,” in Renseignement et Propagande pendant la Guerre Froide (1947–1953), ed. J. Delmas and J. Kessler (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1999), 153–72. 50. JS/JTIC minutes, March 30, 1949, DEFE 10/493; and Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950, attached to STIB/6003/19/7456, October 31, 1950, DEFE 41/132. 51. Letter from C. R. S. Manders, MI16, to Chairman, JS/JTIC, August 12, 1948, DEFE 41/130. Manders, of the War Office’s scientific intelligence section, also confirms that when a factory was sent back to Germany from the USSR, British intelligence realized that it was of importance to the Soviets, with the result that it became a target for Matchbox evacuation operations. He concluded that, “For deciding top useful factories and personnel we appear to be dependent upon Russian choice.” 52. JS/JTIC minutes, June 1, 1949, DEFE 10/493; JIC-Germany, Coordinating Committee minutes, October 20, 1947, DEFE 41/68. The two committees represented the scientific and technical intelligence sections of the Service Ministries, MI6, the Joint Intelligence Bureau, and the Ministry of Supply and acted as the Joint Intelligence Committee’s advisers on scientific and technical questions. They were often known during their lifetime as the “Joint Committees.” The sections which made up the Joint Scientific Intelligence Committee were in 1950 fused to form the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence. The Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) of Intelligence Division of the Control Commission for Germany (British Element), established in 1946, was the Joint Committees’ advance unit in Germany. 53. STIB, Production Directorate liaison meeting minutes, August 21, 1948, DEFE 41/82; memorandum from STIB to Secretariat, HQ Int. Div., August 18, 1949, DEFE 41/48. 54. Restricted Matchbox Directive, January 10, 1947, DEFE 41/122. 55. JIC-Germany minutes, February 13, 1951, DEFE 41/66. The idea of keeping scientific workers in the Western zones of Germany by retaining them as consultants may well have been suggested first by American officers attached to FIAT. The U.S. had evacuated engineers and technicians from central Germany in June 1945, so it already had experience of the difficulty of keeping unemployed, unhappy scientists in the West. The proposal to establish a “FIAT

Notes

56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

63. 64.

65.

66.

265 Technical Institute” supports this idea. See the memorandum from Maj. C. S. Weaver and Lt.-Col. N. D. Crane, Signals Corps, to Chief FIAT (US), March 1, 1946, FO 1031/67. BIOS also lobbied for the establishment of a “scientific and technical exploitation centre” [letter from Wilson to Chief, FIAT (Br.), May 22, 1946, FO 1031/75]. DSI/JTIC(51)1, January 3, 1951, DEFE 10/498. “Entwicklung des VEB Optik Jenaer Glaswerk u. Gen., Jena,” report, October 16, 1952, DY 30 IV/2/202/62, SAPMO-Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde. Cipher message, November 27, 1946, FO 1032/251A; and Top Secret Matchbox Directive, January 10, 1947. Report ADI (Tech.)/389/50, March 10, 1950, DEFE 41/132. Letter from Deputy Chairman, JS/JTIC, to Director STIB, March 27, 1950; Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950; telegram from SHAEF Main to UK Base for SHAEF Rear, July 3, 1945; and Alsos report, June 20, 1945, attached to letter from Eckman to ACS, June 24, 1945, FO 1031/83. Telegram from Director STIB to Foreign Office (German Section), April 16, 1948, FO 371/70955. Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. This is probably a reference to Operation Surgeon, the exploitation of the personnel and equipment of the Aeronautical Research Institute at Völkenrode. For more on this operation, see M. Uttley, “Operation ‘Surgeon’ and Britain’s Post-war Exploitation of Nazi German Aeronautics,” Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 2 (2002): 1–26. JS/JTIC Chairman’s report on Matchbox, attached to CH/JSJT/49/217, December 6, 1949, DEFE 41/83. Director STIB to British Liaison Officer, ODDI, HQ EUCOM, US Army, January 29, 1948, STIB/7127/5/6937; and see the communiqués from Director STIB to Chief, Intelligence Division, January 20, 1948, STIB/7127/5/6771; April 13, 1948, STIB/7127/5/8033; April 22, 1948, STIB/7127/5/8234; and February 2, 1948, STIB/7127/5/7009. See also Operation Instruction No. 1, “Operation Göttingen Dinner Party,” November 28, 1947, STIB/7127/5/5887; Operation Instruction No. 1A, “Operation Zonal Dinner Party,” November 28, 1947, STIB/7127/5/5997; M. Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 188–89; Operation Epsilon: The Farm Hall Transcripts (Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1993), 1, 293; and DSI/JTIC, “Copy of a Minute, 14 November 1950 from the Joint Secretary, Defence Research Policy Committee, to the Secretary, Joint Intelligence Committee,” attached to DSI/ JTIC(50)25, November 20, 1950, DEFE 10/498. B. Ciesla, “Das ‘Project Paperclip’: deutsche Naturwissenschaftler und Techniker in den United States (1946 bis 1952),” in Historische DDR-Forschung: Aufsätze und Studien, ed. J. Kocka, 287–301 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1993), 292–94, 298; DCOS(46)215, November 1, 1946, CAB 82/12; Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy, 210–11, 222–23; Cipher message, August 27, 1946, FO 1032/251A. Letter from Maj.-Gen. N. C. D. Brownjohn to Permanent Secretary, COGA, December 10, 1946, FO 1032/251A; report from Wilson to Chief, FIAT (Br.), January 9, 1947, FO 1031/67; D. Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, GB: Penguin Books, 1977), 282–84, 309, 321–23.

266

Notes

67. Interim Report, April 12, 1947, DEFE 41/122. It proved very difficult to find work for the Kanis team. They left the Transit Hotel at Bad Driburg only in July 1949, more than two years after their evacuation (Matchbox State Chart, July 29, 1949, DEFE 41/39). 68. Letter from Staff Officer (Intelligence) to HNB, Berlin, to STIB, April 25, 1947, DEFE 41/109; “Comprehensive Evacuation of German Machine Tool Designers from the Russian Zone under Operation ‘Matchbox,’” undated staff memorandum 9A, from Director STIB to the Office of the Deputy Military Governor. 69. Letter from Staff Officer (Intelligence) to HNB, Berlin, to STIB, April 28, 1947. 70. STIB report, October 23, 1947, DEFE 41/109. 71. JIC-Germany minutes, October 20, 1947, DEFE 41/63; letter from Staff Officer (Intelligence) to HNB, Berlin, November 10, 1947. 72. STIB report, October 23, 1947. 73. JIC-Germany minutes, October 20, 1947; letter from Deputy Director STIB to Cmdr. M. Studdert et al., December 31, 1947, DEFE 41/109; telegram BGCC 5483/AP.331, received July 17, 1948, DEFE 41/110; Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. 74. “Operation ‘Second Slip,’” June 23, 1948, STIB/2001/1, DEFE 41/20. 75. Letter from Director STIB to Director of Production, July 3, 1948, DEFE 41/ 20. 76. Interrogation report on Professor E. Traub, July 28, 1948, DEFE 41/148. According to one report, all the three professors in charge of the institute (Traub being one) suddenly disappeared, the last in September 1948, shortly after Traub’s evacuation. Of the other two, one, the Institute’s Director, Dr. Waldmann, certainly defected and was by June 1948 believed by STIB to be in South America (STO/9/DE/48, STIB Berlin Report No. 327, DEFE 41/145; STIB/2001/1, June 23, 1948, DEFE 41/20). It has been claimed that Traub went to the United States as a Paperclip evacuee (Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy, 289). 77. In STIB/7113/Vol.IV, December 11, 1948, DEFE 41/131, David Evans reported that, since July 1, 1948, 16 people had been admitted to the operation, of whom five were “intelligence sources whom it became operationally necessary to evacuate.” 78. Memorandum from Exec. Section, STIB, to A. R. Wise, April 4, 1949, DEFE 41/54. 79. Undated list of Matchbox consultants by profession, DEFE 41/53. 80. The magnetron was a British wartime invention and at the time of Operation Matchbox was considered high technology. It was a radio valve which greatly extended the range of radar sets by producing bursts of microwave radiation over 100 kilowatts (KW). It has been described as “the single most important piece of electronic equipment developed during the course of the war.” Klystrons were less powerful valves which were also used to produce microwaves (D. Zimmermann, Top Secret Exchange: the Tizard Mission and the Scientific War [Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1996], 90–91, 190). The combination of a cavity magnetron’s power and the use of a centimetric wavelength allowed radar sets to detect small targets. Thus a bomber could detect the target beneath it more accurately, a night-fighter could detect and intercept an incoming bomber, and

Notes

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90.

