British Security Liaison in the Middle East: The Introduction of Police/Security Advisers and the Lebanon–Iraq–Jordan ‘Anti-Communist Triangle’ from 1949 to 1958

Abstract

Using newly released and previously unexploited records, this article explores the existence of Anglo-Arab secret liaison and cooperation in instituting anti-communist measures in the early Cold War. It shows that owing to their concern about a war against the Soviet Union, the placing of a British security/police adviser in specific countries was the preferred method by Britain for checking and combatting communism in the Middle East. It argues that the development of the ‘anti-communist triangle’ (the security liaison between Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan) was largely influenced by British concern about the expansion of communist influence. Moreover, the expansion of British influence in the region also converged with the demands from Middle Eastern countries for a British expert in anti-communist measures. The article implies the importance of the role of secret liaison in historical enquiries.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Len Scott, Paul Maddrell, James Vaughan, James Simpson, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Any errors remain the responsibility of mine. I am also grateful to the Royal Historical Society and the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University (through the E.H. Carr Studentship Award and the Caroline Adams Travel Bursaries) for the financial support in the course of this research. I would also like to thank Youmna Asseily and the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum for allowing access to the private papers of Emir Farid Chehab and Sir Colonel Patrick Coghill respectively.

Notes

¹Ian Cobain, Mustafa Khalili and Mona Mahmood, ‘How MI6 Deal Sent Family to Gaddafi's Jail’, The Guardian, 9 September 2011; Nick Hopkins, ‘The Libya Papers: A Glimpse into the World of 21^st-century Espionage’, The Guardian, 9 September 2011.

²Stephen Lander, ‘International Intelligence Cooperation: An Inside Perspective’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17/3 (2004) pp.483–4, 489.

³Yaacov Caroz, The Arab Secret Services (London: Corgi 1978) p.13.

⁴Cf. Walter Laqueur, Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1956); Tareq Ismael, The Communist Movement in the Arab World (London: Routledge 2005).

⁵Cf. Caroz, The Arab Secret Services, ch.1.

⁶The exception is Hanna Batatu's classic work on the Iraqi context; see Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1978).

⁷Cf. John Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War 1944–49 (Leicester: Leicester University Press 1993); Wm. Roger Louis, The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945–1951 (Oxford: Clarendon 1984); Michael J. Cohen, ‘The Strategic Role of the Middle East After the War’ in Michael J. Cohen and Martin Kolinsky (eds.) Demise of the British Empire in the Middle East (London: Frank Cass 1998) pp.23–37.

⁸On the Suez Crisis, cf. Keith Kyle, Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East (London: St Martins Press 1991); W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US and the Suez Crisis (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1991).

⁹A reference to the ‘informal’ empire: cf. Yoav Alon, ‘Historiography of Empire: The Literature on Britain in the Middle East’ in Zach Levey and Elie Podeh (eds.) Britain and the Middle East: From Imperial Power to Junior Partner (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 2008) pp.33–47; Glen Balfour-Paul, ‘Britain's Informal Empire in the Middle East’ in Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (eds.) The Oxford History of the British Empire: Vol.IV, the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) pp.490–514; John Darwin, ‘An Undeclared Empire: The British in the Middle East, 1918–39’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 27/2 (1999) pp.159–76; Peter Sluglett, ‘Formal and Informal Empire in the Middle East’ in Robin W. Winks (ed.) The Oxford History of the British Empire: Vol.V, Historiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) pp.416–36.

¹⁰The existing literatures focusing on intelligence aspects are mostly about Anglo-American dimensions, cf. Richard J. Aldrich, ‘Intelligence, Anglo-American Relations and the Suez Crisis, 1956’, Intelligence and National Security 9/3 (1994) pp.544–54; Anthony Gorst and W. Scott Lucas, ‘The Other Collusion: Operation Straggle and Anglo-American Intervention in Syria, 1955–56’, Intelligence and National Security 4/3 (1989) pp.576–95; Matthew Jones, ‘The “Preferred Plan”: The Anglo-American Working Group Report on Covert Action in Syria, 1957’, Intelligence and National Security 19/3 (2004) pp.401–15; Scott Lucas and Alistair Morey, ‘Hidden “Alliance”: The CIA and MI6 Before and After Suez’, Intelligence and National Security 15/2 (2000) pp.95–120.

