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Secret Intelligence, Covert

Action and Clandestine
Diplomacy
Len Scott
Published online: 08 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Len Scott (2004) Secret Intelligence, Covert Action and
Clandestine Diplomacy, Intelligence and National Security, 19:2, 322-341, DOI:
10.1080/0268452042000302029

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 Secret Intelligence, Covert Action and
Clandestine Diplomacy

LEN SCOTT
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‘The essential skill of a secret service is to get things done secretly and
deniably.’
(John Bruce Lockhart, former Deputy Chief of SIS)1

Much contemporary study of intelligence concerns how knowledge is

acquired, generated and used. This article provides a different focus that
treats secrecy, rather than knowledge, as an organising theme. Instead of
scrutinising the process of gathering, analysing and exploiting intelligence, it
examines other activities of secret intelligence services, often termed covert
action. This broader framework draws upon both pre-modern ‘Secret Service’
activities that predated modern intelligence organisations,2 as well as many
Cold War studies. It resonates with the perspective of Richard Aldrich that
secret service activity includes ‘operations to influence the world by unseen
means – the hidden hand’.3 Exploration of secret intervention illuminates
important themes and issues in the study of intelligence, and identifies
challenges and opportunities for enquiry, particularly in the context of the
British experience. One further aspect is examined and developed – the role
of secret intelligence services in conducting clandestine diplomacy, a
neglected yet intriguing dimension that also provides insights into the study
of intelligence.
Many intelligence services perform tasks other than gathering secret
intelligence. Conversely, intelligence activities are conducted by organisa-
tions other than secret intelligence services. The relationship between
organisation and function varies over time and place. In wartime Britain, for
example, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) conducted espionage and the
Special Operations Executive (SOE) was responsible for special operations.4
While the CIA conducted much US Cold War propaganda, in Britain the

Intelligence and National Security, Vol.19, No.2, Summer 2004, pp.322 – 341
ISSN 0268-4527 print 1743-9019 online
DOI: 10.1080/0268452042000302029 # 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd.
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 323

Information Research Department was part of the Foreign Office.5 In the

United States, covert paramilitary action has long been undertaken by the
Department of Defense,6 while there is a veritable plethora of US government
agencies with intelligence gathering capabilities. And in the wake of
September 11 the CIA has expanded its paramilitary capabilities (evident in
Afghanistan) while the Pentagon appears committed to developing Special
Forces able to conduct their own intelligence gathering. Notwithstanding the
fact that different tasks are performed by different organisations, since 1945
Western intelligence services have nevertheless used the same organisations
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and the same groups of people to perform different tasks.

For many observers, and especially for many critics, secret intervention is
synonymous with intelligence and loomed large in Cold War debates about
the legitimacy and morality of intelligence organisations and their activities.
Since September 11, Washington’s agenda for taking the offensive to the
United States’ enemies has rekindled such arguments. To exclude such
activities from discussion about intelligence and intelligence services raises
questions about the political agendas of those seeking to delineate and
circumscribe the focus of enquiry. For many writers, for example, on British
intelligence, special operations are integral to the study of the subject.7 But
for others they are not.8 So, do those who marginalise or downplay covert
action do so as part of an agenda to legitimise intelligence gathering? Do
those who focus on covert action do so to undermine the legitimacy of
intelligence (or the state in general or in particular)? Or are these unintended
consequences reflecting unconscious biases? Or legitimate choices of
emphasis and focus?
Among the obvious and critical questions about secret interventions are:
how do we know about them? And how do we interpret and evaluate them?
Many of the terms used – ‘covert action’, ‘special operation’, ‘special
activities’ and ‘disruptive action’ are used interchangeably though there are
also important terminological differences. The Soviet term ‘active measures’
(activinyye meropriatia) embraced overt and covert actions to exercise
influence in foreign countries, whereas most other terms focus exclusively on
the covert.9 Critics and sceptics often use the more generic description of
‘dirty tricks’.
The more prominent definitions of covert action are American, dating back
to the celebrated 1948 National Security directive 10/2 which authorised the
CIA to engage in:

propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including

sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subver-
sion against hostile states, including assistance to underground
resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and
 324 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries

of the free world.10

More recent US government statements cover most of these activities

though some of the language has altered (notably the demise of ‘subversion’).
In US law covert action became defined as:

an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence

political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended
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that the role of the [government] will not be apparent or acknowledged

publicly, but does not include . . . traditional counter-intelligence . . .
diplomatic . . . military . . . [or] law enforcement activities.11