91.

92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

99.

100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105.

267 a surfaced submarine could be detected by aircraft overhead (G. Hartcup, The Silent Revolution: The Development of Conventional Weapons 1945–85 [London: Brassey’s UK, 1993], 5). Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950, which mentions other, minor specialties not referred to above. DSI/JTIC(51)1, January 3, 1951, DEFE 10/498. JS/JTIC minutes, June 1, 1949, DEFE 10/493. “Operation ‘Matchbox,’”JS/JTIC(49)57, July 21, 1949, DEFE 41/150. DSI/JTIC(51)1, January 3, 1951, DEFE 10/498. Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. Letter from Director STIB to Chairman, JS/JTIC, May 19, 1949, annexed to JS/JTIC(49)48, May 23, 1949, DEFE 41/131. JS/JTIC(49)57 on Operation Matchbox, July 21, 1949, DEFE 41/150. JIC-Germany Coordinating Committee minutes, February 10, 1948, DEFE 41/68. Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. The precise number depends on how the briefly described specialities of the scientific workers listed in this report are construed. The most reasonable figure is approximately 80. “Auszüge aus einer Unterredung mit Prof. Baade (Tonbandaufnahme),” attached to covering letter October 27, 1955, DY 30/IV 2/202/56, SAPMOBundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde. Interrogation Report No. 154 on Alfons Ruppik, DEFE 41/94; “A Study of the Soviet Guided Missile Programme,” Appendix G, paras. 32–33. Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. “Dr.-Ing.” indicates the possession of a doctorate in engineering, and “Ing.” indicates completion of a bachelor’s degree in engineering. STIB/6003/13/7934, August 10, 1949; and ADI Tech/662/49, September 1, 1949, DEFE 41/131. “Jumo” stood for “Junkers-Motor.” JS/JTIC(49)57 on Operation Matchbox, July 21, 1949, DEFE 41/150. JS/JTIC minutes, December 8, 1948, DEFE 10/493. Letter from Director STIB to JS/JTIC Secretariat, May 8, 1948, DEFE 41/54. For example, Special Intelligence Reports No. 6 (covering April 1–30, 1947) and No. 10 (covering August 1–31, 1947), FO 1031/61, list evacuations from West Berlin both to Britain under the Darwin Panel scheme and to Matchbox in the British Zone. FIAT Forward Periodic Intelligence Report No. 4, October 28, 1946, FO 1031/ 59. As a result of disagreements on the subject between the four Occupiers, there was then no Patent Office in Germany. The report states that about half of those who came to FIAT Forward’s office in West Berlin did so with the aim of either registering their patents or of offering them for exploitation. Letter from Malet-Warden to Chief, FIAT Main (Br.), Appendix B3, December 18, 1946, FO 1031/68. Special Intelligence Report No. 3, covering January 1–31, 1947, FO 1031/60. Special Intelligence Report No. 10, covering August 1–31, 1947, FO 1031/61. Special Intelligence Report No. 6, covering April 1–30, 1947, FO 1031/61. Special Intelligence Report No. 9, covering July 1–31, 1947, FO 1031/61. Report from Wilson to Chief, FIAT (Br.), January 9, 1947, FO 1031/67.

268

Notes

106. Letter from Director STIB to JS/JTIC Secretariat, December 9, 1949, DEFE 41/132. 107. JIC, “Recruitment of Low-Grade Scientists in Germany for Intelligence Purposes,” paras. 2 and 5, JIC(46)102(0), November 16, 1946, CAB 81/134. 108. Letter from Director STIB to Chairman, JS/JTIC, May 19, 1949, annexed to JS/JTIC(49)48, May 23, 1949, DEFE 41/131; JS/JTIC minutes, June 1, 1949, DEFE 10/493. See also DSI/JTIC(51)1, January 3, 1951, DEFE 10/498, in which it is stated that two important operations with the object of gathering information on the USSR from German scientific informants had developed out of Matchbox. Matchbox funds were also used to pay for them. 109. Letter from Director STIB to JS/JTIC Secretariat, December 9, 1949, DEFE 41/132. 110. “Unemployed Consultants resident in the Western Zones who have come from the East Zone and passed through the Transit Hotel,” undated list, DEFE 41/ 131. 111. Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950. “RFT” stood for “Rundfunk- und Fernmeldetechnik” (radio and communications technology). Installations that had been penetrated by Matchbox include: the GEMA R & D institute in BerlinKöpenick; the Wissenschaftlich-Technisches Büro, Geräte, also in Berlin, which conducted research into aerodynamics; TB 11; the Elektro-chemisches Kombinat, Bitterfeld, which, among other products, made extremely pure calcium metal for the Soviet atomic program; the Junkers factory in Dessau and that of BMW in Staßfurt; the Leunawerk, the great chemical works at Leuna near Merseburg; the glass manufacturing works, Carl-Zeiss, Jena; the telecommunications factories, the RFT-Arnstadt and the Sachsenwerk-Radeberg; the Askania Works, Berlin; Elektrobau Sondershausen; and the celluloid works at Eilenberg. 112. B. Ciesla, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (3 Dezember 1993): 27–28. Most of the research institutes and construction bureaus in question belonged to Sovietowned companies in East Germany. Academic institutions also continued to work for the Soviets, performing tasks allocated to them either by Sovietowned companies or by USSR ministries. 113. JIC-Germany, Coordinating Committee agenda, September 2, 1947, DEFE 41/68. 114. Letter from Staff Officer (Intelligence) to HNB, Berlin, to Chief of Intelligence Staff to FOC, BNG, April 20, 1948, DEFE 41/48. 115. STIB, “Research Department of the High Command of the Russian Navy for Armament Development (German Section),” undated report; Air Intelligence Report AIB No. 115/47, September 2, 1947, DEFE 41/48. 116. BIS/1152/1/X, Appendix C, No. 37, from K. Randell, 12 (Berlin) Intelligence Staff, to STIB, December 11, 1947; report from Staff Officer (Intelligence) to DHND to Assistant Chief of Staff (Intelligence) to Vice-Admiral Commanding British Naval Forces (Germany), November 26, 1946; Air Intelligence Report AIB No. 95/47, July 24, 1947; Air Intelligence Report AIB No. 105/47, August 16, 1947; STIB, “Research Department of the High Command of the Russian Navy for Armament Development (German Section),” undated report, DEFE 41/48; Matchbox State Report, October 28, 1950.