¹¹The exception was Israel.

¹²The National Archives (TNA), London: Public Record Office (PRO) [thereafter TNA: PRO] CAB158/9: JIC (50)20: memorandum, ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 21 April 1950.

¹³TNA: PRO CAB81/133: JIC (46)70(0)(FINAL), ‘The Spread of Communism Throughout the World and the Extent of its Direction from Moscow’, 23 September 1946; PRO CAB159/5: JIC (49) 28^th meeting, ‘Scale and Nature of Attack on the Colonies’, 16 March 1949; also Annex to JIC (48) 128 (Final) Revise, ‘Fifth Column Activities’, 11 January 1949.

¹⁴TNA: PRO CAB79/46: COS (46) 51^st meeting, ‘Strategic Position of the British Commonwealth’, 29 March 1946. On the post-war imperial defence strategy, to name some: cf. note 7, and Anthony Gorst, ‘“We Must Cut Our Coat According to Our Cloth’: The Making of British Defence Policy, 1945–8’ in Richard J. Aldrich (ed.) British Intelligence, Strategy & the Cold War, 1945–51 (London: Routledge 1992) pp.143–63.

¹⁵Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945–1951 (London: W.W. Norton 1983) p.215; Richie Ovendale, ‘William Strang and the Permanent Under-Secretary's Committee’ in John Zametica (ed.) British Officials and British Foreign Policy 1945–50 (Leicester: Leicester University Press 1990) p.217.

¹⁶The documents released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act of 2000 request are a series of files such as TNA: PRO CAB134/2-4, followed by CAB134/5 and CAB134/744, the latter series of which are currently under the author's FOI request.

¹⁷TNA: PRO PREM8/1365: minute by Ernest Bevin to Clement Attlee, 19 April 1949; CAB134/4: AC (O) (50) 1^st meeting: minute, ‘Terms of Reference and Procedure of the Committee’, 25 January 1950.

¹⁸Cf. TNA: PRO PREM8/1365: note by Sir Norman Brook to Mr Helsby, 13 February 1950; PRO CAB134/3: AC (O) (49) 1: note by the Secretary of the Cabinet, ‘Composition and Terms of Reference’, 31 December 1949.

¹⁹TNA: PRO CAB21/2992: memorandum by I. Kirkpatrick, 23 February 1955.

²⁰Cf. TNA: PRO CAB134/2: AC (M) (49) 1: note by the Secretary of the Cabinet, 31 December 1949.

²²TNA: PRO FO371/80199: J1641/1G: minute by Gladwyn Jebb, 24 February 1950.

²¹TNA: PRO CAB134/4: AC (O) (50) 18^th meeting of Cabinet Official Committee on Communism (Overseas): minute, ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 2 June 1950.

²³TNA: PRO CAB134/4: AC (O) (50) 16^th meeting: minute, ‘Training of Foreign Police Officers’, 19 May 1950.

²⁴Ibid.

²⁵Cf. F.H. Hinsley and C.A.G. Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol.4: Security and Counter-Intelligence (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1990); Michael Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol.5: Strategic Deception (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1990); H.O. Dovey, ‘Operation Condor’, Intelligence and National Security 4/2 (1989) pp.357–73. The wartime security/counter-intelligence measures in the Middle East were inspected by Dick White in 1943. Cf. TNA: PRO KV4/240: report by Dick White on visit to Middle East in 1943.

²⁶TNA: PRO CAB134/3: AC (O) (50)28: draft memorandum by the Joint Secretaries, ‘Constitutional and Administrative Measures to Combat Communism, Particularly in the Middle East’, 15 Jul 1950.

²⁷TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/2G: letter by Sir Ralph Stevenson, British Ambassador to Cairo to Patrick Reilly, 28 February 1951; E1017/3G: memorandum by H.A. Dudgeon, ‘Anti-Communist Measures in Middle Eastern Countries’, 1 March 1951.

