The Foreign Office and political intelligence 1918–1920

Abstract

In 1918 Harold Nicolson in discussing the problem of political intelligence observed that ‘any forecast of diplomatic development must inevitably deal, not with concentric forces, but with eccentric tendencies; such data as are available emerge only from a mass of heterogeneous phenomena, mutually conflicting, mutually overlapping, and striving each towards some distinct and often incompatible solution’. At the time Nicolson was writing the Foreign Office was embarking upon an early attempt to assist diplomacy through analysing these eccentric tendencies and coordinating the information emanating from the heterogeneous phenomena of foreign affairs. The vehicle for this experiment was the Political Intelligence Department (P.I.D.), and its experience contains elements common to intelligence activity throughout this century: the need for co-ordination which in turn leads to a struggle for control of the co-ordinating body, the suspicion aroused in traditional departments by any group involved in intelligence work, the pressure of the Treasury to cut costs even at the expense of useful intelligence operations, and the struggle between the prime minister's office and the Foreign Office for the control of policy. Since the turn of the century there had been a growing awareness of the need for foreign intelligence, a development which finally resulted in the creation of an espionage service in 1909 (the ancestor of the Secret Intelligence Service). This department, however, concentrated on military related intelligence. During the First World War it became evident, particularly to Lord Hardinge, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, that while there were numerous sources of political intelligence, no systematic method had been established for collecting and collating this information, verifying it against collateral sources, and synthesizing the result in succinct reports which would be of value to the policy-makers. Military intelligence was clearly the preserve of the Admiralty and the War Office, and the Foreign Office decided to establish that political intelligence fell within its purview. In the process of establishing Foreign Office primacy in this sphere, Hardinge had to fend off attempts by Lord Beaverbrook who as Minister of Information tried to use his personal political clout to control such intelligence. This was, however, only one of several bureaucratic difficulties, the P.I.D. was forced to struggle with. Finally in 1920 the P.I.D. was closed through a combination of financial and bureaucratic pressures. During its brief existence, though, it was able to prove the utility of a centralized body concerned with political intelligence. In some ways it presaged the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (J.I.C.), which in a more sophisticated and elaborate way is meant, to achieve the same ends.