GCHQ and British External Policy in the 1960s

Abstract

This study examines the role played by GCHQ during the 1960s. It looks at GCHQ's overseas Sigint collection network, its relationship with the NSA and the problems caused by decolonization, economic crisis and military withdrawal from East of Suez. The paper also discusses GCHQ's intelligence targets in the 1960s, its codebreaking successes and assesses how important Sigint was for British policy towards France, Egypt and Indonesia. It concludes that while Sigint gave Britain tactical benefits in dealing with France and Egypt it was only in the case of Indonesia that Sigint helped Britain to achieve its strategic goals.

Notes

P. Fitzgerald and M. Leopold, Stranger on the Line: The Secret History of Phone Tapping (London: Bodley Head 1987); N. West, GCHQ: the Secret Wireless War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1986); R. Aldrich, ‘GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War, 1945–70’, in M. Aid and C. Wiebes (eds.) Secrets of Signals Intelligence during the Cold War and Beyond (London: Frank Cass 2001) pp.67–96; J. Richelson and D. Ball, The Ties that Bind (Sydney: Allen and Unwin 1985).

R. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand (London: John Murray 2001).

Ibid., p.541.

The British National Archive (TNA), Kew, London, DEFE 4/135 COS (61) 29th Meeting, Minute 1B, Annex JCE(60) 55 , 9 May 1961. DEFE 4/157 COS (63) 51st Meeting, Minute 2, Annex, Amendments to JP 74/63, 27 August 1963.

Aldrich, ‘GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War, 1945–70’, p.67.

TNA PREM 13/1203, Wigg to Wilson, 17 August 1966.

TNA DEFE 24/165 Minute D/DS6/138/44 England to MS, attachment ‘Executive Committee of the Army Board, Management of Army Intelligence’, 16 December 1965.

TNA DEFE 23/23 Letter UF 130 ‘JAD’ to Secretary, 3 February 1961; TNA DEFE 24/444 Minute Devereux to Head of DSI, 5 February 1965.

TNA DEFE 24/444 Minute Peck to VCDS, 30 December 1964; Minute DAC/P(65) 2 by Melville, 18 January 1965; Minute Devereux to Head of DSI, 5 February 1965. Wright claimed that Britain was spending over £100 million a year on Sigint in the mid 1960s but this seems an overestimate. P. Wright, Spycatcher (New York: Viking Penguin 1987) pp.246–7.

Ray Card, a former RAF Russian linguist, reminisces about serving at the Sinop GCHQ site in 1959 at <http://www.rafling.co.uk/raflingnews.htm>, accessed 25 April 2007.

In 1985 Richelson and Ball listed current and some historic British overseas Sigint bases, although they did not disclose the source of this information. Richelson and Ball, The Ties that Bind, pp.335–6.

TNA ADM 1/27870 Draft memo ‘Future of Malta as a naval base’ by VCNS, not dated; DEFE 4/212 COS(67) 11th Meeting, Minute 1B Annex DP Note (67) 3, 10 February 1967; DEFE 4/115 COS(59) 4th Meeting, Minute 7 Annex JP(59) 2 Appendix, 13 January 1959; DEFE 7/2239 COS(61)19, Appendices B & C, 19 January 1961.

TNA DEFE 4/147 COS(62) 57th Meeting, Minute 2, Annex JP(62) 105, 20 September 1962; DEFE 5/138 COS(63) 152 Appendix F, 30 April 1963.

The army complement in Bahrain included 54 ‘Y’‘SIGS’. Y signals was another euphemism for intercept units. TNA DEFE 5/165 COS(66)3 Annex A, Appendix 4, 12 January 1966.

TNA DEFE 6/64 JP(60) 103, 14 December 1960.

TNA DEFE 4/157 COS(63) 51st Meeting, Minute 2, Annex JP(63) 74, 27 August 1963; DEFE 4/140 COS(61) 76th Meeting, Minute 3, Annex JP(61) 148, 14 November 1961.

TNA CO 968/763 Black to Wallace, 16 March 1964; <http://www.littlesaiwan-367su.org.uk/history.html>, accessed 20 April 2007.

TNA DEFE 25/74 Memo ‘Hong Kong – No. 117 Signals Unit’, not dated; DEFE 13/534 DP59/66, 6 October 1966.