Notes

269

117. “Selection of some German scientists and technicians who have returned to Germany after acquiring UK defence security information,” undated list 7A, DEFE 41/54. 118. D. Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 14. 119. STIB report, October 5, 1949, DEFE 41/7; memorandum from J. J. K. Graham to Director STIB, October 23, 1950, DEFE 41/84. 120. J. Tuck, High-Tech Espionage: How the KGB Smuggles NATO’s Strategic Secrets to Moscow (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986), 186; E. Frost and A. Stent, “NATO’s Troubles with East-West Trade,” International Security 8, no. 1 (Summer 1983): 185. 121. E. Said, Orientalism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 31–36. 122. C. M. Andrew and O. Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story, 310. 123. P. Maddrell, “Britain’s Exploitation of Occupied Germany for Scientific and Technical Intelligence on the Soviet Union” (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1999), Introduction and Chapter 1. 124. D. Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb, 147, 213–19, 305–308; V. Zubok and C. Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War, 172; “Summary of Intelligence on Russian Development for the Defence Research Policy Committee,” annex to JS/ JTIC(49)55, June 22, 1949, DEFE 41/150, 52–53. 125. W. Lowther, Arms and the Man: Dr. Gerald Bull, Iraq and the Supergun (London: Macmillan, 1991), 5–6, 9, 185–91, 270–73, 278–83. 126. C. M. Andrew, “The Future of European Security and the Role of Intelligence,” Irish Studies in International Affairs, vol. 8 (1997): 52–53. 127. J. Miller et al., Germs: The Ultimate Weapon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 205–209; The Economist, November 8–14, 1997: 27; The Daily Telegraph, November 2, 1996: 14. 128. L. Johnson, Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs: Intelligence and America’s Quest for Security (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 21–27, 178.

Chapter 9 1. Those interested in the details of the law may consult StUG Stasi-UnterlagenGesetz (München: dtv, October 1993). 2. Readers wishing to know more about this topic may consult M. E. Sarotte, Dealing with the Devil: East Germany, Détente, and Ostpolitik, 1969–1973 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001). 3. For a readable and informative basic account of Ostpolitik, see Peter Bender, Die “Neue Ostpolitik” und Ihre Folgen: Vom Mauerbau bis zur Vereinigung (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, February 1995). 4. Willy Brandt, Begegnungen und Einsichten: Die Jahre 1960–1975 (Hamburg: Hoffman und Campe, 1976), 17. 5. Egon Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit (München: Karl Blessing Verlag, 1996), 424. A useful companion volume to Bahr’s memoirs is Andreas Vogtmeier, Egon Bahr und die deutsche Frage: Zur Entwicklung der sozialdemokratischen Ost-und Deutschlandpolitik vom Kriegsende bis zur Vereinigung (Dietz Verlag: Bonn, 1996). See also the memoirs of a lower-ranking member of the FRG delegation: Ulrich Sahm,

270

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Notes “Diplomaten taugen nichts”: Aus dem Leben eines Staatsdieners (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994). Most West German documents are protected by the 30-year delay in release. Scholars of West Germany must for now be satisfied with the papers of Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr, which have been opened to selected researchers via the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. See also the selected documents published by Heinrich Potthoff, Hrsg., in “Die Koalition der Vernunft:” Deutschlandpolitik in den 80er Jahren (München: dtv, 1995); and idem, Bonn und Ost-Berlin (Bonn: Dietz, 1997). For an overview of the literature on this topic, see the bibliography of my Dealing with the Devil. Some of the more significant authors to write on this topic are the following: A. James McAdams, “The New Diplomacy of the West German Ostpolitik,” in The Diplomats 1939–1979, ed. Gordon A. Craig and Francis L. Loewenheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 537–63; Jack Snyder, “East-West Bargaining Over Germany: The Search for Synergy in a TwoLevel Game,” in Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics, ed. Peter B. Evans et al., 104–27 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Ernest D. Plock, East German–West German Relations and the Fall of the GDR (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993); David M. Keithly, Breakthrough in the Ostpolitik: The 1971 Quadripartite Agreement (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1986); and Plock, The Basic Treaty and the Evolution of East-West German Relations (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986). Author’s interviews conducted with the following: Egon Bahr, Hans-Otto Bräutigam, Antonius Eitel, Valentin Falin, Günter Gaus, Gunter Görner, Ulrich Sahm, Karl Seidel, and Markus Wolf. The dates and locations of these interviews are provided in relevant references in the ensuing text. Clemens Vollnhals, Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit: Ein Instrument totalitärer Herrschaftsausübung (Berlin: BStU, 1995), 1. “BStU” is the German acronym for the Stasi archive (full name: Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), which is also known as the Gauck Authority after its head, Joachim Gauck. Nominally, the political head of East Germany was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, at that time Willi Stoph. Real political power rested with the party, however, of which the Politburo was the highest office. Mielke became a Kandidat in 1971 and a full member in 1976. These and other biographical details may be found in Bernd-Rainer Barth et al., Wer war Wer in der DDR: Ein Biographisches Handbuch (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuchverlag, October 1995). On the debate over whether or not to open the Stasi files, and with what, if any, time delay, see Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Wann bricht schon mal ein Staat zusammen! Die Debatte über die Stasi-Akten auf dem 39. Historikertag 1992 (Munich: dtv dokumente, June 1993). There are some minor, insignificant exceptions to this rule. As a result of this process, researchers only know in a general way why they eventually receive certain documents, and, even worse, have no idea of what they are not seeing. I am hardly the only researcher to note how much this impedes research; see, for example, the introduction to Siegfried Mampel, Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR als Ideologiepolizier: zur Bedeutugn einer Heilslehre als

Notes

14. 15.

16.

17.

18. 19.

271 Mittel zum Griff auf das Bewusstsein für das Totalitarismusmodell (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1996). In German, Freunde and Operationsgebiet. Terminology is treacherous when discussing German-German relations. It deserves a more extensive analysis than the space here allows, but what follows is a shorthand summary of the problem: The GDR referred to itself as a “sovereign state “and later “nation,” considering relations with the FRG to be “international relations” with a “foreign state.” West Germany, for its part, referred to the “two states of the German nation,” and spoke of German-German “special,” instead of “international,” relations. Since both parties did refer to themselves as states, and I do not consider either of the Germanies to have been nations in their own right, I use the term “state,” with the word “country” as a synonym to provide some stylistic variation. How to describe the status of East Germany in the cold-war political system—not a nation-state, but clearly more than a colony— remains an open challenge. See the attempt made by two political scientists, who suggest referring to East Germany as part of an “informal empire”: Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim, “Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal Empire and the East German State,” International Organization 49 (Autumn 1995): 689–722. Vollnhals, “‘Ausführendes Organ,’” 52. The HV A had been founded in 1951 as an “Außenpolitischer Nachrichtendienst” and from that time on even ran its own school to educate its employees in the arts of foreign espionage. See Jens Gieseke, Die hauptamtlichen Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit, unnumbered volume in BStU, ed., MfS Handbuch: Anatomie der Staatssicherheit, Geschichte Struktur Methoden, ed. Klaus-Dietmar Henke et al. (Berlin: BStU, August 1995), 32. Today, only about 26 meters of HV A files remain, and they have been completely recataloged by the BStU. However, in addition to the official remaining HV A collection, occasionally copies of HV A documents turn up in other BStU files. For more information about the HV A, see: Irene Chaker, “Die Arbeit der Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HV A) im ‘Operations Gebiet’ und ihre Auswirkungen auf oppositionelle Bestrebungen in der DDR,” in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SEDDiktatur in Deutschland” (12. Wahlperiode des Deutschen Bundestages), ed. Deutscher Bundestag, vol. VIII, Das MfS—Seilschaften, Altkader, Regierungs- und Vereinigungskriminalität, 126–27; and David Gill and Ulrich Schröter, Das MfS Anatomie des Mielke Imperiums (Berlin, 1991). This was the result of a search for files on Guillaume conducted by the BStU at my request in spring 1996; results delivered verbally by my Sachbearbeiterin. Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 397. He continues: “in their current ardor to expose and prosecute former Stasi agents and SED leaders, German government figures tend to obfuscate the crucial historical role of the Soviet occupation authorities in constructing totalitarian institutions in the East.” Another author writing on the same topic, Bernhard Marquardt, reaches similar conclusions. As Marquardt puts it, “Der Aufbau des MfS, sowohl des Zentralapparates in Berlin wie der Länderverwaltungen, erfolgte unter unmittelbarer Anleitung und Kontrolle des MfS/MGB in der

272

20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

28.