Whether phrases such as ‘regime change’ that have emerged in public debate
over Iraq will enter the covert lexicon remains to be seen.
One commonly accepted aspect of these definitions is that they refer to
actions abroad. In the United States this reflects the legal status of the US
intelligence services. Elsewhere, the distinction between home and abroad
may be less clear. Some governments practice at home what they undertake
abroad. Oleg Kalugin has recounted how the KGB conducted active measures
against one of its leading dissidents, Alexander Solzhenitsin, culminating in
attempts to poison him.12 Various British government activities in Northern
Ireland, for example, appear to fall within otherwise accepted definitions of
covert action.13
British terminology has moved from ‘special operations’ to ‘special
political action’ to ‘disruptive action’.14 These semantic changes reflect
broader shifts in policy. The ‘special political action’ of the 1950s, for
example, was synonymous with intervention aimed at overthrowing
governments and in some cases assassinating leaders.15 Since then, changes
in the scope and nature of operations have reflected the priorities and
perspectives of governments and of SIS itself. Although the Intelligence
Services Act 1994 makes clear that SIS’s mandate is to engage in ‘other
tasks’ beside espionage, the scope and nature of these other tasks is unclear.16
‘Disruptive action’ is nowhere officially defined, though there are some
official references to the term.17 What is involved is unclear from official
references. It may be unwise to infer that disruptive activity is exclusively
clandestine. Some activities might involve passing information to other states
and agencies to enable them to act against arms dealers or terrorists, and
would fall within the ambit of intelligence liaison. How far, and in what
ways, actions are undertaken without knowledge or permission of the host
nations or organisations are the more controversial questions. David Shayler,
the former MI5 officer, has revealed or alleged that SIS supported groups
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 325

seeking to overthrow and assassinate the Libyan leader, Colonel Ghaddafi, in

1995/96, and what appears to be SIS documentation has been posted on the
internet providing apparent corroboration.18 The SIS ‘whistleblower’,
Richard Tomlinson, has indicated that SIS is required to ‘maintain a
capability to plan and mount ‘‘Special Operations’’ of a quasimilitary nature’
which are ‘executed by specially trained officers and men from the three
branches of the armed forces’.19 He also provides examples of disruptive
action, discussed below. Lack of clarity about the term disruptive action
reflects the determination of the British government to avoid disclosure of the
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activities involved.
Elizabeth Anderson has argued that ‘the specific subject of covert action as
an element of intelligence has suffered a deficiency of serious study’; she
notes a failure to generate the theoretical concepts to explain other
instruments of foreign policy such as trade, force and diplomacy.20
Nevertheless, the American literature provides typologies that distinguish
between political action, economic action, propaganda and paramilitary
activities.21 The nature and scope of these activities differs across time, place
and context. How far these categories reflect the distillation of American
experience and reflection is one question to ask. Yet whatever the theory and
practice in other states, American debates about whether covert action should
be viewed as a routine instrument of statecraft, a weapon of last resort or the
subversion of democratic values will presumably be familiar to many of those
contemplating such options.

KNOWLEDGE AND TRUST

This leads to the second general consideration: the problem of knowledge.

For scholars and citizens alike, knowledge of secret intervention is crucial to
understanding and evaluation. How far this is a problem is a matter of debate.
Stephen Dorril, for example, has argued that in the British context there is far
more in the public domain than anyone has realised and that ‘the reality [is]
that secrets are increasingly difficult to protect, and it would not be a great
exaggeration to suggest that there are no real secrets any more’.22 In contrast,
Roy Godson argued in 1995 that our knowledge of covert action (and
counter-intelligence) is ‘sketchy at best’,23 and this in a book that drew
heavily upon both US and pre-Cold War historiography. Since Godson
published that view there have been significant developments in the
declassification of US archival records on Cold War covert actions.24 And
since September 11 we have learned of specific covert actions including those
planned and authorised by the Clinton administration.25 How far this
information was provided to protect Clinton administration officials and/or
CIA officers against accusations that they were supine in the face of the
 326 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