Websites of former workers at CK2 provided most of this information. See <http://www.eropa.net/3telu/html/history.htm>, accessed 19 April 2007; <http://www.freewebs.com/roverjag/>, accessed 19 April 2007; <http://www.minister.defence. gov.au/2000/sea.html>, accessed 19 April 2007.

Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, p.401.

TNA FCO46/3 Minute Sykes to Private Secretary, 14 November 1967; DEFE 6/105 DP Note 28/67, 8 November 1967; AIR 2/17628 ‘Air Ministry Signals Plan No. 126/63 by Street, 29 July 1963.

DEFE 13/311 JP(61) 91, 14 September 1961.

TNA CAB 159/36 JIC(61) 42nd Meeting, Minute 4, 17 August 1961; CAB 158/44 JIC(61) 63, not dated.

Relevant unreleased documents are TNA CAB 159/36 JIC(61) 43rd Meeting, Minute 7, 24 August 1961; CAB 158/44 JIC(61) 63, not dated; CAB 163/19 (whole file). Richelson and Ball list Gibraltar as a Sigint base. Richelson and Ball, The Ties that Bind, p.335.

TNA DEFE 7/1836 Draft brief for Minister ‘Strength of Forces in Cyprus’, 16 September 1959; DEFE 7/2239 COS(61) 19, Appendices B and C, 19 January 1961; ADM 1/27870 Draft Board Memo ‘Future of Malta as a naval base’ by VCNS, not dated; DEFE 6/93 DP 140(64), 7 January 1965.

TNA DEFE 7/1728 JP(62)59, 4 May 1962; DEFE 7/1730 JP(63) 11, 18 February 1963.

TNA CO 968/831 DP11/65 Draft memo ‘Defence Review 1965 – coordinating study’, 19 February 1965.

TNA CO 968/764 DP(64) 137, 20 January 1965; DEFE 13/534 DP 59/66, 6 October 1966.

TNA CAB 163/70 Memo ‘Points arising from DCDS(I)' S Far East Tour 31 Oct–26 Nov 68’ by DCDS(I), 2 December 1968.

E. Peck, Recollections 1915–2005 (New Delhi: Pauls Press 2005) p.232.

Fitzgerald and Leopold, Stranger on the Line, p.90.

Richelson and Ball, The Ties that Bind, pp.335–6.

J. Bamford, Body of Secrets (London: Arrow Books 2002) pp.161–2; ‘Private Ears Lopped off’, Time Out, No.664, 13–19 May 1983.

M. Aid, ‘The National Security Agency and the Cold War’ in Aid and Wiebes (eds), Secrets of Signals Intelligence during the Cold War and Beyond, pp.27–66.

J. Bamford, The Puzzle Palace (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1983) pp.401–2, 411–13.

New York Times, 7 September 1960.

TNA DEFE 31/9 Carey-Foster to Bristow, 22 March 1968.

TNA FCO 46/3 Minute Sykes to Private Secretary, 14 November 1967; DEFE 4/115 COS(59) 4th Meeting, Minute 7 Annex JP(59) 2 Appendix, 13 January 1959; United States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (NARA), Record Group 59, National Security Action Memoranda Files, 1961–68, NSAM 71, Memo Battle to Bundy, Attachment Tab C, 7 September 1961.

NARA, Record Group 59, National Security Action Memoranda Files, 1961–68, NSAM 71, Memo Battle to Bundy, Attachment Tab C, 7 September 1961.

TNA CAB 159/39 JIC(63) 53rd Meeting, Minute 10, 24 October 1963; NARA Record Group 59, Diaries of David Bruce, Diary 1 October 1967 to 31 December 1967, entry for 8 December 1967.

TNA DEFE 25/11 Extract from COS(58) 9th Meeting, Minute 1, 4 December 1958.

TNA CAB 159/39 JIC(63) 53rd Meeting, Minute 10, 24 October 1963.

Peck, Recollections 1915–2005, p.233.

TNA CAB 159/38 JIC(62) 37th Meeting, Minute 8, 2 August 1962; DEFE 25/74 Memo ‘Hong Kong – No 117 Signals Unit’, not dated.