29.

Notes UdSSR. . . . Ohne Übertreibung kann für diesen Zeitraum, der etwas bis Mitte 1952 andauerte, gesagt werden, daß die DDR-Staatssicherheit faktisch von sowjetischen Generälen und Offizieren geführt wurde, deren Bezeichnung als Instrukeure am Wesen sicherlich vorbeiging” [“Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen MfS und KGB,” in Materialien der Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland” (12. Wahlperiode des Deutschen Bundestages), ed. Deutscher Bundestag, Vol. VIII, 301]. Both Naimark and Marquardt also discuss the role of SMERSH, the military Abwehr, in setting up the East German security forces in the Soviet occupation zone. See also Karl Wilhelm Fricke and Bernhard Marquardt, DDR Staatssicherheit: Das Phänomen des Verrats Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen MfS und KGB (Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1995). Marquardt, “Zusammenarbeit,” 308. On the subject of Soviet impact on the MfS, see Gieseke, Die hauptamtlichen Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit, 3. The archive of the former dictatorial ruling party, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland (SED), is now an independent foundation within the Federal Archive, called “Stiftung/Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv,” or SAPMO. Former GDR state documents have become part of the Federal Archive proper, called “Bundesarchiv/Abteilung V.” Garton Ash, passim, and Jens Hacker, Deutsche Irrtümer: Schönfärber und Helfershelfer der SED-Diktatur im Westen (Berlin: Ullstein, 1994). In addition to the Stasi coverage discussed here, transcripts and supporting papers from both the Erfurt and Kassel negotiating rounds are now available in both the party and state archives. For further information on Erfurt, see M. E. Sarotte, “A Small Town in (East) Germany,” Diplomatic History 25, no. 1 (2001): 85–104. “Kalbslederband” in SAPMO, Politburo (Arbeitsprotokolle), J IV 2/2A/3195, and the documents from which the “Kalbslederband” seems to have been produced, in SAPMO, Büro Honecker, vorl. SED 41656. This volume, one of the most intriguing documents in postwar German history, is a compilation of documents concerning Ulbricht’s fall from power. It was apparently assembled by Honecker, bound in imitation calf leather (hence the name), and distributed to the Politburo in February 1989, according to the archivist at SAPMO. The quotation here is from the “Kalbslederband,” untitled document (May 15, 1970): 6. I am grateful to Peter Grieder for calling my attention to this topic, which he discusses in his book The East German Leadership (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999). There are hints of such “intervention” in the “Kalbslederband.” Markus Wolf hinted at such as well, as will be discussed below. For details of the surveillance of Kassel, see the numerous documents in BStU, ZA, SdM 1830. For a fascinating account of the behind-the-scenes, back-channel diplomacy that accompanied these negotiations, see Wjatscheslaw Keworkow, Der geheime Kanal (Berlin: Rowohlt, March 1995). For an example of surveillance of a conversation between Easterners and Westerners, see Abteilung 26, October 4, 1972, “Bericht über das Gespräch zwischen den Herren Dr. Kohl (K) und Eitel (E) vom 4.10.72,” BStU, ZA,

Notes

30. 31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

273 Rechtsstelle 120/5, Bl. 184–85. For examples of surveillance of the West German delegation, see Abteilung 26, “Gespräch zwischen zwei Herren einer westdeutschen Expertendelegation am 10.11.1971, 14:24–14:27 Uhr,” BStU, ZA, Sekretariat des Ministers (SdM) 1837, Bl. 219; and Abt. 26, 27 August 1971, “Bericht Gespräch zwischen Mitgliedern der westdeutschen Delegation am 26. August 1971,” BStU, ZA, SdM 233, Bl. 75-77. For an example of surveillance of Easterners, see Abt. 26, November 5, 1971, “Bericht vom 4.11.71,” BStU, ZA, SdM 1837, Bl. 227. The author discussed this coverage at greater length in M. E. Sarotte, “Spying Not Only on Strangers: Documenting Stasi Involvement in Cold War German-German Negotiations,” Intelligence and National Security 11 (October 1996): 765–79. Author’s interview with Bahr in Bonn, May 21, 1996. So far only two of these have been found, but there is little reason to doubt that more existed. Abt. 26, 26 August 1971, “Bericht Unterhaltung der Herren Dr. Kohl (K) und Bahr (B) am 27. August 1971 in Berlin,” (note: one of the dates must be a typographical error, otherwise the transcript predates the conversation), BStU, ZA, SdM 233, Bl. 49–74; and Abteilung 26, 8 March 1971, “Am 8. März fand eine Unterredung zwischen Herrn Kohl (K) und Herrn Bahr (B) statt,” BStU, ZA, SdM 1837. In other words, not every specialist who appeared for a meeting or two has been investigated. The search for any kind of MfS records, either as object or subject, for leading members of the West German delegation turned up negative for the following persons: Egon Bahr, Antonius Eitel, Günter Gaus, Ulrich Sahm (source: verbal information from my Sachbearbeiterin). For Hans-Otto Bräutigam, there exist protocols of conversations he had as the Ständiger Vertreter, or pseudoambassador, to East Berlin (1982–88). These files show him only as an object of observation, not as any kind of agent. See “Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit Bräutigam bei einer diplomatischen Veranstaltung am 14.11.1984,” BStU, ZA, Rechtsstelle 671, Bl. 2–4; and “BRD-Einschätzung zu führenden Politikern der DDR,” (no date on document but text suggests 1986), BStU, ZA, ZAIG 5353, Bl. 68–69. The BStU continues to search for any kinds of records on other Western delegation members. Delegation members with no Erfassung (registration) and their positions at the time: Dr. Michael Kohl, Staatssekretär im Ministerrat; Hans Bernhardt, Botschaftsrat, Stellv. Leiter der Abt. BRD im Ministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (MfAA); Gerhard Breitbarth, Persönlicher Mitarbeiter des Genossen Dr. Kohl; Kurt Nier, 1968–73 Leiter der Abt. Nordeuropa im MfAA. The author received this information verbally from her BStU Sachbearbeiterin. Vollnhals, “‘Ausführendes Organ,’” 53. As he puts it, “Ein Eintrag in dieser Kartei [the main card catalog] gibt noch nicht einmal darüber Auskunft, ob die verzeichnete Person Opfer oder Mitarbiter der Staatssicherheit war.” Erfassung but no documentation: Dr. Gunter Görner, Legationsrat, Sektionsleiter in der Abt. Rechts- und Vertragswesen im MfAA. The author received this information verbally from her Sachbearbeiterin. Gieseke, Die hauptamtlichen Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit, 3, 41. Ibid., 9. See also Vollnhals, “‘Ausführendes Organ,’” 55: “Der Staatssicherheitsdienst war ein militärisches Organ, und so hatten seine hauptamtlichen

274

39.

40.

41.

42.

43. 44. 45.

46.