²⁸TNA: PRO CAB132/2: AC (M) (51) 4: memorandum by Chairman of the Official Committee, ‘The Work of the Official Committee on Communism (Overseas)’: ‘Activities in the Middle East’, 23 June 1951.

²⁹TNA: PRO KV4/236: 164v: minute by J.C. Robertson, B3a, (between B3a, DDG and B3) re FO intelligence interests in ME, 22 January 1948.

³⁰TNA: PRO FO371/80199: J1641/1G: minute by Patrick Reilly, 26 April 1950. Note that while the name of MI6 has been redacted in the ‘weeding’ process, it is logically, and also easily, assumed that the redacted word was MI6 by cross-referencing of the materials.

³¹TNA: PRO FO371/91178: E1018/1G: memorandum by C.E. King, head of the Overseas Planning Section, 7 May 1951.

³²Cf. Stephen Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon under French Mandate (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1958) p.138.

³³TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E8783/G: report by D. Beaumont-Nesbitt to Head Office [MI5] (B1) and SIME (B), 27 June 1949 [thereafter Beaumont-Nesbitt Report].

³⁴Ibid. The name of David Beaumont-Nesbitt also appears in William Magan, Middle Eastern Approaches (Norwich: Michael Russell 2001) p.149.

³⁵TNA: PRO CAB134/3: AC (O) (50) 18: report (annex) by JIC, ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 21 April 1950.

³⁶Ibid.

³⁷Ibid.

³⁸TNA: PRO CAB134/4: AC (O) (50) 18^th meeting: minute, ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 2 June 1950.

³⁹TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E3456/G: telegram by Houstoun-Boswall to FO, No. 142 of 15 March 1949, which noted that ‘the spread of Communism was a great source of anxiety to the Lebanese Government and it was felt that new methods must be devised to meet the menace … I think it is important from every point of view to meet this request. What they want advice about is how to organise an effective counter espionage against the Communists’.

⁴⁰Cf. Meir Zamir, ‘The “Missing Dimension”: Britain's Secret War against France in Syria and Lebanon, 1942–45 – Part II’, Middle Eastern Studies 46/6 (2010) pp.791–899.

⁴¹On the Anglo-French tensions in the region, see also Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle-Eastern Studies (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1970), ch.8; A.B. Gaunson, The Anglo-French Clash in Lebanon and Syria, 1940–45 (London: Macmillan 1987).

⁴²TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E3456/G: minute by L. Thirkell, 17 March 1949.

⁴⁵Ibid.

⁴³TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E3456/G: minute by L. Thirkell, 23 April 1949. Note that Mitchell was then in B (Counter-Espionage) Division, later Deputy Director General of MI5 under Sir Roger Hollis.

⁴⁴TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E7476/G: report (Flag C) by Mitchell, ‘Lebanon: Defence Against Communism’, 17 June 1949 [thereafter Mitchell Report], p.1.

⁴⁶Ibid.

⁴⁸Private Papers of Emir Farid Chehab in possession of the family of Emir Farid Chehab [thereafter Chehab Papers “F”]: report by Keith Wheeler [sic], Middle East correspondence of TIME, ‘Subject Communism in the Middle East’, 13 November 1954, designated ‘4Q’, p.14.

⁴⁷Quoted from Youmna Asseily and Ahmad Asfahani (eds.), A Face in the Crowd (London: Stacey International 2007) p.xi.

⁴⁹Asseily and Asfahani, A Face in the Crowd, p.191.

⁵⁰Ibid., pp.9, 193–4, 202.

⁵¹TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E7476/G: report (Flag D) by Mitchell, ‘Suggested Recommendation to be Tendered to Prime Minister at Second Interview’, 17 June 1949.

⁵²Mitchell Report, p.3.

⁵³Beaumont-Nesbitt Report.

⁵⁴Asseily and Asfahani, A Face in the Crowd, p.10.

⁵⁵TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/6G: letter by Ronald W. Bailey, acting Charge d'Affaires in Beirut, to Herbert Morrison, Foreign Secretary then, 1 June 1951.

