Spying on the World

Richard J. Aldrich is Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick and Director of the Institute of the Advanced Study. His books include GCHQ: the Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (Harper Collins, 2010). Rory Cormac is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency (Hurst, 2013). Michael S. Goodman is Professor of Intelligence and International Affairs in the Department of War Studies, King's College London and Visiting Professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School. He has published widely in the field of intelligence history, including most recently The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Volume I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis (Routledge, 2015), which was chosen as one of The Spectator’s books of the year. He is series editor for Intelligence and Security for Hurst/Columbia University Press; and for Intelligence, Surveillance and Secret Warfare for Edinburgh University Press; and is a member of the editorial boards for five journals. He is currently on secondment to the Cabinet Office where he is the Official Historian of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

• 1. Introduction: The Rise of the Joint Intelligence Committee; 2. Origins of the Joint Intelligence Committee; 3. World War II and the Role of Intelligence in Strategic Planning; 4. A Post-War Intelligence Machinery; 5. Origins of the Soviet Threat; 6. Sigint Targetting; 7. The Berlin Blockade; 8. Chinese Intervention in the Korean War; 9. Estimating Soviet Capabilities; 10. Counterinsurgency; 11. The Suez Crisis; 12. The Cuban Missile Crisis; 13. Vietnam; 14. The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968; 15. The Rise of the PLO and terrorism in the Middle East; 16. Northern Ireland – Direct Rule; 17. The Falklands War; 18. Changing Requirements at the end of the Cold War; 19. War in Iraq – Weapons of Mass Destruction; 20. War in Iraq – Aftermath; 21. The Joint Intelligence Committee and the National Security Council; 22. The Syrian Civil War; 23. Through the Looking Glass: Illusions of Openness and the Study of British Intelligence; Bibliography; Appendix: Chairmen of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

A unique and fascinating insight into the content and quality of the assessments that the JIC fed into British policy-making since the start of the Second World War to the 2013 Syrian crisis.