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This chapter begins with a discussion of British policy and Irish neutrality during the phoney war. It then discusses the Navy's Irish concerns, MI5's Irish problems, naval intelligence and Ireland, the SIS and Ireland, and security of war information in the British Isles. It is argued that the quality of British intelligence concerning Ireland during the phoney war was low, with different agencies having different agendas: NID began the war with a fixation about German submarines on the west coast, and sought hard information which preferably would confirm that such reports were true; MI5 were concerned mainly to build up a liaison with G2; and SIS were reluctant to spy in Ireland, partly for fear that this would jeopardize security cooperation. Compounding these problems was the general incoherence of British security policy when war broke out. Neither were the mechanisms, the trained personnel, nor the rules in place to create an effective security screen around the UK.

In August 1906 Captain Henry Campbell was appointed head of the Trade Division of the Naval Intelligence Department and charged with producing a plan for protecting British seaborne commerce. To meet the threat of armed German liners, which he saw as the key danger, he proposed the establishment of a new worldwide intelligence network. The idea was to station reporting officers around the globe who could monitor German shipping movements and inform the Admiralty of the whereabouts of potential German raiders. Their position would thus always be known and, should war break out, British merchantmen could be routed away from danger and British warships vectored to meet the threat. The system, although initially strongly opposed by Admiral Fisher, was finally put into place in 1912 and served Britain well in two world wars.

This chapter examines British intelligence on German intentions to attack British commerce in the event of an Anglo-German war. It shows how the first suspicions were aroused in 1901 while Admiral Custance was Director of Naval Intelligence and how these built up over time as more and more information came in to substantiate these early fears. While there were many sources at the navy's disposal, including consuls and naval attachés, particularly significant in this respect were the reports from secret agents that began to be received from about 1911, two years after the British Secret Service Bureau was established. As a result of this intelligence material, the majority of the senior officers of the Royal Navy were convinced that, come war, an attack by armed German liners on British merchant vessels was to be expected.

John Chadwick, Perceval Maitland Laurence Reader in Classics at Cambridge University, was famous for being involved in the decipherment of the Linear B script in the 1950s. He served with distinction in naval intelligence during World War II; in Alexandria, he broke a vital Italian code, and in Bletchley Park, he worked on Japanese decipherment. After working as a lexicographer on the Oxford English Dictionary, Chadwick moved to academic life at Cambridge, specialising in Mycean studies, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1967. Obituary by J. T. Killen FBA and A. Morpurgo Davies FBA.

To what extent did U.S. intelligence believe that Imperial Japanese forces would invade the West Coast, an idea that many believe was responsible for the alleged atmosphere of wartime hysteria that led to mass confinement of West Coast Japanese Americans? Based on unused archival materials, this article shows that these agencies dismissed the idea of an impending Japanese invasion, shown by their negative reaction to Korean nationalist Kilsoo Haan’s “Yellow Peril” prediction of a Japanese invasion of California in 1943. It also demonstrates that assumptions about Yellow Peril ideas require more nuanced analysis, for they were not universally accepted or as widespread as often believed. The chapter concludes with observations on Kilsoo Haan, U.S. intelligence, and Japanese American internment.

The second chapter discusses the creation of America’s atomic intelligence organization under the direction of Brigadier General Leslie Groves. At first, American scientists believed they could keep track of German atomic research developments on their own, and without the assistance of intelligence professionals. When this proved to be incorrect, and it became clear that the existing intelligence agencies (the Office of Strategic Services, the Office of Navy Intelligence, and Army Intelligence) also did not have the scientific capabilities for an effective atomic intelligence program, Leslie Groves was asked to intervene. Immediately upon taking command, Groves moved to consolidate and centralize his control over all aspects of atomic intelligence.

This chapter examines the significance of the Anticommunist Spider Web to anticommunism. Members of the Anticommunist Spider Web formed a conspiracy against democracy that was far more influential than the “communist” conspiracy they fought. Protecting economic advantage was only part of the Anticommunist Spider Web's purpose. Business and political interests also used anticommunism as a tool to control foreign and domestic policy in the challenging environment created by the Great War, socialist revolutions in Europe, and the bitter industrial disputes of the postwar downturn. Government intelligence operatives were among those most concerned by anticommunism, and the Red Scare put state and military intelligence services at the heart of the Spider Web. This chapter discusses the relationship between the Bureau of Investigation, the US Army Military Intelligence Division, the US Navy Office of Naval Intelligence, and the private intelligence networks run by the Spider Web.

This chapter focuses on the men with whom Kurihara clashed at Manzanar. These include Tokie Nishimura Slocum, Togo Tanaka, and Karl Yoneda. Like Kurihara, Slocum was a veteran of World War I and a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. As war between Japan and the United States grew imminent, Slocum gained the reputation of being an informer for the FBI and Naval Intelligence. As such, he was thoroughly despised by most Nikkei at Manzanar. Similarly, because of his role as a WRA documentary historian, Togo Tanaka was targeted by Nikkei dissidents as an informer and included him on their death list. On the other hand, Karl Yoneda refused to speak out against DeWitt's removal orders. Yoneda and other Nikkei Communists felt that they had no choice but to “accept the racist U.S. dictum” of incarceration “over Hitler's ovens and Japan's military rapists of Nanking.”