Notes Mitarbeiter—von der Sekretärin bis zum Minister—militärische Dienstränge inne und waren auch im Besitz von Dienstwaffen.” Hauptamtliche Mitarbeiter: Helmut Nacke, Experte für Zollfragen; and Alwin Brandt, Experte für Paß- und Visafragen. Sources: on Helmut Nacke: verbal information from my Sachbearbeiterin; and “Ermittlungsbericht,” May 6, 1971, BStU, ZA, MfS KSIII 82/80, which contains a reference to his employment in Hauptabteilung VI (HA VI) on page 27. On Alwin Brandt: verbal information from my Sachbearbeiterin and Brandt’s file, BStU, ZA, MfS KS8332/90 (Brandt), Aktenmappe Nr. 3715. Page 87 states that Brandt had been a member of the HA VI since July 1, 1962, and the reports by supervisors in the file indicate activity into the 1980s. HA VI was responsible for the following: “Paßkontrolle, Sicherung, Kontrolle und Überwachung des Ein- und Ausreiseverkehrs sowie des Transitverkehrs and Abwehrarbeit unter Angehörigen der Zollverwaltung der DDR,” among other tasks, according to Roland Wiedmann, Die Organisationsstruktur des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit 1989, unnumbered volume in BStU, ed., MfS Handbuch, ed. Klaus-Dietmar Henke et al., 234. Karl Seidel, after 1971 Leiter der Abt. Westdeutschland im MfAA. MfS 10758/ 60 “Ingrid” AIM, Archiv-Nr. 12499/88, Band-Nr. 1, identifies him as Ingrid. Page 11 of this file says that Seidel “arbeitet seit dem 17.4.1960 . . . mit unserem Organ zusammen.” Heinz Gerber, at the time of the talks Experte für Verkehrsfragen, later Stellv. Minister für Verkehrswesen. MfS ZA AIM 4987/80 Teil II, Bd. 1, identifies him as IM Walter Mehlhorn. The one report by Walter Mehlhorn: “Bericht,” October 6, 1971, BStU, ZA, HA XIX 424, Bl. 2–3. HA XIX and Abt. III/2, October 28, 1971, “Vorschlag zur Umgruppierung,” BStU, ZA, AIM 4987/80, Teil II, Bd. 1, Bl. 106, says Gerber should provide “ständige Informierung über bedeutsame und interne Fragen,” and that his tasks on the delegation should further include “Vorbereitung und Beeinflussung von Entscheidungen im Interesse des MfS.” As shown in, for example, November 11, 1971, “Aktennotiz,” BStU, ZA, SdM 1837, Bl. 210. See Sarotte, “Spying Not Only on Strangers.” For example: Letter from Michael Kohl to Erich Mielke, September 22, 1971, BStU, ZA, RS 120/1, Bl. 2, sending Kohl’s “Niederschrift aus dem Gedächtnis” from same date and “Bericht über den Ablauf des Treffens.” Another example: “Vermerk,” September 1, 1972, BStU, ZA, RS 120/4, Bl. 1, was distributed to most Politburo members, but Kohl typed on an extra note on the Mielke copy, saying he told Bahr a certain family could apply for permission to move to the West. Interview with the author, Berlin, June 6, 1996. Wolf is one of the more intriguing figures in GDR history. Born to Communist author Friedrich Wolf in Stuttgart in 1923, he spent most of his childhood in Moscow, where his father fled after the burning of the Reichstag and the repressive measures that followed. After the war, Wolf returned to Germany, working briefly as a journalist and then as a diplomat to Moscow before entering the Ministry for State Security in the early 1950s. By 1958 he was head of the HV A, a position he retained for nearly 30 years, reportedly serving as inspiration for John Le Carré’s novel The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. In 1987, however, Wolf suddenly resigned and

Notes

47. 48.

49. 50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55. 56.

275 began work on a biography of his recently deceased brother, Konrad Wolf, the former head of the Akademie der Künste. The book was called Troika, in reference to his brother and two childhood friends (Berlin, Weimar, and Düsseldorf: Rowohlt, 1989). Because of its openness and friendly remarks about former American and other childhood friends from Moscow, it was effectively kept out of circulation within the GDR, although dual publication by a West German press insured that there were some copies to be had in the GDR. Honecker and company seem to have seen in the handsome and poised Wolf, a dangerously pro-Gorbachev opponent. Their verbal censure of him might have turned into something more severe, had not the events of the autumn of 1989 intervened. But Wolf’s fortunes fell along with the wall: overnight, he saw himself transformed in the public eye from celebrated author back into an opportunistic Stasi turncoat. (How much Wolf had come to think of himself as a dissident, and how much this fall from grace wounded him, are apparent in his 1991 autobiographical Im Eigenen Auftrag.) After unification in 1990, Wolf faced trial for espionage activities. He won a significant victory when the courts ruled that he could not be tried for espionage activities, but he now must return to the courts for other litigation. Wolf interview. Original: “Vertrauensverhältnis.” Befehl Nr. 12/70, March 13, 1970, Bl. 1. Original: “Der dagegen versucht, unsere prinzipiellen Forderungen zu umgehen [sic] und das Treffen für die weitere Forcierung der Aufweichungs- und Zersetzungstätigkeit und die Erzeugugn von Illusionen in bestimmten Bevölkerungskreisen auszunutzen.” Ibid., Bl. 6. The department is HA VIII, which, according to Helmut Müller-Enberg, Hrsg., Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit: Richtlinien und Durchführungsbestimmungen (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 1996), was responsible for “Beobachtung, Ermittlung und Festnahme.” The quotation comes from HA VIII, “Das Erfurter-Treffen zwischen dem Vorsitzenden des Ministerrats der DDR Willi Stoph und dem westdeutschen Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt am 19.03.1970,” HA VIII 1872/1, Bl. 10. June 2, 1972, BStU, ZA, Befehl Nr. 20/72, Bl. 2. Original: “Es ist ein wichtiger Schritt zur weiteren Durchsetzung der Prinzipien der friedlichen Koexistenz, zur Festigung der Sicherheit in Europa sowie zur weiteren Stärkung der Positionen der DDR.” “Referat von der Dienstkonferenz,” Bl. 37. Original: “Das konnte angesichts der Interessenlage der beiden Staaten auch gar nicht anders sein, denn diese Verhandlungen waren harter Klassenkampf. . . .” “Information über die westdeutschen Vorstellungen zum Inhalt eines Vertrages über die grundsätzliche Regelung der Beziehungen zwischen DDR und BRD,” July 5, 1972, BStU, ZA, Rechtsstelle 120/2, Bl. 151. In his study of the Juristische Hochschule, Mampel also explores the Stasi assessment of the impact of Ostpolitik on inspiring dissident behavior and thought in the GDR. See Mampel, Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR als Ideologiepolizier, esp. 140–41 and 160. Handwritten date at top December 11, 1972, no title, BStU, ZA, ZAIG 4638, Bl. 1. “Aktennotiz,” February 12, 1971, BStU, ZK, SdM 1837, Bl. 87–88 (see also 355i); and “Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit Genossen Gorinowitsch am 14.

276

57. 58.

59. 60.

61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70.

