Live and Let Dine: Intelligence liaison organisation in the 1980s

NATO, Trevi, Kilowatt, Megaton and the Club of Berne.

My ongoing digging in the Foreign Office security files has thrown up at a few more interesting nuggets this week. One of them is this chart of international counter-terrorist liaison from November 1986.

This was produced in an effort to head off Italian proposals for an ‘EC Interpol’ by showing the extent of existing co-operation (ref 1). The organisations listed are well-known but the table provides a useful snapshot of their development at the time.

NATO Special Committee. This was the precursor of the modern NATO Civilian Intelligence Committee, which brings together member state intelligence and security services, and advises on espionage and terrorist threats (ref 2, 3). On the 1986 list it stands out as the only organisation including Turkey.

TREVI. This was an inter-governmental network of European Community home and justice ministers focused on terrorism (ref 4). According to Tony Bunyan, Jim Callaghan was a key player in its foundation in 1976 (ref 5).

Kilowatt and Megaton. According to the minute accompanying the table ‘Sensitive operational intelligence on terrorist threats is exchanged with close allies on Security Service channels using the “Kilowatt” network (for Arab terrorism matters) and the “Megaton” network (terrorism from elsewhere)’ (ref 1). Kilowatt was the only network which included Israel, via its Paris Embassy.

Club of Berne. A network of mainly western European security services. According to Richard Aldrich this was founded in 1971 with a membership of ‘only six European security agencies, including the UK’s Security Service, the French DST, the German BfV and the Swedish SÄPO.’ Writing in 2004, Aldrich noted that ‘this is more than a lunch club: the heads of the services meet twice a year for formal security summits. The Berne Group has it own communications network administered by the UK and several working groups on subjects such as terrorism, organized crime and interception’ (ref 6).

Intriguingly, Aldrich suggests that these liaison networks helped to head off attacks in Europe linked to Osama Bin Laden in the period immediately before 9/11. A transatlantic offshoot of the Club of Berne, the Counterterrorist Group (CTG), was founded shortly after the attacks in the US (ref 6).

References

Ref 1: National Archives FCO178/258 Counter-terrorism cooperation between the UK and Italy.

Ref 2: Jan Ballast, Trust (in) NATO: The Future of Intelligence Sharing within the Alliance, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, 22 September 2017.

Ref 3: Civilian Intelligence Committee, NATO, 22 March 2022.

Ref 4: Sofija Voronova, Understanding EU counter-terrorism policy, European Parliamentary Research Service, January 2021.

Ref 5: Tony Bunyan, Trevi, Europol and the European state, in Statewatching the new Europe, 1993.

Ref 6: Richard Aldrich, Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation, International Affairs, 80 (4), July 2004.