⁵⁸TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E10297: letter by George L. Clutton to E.W. Thomas, Khartoum, 8 September 1949. Emphasis added.

⁵⁶TNA: PRO FO371/75319: telegram from Beirut to FO, 18 July 1949.

⁵⁷TNA: PRO FO371/75319: E10297/G: letter by R.C. Mayall, Sudan Gov. Agency, to Thirkell, 23 August 1949; PRO FO371/82267: EL1015/13G: letter by Ronald Beiley to G.W. Furlonge, 14 March 1950.

⁶⁰TNA: PRO FO371/82267: EL1015/16G: Letter by Houstoun-Boswall to Bevin, 28 November 1950.

⁵⁹TNA: PRO CAB134/4: AC (O) (50) 18^th meeting: minute, ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 2 June 1950.

⁶¹TNA: PRO FO371/91178: E1018/1G: minute by H.A. Dudgeon, 18 May 1951.

⁶²To name some important memoirs and works: on Operation Boot, memoirs of the British account, C.M. Woodhouse, Something Ventured (London: Granada 1982) ch.8–9; and of the American account on Operation TPAJAX, Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill 1979); Donald Wilber, ‘Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November 1952–August 1953’, Foreign Policy Bulletin 11/3 (2000) pp.90–104. The academic works on the subject, cf. Brian Lapping, End of Empire (London: Guild 1985) ch.4; Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne (eds.), Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (New York: Syracuse University Press 2004). On more of an intelligence dimension, see Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (London: Free Press 2000) ch.28; John Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret War of the CIA (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee 2006) ch.6.

⁶³Cf. Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p.1157. Also TNA: PRO KV4/384: report, ‘Report of Visit by Mr AJ Kellar to the Middle East’, p.14, July 1946.

⁶⁴On shifting of British strategy from Egypt to Iraq, cf. Scott Lucas, ‘The Path to Suez: Britain and the Struggle for the Middle East, 1953–56’ in Ann Deighton (ed.) Britain and the First Cold War (London: Macmillan 1990).

⁶⁸TNA: PRO FO371/82410: EQ1019/1G: Letter by Sir Henry Mack to Ernest Bevin, 7 November 1950.

⁶⁵TNA: PRO CAB134/3: AC (O) (50) 18, JIC report (annex), ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, annex, 21 April 1950.

⁶⁶Ibid. Detailed reports on the raid by the Iraqi CID on the ICP in 1949: cf. PRO FO371/75130; 75131.

⁶⁷TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/9G: letter by Sir John Troutbeck to Herbert Morrison, 27 June 1951.

⁶⁹On the Point Four Program: cf. TNA: PRO FO371/98276: E11345/7: minute, 25 January 1952, enclosing ‘United States Economic and Social Interest in the Middle East’, undated; National Archives and Records Administration, United States (NARA): RG59: 511.80/4/1653, Clark to Sanger, 16 April 1953, enclosing ‘Information Policy for the Point IV Program’, 3 March 1953.

⁷⁰TNA: PRO FO371/104719: EQ1641/9G: letter by Troutbeck to Falla, 13 October 1953.

⁷¹Although no reference to his career in MI5 was stated, his career as Head of the Special Branch in India a few years earlier can be found from his autobiography. Roger Lees, In the Shade of the Peepul Tree (private publication 1998) p.89. MI5 also had Norman Himsworth in the guise of the Security Liaison Officer in Baghdad under ‘our diplomatic mission’ as a part of the SIME network. See Magan, Middle Eastern Approaches, p.150.

⁷²TNA: PRO FO371/104719: EQ1641/9G: minute by Patricia M. Hutchinson, 19 October 1953.

⁷³TNA: PRO FO371/111043: VQ1641/5: letter by H.S. Stephenson of BMEO to R. Allen, 24 January 1954.

⁷⁴TNA: PRO FO371/104719: EQ1641/13G: letter by Troutbeck to Falla, 24 November 1953.

