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· 力さんを偲びつつ、サワさんとミヤカさんへ。·
· Er cof am Chikara ac i Sawa a Miyaka ·
· In memory of Chikara and for Sawa and Miyaka ·
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. Catterall, The Cabinet Years, 481.
2. Catterall, Prime Minister and After, 205.
3. Scott and Jackson, “Obituary”; and Maddrell, “Obituary”. See also “Two-Part Tribute Foreword” in Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, Scott, ‘Part One’, vi–viii and Maddrell, “Part Two”, viii–x.
4. Editorial note: As a reviews editor for Intelligence and National Security, and on behalf of all Chikara’s friends and colleagues from his time at Aberystwyth, I should like to acknowledge the dexterity and sensitivity demonstrated by Geraint in the making of this review article. His efforts serve as a fitting memorial to Chikara, whose loss we feel every day. R. Gerald Hughes, reviews editor (UK and RoW), 1 March 2019 (St. David’s Day).
5. On this history of British interests in the Middle East, see Harrison, Britain in the Middle East.
6. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 13–20.
7. On this, see Arditti, “Security Intelligence in the Middle East (SIME).”
8. Quoted in Hashimoto, “British Security Liaison in the Middle East,” 873.
9. Technically, MI5 (the Security Service) was the responsible for intelligence in the domestic sphere, whilst SIS (the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6) was the responsible agency for foreign intelligence operations.
10. Jeffery, MI6, 635.
11. Hansard, HC Deb, 5th series, volume 591, columns 1244–1245, 16 July 1958.
12. Hansard, HC Deb, 5th series, volume 577, columns 481, 482, 8 November 1957.
13. From almost first days of the Bolshevik Revolution, the British had cause to fear Soviet Communism. On this, see Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919–1939; and Redfern, “The Comintern and Imperialism.”
14. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 10.
15. See for example Aldrich, The Hidden Hand; Cormac, Confronting the Colonies; Cormac, Disrupt and Deny; and Walton, Empire of Secrets.
16. On the archival basis of Hashimoto’s research, see Hashimoto, “Fighting the Cold War or Post-Colonialism?”
17. The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), originally known as the Baghdad Pact or the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), was a military alliance formed in 1955. Its membership consisted of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The pact was formally dissolved in 1979 after the Islamic Republic of Iran withdrew from the alliance following the Iranian Revolution. On the origins of CENTO, see Jalal, “Towards the Baghdad Pact”. The British, hoping for solidarity in the Middle East, were disappointed that the Americans failed to follow them into signing the pact in 1955. Thorpe, Supermac, 293.
18. Dimitrakis, Failed Alliances of the Cold War.
19. Diary entry for 23 August 1957. Catterall, Prime Minister and After, 55.
20. Nigel Ashton asserts that it was the Iraqi revolution of 1958, and not the Suez affair of 1956, that marked the watershed moment in the decline of British influence in the Middle East. Ashton, Eisenhower, Macmillan and the Problem of Nasser, 216–7. On the obstacles facing British policymakers in their dealings with Iraq after 1958, see Worrall, “‘Coping with a Coup d’Etat’.”
21. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 4.
22. Jeffery, MI6, 688.
23. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 36, 40–5. On Emir Farid Chehab, see Hashimoto, “Emir Farid Chehab.”
24. Quoted in Hashimoto, “British Security Liaison in the Middle East,” 857.
25. Diary entry for 26 October 1955. Catterall, The Cabinet Years, 496.
26. Eden, Full Circle, 566.
27. Hansard, HC Deb, 5th series, volume 557, columns 1602, 1605–1606, 31 July 1956.
28. Hansard, HC Deb, 5th series, volume 557, columns 923, 30 July 1956.
29. Kyle, Suez, 225–6.
30. Anthony Nutting, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, recalled that Eden angrily informed him that: ‘What’s all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or “neutralising” him as you call it? I want him destroyed, can’t you understand? I want him murdered, and if you and the Foreign Office don’t agree, then you’d better come to the cabinet and explain why.’ When a shocked Nutting replied that, since there was no alternative government ‘(‘hostile or friendly’) to replace Nasser, Eden supposedly replied, ‘But I don’t want an alternative. And I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt.’ Cited in Dorril, MI6, 613.
31. Thorpe, Supermac, 357–8.
32. Eden, Full Circle, 567.
33. On this, see Barr, Lords of the Desert. Barr’s books covers the years 1941–1967.
34. Heffer, Like the Roman, 123; and Hughes, The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement, 57.
35. ‘Events, dear boy, events’ was supposedly one of Macmillan’s favourite sayings. Thorpe, Supermac, 750(n).
36. Diary entry for 22 September 1957. Catterall, Prime Minister and After, 60. Emphasis in the original.
37. For scholarly treatments, see Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith; and Dongen, Roulin and Scott-Smith, Transnational Anti-Communism and the Cold War.
38. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 97–101. SAVAK: Sāzemān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar (trans. “Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation”). Founded in 1957 the SAVAK was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service of the Shah of Iran. In 1977 Parviz Sabeti, the deputy director of SAVAK, told a journalist: ‘You know that since the [Shah’s] White Revolution, the mullahs have been against universal suffrage, the freedom of women, [and] the distribution of the land. We have had to treat them very badly, very harshly.’ Sale, “SAVAK.”
39. Eden, Full Circle, 578.
40. Walton, Empire of Secrets; Andrew, The Defence of the Realm. See also McGarr, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Subversive.”
41. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 155.
42. Jeffery, MI6, 635–6.
43. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 84–5.
44. On this, see Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control, 19–23, 39; and Napier, The Royal Air Force, 35–7.
45. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 68.
46. Ibid., 96, 152.
47. Ibid., 142–3.
48. Ibid., 74.
49. French, British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 49–50, 114.
50. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 60–61, 75–6.
51. On this, see Louis, “Britain and the Overthrow of the Mossadeq Government.” See also Etges, “All that Glitters is Not Gold.”
52. Cormac, Disrupt and Deny, 92.
53. Harrison, Britain in the Middle East, 167.
54. On this, see Zonis and Joseph, “Conspiracy Thinking in the Middle East”; and Gray, “Explaining Conspiracy Theories in Modern Arab Middle Eastern Political Discourse.”
55. Andrew Rathmell makes this point in Secret War in the Middle East.
56. On Britain and Suez, see Kyle’s definitive Suez; and Hughes, The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement, 45–59. For a recent work on the military history of the Suez War and its consequences, see Henkin, The 1956 Suez War and the New World Order in the Middle East.
57. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 156.
58. Ibid., 125–6, 135–9.
59. Ibid., 161. The same was true of one regional potentate omitted from The Twilight of the British Empire – namely, Sultan Said bin Taimur of Oman (r. 1932–1970). Deposed in a coup by his son, Qaboos bin Said, Said bin Taimur spent his last two years in exile in London. Having accidentally shot himself in the foot during the coup, Said bin Taimur died a contented resident of the Dorchester Hotel on London’s Park Lane in 1972. It is in Oman, Britain’s oldest ally in the region, that Britain has perhaps best retained its good name in the Middle East. Barr, Lords of the Desert, 340. The UK provided significant direct support to the Sultanate of Oman during its civil war (1963-1976) with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO). On this, see Hughes, “Demythologising Dhofar”.
60. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 142.
61. Ibid., 162.
62. Ibid, 176.
63. Ibid., 38.
64. Idries Shah (1924–1996) once noted that ‘The rest of the world has for long believed that when faced with a foreigner, the English reaction has been limited to talking, slowly, in English, in a loud voice.’ Idries Shah, The Englishman’s Handbook, 13.
65. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 148.
66. Porter, Plots and Paranoia.
67. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 104.
68. When referring to ‘policing by consent’, commentators are usually put in mind of Robert Peel’s so-called ‘Nine Principles of Policing’. In truth, there is no evidence of any link between these principles and Peel and the concept was most likely devised by Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne (the first (joint) Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis (which was, and remains, the official title of the head of the Metropolitan Police)). The nine principles were set out in the ‘General Instructions’ that were issued to every new police officer from 1829. Home Office (UK), Definition of policing by consent. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-consent/definition-of-policing-by-consent (accessed 18 March 2019).
69. Hashimoto, The Twilight of the British Empire, 160.
70. Ibid., 172.
71. Ibid., 152–3.
72. Ibid., 163–9.
73. On so-called ‘cultural incompatibility’ between US forces and native Afghans, see the declassified 2011 US Army report by Jeffery Borodin (N2KL Red Team Political and Military Behavioral Scientist). Bordin, A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility. In his report Borodin observes that: ‘Four years ago after the 6 May 2007 murder of two U.S. soldiers … by an ANA soldier, an Afghan government official urged “patience” regarding ISAF’s response to this killing. After an additional 54 murders of ISAF personnel since then the time for “patience” is long past. Decisive actions in countering this murder epidemic are called for.’ Bordin, A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility, 54.
74. These points are also made by Byman, “Friends like These”; and Hamid, “How Iraq Warped Obama’s Worldview.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Geraint Hughes
Geraint Hughes is Reader in Diplomatic and Military History at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, teaching at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC), Defence Academy of the UK. His research interests include proxy conflict, land warfare in its historical and contemporary context and the Cold War, and he has recently been engaged in researching the history of the Dhofar conflict in Oman, 1965-1975. His publications include Harold Wilson’s Cold War: The Labour Government and East-West Politics, 1964-1970 (2009); ‘Demythologising Dhofar: British Policy, Military Strategy, and Counterinsurgency in Oman, 1963-1976ʹ in the Journal of Military History (2015); ‘Militias in Internal Warfare: From the Colonial Era to the Contemporary Middle East’ in Small Wars and Insurgencies (2016); and ‘“Amateurs Who Play in League Division One”? Anglo-Iranian Military Relations during the Dhofar War in Oman’ in the British Journal for Military History (2017).
R. Gerald Hughes
R. Gerald Hughes is Reader in Military History and Director of the Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies at Aberystwyth University. He is the author of The Postwar Legacy of Appeasement: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (2014); and Britain, Germany and the Cold War: The Search for a European Détente, 1949-1967 (2007). A reviews editor of Intelligence and National Security, Hughes is the author of a number of book chapters and articles (including, most recently, ‘“Fear has large eyes”: The History of Intelligence in the Soviet Union’ in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies; and ‘Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder’ in the Journal of Strategic Studies). He has also edited, or co-edited, a number of scholarly volumes. These include The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal (2016); Intelligence and International Security: New Perspectives and Agendas (2011); Intelligence, Crises and Security: Prospects and Retrospects (2008); and Exploring Intelligence Archives: Enquiries into the Secret State (2008). R. Gerald Hughes is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.