Notes Oktober 1972 um 18.30 in der sowjetischen Botschaft,” October 14, 1972, BStU, ZA, Rechtsstelle 120/6, Bl. 374, contain examples of this process. Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 416. See the file BStU, ZA, Rechtsstelle 120/5, Bl. 181–85, for both a copy of the note and presumably the typed protocol of a bugged conversation between the West German “delivery boy” and Michael Kohl. The protocol captures Kohl’s annoyance. The note was delivered on October 4, 1972; Bahr met with Brezhnev on October 10, 1972. October 12, 1972, BStU, ZA, SdM 1837, Bl. 119. Erich Honecker intialed the top of the document on the same day. There have been many reports that Julius Steiner, a CDU member of the 6. Bundestag from Stuttgart, sold his vote to the MfS. Bernd Marquardt reports that the price of his vote was for 500,000 DM; see Marquardt, “Zusammenarbeit.” See also the recollections of Karl Seidel in Detlef Nakath, Hrsg., Deutschlandpolitiker der DDR erinnern sich (Berlin: FIDES Verlag, 1995); Horst Ehmke in his memoirs Mittendrin: Von der Großen Koalition zur Deutschen Einheit (Berlin: Rowohlt, March 1994); and Günter Bohnsack and Herbert Brehmer, Auftrag Irreführung. Wie die Stasi Politik im Westen machte Hrsg. von Christian v. Ditfurth (Hamburg: Carlsen Verlag, 1992). March 9, 1972, BStU, ZA, Befehl 5/72, Bl. 1. Originial: “der sich gegenwärtig abzeichnenden positiven Entwicklung in Richtung auf die weitere Entspannung in Europa.” This so-called “Geste des guten Willens” carried the operational name “Aktion Akzent” and went into effect from March 29–April 5 and May 17–24, 1972. “Referat von der Dienstkonferenz,” 42. Interview with Wolf. Publication of Bahr’s biography in late 1996 inspired fresh controversy about this topic. See Bahr, Zu meiner Zeit, 438–47, and the extremely critical response of Heinrich Potthoff in both “Im konspirativen Stil,” Speigel (October 14, 1996): 60ff.; and the scholarly version of the same, “Eine zweite Etappe der Deutschlandpolitik, Deutschland Archiv 1 ( January/February 1997): 116–24. For documents on a controversial Wehner visit to East Berlin, see Claus Tessmer and Klaus Wiegrefe, “Deutschlandpolitik in der Krise Herbert Wehners Besuch in der DDR 1973,” Deutschland Archiv 6 ( June 1994): 600–627. No date, but attached Verteiler has handwritten date August 18, 1972, BStU, ZA, ZAIG 4634, Bl. 1–4. Letter from Mielke, May 21, 1974, BStU, ZA, Dok.-Nr. 102016. See esp. Bl. 9. See also May 13, 1974, “Erste Hinweise zur Reaktion der Bevölkerung der DDR zum Rücktritt Brandts vom Amt des Bundeskanzlers (Stand 13.5.1974),” BStU, ZA, ZAIG 4088, esp. 4, which claims that only the misguided would think that the Guillaume affairs was the real reason for Brandt’s resignation (a not untrue assessment). Wolf, Im Eignen Auftrag, 265. Ibid., 265–66. Ibid., 266. “Die Entwicklung operativer Prozesse zum systematischen Eindringen in bedeutende Führungsstellen, am Beispiel zentraler Vorgänge untersucht,” no date, BStU, ZA, JHS 1842. The date of writing is unclear, but page 10 says that

Notes

277

“Die gesamte vorliegende Forschungsarbeit basiert auf dem stad der Fakten, Entwicklungen und Erkenntnisse bis 1. Mai 1974.” The so-called Juristische Hochschule ( JHS) in fact had little to do with legal studies; rather, its main purpose was to provide Stasi officers with a means of obtaining higher degrees and carrying out research on specific issues (in this case, how to place agents in the Bundeskanzleramt). See the description of the JHS in Mampel, Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der ehemaligen DDR als Ideologiepolizier, 21–22. 71. Ibid, 126. 72. Ibid, 160. 73. Much of the evidence comes in the form of interviews presented in the Oscarwinning documentary film “One Day in September,” directed by Kevin MacDonald, distributed by Columbia/Tristar, Los Angeles, CA, DVD, 1999.

Index

Aldrich, Richard, 32, 36, 46 Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, 109, 110, 113 Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, 100, 114 Alexander III, Tsar of Russia, 119, 120 Al-Qaeda, 49, 50, 205 Andrew, Christopher, 35 Ash, Timothy Garton, 211 Austria, 25, 53–74, 77–81, 83, 85, 86, 162 Austria—Intelligence Organizations Austrian Secret Police, 66, 82, 86 Austro-Prussian War of 1866, 24, 96 Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, 99, 104 Berkeley, George F.-H. and Joan, 58, 61 Berlin Wall, 208 Betts, Richard, 43, 50 bin Laden, Osama, 45 Blair, Tony, 1, 51 Boer War, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133 Intelligence Department in the South African War, 133 Royal Commission on the War in South Africa , 129 Brandt, Willy, 208–219 Brezhnev, Leonid, 212, 216, 217 British East India Company, 109, 111 BRUSA Agreement, 34

Bush, George W., 1, 49, 51 Catherine II, Tsarina of Russia, 113, 117 Chatfield, Admiral Sir Ernle, 151, 153, 154 Cheney, Richard, 49 Churchill, Winston, 163, 173 Clausewitz, Carl von, 23, 42 Cold War, 111, 120, 173, 203, 208, 209, 220 ABC Weapons, 178 Containment Policy, 173 Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls, 174 Marshall Plan, 174, 193 Scientific Containment, 173, 192 Truman Doctrine, 174, 192, 193 Covert Operations, 19 Crimean War, 93, 94, 104, 105, 112, 114, 117, 127 Curzon, George (Viceroy of India), 124, 125 Dalai Lama, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125 Davies, Philip, 3 Delafield Commission, 93, 101, 105 Der Derian, James, 2

280 Dupont, Alan, 3 Exit Strategy, 74, 86 Feith, Douglas, 49 Ferrera, 53–69, 71–86 Ferris, John, 12 France Bureau Topographique, 22 Conseil Supérieur de la Défense Nationale, 26, 27 Deuxième Bureau, 25 Franco-Austrian War of 1859, 94, 104 Grand Armée, 110 July Revolution, 92 Section Statistique, 23 France—Intelligence Organizations Cabinet Noir, 20, 22 Service de Renseignements, 25, 28 Frederick II, King of Prussia, 21 Fuchs, Klaus, 184, 185 German Democratic Republic, 9, 174, 190, 196, 197, 208, 210, 214– 218 East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), 207, 209, 210– 220 as agent of domestic intelligence, 209 and 1972 assassination of Olympic Athletes, 219 Office of the Federal Commissioner, 209 Main Administration for Reconnaissance (HV A), 210, 213, 219 Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party, 209, 212, 216, 219, 220 Stoph, Willi, 211 Germany, Federal Republic of, 207, 215, 217, 218 Basic Treaty, 208, 215, 216, 218 Guillaume, Günter, 218–220 Moscow Treaty, 212 Ostpolitik, 207, 208, 211, 215, 219, 220 Germany, Nazi, 168, 181, 182 Army Experiential Station, 191

Index Auer Company, 176 BMW, 184, 186 Committee for the Four-Year Plan, 164, 167 German High Seas Fleet, 140 Gestapo, 164 Guidance, Control and Telemetry Laboratory, 181 I.G. Farben, 176, 178, 179, 181, 200 Imperial Research Council, 177 Imperial Research Institute, 177 Planning Office, 177 Institut Nordhausen, 181 Institut Rabe, 181, 183, 187, 198 Intelligence, 28, 30 Junkers Factory, 179, 183, 186, 197 Luftwaffe, 164 Main Committee for Shipbuilding, 177 Main Committee on Tanks and Vehicles, 177 Ministry of Armaments and War Production, 177 Ministry of Aviation, 167 Mittelwerk, 180 Naval Intelligence, 167 Operation Barbarossa, 8, 31, 158, 159, 160, 163, 164, 165, 170 Hitler’s Secrets on Stalin’s Desk, 160, 161 The USSR’s State Security Organs in the Great Fatherland War, 160 Röchling Stahlwerke, 178 Schott Factory, 179 Seibel, 184 Statistical Directorate, 164 Telefunken , 178, 179 Vereinigte Stahlwerke, 178 Volkswagenwerke, 178 Wermacht, 164, 191 Zeiss Manufacturing, 178 Zentralwerk, 180 Germany—Wars of Unification, 104 Glantz, David, Stumbling Colossus, 158 Godson, Roy, 12 Gorodetzky, Gabriel, 158 Grand Delusion, 160 Great Britain Admiralty and War Department, 89

