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Abstract
This article examines British deception operations in the early Cold War. It illustrates how, in the years before Britain could threaten atomic retaliation, Britain’s deception organisation, the London Controlling Section (LCS) was tasked with conducting operations to deter the USSR and China from starting a war or threatening British interests. It introduces a number of their ploys – some physical and military, others subversive and political. It argues that the LCS faced significant challenges in implementing its deceptions. Repeating the great strategic successes of the Second World War was extremely difficult; what remained for the Cold War were more limited deceptions.
Notes
1 Deception in the Cold War is discussed to a greater or lesser degree by Julian Lewis, Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Post-War Strategic Defence, 1942–47 (London: Frank Cass 2003); Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray 2001); Stephen Twigge and Len Scott, Planning Armageddon (Amsterdam: Routledge 2000); Stephen Twigge and Len Scott, ‘Strategic Defence by Deception’, Intelligence and National Security 16/2 (2001), 152–7; Len Scott and Huw Dylan, ‘Cover for Thor: Divine Deception Planning for Cold War Missiles’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/5 (Oct. 2010), 759–75; Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (London: Phoenix 2005); Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate 2000).
2 Lewis, Changing Direction, lxxv.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid, lxxvi.
5 Ibid.
6 CAB 121/110, Stuart Menzies, ‘Deception Organisation in Peace’ attached to Hollis, 6 May 1946.
7 CAB 81/80, HC (47) 1 ‘London Controlling Section: Terms of Reference’ 8 Dec. 1947.
8 CAB 81/81, LCS (47) 1 ‘Deception Policy: Proposals for Future Executive Committee’, 31 March 1947.
9 DEFE 28/76 ‘Deception Policy’, 3 July 1947. See Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 371–2.
10 DEFE 28/118, Wild ‘Deception: Report on Progress’, 4 June 1948. It remains unclear whether or not the Cambridge spies were responsible for this. The available LCS and DFP documents from the later 1950s that examine the difficulties in the late 1940s do not mention them; they do however refer to atom spies like Klaus Fuchs, and, later in the 1950s, to the Soviet mole in SIS George Blake.
11 FO 1093/380, LCS (49) 1, ‘Review of Overall Deception Policy’, 7 Jan. 1949.
12 DEFE 28/180, HC (49) 2nd Meeting, 8 Dec. 1949.
13 DEFE 28/180, Hollis to Elliot, 6 Dec. 1949.
14 DEFE 28/180, Fraser to Elliot, 3 Jan. 1950.
15 DEFE 28/180, Memorandum to Elliot ‘London Controlling Section’, 25 April 1950.
16 DEFE 28/180, Elliot to Minister, 2 May 1950.
17 DEFE 28/70, Memorandum by Drew, 14 Feb., 1951.
18 See J. C. Masterman, The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945 (London: Yale UP 1972).
19 Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray 2002), 27.
20 Cradock, Know Your Enemy, 52.
21 Michael S. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford: Stanford UP 2007), 19.
22 The Soviet’s foreign intelligence successes and internal repression are discussed in Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Penguin 2001), and Robert W. Pringle, ‘Modernisation of Terror: The Transformation of Stalin’s NKVD, 1934–1941’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 17/1 (2004), 113–123.
23 Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service (Bloomsbury: London 2010), 621.
24 See Lewis, Changing Direction, chapter five ‘The Joint Technical Warfare Committee and the Future Nature of Warfare 1945–6’.
25 John Baylis and Alan Macmillan, ‘The British Global Strategy Paper of 1952‘, Journal of Strategic Studies 16/2 (June 1993), 206.
26 CAB 81/80, LCS (47) 4 (Final) ‘Overall Deception Policy: Immediate Future’, 29 July 1947.
27 CAB 81/80, LCS (47) 10, ‘Overall Deception Policy – Immediate Future’, 3 Nov. 1947.
28 DEFE 28/179, ‘The Aims and Technique of Strategic Deception’.
29 CAB 81/80, HC (49) 3 (Final), ‘Revised Overall Deception Policy: Immediate Future’, 1 March 1949.
30 CAB 81/80, LCS (47)3, ‘Atomic Scientific Research and Production’, 9 June 1947.
31 CAB 80/81, LCS (47) 3 (Preliminary Draft) ‘Atomic Scientific Research and Production’, 9 June 1947.
32 DEFE 28/75, LCS 580/3-5, Minutes of Hollis Committee, 30 Nov. 1948.
33 CAB 80/81, LCS (47) 7, ‘A Deception Policy for Peace Calculated to Assist the Future Defence of the United Kingdom Against Aggression by a Potential Enemy Using Weapons of Mass Destruction’, 17 Sept. 1947.