terrorist threat is one question. Such revelations also reflect a Washington

culture where the willingness of individuals and agencies to provide
information to journalists presents incentives for others to preserve or
enhance their individual and organisational reputations.
We know about covert action in the same ways that we learn about other
intelligence activities – through authorised and unauthorised disclosure:
memoirs, journalism, defectors, archives, whistle-blowers and judicial
investigation. The veracity and integrity of these sources may differ, though
there are generic questions to be posed about the agendas and intentions of
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those who provide us with information about covert action, as about

intelligence in general. How we assess what we are told reflects our values
and assumptions. Our understanding of KGB active measures, for example,
has been greatly informed by the revelations of defectors whose accounts have
been sanctioned by the intelligence services with whom they worked. For
critical commentators who believe official sources are by definition tainted
sources, any public disclosure of an adversary’s activities is synonymous with
disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion. Accounts written by
retired Soviet intelligence officials raise different, though no less intriguing,
questions about the veracity of the material disclosed. Pavel Sudoplatov’s
memoir of his work for Stalin’s NKVD generated much controversy with its
strongly disputed claims that leading atomic scientists on the Manhattan
Project provided crucial intelligence to the Soviets.26 Yet the book contains
material about active measures and assassinations conducted by Soviet
intelligence during the Stalin era that has not been denounced.
The study of intelligence (as with the practice of intelligence) requires
consideration of the motives and agendas of sources and how far they can be
dissociated from the substance of what they provide. In some ways this goes
to the heart of the study of the subject. On what basis, for example, do we
believe or not believe Richard Tomlinson when he recounts that SIS engaged
in assassination planning against the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic,
that it endeavoured to disrupt the Iranian chemical warfare programme, and
that it acted as an instrument of the CIA in defaming the UN Secretary-
General, Dr Bhoutros Bhoutros Ghali?27 For some, the account of the
whistleblower or the defector is inherently reliable. For others, the motives of
betrayal and exposure cast doubt on reliability or judgement. Does Pavel
Sudoplatov’s role in Stalin’s assassination policy, and the fact that he
remained ‘a Stalinist with few regrets’,28 lend credence to his testimony or
does it render his concern for the truth as incredible as his claims about
Oppenheimer, Bohr, Fermi and Szilard? How far pre-existing assumptions
inform how we assess individuals and their motives is important to consider.
‘If we trust the motive, we trust the man. Then we trust his material’, opines a
British intelligence officer in John Le Carré’s The Russia House.29 Trust and
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 327

judgement are as essential to the academic enterprise as they are to the

professional intelligence officer. And like the professional intelligence officer
judgements on veracity require corroboration and evaluation of all available
sources.
One interesting response to this problem has been collaboration between
insiders and outsiders. Joint endeavours between journalists and former
intelligence officers have provided a variety of intriguing texts and valuable
accounts. Western academics have also helped pioneer exploitation of Soviet
intelligence archives, most notably Fursenko and Naftali’s work (see below).
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In Britain the pattern of these collaborations ranges across various kinds of

