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One of the benefits for the Allies of Swedish neutrality and independence was the ability of agents based in Sweden to gather intelligence from, and support resistance in, occupied Europe while all the belligerents gathered intelligence in Sweden. The Swedish authorities were initially extremely nervous about Danish and Norwegian nationals operating as agents on Swedish territory. Sweden rightly anticipated proxy conflicts on Swedish territory or being used as a base for unauthorised armed operations against German forces in occupied Denmark and Norway. There seems to have been a certain amount of clandestine warfare between German agents and Norwegian agents in Stockholm leading to death as well as injury. During 1939–44, almost 2,000 people were arrested for activity against the state with espionage and intelligence activity accounting for 60 per cent, sabotage forming just over 11 per cent and the remaining 29 per cent detained on miscellaneous associated charges.

This chapter analyses two series which aimed to present a more authentic portrayal of intelligence activity, embracing a new ‘realism’ grounded in documentary detail and procedure. Special Branch (ITV, 1969-74) focused on the Metropolitan Police unit of the name whose remit centred on issues of national security, the series incorporating the thematic interests of the spy genre into the less heightened generic trains of the police procedural. This chapter explores how this focus converged with a concurrent trend in single plays towards increased location filming on ‘gritty’ 16mm film, with Special Branch’s adoption of this style from its 1973 revamp by Euston Films enhancing to a new narrative interest in international terrorism. This is contrasted with The Sandbaggers (ITV, 1978-80), a series focused on the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) which made an alternative claim to ‘realism’ through mounting an unprecedented examination of the bureaucracies underpinning intelligence activity.

Chapter Two looks at Ministerial use of, and attitude towards, intelligence after Labour’s 1945 Election victory, drawing on the papers of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). While it has been argued that Attlee, a committed internationalist, was opposed to any hostility towards the Soviet Union, the chapter shows that he was kept fully aware of Soviet interests and intentions despite his commitment to renewed Anglo-Soviet relations. In addition to highlighting the role of intelligence in early Cold War crises, particularly the Berlin Blockade, it also looks at Ministerial doubts about the intelligence community, particularly those of Attlee himself. By 1949, he had grown increasingly critical of the intelligence services and, a year later, ordered a review of the intelligence community by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, which is explored here for the first time.

On June 2, 1919, bombs exploded in eight cities in the United States, including at the doorstep of the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C. Mass arrests and deportations brought on by the Red Scare that followed convinced communist parties to go underground, while fears of the Communist International persisted. Two offices in the State Department oversaw the gathering and analysis of intelligence pertaining to Soviet Russia: the Office of the Under Secretary of State and the Division of Eastern European Affairs. The former drew on wartime connections with the British; the latter assessed intelligence gathered by diplomats at posts in Eastern Europe. In the mid-1920s, the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary of State prepared a study of the global arms trade that comported with intelligence reports from British secret services: an illicit small arms trade flourished even among those countries subjected to international weapons inspectors.

This chapter examines the context, strength, and development of intelligence accountability in the U.K., focusing on surveillance, and it concludes that intelligence accountability in the U.K. has been limited in scope and bureaucratic in function. It first discusses the historical and legal contexts of surveillance and assesses the development and impact of surveillance law. It draws attention to the number and range of oversight bodies, but also identifies their inefficiencies and flaws, including their fragmented coverage and their emphasis on legal compliance rather than broader notions of accountability. The chapter notes that, in the absence of broader approaches to accountability, civil society campaigns against surveillance have filled the gap. Yet, although civil society interventions are important, they cannot take the role of rigorous official governmental review bodies. The chapter reflects on potential legal and institutional reforms to implement stronger independent oversight in the U.K.

This chapter analyzes the components of the intelligence communities of the Five Eyes countries and describes the ways in which their forms and functions have converged over time. It argues specifically that the allied countries have structured and organized their intelligence services in similar ways, and regulated them with similar oversight mechanisms, outlining a theory of institutional convergence that explains this phenomenon. Four main processes gave rise to this phenomenon: competition, coercion, normative persuasion, and acculturation. The chapter examines the consequences of institutional convergence for rights protection and intelligence cooperation and recommends areas for further investigation before suggesting how the Five Eyes model of the oversight and structure of intelligence agencies might become the international norm.

This chapter continues description of the disinformation campaign mounted by Egypt and the USSR to implant the deceptive impression that all Soviet advisers were expelled by President Anwar Sadat in July 1972 as part of a rift with Moscow and a shift to the US camp in the Cold War. The advisers were recalled en masse to Cairo, which had to be noticed by foreign observers, but soon were unobtrusively reposted to Egyptian formations where they continued preparations for an anti-Israeli offensive and induction of offensive weapons such as long-range bombers which supposedly had been refused by the Soviets. Among other components of this deception, supposed Israeli spy Ashraf Marwan is documented as falsely advising an MI6 agent that all Soviets were gone and Egypt would revert to procurement of British weapons – which reinforces evidence that he was actually an Egyptian double agent. US statesman Henry Kissinger assisted the ruse by feigning surprise at Sadat’s move, which had actually been coordinated with him at the Moscow Summit, and concealing this from others in the administration as well as from Israel.

Chapter Three traces the initial construction from late 1972 onwards of a back-channel that linked the IRA Army Council and the British government through intermediary Brendan Duddy. When the British government imposed a ban on direct contact with the IRA after the 1972 talks, it created a new opening for mediators and intermediaries. Archival sources reveal that the back-channel was built to a great extent from the middle out by the intermediary who initiated the contact and worked to draw the positions of the two parties closer together. It contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of mediation, explaining how an intermediary, even a private individual with no organizational backing, could acquire significant independent power and influence over the interaction between the parties.

Beginning in late 1973, there was a step change in communication between the IRA leadership and the British government. The back-channel that hitherto had involved little more than the exchange of political thinking was used increasingly for negotiation on urgent issues including kidnappings, hunger strikes, and the legalization of Sinn Féin. Chapter Four examines the modes of reciprocal exchange and protocols for communication that developed over the course of 1974. It highlights the close involvement of the British Prime Minister and other government ministers in the exchanges and it examines the use of the back-channel to clarify the meaning of public statements. This series of exchanges in 1974 allowed both parties to test whether their interlocutors really had the authority to make commitments and the power to deliver on them. The exchanges contributed to the building of limited trust between the IRA leadership and the British government as each side learned that the other would stand by commitments, respect the integrity of protocols for communication, and not abuse contact for direct military or political advantage. This new communication infrastructure, reinforced by repeated interaction and exchanges, provided a strong foundation for the subsequent intensification and deepening of political engagement.

Back-channel contacts led in early 1975 to an IRA ceasefire that lasted for much of that year. IRA representatives and British government officials now embarked for the first time since the outbreak of the Troubles on a series of regular face-to-face meetings aimed at negotiating an end to the conflict. The venue was the house of intermediary Brendan Duddy in Derry. Chapter Five offers a new explanation for the failure of a serious and sustained effort to bring a negotiated end to the conflict during the IRA ceasefire of 1975. It outlines the mutual understanding and goodwill that developed in the course of these secret talks. It shows the extent of the intra-party divisions that hindered compromise and explains how they contributed to the collapse of the ceasefire and the breakdown of talks. It argues that, in many important respects, this process was a precursor to the peace settlement of the 1990s and shared many of its key features, including a willingness by the IRA to compromise on its core ideological positions and to contemplate alternatives to Irish reunification.