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In Never-Never Land? the British archives on Intelligence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

Wesley K. Wark
Wesley K. Wark
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

A leading historian of the British intelligence community has described the British public archives as ‘laundered’. Christopher Andrew was, of course, referring to the closure, sometimes deceptively, of the official records of the security services. ‘Laundered’ can cover a wide variety of sins and might even give a misleading impression. An understanding of the disposition of the historical records of British intelligence, of the prospects for access to such an archive, and the implications for research in this field, depend on more than knowledge of Whitehall practice or the state of legislation regarding public records. Such understanding depends, in the first instance, on what we mean by ‘intelligence archives’.

Type
Communication
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 195 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Andrew, Christopher, ‘Secret intelligence and British foreign policy 1900–1939’, in , Andrew and Noakes, Jeremy (eds.), Intelligence and international relations 1900–1945 (Exeter 1987), p. 9.Google Scholar

2 Cmd 9163. ‘Committee [Grigg] on departmental records: report’ (London, 1954).Google Scholar

3 Public records act, 1958.

4 House of lords Official report, 11 May 1967, col. 1657 for the first version; twelfth report of the advisory council, PRO 43/133, para, II, for the 1970 revision.

5 The records of the IIC are kept in CAB 48 at the PRO. File CAB 48/2, encompassing IIC records for the period 30 Mar. 1930 to 20 July 1938, should have become available under a fifty year extended closure (section 5(1)) in January 1989. It remains closed and has apparently been shifted to a seventy-five-year closure.

6 Wilson, Harold, The Labour government 1964–1970: a personal record (London, 1971), pp. 203–4.Google Scholar

7 The government announced some modifications to the system of ‘blanket approvals’ in Cmd. 8531, ‘Modern public records: the government response to the report of the Wilson committee’ (London, 1982), paras. 29–30Google Scholar.

8 On the genesis of the fifty-year rule see Nicholas Cox, ‘The thirty year rule and freedom of information: access to government records’, unpublished MS, kindly supplied to me by Geoffrey Martin, former keeper of the public records.

9 Cmd. 8204. ‘Modern public records: selection and access [Wilson committee]’ (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

10 Cmd. 8531, 1982, para. 39. For Sir Duncan Wilson's reaction to the Government White paper see , Wilson, ‘Public records: the Wilson report and the white paper’, Historical Journal, xxv, 1 (1982), 985–94Google Scholar.

11 House of commons select committee on education, science and the arts, Parliamuniary papers, 1982–83 session [hereafter abbreviated as ‘Commons select committee’].

12 Letter from Sir Robert Armstrong to the clerk of the committee, 3 Feb. 1983, ibid.

13 Cmd. 8204, para. 197.

14 Ibid.; Cmd. 8531, para. 28.

15 Cmd. 8204, para. 200.

16 Cmd. 8531, para. 31.

17 Cmd. 8204, para. 200.

18 See n. 12.

19 Lord Trend to committee, 1 Dec. 1982.

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23 Private information.

24 Cook, Chris, Sources in British political history 1900–1951, 6 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1975-1985).Google Scholar

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29 Portions of Cavendish's memoirs were published in Harper's magazine, Dec. 1988, and in dramatically censored fashion in Granta, no. 24 (summer 1988). Inside Intelligence was subsequently published by Collins in 1990. The withdrawal by publishers Bodley Head of the memoirs of Captain Eric Nave, after intervention by the ministry of defence, was reported in The Manchester Guardian Weekly, 19 Mar. 1989, p. 3. Nave is a principal source of evidence used in a new account of Pearl Harbour: Betrayal at Pearl Harbor: how Churchill lured Roosevelt into war (1991) by James Rusbridgcr. Alan Stripp's memoir, Codebreaker in The Far East, was published by Frank Cass, London, 1989.

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31 This theme was explored extensively in the essays that comprise the collection by May, Ernest (ed.) Knowing one's enemies: intelligence assessment before the two world wars (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar.

32 A cautionary note sounded by Trevor-Roper, Hugh (Lord Dacre) in The Philby affair: espionage, treason and the secret services (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

33 See, for example, May, Knowing one's enemies ; Laqucur, Walter, A world of secrets: the uses and limits of intelligence (New York, 1985)Google Scholar ; Winks, Robin, Cloak and gown: scholars in the secret war (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

34 Lord Denning to commons select committee, evidence, 1 December 1982.