relationship. Gordon Brook-Shepherd was allowed access to SIS archival
records for his study of Western intelligence and the Bolshevik revolution
where inter alia he traced SIS involvement in the plot to overthrow and
assassinate Lenin.30 Tom Bower completed a biography of Sir Dick White,
begun by Andrew Boyle, which drew upon extensive recollections and
testimony of the man who led both the Security Service and the Secret
Intelligence Service, and which contains much material not only on Cold War
but on colonial and post-colonial operations.31 Other writers have enjoyed
more opaque relationships with officialdom while some have clearly been
used by individuals to disseminate particular perspectives or grievances.
More recently SIS enabled Christopher Andrew to collaborate with the KGB
defectors Oleg Gordievsky and Vassili Mitrokhin in a new form of
relationship, which yielded new public insights into KGB practices both in
peacetime and in preparation for war.
One question is whether we know more about covert action than
intelligence gathering and analysis. A second is whether we know more
about certain kinds of covert actions than others – especially the more
dramatic. Some covert operations have been easier to discover because they
fail. We know about the targeting in 1985 of the Greenpeace protest ship,
Rainbow Warrior, because the operation went wrong, and because officers of
the French foreign intelligence service, the Direction Generale de la Securite
Exterieure, were caught and tried by the New Zealand authorities. It can also
be argued that by definition the most successful covert actions are those that
no-one knows has ever been conducted: the analogy with the perfect crime. A
different definition of success is that while knowledge of them may leak out
(or may be impossible to conceal), the identity of those engaging in them
remains secret. For many governments the concept of plausible deniability
has been integral to the activity. So among the obvious questions: do we learn
more about unsuccessful operations than successful ones? Among the more
perplexing questions: when we think we are learning of secret intervention
are we in fact the target of covert action and the recipient of disinformation or
propaganda?
 328 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Understanding the limits of knowledge is important. If we know more

about secret intervention than intelligence gathering we may draw distorted
conclusions about the priorities of the organisations involved. Moreover, if
our knowledge of the phenomenon is drawn from a particular period of
history and politics and from particular states in that period, then how useful
a guide is our knowledge for understanding the world we now inhabit? Much
of our understanding of the phenomenon is drawn from particular phases of
the Cold War. So do we make assumptions about how states behave on the
basis of generalisations drawn from atypical examples? Most specifically do
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our examples and our categories of analysis reflect US assumptions and

experiences? Notwithstanding the observations of Roy Godson, the study of
covert action in the United States has generated a considerable and
sophisticated literature based on extensive US experience, and a body of
scholarship that notably extends to ethical debate about covert actions.32
Public and political accountability of covert action has also made a significant
contribution to that knowledge and understanding, though it underlines a
distinctive (and hitherto frequently unique) US approach to public knowledge
of the secret world.
One reason for exploring these questions is that these activities loom large
in public perceptions of intelligence services, both nationally and
internationally. The image of the CIA, for example, has been coloured at
home and especially abroad by what has been learned of its activities in
places like Cuba, Guatemala, Iran and Chile.33 Whether these activities
buttressed democracy in the Cold War or undermined the moral authority of
the United States in the ‘Third World’ are essential questions for scholars
interested in the role of intelligence in world politics.34

INTERPRETATION

The interpretation and evaluation of covert action should extend beyond

utility into ethics and legality. Many of the ethical, legal and political debates
on overt intervention do not give consideration to covert action. Such debates
are clearly hampered by secrecy. Yet concepts of ‘ethical statecraft’ and
debates about Britain’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ have largely ignored covert
action, and indeed intelligence in general. Since the end of the Cold War and
since September 11 significant changes in world politics have been apparent.
In the last decade, for example, the belief that humanitarian intervention in
other states was legally and ethically synonymous with aggression has
altered. Ideas of humanitarian intervention, though contested, have under-
pinned military action in Kosovo. American embrace of pre-emptive (or
rather preventive) action to forestall attacks on the United States and its
allies, portends radical changes in world order. Predicting future trends is
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 329