Index Board of Trade, 176 Bottleneck Scheme, 176 Darwin Panel, 176 Control Commission for Germany, 182, 189 Defence Committee of the Cabinet, 188, 192 Deputy Chiefs of Staff, 175 Foreign Office, 87, 88, 95 Ministry of Economic Warfare, 32 Ministry of Supply, 175 Political Warfare Executive, 32, 34 Quartermaster General’s Department, 106 Service Ministry, 175 Topographical and Statistical Department, 94, 115, 127 War Office, 87, 95, 127, 131, 133, 137, 144 General Staff, 133, 136 Intelligence Branch, 127, 129, 130, 131, 135 Peacetime preparation for military intelligence, 131 Great Britain—Intelligence Operations, 127–128, 133–134 Operation Matchbox, 173, 187, 188– 198, 200, 202–204 Great Britain—Intelligence Organizations, 186, 187, 190, 193, 196, 198, 203 Air Intelligence, 188, 201 Berlin Intelligence Staff, 201 British War Office Joint Air Reconnaissance Interpretation Center, 39 Regulations for Intelligence Duties in the Field, 132, 136 Concept of Intelligence, 3 Deciphering Branch, 20 Defense Intelligence Staff, 37 Directorate of Military Operations’ Foreign Intelligence Section , 128 Eastern Command, 131 Government Code and Cipher School, 28, 32 Government Communications Headquarters, 39

281 Industrial Intelligence Centre, 15, 27 Intelligence and Reconnaissance Course, 133, 134, 136, 137 Intelligence Coordinator, 37 Intelligence Corps, 8, 132 Intelligence Manuals (Henderson, Lt. Col. David) The Art of Reconnaissance, 131 Field Intelligence, Its Principles and Practices, 131, 132, 136 Joint Intelligence Committee, 3, 15, 28, 37, 48, 182, 198 MI5, 43 MI6, 43, 36 Mobilisation and Intelligence Division, 129 Naval Intelligence, 201 Preparations for World War II: Admiralty Plans Division, 142; Advisory Committee on Trade Questions in Time of War, 146; Air Ministry, 144; Board of Trade, 142; Chiefs of Staff Committee, 144, 147, 152; Defensive Naval Operations, 140; Department of Overseas Trade, 142; Economic Blockade, 140; Far Eastern Appreciation, 144, 145; Industrial Intelligence Centre, 145, 146; Joint Planning Committee, 144, 145, 184, 185, 190, 194; Naval Intelligence Division, 147, 149; Singapore, fall of, Force Z, 152, 153; Singapore, fall of, Singapore Strategy, 140 and nuclear weapons, 175 Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch, 189–191, 194–196, 200 Joint Scientific and Intelligence Committees, 189, 199, 200 Joint Technical and Intelligence Committees, 189, 199, 200 Secret Intelligence Service, 14–15, 28, 32, 34, 182, 199 Special Operations Executive, 32

282 Great Game, 110, 112–115, 117, 118, 125, 126 Eastern Question, 112 Forward Policy, 112 Handel, Michael, 16, 21, 50 Herman, Michael, 5, 12, 20, 36 Hiroshima, 181, 203 Hitler, Adolf, 30, 157, 160, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169 Holmes, Sherlock, 136 Howard, Michael, 27 Hussein, Saddam, 49, 204 Intelligence Definitions—Types and Sources, 2, 3, 4 All-source Analysis, 15, 23 Collection Disciplines, 28 Communications Intelligence, 39 Foreign Intelligence, 20, 25, 28, 29, 40, 46, 94 Government Intelligence, 5 Historical Definitions of, 4 Human Intelligence, 4, 35 Imagery Intelligence, 4, 38, 45 Intelligence Cycle, 3, 111 Intelligence Revolution, 32 Long-Term Intelligence, 14, 22, 23 Medium-Term Intelligence, 14, 22, 23 National Intelligence, 37 Nature of, 12 Open Sources, 22 Problems of Researching, 9 Scientific Intelligence, 33 Secret Sources, 22 Short Term Intelligence, 14, 22, 23 Signals Intelligence, 4, 27, 33, 35, 37, 39, 43, 45 Supplemental Sources, 106 Uses and Functions of, 12, 13 Intelligence Gathering—Methods and Technology Dominant Battlespace Awareness, 42 Echelon, 42–43, 45 Global Hawk Dome, 42 Internet, 44 Measurement and Signature Intelligence, 41

Index Space-Based Radar Satellites, 41 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 42 Watch Lists, 43 International Science and Technology Center, 204 Italy Risorgimento, 55, 57 Wars of Unification, 104 Japan Imperial Japanese Navy, 141, 154 Japanese Third Replenishment Program, 150 Kahn, David, 2 Kam, Ephraim, 50 Kent, Sherman, 4 Lowenthal, Mark, 3 Marie Fedorovna, Dowager Empress of Russia, 121 Meltiukhov, M.I., 159 Metternich, Klemens von, 53–62, 64–69, 71, 74–78, 80–82, 84–86 Mexican-American War, 93, 104 Military Intelligence Gathering, 90 British Military Attaché System, 95–100 French Military Attaché System, 96, 97, 98, 99 Military Attaché System, 90–92, 96, 98, 99 Peacetime Ad Hoc Observers, 90–91 Prussian Military Attaché, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100 United States Military Attachés, 100 Wartime Ad Hoc Observers, 91 MOSSAD, 204 Napoleon I, Emperor of France, 22, 91, 92, 109, 110 Organization of Intelligence during rule of, 22 Napoleon III, Emperor of France, 91, 94, 96 NATO, 40, 43, 202 Nevezhin, V.A., 159

Index Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 125 Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, 117, 120, 121, 122, 123 Operation Barbarossa, 8, 31, 158–160, 163–165, 170 Hitler’s Secrets on Stalin’s Desk, 160, 161 The USSR’s State Security Organs in the Great Fatherland War, 160 Operation Matchbox, 173, 187, 188–198, 200, 202–204 Operation Osoaviakhim, 186–188, 191, 197–199, 201 Ostpolitik, 207, 208, 211, 215, 219, 220 Parker, Geoffrey, 20 Paul I, Tsar of Russia, 113 Pearl Harbor, 16, 36, 148 Peter I, Tsar of Russia, 114 Pope Gregory XVI, 54 Pope Pius IX, 53 Powell, Colin, 49 Prussia—Intelligence Organizations Geheim Kabinets Kanzlei, 20 General Staff System, 23, 24, 92, 101, 115 Military Attaché System, 24 Nachrichtenbureau, 24 Radetzky, Field Marshal, 53, 54, 57, 58–86 Rasputin, Grigori, 120 Rathmell, Andrew, 6 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 169 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 173 Rosenberg, Julius and Ethel, 185 Rumsfeld, Donald, 49 Russia, Imperial—Intelligence Operations, Military Intelligence in the Great Game, 114 Russia, Imperial—Intelligence Organizations Foreign Ministry, 123 General Staff, 115 General Staff Academy, 115 Imperial Foreign and War Ministries, 111