⁷⁵TNA: PRO FO371/104719: EQ1641/16G: memorandum by P.S. Falla, ‘Police Expert for Iraq’, 23 December 1953; letter by R. Allen of FO to A.E. Drake of Treasury, 30 December 1953.

⁷⁶TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: Joint Standing Instruction No.3: Security Directive, issued by Commanders-in-Chief, Middle East, 24 November 1950.

⁷⁷TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: appendix ‘C’ to the Air Headquarters Iraq Security Plan, ‘Security Measures in Iraq’, attached to letter by R. Lloyd, Wing Commander, for Air Vice Marshal, Air Officer Commanding, British Forces in Iraq, to Military Division, BMEO, 30 March 1951.

⁷⁸TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: report on ‘security planning’, produced by RER Lees [DSO], attached to minutes of a meeting by Wing Commander A.J. Douch, Senior Intelligence Officer, 10 June 1953 [thereafter ‘Anglo-Iraqi Security Planning Report’], p.2.

⁷⁹TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: letter by RER Lees [DSO], AHQ detachment, RAF, British Embassy Section, Baghdad, to P.S. Davies, Wing-Commander, SIO, Habbaniyah, ‘Security Measures in Iraq in the Event of War’, 19 May 1952.

⁸⁰Anglo-Iraqi Security Planning Report, pp.2–3.

⁸¹Ibid., p.5.

⁸²TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: letter by Group Captain H.M. White, Headquarters, Middle East Air Force, to Air Vice-Marshal J.G. Hawtrey, Air Officer Commanding, British Forces in Iraq, ‘Security Planning in Iraq’, 23 July 1953.

⁸⁵TNA: PRO FO371/115796: VQ1643/3: letter by R.W.J. Hooper, Bagdad, to R.M. Hadow, of FO, 2 December 1955.

⁸³TNA: PRO FO371/111043: VQ1641/14G: telegram by FO to Baghdad, 31 March 1954. Next to MacIntosh, the strongest candidate was Sir William Jenkin, the nominee of MI5, whose character the Colonial Office described was ‘rather too much of a specialist to take the lead of a general mission on Police re-organisation’. Cf. TNA: PRO FO371/111043: VQ1641/2: letter by M.B. Ramage of CO to Falla, 15 January 1954.

⁸⁴TNA: PRO FO371/111043: VQ1641/27: telegram by Sir J. Troutbeck to FO, 23 September 1954. On the formation of the new government, see: Lord Birdwood, Nuri As-Said: A Study in Arab Leadership (London: Cassell 1959) p.227.

⁸⁶Ronen Yitzhak, ‘The Beginnings of Transjordanian Military Intelligence: A Neglected Aspect of the 1948 War’, Middle East Journal 57/3 (2003) pp.449–68.

⁸⁷TNA: PRO CAB134/3: AC (O) (50) 18: JIC report (annex), ‘Communist Influence in the Middle East’, 21 April 1950.

⁸⁸TNA: PRO FO371/81904: E1018/7G: diplomatic despatch by Sir A. Kirkbride, Amman, to Ernest Bevin, 20 October 1950; PRO FO371/91790: ET1016/4G: minute by J.M. Hunter of FO, 28 September 1951.

⁸⁹TNA: PRO FO371/91790: ET1016/4G: letter by Furlonge of FO to Amri Abdul Majid Haidar, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, the Jordan Legation, 29 October 1951.

⁹⁰A former commander of the Arab Legion, Peter Young, noted Colonel Coghill's title as the ‘director of CID [Criminal Investigation Department]’. Quoted from Peter Young, Bedouin Command with the Arab Legion 1953–1956 (London: William Kimber 1956) p.174.

⁹¹Cf. TNA: PRO WO216/890: letter by Colonel Sir Patrick Coghill to Major General W.P. Oliver of WO, 27 November 1955.

⁹²James Lunt, The Arab Legion, 1923–1957 (London: Constable 1999) pp.140–1.

⁹³The Documents and Sound Section of the Imperial War Museum [IWM], London: Private Papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Patrick Coghill: memoir/diary, entitled ‘Before I Forget…’, vol.2, pp.108–9.