inherently problematic, but it is reasonable to speculate that public and

academic debate will engage with the normative questions about covert
action in the ‘war against terror’ in more robust and systematic fashion.
Locating secret intervention within broader debates in international politics
should not obscure critical questions about whether they work. Assessing
their effectiveness and their consequences are crucial. As with diplomacy and
military action such assessments cannot be fully evaluated by examining only
the actions of the state that undertakes them. Understanding foreign policy
making is a necessary but not sufficient part of understanding international
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politics. This has been apparent in recent historiography of the Cold War that
has drawn from the archives and from the scholarship of former adversaries,
and provided new insights and perspectives. The international history of
secret intervention is surely part of this enterprise and of how mutual
perceptions and misperceptions informed the Cold War struggle. This is an
area that parallels the nuclear history of the Cold War where Soviet archival
disclosures raise fascinating and disturbing questions about Soviet threat
perceptions.
Until recently, these aspects have been under-explored. While John
Gaddis’ acclaimed 1997 study of the new historiography of the Cold War
provides evidence of how Soviet covert action impacted on Western
approaches, there is little on how Soviet leaders interpreted Western secret
intervention.35 Other accounts drawn from Soviet archival sources have
begun to emphasise the importance of Soviet perceptions and misperceptions.
Vojtech Mastny has explored how Western covert action in eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union exerted a significant and undue influence on Stalin’s
paranoia.36 Richard Aldrich has raised the controversial question of whether
Western covert action in eastern Europe was specifically designed to provoke
Soviet repression in order to destabilise and weaken Soviet hegemony.37
Recent interpretations of the nature and role of US covert action have indeed
provoked radical revisions of the Cold War itself.38
Such perspectives should not obscure the fact that although the Cold War
provided context and pretext for many secret interventions since 1945, it is
misleading to view all such action in these terms. There is a risk that the
literature repeats the mistakes of Western decision makers in viewing post-
colonial struggles through the lens of East–West conflict. As Ludo de Witte
argues persuasively in his study of the Belgian intelligence service’s
involvement in the assassination of the Congolese leader, Patrice Lumumba,
the events of 1960–61 should be viewed primarily as a struggle against
colonialism.39 Other studies and critiques have focused on secret interven-
tions in post-colonial contexts.40 Yet while the end of the Cold War generated
new opportunities to study Cold War intelligence conflicts, post-colonial
politics provide very differing contexts and challenges to understanding.
 330 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

In 1995 Roy Godson observed that ‘for many Americans, covert action, in
the absence of clear and present danger, is a controversial proposition at
best’.41 Perceptions of the immediacy and presence of danger have changed
since September 11. The impact on long-term attitudes, both in the United
States and Europe, is difficult to assess and will in part be informed by other
events and revelations, not least war on Iraq. It is a reasonable assumption
that American use of particular kinds of covert activity will be more robust
and intrusive, through which organs of the US government will be intruding
and where remains to be seen (assuming it can be seen). How these actions
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are viewed in Europe and elsewhere also remains to be seen. At the height of
the Cold War covert action was justified as a quiet option, to be used where
diplomacy was insufficient and force was inappropriate. If the United States
and its allies consider themselves in semi-perpetual war against ‘terrorism’,
and preventive action in counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism (in overt
and covert policy) becomes increasingly prevalent, the implications for
covert action will be profound.

CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY

Diplomacy has been defined as the ‘process of dialogue and negotiation by

which states in a system conduct their relations and pursue their purposes by
means short of war’.42 It is also a policy option that can be used as an
alternative to, or in support of, other approaches, such as military force. The
use of secret services to conduct diplomacy was characteristic of pre-modern
inter-state relations, when diplomacy, covert action and intelligence
gathering were often conducted by the same people. The creation of modern
intelligence bureaucracies led to a greater separation of functions, though not
as clearly as might seem. Although clandestine diplomacy is a neglected area
of enquiry, there are a number of examples of where intelligence services are
used to engage in secret and deniable discussions with adversaries. One
question is whether clandestine diplomacy can be conceived as a form of
covert action intended to influence an adversary or whether it is distinct from
covert action because it involves conscious co-operation with the adversary
and potential disclosure of the officers involved.
Conceptually, there may be an overlap between diplomacy and liaison
where relations between the actors are in part antagonistic – as in information
exchanges between political adversaries in the ‘war against terror’ (for
example, between the Americans and Syrians43). There may also be overlap
between conducting clandestine diplomacy and gathering intelligence. In
1945 the American Office of Strategic Service (OSS) identification of
Japanese ‘peace feelers’ assisted its analysis that war against Japan could be
terminated by negotiation.44 And there may also be overlap with secret
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 331

