Cloaking the Dagger: British Covert Operations and Swiss Neutrality

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the role played by the secret intelligence community in shaping British policy towards Switzerland. Appreciation of Switzerland's importance as a source of secret intelligence became apparent within weeks of the fall of France, and by the late summer, the need to maintain access to British agent networks, based in Switzerland, became the single most important factor driving British policy. It evaluates Switzerland's value as an intelligence asset for Britain and shows how the Swiss came to view the preferential access to intelligence gathering facilities in Switzerland as means of off-setting the Axis' control of Switzerland's economic output and financial resources.