⁹⁴Ibid., p.118.

⁹⁵Ibid.

⁹⁶IWM: Private Papers of Patrick Coghill, ‘Before I Forget…’, vol.1, p.44. Haj Amin al-Husseini had also been closely watched by SIME. Cf. TNA: PRO KV2/2085-2092, all of which are Personal Files of MI5 on him. TNA: PRO FO371/111094: telegram by Sir Chapman Andrews, Beirut, to FO, 16 December 1954.

⁹⁷TNA: PRO FO371/111043: VQ1641/27: telegram by Sir J. Troutbeck to FO, 18 September 1954.

⁹⁸TNA: PRO WO216/890: letter by Colonel Sir Patrick Coghill to Major General W.P. Oliver of WO, 27 November 1955.

⁹⁹Asseily and Asfahani, A Face in the Crowd, p.68.

¹⁰⁰Quoted from TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/3G: letter by Furlonge of FO, 4 May 1951. See also: PRO CAB134/2: AC (M) (51) 4: memorandum by Pierson Dixon, successor to Sir Gladwyn Jebb, ‘The Work of the Official Committee on Communism (Overseas)’, 23 June 1951.

¹⁰¹TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/10G: letter of FO to Sir John Troutbeck, Baghdad, 4 October 1951.

¹⁰²TNA: PRO FO371/91177: E1017/10G: minute by H.A. Dudgeon, 5 September 1951.

¹⁰³TNA: PRO FO371/115467: V1016/4: letter from Information Division, Beirut, IRD of FO, 15 June 1955.

¹⁰⁴Cf. TNA: PRO WO216/890: report by Colonel Sir Patrick Coghill, ‘Jordan and the Baghdad Pact’, 26 November 1955; PRO FO371/121423: V1691/1: letter from Ankara to E.M. Rose of FO, 9 January 1956.

¹⁰⁵IWM: Private Papers of Sir Colonel Patrick Coghill: vol.2, p.119.

¹⁰⁶The fact of this highly secret meeting is also confirmed by a record of the Turkish counterpart. Cf. Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü [The State Archives in Ankara]: 30/0/18/12: 141/133/20, 9 January 1956.

¹⁰⁷Cf. documents cited by Richard Aldrich (ed.), Espionage, Security and Intelligence in Britain, 1945–1970 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1998) pp.223–5.

¹⁰⁸TNA: PRO FO371/121283: V10710/11: telegram by Shattock, POMEF, to FO, 7 April 1956.

¹⁰⁹TNA: PRO FO371/134116:VL1015/10/G: letter by Sir John Glubb to Rose of FO, 24 March 1958, including ‘extracts from a letter dated 26/2/58 from Emir Farid Shehab [Chehab]’.

¹¹⁰Tom Bower, The Perfect English Spy (London: Heinemann 1995) pp.232–4.

¹¹¹Richard Deacon, ‘C’: A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield (London: Futura 1984) p.52; Chehab Papers ‘F’: letter, designated ‘17N’, from Oldfield was written to Farid on 17 July 1975. It was his tenure of ‘C’.

¹¹²Cf. Bower, The Perfect English Spy, p.232.

¹¹³Magan, Middle Eastern Approaches, pp.146–7.

¹¹⁴Cf. Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen (eds.), A Revolutionary Year: The Middle East in 1958 (New York: I.B. Tauris 2002).

¹¹⁵The post was created out of the old Special Branch of the CID, presumably a result of MacIntosh's advice.

¹¹⁶Cf. AP, Beirut, The Tuscaloosa News, 21 September 1959.

¹¹⁷Asseily and Asfahani, A Face in the Crowd, p.147.

¹¹⁸Cf. TNA: PRO FO371/175633: EB1692/1G: a report ‘UK Submission to CENTO Liaison Committee: Assessment of the Threat of Communist Subversion in the CENTO Area’, 1 January 1964; FO371/180719: EB1692/2: report ‘13^th Session of CENTO Liaison Committee’, undated.

