Abstract
What is intelligence? The answer is not easy to come by. The popular and semi-scholarly literature abounds with epithets — ‘the world’s second oldest profession’, ‘a necessary evil’, ‘a tool of despots’. In the scholarly literature one fares a little better, but not much.
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Notes
The literature on intelligence in English alone is voluminous and growing rapidly. Among the more useful annotated and analytical bibliographies are: Paul W. Blackstock and Frank L. Scaf, Intelligence, Espionage, Counterespionage, and Covert Operations (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978); Bibliography of Intelligence Literature, 8th edn, rev. (Washington, D.C.: Defense Intelligence School, 1984);
George C. Constantinides, Intelligence and Espionage: an Analytical Bibliography (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1983); and
Marjorie W. Cline, Carla E. Christiansen, and Judith M. Fontaine (eds), Scholar’s Guide to Intelligence Literature: Bibliography of the Russell J. Bowen Collection (Frederick, Md: University Publications of America, Inc., 1983).
Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, 3rd edn (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1965). Kent, however, defined intelligence as primarily analysis, and to a lesser extent collection.
The distinction between oriental and occidental systems can be traced to Greek writers such as Herodotus. Contemporary writers who stress the distinction include Bozeman, op. cit. and Karl Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957).
William E. Odom, ‘A Dissenting View on the Group Approach to Soviet Politics’, World Politics, vol. 28, no. 4 (July 1976) pp. 542–67.
Although far from adequate, there is considerable knowledge about the Soviet intelligence system. For an annotated listing see R. Rocca, J. Dziak, Bibliography on the Soviet Intelligence and Security Services (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1985).
One of the few scholarly books dealing with the origins of non-western intelligence is Francis Dvornik, Origins of Intelligence Services (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1974).
Aleksi Myagkov, Inside the KGB (London: Foreign Affairs Publishing Co., 1976.)
Alexander Orlov, in Handbook of Intelligence and Guerilla Warfare (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963).
For an indication that the KGB may be changing see John Barron, KGB Today: the Hidden Hand (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1983) p. 446.
Carl Berger, Broadsides and Bayonets: the Propaganda War of the American Revolution (San Francisco, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1961);
Morton Pennypacker, George Washington’s Spies (Long Island Historical Society, 1939);
William Casey, Where and How the War Was Fought: an Armchair Tour of the American Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1975); and
John Bakeless, Turncoats, Traitors, and Heroes (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1959).
Henry Merritt Wriston, Executive Agents in American Foreign Relations (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967);
Jeffrey M. Dorwart, The Office of Naval Intelligence: the Birth of America’s First Intelligence Agency, 1865–1918 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1979);
Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution. Portions translated by Loren Goldner (University of Chicago Press, 1981); and
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, American Espionage: From Secret Service to CIA (New York: The Free Press, 1977).
James Westfall Thompson and Saul K. Padover, Secret Diplomacy: Espionage and Cryptography, 1500–1851 (New York, F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1983).
Also, Jock Haswell, Spies and Spymasters (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977).
Christopher Andrew, ‘Dechiffrement et diplomatie: le cabinet noir du Quai d’Orsay sous la Troisieme Republique’, Relations Internationales, III, no. 5 (1976) pp. 51–5.
Christopher Andrew, ‘The British Secret Service and Anglo-Soviet relations in the 1920’s. Part I: From the Trade Negotiations to the Zinoviev letter,’ The Historical Journal, vol. xx (1977) no. 3; ‘British Intelligence and the Breach With Russia in 1927’, The Historical Journal, vol. xxv, no. 4 (1982) pp. 957–69; ‘Dechiffrement et diplomatie: le cabinet noir du Quai d’Orsay sous la Troisieme Republique’, op. cit; and ‘The Mobilization of British Intelligence for the Two World Wars’, in N. F. Dreisziger, Mobilization for Total War (Ontario: Wilfred Courier Press, 1981) pp. 89–110. See also Francis Harry Hinsely et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1979).
See also the forthcoming volume edited by Ernest R. May (ed.), Knowing One’s Enemies: Intelligence Assessment Between the Two World Wars (Princeton University Press, 1985);
W. C. Beaver, ‘The Development of the Intelligence Division and Its Role in Aspects of Imperial Policymaking, 1854–1901’, Unpublished Dissertation, Oxford University, 1976;
Alfred Vaghts, The Military Attaché (Princeton University Press, 1967);
Thomas A. Fergusson, British Military Intelligence, 1870–1914 (Frederick, Md, University Publications of America, 1984).
For a summary of 19th Century German military intelligence, see David Kahn, Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II (New York: Macmillan, 1978), especially ch. II, and its footnotes. On US intelligence see the works of Dorwart, op. cit. and Jeffreys-Jones, op. cit.
Thomas F. Troy, Donovan and the CIA: a History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (Langley, Va: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1981);
Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA (New York: Knopf, 1979);
Bradley Smith, The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA (New York: Basic Books, 1983);
and Anne Karalekas, History of the Central Intelligence Agency (Laguna Hills, Calif.: Aegean Park Press, 1977).
Originally prepared for and published by the US Congress, Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book I, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976) pp. 163–178;
Ray S. Cline, CIA: Reality vs. Myth (Washington: Acropolis Books, 1983)
and Cord Meyer, Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA (New York: Harper & Row, 1980).
Roger Hilsman, Strategic Intelligence and National Decision (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956);
Thomas Hughes, The Fate of Facts in a World of Men: Foreign Policy and Intelligence-Making (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1976);
Paul Blackstock, ‘Intelligence and Covert Operations: Changing Doctrine and Practice’ (Columbia, South Carolina: The Institute for International Studies, 1979) — This is a report of a survey questionnaire which Blackstock distributed to a limited number of US analysts and collectors in the late 1970s.
See Thomas Powers, op. cit., and William Colby, Honorable Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979) esp. chs 10–14.
It is not easy for scholars, who presumably have not had access to the official archives, to understand the major dimensions of specific cases. It is, on the other hand, far too easy to cite journalistic sources, or the memoirs of former intelligence officers (who interviewed the players or who had access to the official records), as if the major dimensions of the case were known. Scholars cite these sources, and then are cited in turn by journalists or former intelligence officers. This sometimes tends to produce ‘history’ and ‘theory’, based on supposedly well-understood case studies. With the caveat in mind, probably the best source on the Philby case is Bruce Page, David Leitch, and Philip Knightley, The Philby Conspiracy (New York: Ballantine Books, 1981).
On Popov, see William Hood, Mole (New York: Norton, 1982).
For propositions about military deception, see Donald C. Daniel and Katherine Herberg (eds), Strategic Military Deception (New York: Pergamon, 1982)
and John Gooch and Amos Perlmutter (eds), Military Deception and Strategic Surprise, (London: Frank Cass, 1982).
Richard H. Shultz and Roy Godson, Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy (New York: Pergamon, 1984).
See for example Morton Halperin, J. Berman, R. Borosage and C. Warlurch, The Lawless State (New York: Penguin Books, 1976).
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© 1987 Royal United Services Institute
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Godson, R. (1987). Intelligence: an American View. In: Robertson, K.G. (eds) British and American Approaches to Intelligence. RUSI Defence Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08418-0_1
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