283 Main Staff, Asian Department, 115, 118 Russian Imperial Geographical Society, 111, 118, 119 War Ministry, 118 Russian and Soviet Archives Russian Federal Security Service Archives, 171 Russian Presidential Archives, 158 Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 104, 133, 134 Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, 99, 104, 105, 107 Second Gulf War, 48, 49, 86 September 11, 2001, 1, 15, 47, 48, 50 Serbo-Turkish War of 1876, 104 Sherman, General William T., 104–106 Upton Commission, 104 Soviet Union Communist Party, 185 First Chief Directorate, 29 Five Year Plan, 182 Technical Plan, 182 Foreign Intelligence, 158, 160–162, 164, 170 German Standards Committee, 182 Research Institute for Aeronautics, 183 Russian Ministry of Defense, 158 Social Democratic Party, 185 Socialist Unity Party, 185 Soviet Military Administration, 190, 201 Soviet Ministry of Ship Production, 201 Soviet Navy Ministry, Technical and Scientific Department, 197 Technical Commission of Soviet Armed Forces, 182, 183 Soviet Union—Intelligence Operations, Operation Osoaviakhim, 186–188, 191, 197–199, 201 Soviet Union—Intelligence Organizations, 8, 28, 162, 166,

284 194 Cheka, 29 Comintern, 29 Essays on the History of Russian Foreign Intelligence, 161 Federal Counterintelligence Service (later Federal Security Service), 161 GRU (Glavnoye Razvedovatel’noye Upravlenie, Chief Intelligence Directorate), 29, 46, 163, 184 KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvenoi Bezopasnosti, Committee for State Security)/NKGB (Narodnyi Komissariat Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, People’s Commissariat for State Security)/MGB (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti, Ministry of State Security), 29, 39, 40, 161–165, 167, 170, 184, 185, 194, 209, 210 Military Intelligence, 162 NKVD (Narodny Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del, People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs), 29, 163, 179 OGPU (Ob’edinennoe Gosudarstvennoi Politicheskoe Upravlenie, Combined State Political Directorate), 29 Purges in, 161, 162, 163 Stalin, Joseph, 31, 157, 159, 161–163, 165, 168–171, 173, 174, 203 Spanish-American War, 99 Spanish Armada, 20, 21 Sun Tzu, 18 The Art of War, 19 Suvarov, Viktor, Icebreaker, 157–159 Tenet, George, 49 Terrorism, 6 International Terrorism, 43 Islamist Terrorism, 45 Trafalgar, Battle of, 153 Treaties and Agreements Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 148 Anglo-Russian Accords, 125

Index Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, 11 Congress of Vienna, 104, 107 European Concert, 58 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, 157 Treaty of San Stefano, 107 Treaty of Vienna, 71 Vienna Act, 80 Treverton, Gregory, 44 Ulbricht, Walter, 211, 212, 214 United States Coordinating Committee for EastWest Trade, 202 Office of War Information, 32, 34 War Department, 92 United States—Civil War, 104, 105 United States—Intelligence and Security Organizations American concept of intelligence, 3 American National Intelligence Council, 15 Central Intelligence Agency, 12, 36– 37, 40, 43, 46, 48, 49, 50, 204 Defense Intelligence Agency, 37, 46 Department of Homeland Security, 47 Director of the CIA, 37 Federal Bureau of Investigations, 43, 47, 50 National Reconnaissance Office, 38 National Security Agency, 37 Office of Special Plans, 49 OSP (Office of Special Plans) Northern Gulf Affairs Office, 49 OSS (Office of Strategic Services), 33, 34 Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 47 United States—Intelligence Operations Alabama Affair, 87 Bay of Pigs, 16, 36 Cuba, 16 Iran, 16, 36 MAGIC, 35 Operation Overcast/Paperclip, 192, 197 Palestine, 16

Index PURPLE, 35 Trent Affair, 87 ULTRA, 35 Victoria, Queen of England, 112 Vietnam War, 46, 50 Wark, Wesley, 149 War on Terror, 13, 42 Warsaw Pact, 40, 203, 208, 220 Waterloo, 91, 92, 110 Weapons of Mass Destruction, 42, 173–175, 203–205 American Atomic Energy Commission, 185 Chemical/Biological Warfare, 173, 174, 204 Combined Policy Trust, 173 Guided missiles, 173 Nuclear weapons, 173, 174, 193, 203, 204 Arms race, 173, 174 Los Alamos, 184 Manhattan Project, 177, 184 Wilhelm I, Kaiser of Germany, 100 Wolfowitz, Paul, 49 Wohlstetter, Roberta, 16, 50 World War I, 8, 103, 128, 131, 135, 137, 138, 140 British Intelligence Preparations for Field Intelligence in, 128 Zimmerman Telegram, 27 World War II, 157, 175, 203 Allied Commission on Reparations, 180 Allied Control Council, 176, 179, 180 Economic Principle, 179 Political Principle, 179 British Naval Preparations for Admiralty Plans Division, 142

285 Advisory Committee on Trade Questions in Time of War, 146 Air Ministry, 144 Board of Trade, 142 Chiefs of Staff Committee, 144, 147, 152 Defensive Naval Operations, 140 Department of Overseas Trade, 142 Economic Blockade, 140 Far Eastern Appreciation, 144, 145 Industrial Intelligence Centre, 145, 146 Joint Planning Committee, 144, 145, 184, 185, 190, 194 Naval Intelligence Division, 147, 149 Singapore, fall of: Force Z, 152, 153; Singapore Strategy, 140 Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee, 175, 176, 180, 190 Potsdam Agreement, 180, 182, 185 Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, 175, 176, 177 Enemy Personnel Exploitation Section, 175, 177 Field Expeditionary Agency, Technical, 175 Special Detention Center, 177 T Force, 175 Yalta Agreement, 180 Yom Kippur War, 50 Younghusband Expedition, 110, 111, 121, 124–126

About the Contributors

CHRISTOPHER M. BELL is Associate Professor of History at Dalhousie University. He is the author of The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy between the Wars (2000) and co-editor of Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective (2003). PETER JACKSON is Senior Lecturer in International Politics in the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Among his publications are: France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy-Making, 1933–1939 (2000) and Understanding Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century (2004). He is British Editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security and Deputy-Director of the Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies at Aberystwyth. PAUL MADDRELL is Lecturer in Intelligence and Strategic Studies at the Department of International Politics of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has recently completed Western Scientific Intelligence in Divided Germany, 1945–1961, which will be published in 2005 by Oxford University Press. MARY ELISE SAROTTE is University Lecturer in Politics at Cambridge and a Fellow of St. John’s College. She served as a White House Fellow, September 2001–September 2002. Sarotte is the author of Dealing with the Devil (2001) and German Military Reform and European Security (2001) as well as various popular and scholarly articles.

288

About the Contributors

DAVID H. SCHIMMELPENNINCK VAN DER OYE is Associate Professor of Russian and East Asian History at Brock University in Canada. He is author of Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan (2001) and coeditor (with Bruce Menning) of Reforming the Tsar’s Army (2004). JENNIFER SIEGEL is Assistant Professor of modern European diplomatic and military history at The Ohio State University. She is the author of the prize-winning Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia (2002), as well as several articles on intelligence history. ALAN SKED is Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics. His published works include The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815–1918 (1989, 2001), The Survival of the Habsburg Empire: Radetzky, the Imperial Army and the Class War, 1848 (1979), as well as many articles. DAVID R. STONE is Associate Professor of History at Kansas State University. His publications include the prize-winning Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933 (2000), and numerous articles and book chapters on Soviet military and diplomatic history. MAUREEN O’CONNOR WITTER is on an extended hiatus from academia as she raises two small children in Charlotte, North Carolina. In her free moments, she plots a return to research and teaching and revises her doctoral dissertation, In the Eye of the Beholder: Western Military Observers from Buena Vista to Plevna (1996).

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