¹¹⁹The Iranian cabinet approved a decree to establish SAVAK on 3 October 1956, and became effective in 1957. Cf. Habib Ladjevardi (ed.), Memoirs of Fatemeh Pakravan (Cambridge, MA: Center for Middle Eastern Studies of Harvard University 1998) p.20, n.15.

¹²⁰Mansur Rafizadeh, Witness (New York: William Morrow 1987) p.393, n.4.

¹²¹MOSSAD's involvement in establishing SAVAK perhaps resulted from the CIA's invitation of MOSSAD owing to their close relationship. Cf. the Asnad-I Laneh-yi Jasusi (these are the documents taken from the US embassy in Tehran in 1979) vol.60, pp.7–9, report by ‘United States Military Information Control Committee: Security in the Government of Iran’, by Donald S. Harris, the Secretary, 7 February 1966, which contains a brief history of CIA's connection with SAVAK and also MOSSAD with SAVAK. Also see MOSSAD's interest in in establishing in the ‘periphery’ countries from Ian Morris and Benny Morris, Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services (New York: Grove Weidenfeld 1991) p.183.

¹²²Cf. TNA: PRO CAB176/60: JIC/528/57: annex B, ‘State of Security in Baghdad Pact Organisation’, by R.S. Crawford, Baghdad, to A.C.I. Samuel of FO, 12 February 1957.

¹²³According to one account, King Hussein had been ‘toying for over a year with the idea of “demilitarizing” the security services’. Uriel Dann, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1989) p.35. On the international context as a response to the Egyptian challenge, see: Nigel Ashton, King Hussein of Jordan (London: Yale University Press 2008) ch.2.

¹²⁴TNA: PRO FO371/170335: EJ1641/2: letter by Sir Roderick Parkes, Ambassador to Jordan, to L.C.W. Figg of Eastern Department, 28 December 1962.

¹²⁵The information is derived from the official website of the General Intelligence Department, of Jordan, <http://www.gid.gov.jo/en/home.html> (accessed 28 July 2012).

¹²⁶On intelligence liaison in general: Lander, ‘International Intelligence Cooperation’; James I. Walsh, The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing (New York: Columbia University Press 2010); Simon Chesterman, Shared Secrets (Sydney: Lowy Institute 2006); Stephane Lefebvre, ‘The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 16/4 (2003) pp.527–42; Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: RIIA 1996) ch.12; Bradford Westerfield, ‘America and the World of Intelligence Liaison’, Intelligence and National Security 11/3 (1996) pp.523–60.

¹²⁷Cf. Wm. Roger Louis, ‘The British and the Origins of the Iraqi Revolution’ in Robert A. Ferrea and Wm. Roger Louis (eds.) The Iraqi Revolution of 1958 (London: I.B. Tauris 1991) pp.31–61.

¹²⁸In his memoir, Magan states that ‘I felt particularly nervous of the Iraqi Army which might try to seize power and which I felt that the Iraqi intelligence authorities had not got sufficiently covered’. Magan, Middle Eastern Approaches, pp.146–7.

¹²⁹TNA: PRO CAB158/34: JIC (58) 102: JIC report, ‘Reasons for the Failure of the Iraqi Intelligence Services to Give Warning of the Revolution of July 14’, 8 October 1958. Also, TNA: PRO CAB159/16: JIC (54) 67^th meeting, ‘Liaison with Iraq’, 29 July 1954.

¹³⁰Magan, Middle Eastern Approaches, pp.99–100. Emphasis added.

¹³¹Sir John Troutbeck also stated that the Anglo-Iraqi intimate security liaison was inevitable and commented on the execution of the security plans in the event of war, which ‘may be very ineffective, at any rate without a good deal of British help’. Quoted from TNA: PRO AIR23/8605: letter by Roger Lees, AHQ detachment, RAF, British Embassy Section, Baghdad, to Wing Commander A.J. Douch, Senior Intelligence Officer, Air Headquarters, Habbaniya, ‘Report on Security Planning’, 16 June 1953.

¹³²A former senior British intelligence officer indicatively recalls the British Intelligence relationship with their Middle Eastern counterparts as being ‘liaison driven’. Private information.