Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire

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Calder Walton. Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire

Praise for Empire of Secrets:

Illustrations

Abbreviations and Glossary

Introduction

1. Victoria’s Secrets: British Intelligence and Empire Before the Second World War

THE THREE-MILE RULE

2. Strategic Deception: British Intelligence, Special Operations and Empire in the Second World War

NAZI NEMESIS: INTELLIGENCE FAILURE – INTELLIGENCE SUCCESS

A-FORCE: THE BIRTH OF BRITISH STRATEGIC DECEPTION

SPY VS SPY: AMATEURS VS PROFESSIONALS

BRITAIN’S INTELLIGENCE EMPIRE

THE FAILURE OF AXIS INTELLIGENCE

AXIS PLOTS IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

FORCE 136: THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE AND WARTIME ‘RENDITION’

ALLIES AND ENEMIES: BRITAIN AND THE USSR

HORIZON SCANNING

3 ‘The Red Light is Definitely Showing’: MI5, the British Mandate of Palestine and Zionist Terrorism

WINNING THE WAR, LOSING THE PEACE

A D-DAY FOR TERRORISM

THE BRITISH MANDATE OF PALESTINE

MI5 AND COUNTER-TERRORISM

MI5’S COUNTER-TERRORIST MEASURES

DANGEROUS LIAISONS

THE DYNAMITE MAN

INTERNATIONAL SPONSORS OF TERRORISM

JEWISH ‘ILLEGAL’ IMMIGRATION

BRITAIN’S INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN PALESTINE

4. The Empire Strikes Back: The British Secret State and Imperial Security in the Early Cold War

SPY SCANDALS: THE COLD WAR SETS IN FOR BRITAIN

THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’

COLONIAL SECURITY: THE FRONT LINE OF THE COLD WAR

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE AND THE TRANSFER OF POWER IN INDIA

INTELLIGENCE REFORM AT THE CENTRE

INTELLIGENCE MISSIONARIES

CREATING A COMMONWEALTH INTELLIGENCE CULTURE

CANADA AND AUSTRALIA

SIGINT: THE GREATEST SECRET OF BRITISH DECOLONISATION

BRITISH GUIANA

5. Jungle Warfare: British Intelligence and the Malayan Emergency

BRITAIN’S INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN MALAYA

INTELLIGENCE: BRITAIN’S ACHILLES HEEL IN MALAYA

MOSCOW GOLD

THE MAN WITH THE PLAN

BREAKING THE INSURGENCY

THE QUIET ENGLISHMAN

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE AND MALAYAN INDEPENDENCE

6. British Intelligence and the Setting Sun on Britain’s African Empire

THE GOLD COAST

NIGERIA

KENYA

A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE

THE MAU MAU REVOLT

MI5 AND MAU MAU

THE BRITISH COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN KENYA

INTELLIGENCE, INTERROGATION AND TORTURE IN KENYA

MI5 AND DIPLOMATIC INTELLIGENCE ON KENYATTA

MI5 AND THE INDEPENDENT KENYAN GOVERNMENT

SOUTH AFRICA

THE CENTRAL AFRICAN FEDERATION

7. British Intelligence, Covert Action and Counter-Insurgency in the Middle East

REGIME CHANGE: IRAN

INTELLIGENCE FAILURE: THE SUEZ CRISIS

CYPRUS

THE FEDERATION OF SOUTH ARABIA

Conclusion. British Intelligence: The Last Penumbra of Empire

Picture Section

Note on Sources and Methodology

Notes. Introduction

Chapter 1: Victoria’s Secrets

Chapter 2: Strategic Deception

Chapter 3: ‘The Red Light is Definitely Showing’

Chapter 4: The Empire Strikes Back

Chapter 5: Jungle Warfare

Chapter 6: British Intelligence and the Setting Sun on Britain’s African Empire

Chapter 7: British Intelligence, Covert Action and Counter-Insurgency in the Middle East

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

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‘Both path-breaking and a very good read. Calder Walton reveals for the first time the full role of British Intelligence in the end of the largest empire in world history’

PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, author of Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5

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In 1931 the British government finally drew an official distinction between MI5 and SIS’s responsibilities. Ever since the establishment of the two services in 1909, when MI5 was made responsible for ‘domestic’ security intelligence and SIS for ‘foreign’ intelligence-gathering, there had been confusion over whether the empire and the Commonwealth counted as domestic or foreign territory. The issue was finally resolved following a fierce turf war within Whitehall over intelligence matters. In 1931 the London Special Branch, led by its eccentric head Sir Basil Thomson, essentially attempted to take over MI5. Although the bid was unsuccessful, it led to a major review of intelligence matters within Whitehall, led by the top-secret committee responsible for them, the Secret Service Committee, chaired by Sir John Anderson, the Permanent Undersecretary at the Home Office. One of the recommendations of the Committee in June 1931 was that MI5 should have increased responsibilities. From that point on MI5 was given responsibility for all forms of counter-espionage, military and civilian – previously it had been limited to detecting espionage in the British armed forces – and a number of skilled officers were transferred from the London Special Branch to MI5, including Guy Liddell (a future Deputy Director-General of MI5) and Milicent Bagot (who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Comintern activities, and is thought to have been the inspiration for John le Carré’s character, the eccentric Sovietologist Connie Sachs). One of the other major decisions taken by the Secret Service Committee was that MI5 would assume responsibility for security intelligence in all British territories, including the empire and Commonwealth, while SIS would confine itself to operating at least three miles outside British territories. In other words, from 1931 onwards a three-mile demarcation line was drawn around all British territories worldwide, at the time covering roughly one-quarter of the globe, which acted as the official boundary between MI5 and SIS.37

With this operational border established, MI5 was given more of a free rein to concentrate on imperial security matters – hence Holt-Wilson’s numerous trips overseas and his attempts to promote the view that MI5 was an imperial service. Throughout the 1930s MI5 collaborated with IPI and the Delhi IB to keep a close watch on the main anti-colonial political leaders in India, such as Nehru, whom IPI considered – accurately – to be, next to Gandhi, the ‘second most powerful man in India’. Whenever Nehru travelled to Britain in the 1930s, which he did on several occasions, MI5 monitored his activities, often imposing HOWs to intercept his post and telephone conversations, and instructed Scotland Yard to send undercover officers to his speaking engagements. Judging from IPI records, it also seems that IPI acquired a source close to Nehru himself: it obtained sensitive information relating to the death of his wife from tuberculosis in 1936 at a hospital in Switzerland following a trip Nehru made to Britain. The information reaching IPI included private arrangements that Nehru’s family was considering for the funeral, which most likely came from an informant within Nehru’s close entourage. MI5 and IPI also attempted to track the activities of the Comintern agent Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, also known as M.N. Roy – but were not always successful: on at least one occasion Roy was able to travel to Britain without being discovered. At the same time, MI5 and IPI also scrutinised the activities of the British Communist Party’s leading theoretician and anti-colonial Indian campaigner, Rajani Palme Dutt, who acted as a Comintern agent on at least one trip to India. They likewise kept a close eye on Dutt’s younger brother Clemens, who led the ‘Indian section’ of the British Communist Party, and even discovered the cover address that Clemens used to communicate secretly with underground communist sympathisers. Furthermore, although no specific file has yet been declassified, it is likely that MI5 also worked in conjunction with SIS to track the movements of the notorious German Comintern agent Willi Münzenberg, who moved widely around Europe and even further afield, and in 1927 organised a conference in Brussels against imperialism.38

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