Whitehall, Washington and the Intelligence Services

Abstract

T g HERE is no area of defence policy on which British and American official views are at present as sharply divided as the role of the intelligence services. The American Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, the Church Committee (of which Vice-President Mondale was a member), concluded in its report last year: ' There is a clear necessity, after thirty years of substantial secret activities, for public debate and legislative decisions about the future course of our intelligence system.' 1 The official British view is precisely the opposite. That view was recently reaffirmed by the British embassy in Washington. When questioned by a congressional sub-committee on the British practice of intercepting all telegrams entering and leaving the United Kingdom, the embassy gave the traditional dusty answer: 'It is not in accordance with Her Majesty's Government's policy to comment on such matters.'2 This article is not in accordance with Her Majesty's Government's policy either. Those branches of government most concerned with the intelligence services-the Cabinet Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Defence Ministry-do not like British intelligence work, past or present, general or particular, to be debated in parliament, discussed in the press, or researched in the universities. Debate in the Commons is more or less prevented by the conventions of the House; discussion in the press is discouraged by the D notice system; research in the universities, even on the past record of the intelligence services, is made as difficult as possible by denying access to even their earliest files. The official British view is that the past and present functions, cost, and effectiveness of the intelligence services do not form a proper subject either for polite patriotic discussion, or for parliamentary debate, or for academic research. My own view, within limits which I shall discuss later, is that they do. The role of the intelligence services is, quite simply, too important not to be discussed. Their role is more vital now than it has ever been before in peacetime. Secret intelligence is essential now not merely,