Cmnd 263 (London: HMSO 1957); Cmnd 2094 (London: HMSO, 1963).

TNA DEFE 4/244 COS(69) 47th Meeting, Minute 1, Annex DP Note 216/69, 25 November 1969; CAB 163/93 Paper DOP 527/68 by the Defence Operations Staff, 5 November 1968; Cmnd 3629 (London: HMSO 1968); TNA DEFE 4/157 COS(63) 51st Meeting, (2) Annex JP74/63, 27 August 1963; CO 968/769 Telegram LONSOS 174 London to Commonwealth Secretary, 6 September 1963; Telegram TS02/CDR HQ RAFEA to MOD, 16 September 1963; PREM 11/4889 Telegram 98 London to Nairobi, attached ‘Memorandum of intention and understanding’, 26 May 1964; ‘Copy of letter dated 3rd June 1964’ Stanley to Aspin, not dated.

TNA CAB 159/36 JIC(61) 42nd Meeting, Minute 1, 17 August 1961.

TNA CAB 159/38 JIC(62) 42nd Meeting, Minute 2, 6 September 1962.

TNA DEFE 5/140 COS(63) 262, 24 July 1963.

Wright, Spycatcher, pp.246–7.

Ibid., p.247.

H. Lanning and R. Norton-Taylor, A Conflict of Loyalties (Cheltenham: New Clarion Press 1991) p.31.

In 1971 the signals centre in Bahrain transferred to Masirah and Richelson and Ball list Masirah as a GCHQ Sigint base. TNA AIR 29/4338 Operation Order 1/71 by Stubbings, 25 June 1971; CAB 163/116 Minute COS 1237/17/4/19 MOD to Chiefs of Staff, 17 April 1969; Richelson and Ball, The Ties that Bind, pp.192, 335.

Aldrich, ‘GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War, 1945–70’, pp.90–91.

D. Campbell, ‘Spies Who Spend What They Like’, New Statesman, 16 May 1980.

West, GCHQ, pp.249–50.

D. Cole, Geoffrey Prime: The Imperfect Spy (London: Robert Hale 1998).

TNA DEFE 23/23 Review of Service Intelligence by Templer, 16 December 1960; CAB 159/41 JIC(64) 41st Meeting, Minute 9, 13 August 1964; CAB 159/45 JIC(66) 1st Meeting, Minute 13, 6 January 1966.

TNA DEFE 25/105 Record of a meeting between Mountbatten and Menzies on 3 March 1964, 4 March 1964.

TNA CAB 159/45 JIC(66) 1st Meeting, Minute 13, 6 January 1966; CAB 159/47 JIC(67) 27th Meeting, Minute 1, 29 June 1967.

R. Mobley, ‘Deterring Iraq: The UK Experience’, Intelligence and National Security 16/2 (Summer 2001) pp.58–82.

C. Aubrey, Who's Watching You? (London: Penguin 1981) p.142; D. Campbell, ‘Official Secrecy and British Libertarianism’, Socialist Register 16 (1979) pp.75–88; TNA CAB 159/43 JIC(63) 3rd Meeting, Minute 9, 21 Jan 1965; AIR 20/12133 Flight Approval Form, 13 July 1967; AIR 20/12134 Flight Approval Form, 21 February 1968.

TNA CAB 159/44 JIC(65) 34th Meeting, Minute 9, 19 August 1965; JIC(65) 35th Meeting, Minute 1, 26 August 1965; JIC(65) 36th Meeting, Minute 2, 2 September 1965, JIC(65) 37th Meeting, Minute 1, 9 September 1965; JIC(65) 39th Meeting, Minute 4, 23 September 1965. Some minutes are still retained.

TNA CAB 159/44 JIC(65) 46th Meeting, Minute 2, 28 October 1965.

TNA DO 169/438 Draft telegram 1397 London to Kuala Lumpur, 13 October 1966. This could of course have come from a human source rather than Sigint.

Wright, Spycatcher, pp.110–12.

G. Robertson, The Justice Game (London: Vintage 1999) p.110; Aubrey, Who's Watching You?, p.142.

TNA DEFE 13/577 Minute Gibbon to ‘PS/SofS’, 30 October 1966.