34 CAB 81/80, LCS (47) 6, ‘The Spread of Communism – Middle East: Outline Plan’, 17 Sept. 1947.
35 DEFE 28/76 ‘Outline Deception Plan’, 9 April 1948.
36 FO 1093/380, LCS (49) 1, ‘Review of Overall Deception Policy’, 7 Jan. 1949.
37 Lewis, Changing Direction, lxxxiv.
38 Twigge and Scott, ‘Strategic Defence by Deception’, 152–7.
39 DEFE 28/102, ‘The “C” project’, 18 Oct. 1948.
40 DEFE 28/102, Wild, ‘The “C” project’, 17 Sept. 1948; and ‘The “C” project’, 18 Oct. 1948.
41 DEFE 28/102, ‘The Stewart Project’, 24 Sept. 1948.
42 DEFE 28/102, ‘The “C” project’, 18 Oct. 1948.
43 DEFE 28/102, ‘First meeting with Professor Otto Frisch’, 30 Dec. 1948.
44 DEFE 28/102, Minutes of meeting 6 January, ‘House Party’, 6 Jan. 1949.
45 DEFE 28/102, Minutes of meeting 20 January, ‘House Party’, 20 Jan. 1949.
46 DEFE 28/102, ‘Note for Sir Findlater Stewart’, 20 Jan. 1949.
47 DEFE 28/102, Minutes of meeting 20 January, ‘House Party’, 20 Jan. 1949.
48 DEFE 28/102, Minutes of meeting 20 January, ‘House Party’, 28 Feb. 1949.
49 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 7 March 1949.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 23 March 1949.
53 Ibid.
54 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 11 April 1949.
55 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 23 March 1949.
56 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 11 April 1949.
57 Twigge and Scott, ‘Strategic Defence by Deception’.
58 DEFE 28/185, ‘The Weser Plan’ attached to Drew to Whiteley, 25 Nov. 1953.
59 DEFE 28/102, Note by Sir Brian Mountain, undated.
60 DEFE 28/102, ‘Deterrent against Russians waging war’, undated.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 DEFE 28/102, House Party, 2 Feb. 1949.
65 Jeffery, MI6, 666.
66 DEFE 28/102, ‘Meeting with EXCISE’, 22 Feb. 1949.
67 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 23 March 1949. There was also a ‘plan two’. This was a scheme concocted in relative haste in response to rumours that a reshuffle of the Politburo in Moscow signified a significant split between Molotov and Stalin. The LCS suggested this could be manipulated. Ultimately, however, they concluded that they did not have enough intelligence to design a plausible operation.
68 DEFE 28/102, House Party Meeting, 11 April 1949.
69 See the file descriptions in the National Archive’s catalogue for DEFE 28/82, DEFE 28/83, DEFE 28/84, DEFE 28/85, DEFE 28/86, DEFE 28/88.
70 DEFE 28/102, ‘Notes on conversation between Wild, Chelly, and EXCISE’, 13 Feb. 1951.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid.
73 Ibid.
74 DEFE 28/7, Note to Drew, 1 Dec. 1952.
75 Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 174.
76 DEFE 11/377, COS (50) 548, ‘Deception Staffs in the Far East’, 29 Dec. 1950.
77 DEEF 28/43, ‘A Policy for Deception’ attached to D. B. G. D, 9 Aug. 1950.
78 Ibid.
79 CAB 121/110, COS (50) 11th Mtg, ‘Deception in the Far East and other areas’, 17 July 1950.
80 Ibid.
81 Ibid.
82 DEFE 28/34, COS (52) 409 ‘Strategic Deception as an Aid to Defence in the Far East’, 6 July 1952.
83 DEFE 11/377, Annex 1 to, COS (52) 505 ‘Strategic Deception as an Aid to Defence in the Far East’, 10 Sept. 1952.
84 CAB 121/110, Drew to Secretary COS Committee, ‘Appointment of Mr. Buchanan’, 21 Jan.1954.
85 See Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 374–5.
86 DEFE 28/118, ‘Proposed Channel for Deception’, 9 Oct. 1947.
87 DEFE 28/179, Undated handwritten note on ‘Technique of Deception’, probably penned by John Drew.
88 See Scott and Dylan, ‘Cover for Thor’.
89 DEFE 28/76, Hollis to Saunders, 2 Dec. 1947.
90 FO 1093/380, Menzies, ‘Deception: American co-operation’, 26 Jan. 1948.
91 CAB 121/110, Elliot to Brownjohn, 2 Nov. 1953.
92 Scott and Dylan, ‘Cover for Thor’, 799.
93 DEFE 28/185, Belchem to Hollis, 23 Dec. 1948.
94 DEFE 28/185, ‘Deception in Western Europe, 22 Dec. 1948.
95 DEFE 28/185, ‘Deception – Western Union: Outline Plan’, 3 March 1949.
96 Ibid.
97 DEFE 28/185, ‘The Weser Plan’ attached to Drew to Whitley, 26 Nov. 1953.
98 Ibid.
99 DEFE 28/185, Drew to Whitley, 26 Nov. 1953.
100 See Scott and Dylan, ‘Cover for Thor’.
101 DEFE 28/1 ‘1st Draft: A Review of Deception Activities’, undated.
102 Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 376.
103 See Huw Dylan ‘Operation TIGRESS: Deception for Counterintelligence and Britain’s 1952 Atomic Test’, Journal of Intelligence History 14/1 (2015), 1—15.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Huw Dylan
Huw Dylan is a Lecturer in Intelligence Studies and International Security at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. His research is focused on British intelligence in the Cold War, and his book Defence Intelligence and the Cold War was published in Autumn 2014 with Oxford University Press.