2023: A year in the archives
The UK National Archives at Kew (Chris Reynolds, CC.2.0).
Releases from the British National Archives are no longer as concentrated around the New Year as they used to be, but the advent of the 20-year rule means that over the next few days we should expect to see some significant files from 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion.
In the meantime, and by way of an annual review, I want to highlight some of the more historically oriented stories on this substack over the past twelve months, many of which made use of archival sources.
2023 has brought home to me how consequential British intelligence has been for intelligence history elsewhere. MI5 Security Liaison Officers were often a formative influence on Commonwealth security agencies. The roots of India’s R&AW and Intelligence Bureau in the latter’s pre-independence precursor are one example of this. The British role in the creation of the US Office of Strategic Services shows that similar processes could extend beyond the empire.
The Anglo-American intelligence relationship has been a recurrent theme. Several stories focused on BSC, the North American arm of British intelligence during the early 1940s.
Britain's Irish American Front in the Second World War - on the American Irish Defence Assocation, one of BSC’s least successful covert operations.
Jay Lovestone and the British - An insight into BSC’s relationship with the US labour movement, one of many areas where it prefigured the postwar activities of the CIA.
Colonialism was a significant complicating factor in the Anglo-American relationship during the Early Cold War. Recent releases have provided a rich vein of material on this, which I hope will be continued next year with new files opening up on Malaysia among other places.
The CIA and the British in East Africa - How US intelligence moved into Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in the final years of colonial rule.
The CIA and MI5 in the British West Indies - The British Security Service came under significant US pressure over Guyanese influence in the Caribbean in the 1960s.
The enduring (though contested) influence of CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton and his ideas is another subject I hope to revisit. I’ve written subscriber profiles on two of Angleton’s most committed British followers, Christopher Phillpotts and Stephen de Mowbray, as well as several free articles.
Did James Angleton have his own monster plot? - Angleton clearly saw counterintelligence deception as threat. Did he also see it as an opportunity?
The Angletonian Afterlife - How Angleton cultivated a private intelligence lobby after his departure from the CIA.
Other notable stories from this year include the following:
First of the Formers: Whitaker Chambers and MI5
MI5 officers 1909-1919: The full list
MI5 or MI6: Who was really running Operation Chiffon? Back-channel diplomacy between Britain and the IRA.
Freddie Scappaticci and the illusion of intelligence dominance: How a misreading of the Northern Ireland Troubles shaped counterinsurgency in Iraq.
CIA, MI6 or PLO: Who Really Brought Down Abu Nidal?
MI5 and the Anglo-Irish Agreement: Documents show how the Security Service backed hardline officials after 1985 deal
A Student of the Cold War: Meta Ramsay from the NUS to MI6
Live and Let Dine: Intelligence liaison organisation in the 1980s
Kincora and the MI5 agent in Tara: a court case raises questions about one of the murkiest episodes of the Troubles
How Whitehall Saw the Year of Intelligence: The transatlantic impact of the Church Committee’s investigation of the CIA.
The IRD at Home: New light on the domestic side of British Cold War propaganda.
I am grateful to Substack readers for the support that has helped me to mine the UK National Archives for these and similar stories over the past year. I hope to open up rich new seams in the files of the Colonial Office and the Information Research Department, among other places, in 2024.