TNA DEFE 11/669 Brief by Lewis for COS meeting on 16 March 1965, 15 March 1965.

TNA DEFE 11/603 Begg to Elworthy, 3 November 1969.

‘U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir’, Ramparts 11/2 (August 1972) pp.35–50.

David Kahn, book review, ‘Enigma Unwrapped – The Ultra Secret by F.W. Winterbotham’, New York Times, 29 December 1974.

T. Bower, The Perfect English Spy (New York: St Martin's Press 1995) p.250.

TNA DEFE 32/18 Burroughs to Ryland, 3 June 1969, attached ‘Report of the CESD Working Party’.

D. Kahn, The Codebreakers (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1966) pp.685–7.

Ibid.; Aid, ‘The National Security Agency and the Cold War’, p.41.

Wright, Spycatcher, pp.82–4, 109–13.

TNA AIR 19/978 Letter JIC/1482/60 Hunt to Bufton, attached minute ‘Comments on J.I.B.'s Memorandum’, 9 September 1960.

Aid, ‘The National Security Agency and the Cold War’, pp.43–5.

J. Young, ‘Britain and LBJ's War, 1964–1968’, Cold War History 2/3 (April 2002) pp.63–92.

M. Urban, UK Eyes Alpha (London: Faber and Faber 1996) p.6.

Wright, Spycatcher, pp.109–12.

Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.349.

Wright, Spycatcher, p.109.

New York Times, 7 September 1960.

This official did not wish to be identified. Henceforth he will be referred to as Official A.

TNA DEFE 13/398 Telegram MIDCOS 70 Aden to London, 6 October 1962.

TNA DEFE 4/148 COS(62) 66th Meeting, Minute 2, 23 October 1962.

TNA CAB 159/38 JIC(62) 47th Meeting, Minute 1, 8 October 1962.

TNA DEFE 25/128 Telegram COSMID 62 CDS to CinC Middle East, 24 October 1962.

TNA DEFE 25/129 ‘Chief of Staff Committee Meeting Thursday 2^nd April 1964 Yemen – Special Flights’, not dated.

TNA DEFE 13/569 Minute Fraser to CAS, 8 April 1964.

TNA DEFE 4/203 COS(66) 35th Meeting, Minute 1, 19 July 1966.

Wright, Spycatcher, p.113. Letter from Anthony Golds to author, 17 June 2000. The second official did not wish to be identified. Henceforth he will be referred to as Official B.

TNA DEFE 25/166, Minute Wright to Acting Chief of Defence Staff, 26 July 1965.

Wright, Spycatcher, p.113.

C. Wiebes, ‘Dutch Sigint during the Cold War, 1945–94’ in Aid and Wiebes, Secrets of Signals Intelligence during the Cold War and Beyond, pp. 257–9.

TNA CAB 150/59 Burrows to Trend, 23 December 1965.

Wright, Spycatcher, p.111.

Ibid., p.112.

Letter from Official A to author.

Aubrey, Who's Watching You?, p. 142; Robertson, The Justice Game, p.110.

TNA FCO 46/30 Minute Sykes to Allen, 23 June 1967.

Letter from Official A to author.

Through bugging the SIS station in Beirut the KGB learned that in 1967 SIS had ‘an important agent’ in Egypt ‘with access to President Nasser’. C. Andrew, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Allen Lane 1999) p.443.

TNA DEFE 4/218 COS(67) 42nd Meeting, Minute 1, 29 May 1967.

Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.349; F. Brenchley, Britain, the Six Day War and its Aftermath (London: IB Tauris, 2005) p.140; Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol XIX Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967 (Washington: US Government Publishing Office 2004) p.239, Memorandum of Conversation, 2 June 1967.

R. McNamara, Britain, Nasser and the Balance of Power in the Middle East (London: Frank Cass 2003) pp.245–61.

Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.246.

P. Hinchcliffe, ‘Robin Young's Diaries’ in P. Hinchcliffe, J. Ducker and M. Holt, Without Glory in Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris 2006) p.165.

Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.246; TNA CAB 130/189 GEN 776/2nd Meeting, 31 October 1962.

TNA FO 371/174635 Telegram 670 FO to Cairo, 4 May 1964.

C. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 1962–1965 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 2004); S Mawby, British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955–67 (London: Routledge 2005).

TNA DEFE 25/129 Minute PM/64/52 Butler to Home, 21 April 1964; DEFE 13/570 Minute Mountbatten to Thorneycroft, 3 July 1964; Memorandum ‘Aid to the Royalists’‘Annexed to CDS copy of Aide Memoire’, 19 July 1964.

TNA DEFE 13/570 Minute Fisher to Sandys, 14 July 1964.; CO 1055/133 ‘Notes toward a Definition of a policy for South Arabia’ by da Silva, not dated; P. Hinchcliffe, ‘The Political Officers in the Western Aden Protectorate’ in Hinchcliffe et al., Without Glory in Arabia (London: IB Tauris 2006) pp.98–9.

Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.254.

TNA CO 1055/133 ‘Notes toward a Definition of a Policy for South Arabia’ by da Silva, not dated; CO 1055/62 Telegram Personal 907 Aden to JIC, 5 November 1964.

Mawby, British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates, p.141.

TNA FCO 8/710 Minute by Brenchley, 20 January 1967.

TNA DEFE 55/418 Minute Potts to DCS(Army), 18 December 1967.

TNA DEFE 13/572 Minute CDS to Healey, 19 May 1967.

Ibid; FCO8/710 Minute by Brenchley, 20 January 1967.

TNA DEFE 11/529 SAAG(67) 9th Meeting, 21 June 1967; DEFE 11/533 SAAG(67) 13th Meeting, 28 September 1967.

TNA FCO 46/97 Cooper to Rennie, 20 January 1967; DEFE 24/569 SAAG(67) 5th Meeting, 4 April 1967; Paris Match, No. 934, 4 March 1967.

TNA CAB 148/78 OPDO(AS)(67) 1, 1 February 1967.

D. Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–66 (London: Tauris Academic Studies 2004) p.195.

Letter Golds to author, 17 June 2000.

NARA Record Group 59, Box 3334 UN 6-2 Withdrawal, Exclusion, Indon, 1/1/64, Telegram 1222 Jakarta to State Department, 4 January 1965.

U. Sundhaussen, The Road to Power (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press 1982) pp.187–9; H. Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University 1978) pp.70–75.

TNA DEFE 4/ 214 COS(67) 18th Meeting, Minute 2, 7 March 1967.

Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, pp.94, 115–16.

Archives New Zealand (ANZ), Wellington, ABHS 7148 ACC W4628 Box 115, LONB 106/2/7 Part 3, Telegram 458 Singapore to Wellington, 24 December 1964.

Letter from Official B to author.

ANZ, ABHS 7148 ACC W4628 Box 115 LONB106/2/7 Part 4, Telegram 20 Singapore to Wellington, 17 January 1965.

Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, pp.123–4.

Ibid., pp.124–5.

Ibid., p.125.

TNA DEFE 4/198 COS(66) 18th Meeting, Minute 2, COS 1394/30/3/66 Minute Lapsley to Chiefs of Staff, 31 March 1966; DEFE 32/18 Cheyne to Bayne, 8 July 1969; Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, p.194.

TNA DEFE 24/648 Minute by Carver, 24 April 1973.

TNA FO 1101/5 Minute Reddaway to Tovey, 30 October 1965.

P. Lashmar and J. Oliver, Britain's Secret Propaganda War (Stroud: Sutton Publishing 1998) p.9; TNA FO 1101/12 Reddaway to Hopson, 11 February 1966; FO 1101/7 Telegram 92 Singapore to Hong Kong, 8 December 1965.

D. Easter, ‘British Intelligence and Propaganda during the “Confrontation”, 1963–1966’, Intelligence and National Security 16/2 (Summer 2001), pp.94–9.

TNA CAB 159/42 JIC(64) 61st Meeting, Minute 5, 17 December 1964.

ANZ, ABHS 7148, Acc W4628 Box 115 LONB 106/2/7 Part 4, Letter Wade to Secretary External Affairs, 3 September 1965; TNA DEFE 4/184 COS(65) 21st Meeting, Minute 1A, 27 April 1965; CAB 159/43 JIC(65) 8th Meeting, Minute 3, 28 February 1965.

Letter from Official A to author.