intervention: in 1983 the CIA apparently co-operated with the Iranian secret
service by providing details of Soviet agents in the Tudeh party in Iran.45 One
further and important distinction needs to be drawn, between intelligence
services acting as diplomatic conduits, and intelligence services acting as
quasi-independent foreign policy makers. While it may be difficult to
distinguish between the two, the use of intelligence services by governments
to conduct negotiations is distinct from where intelligence services have their
own agendas and priorities. Various accounts of CIA and SIS activity in the
Middle East in the 1950s, for example, suggest that both organisations were
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pursuing their own foreign policies at variance with their foreign ministry
colleagues.46
Examples of the clandestine diplomatic role of secret intelligence services
that have emerged in recent years include the role of British intelligence in
the Northern Ireland peace process,47 the role of Israeli intelligence services,
including Mossad, in Middle East diplomacy and peace building,48 the CIA’s
relations with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and SIS’s relations with
Hamas.49 These examples illustrate that the activity concerns not just
relations between states, but between states and non-state actors, in particular
between states and insurgent or ‘terrorist’ groups.50 The value of clandestine
diplomacy is that it is more readily deniable, and this is particularly
significant where the adversary is engaged in armed attacks and/or terrorist
activities. One difference between dialogue with states and with a
paramilitary group is the greater potential of physical risk to the participants.
Professionally, using intelligence officers to facilitate and conduct inter-state
diplomacy risks blowing their cover. Paramilitary groups may harbour
factions opposed to negotiation, and exposure of the intelligence officer may
risk their safety. The paramilitary negotiator may well have parallel concerns.
The role of intelligence services can be to promote the cause of dialogue
and reconciliation, both national and international. Depending upon our
political assumptions and values, many would conclude that this role is
intrinsically worthwhile, although of course, the intelligence service is but an
instrument of a political will to engage in dialogue. For those who seek to
justify the world of intelligence to the political world, clandestine diplomacy
provides some fertile material. For those who wish to explore the ethical
dimension of intelligence this is an interesting and neglected dimension. For
those who seek to study intelligence, clandestine diplomacy is not only
intrinsically interesting, but also a useful way of further exploring problems
and challenges in studying the subject.
From the perspective of the study of intelligence, clandestine diplomacy
illustrates one of the basic questions and basic problems. How do we know
about things? Who is telling us? For what reason? Clandestine diplomacy
involves often highly sensitive contacts and exchanges whose disclosure may
 332 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

be intended as foreclosure on dialogue, and where the provenance of our

knowledge is a calculation of a protagonist. Secret contacts may be scuppered
by public awareness. After disclosure in a Lebanese newspaper of clandestine
US negotiations to secure the release of US hostages in the Lebanon in the
1980s that dialogue came to an end as the Iran-Contra fiasco unravelled. Two
examples of clandestine diplomacy are discussed below which illustrate the
activity and issues in studying the subject. One involves diplomacy between
states informed by archival disclosure as well as personal recollection. The
other is between a state and a non-state actor based on testimony from the
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protagonists.

THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

In studying clandestine diplomacy it is rare to have details from both sides,

and even rarer to have that in documentary form. The study of the Cuban
missile crisis provides several examples of intelligence officers being used to
undertake clandestine diplomacy. It provides material for exploring the
problems of understanding the role of intelligence services, and moreover it
provides opportunities to study how clandestine diplomacy was integrated
into foreign policy making and crisis management.
Three examples have emerged of intelligence officers acting in diplomatic
roles between adversaries in 1962: Georgi Bolshakov (GRU) and Aleksandr
Feklisov (KGB) in Washington, and Yevgeny Ivanov (GRU) in London.
There are also examples of intelligence officers working in co-operative
political relationships: Aleksandr Alekseev (KGB) in Havana, Chet Cooper
(CIA) in London, Sherman Kent (CIA) in Paris, William Tidwell (CIA) in
Ottawa and Jack Smith (CIA) in Bonn.51 Alekseev enjoyed the confidence of
the Cuban leadership as well as that of Nikita Khrushchev, who recalled him
to Moscow to consult on the missile deployment, and promoted him to
ambassador. Chester Cooper conveyed the photographic evidence of the
Soviet missile deployments to London, and helped brief Prime Minister
Macmillan. Sherman Kent accompanied Dean Acheson in briefing General
De Gaulle and the North Atlantic Council; William Tidwell briefed Prime
Minister Diefenbaker and Jack Smith briefed Konrad Adenauer.
The role of Bolshakov and Feklisov in Washington has generated a
particularly fascinating literature. Most significantly, this draws upon Soviet
sources and in particular Soviet archival sources, and illustrates the role of
secret intelligence in the conduct of Soviet–US diplomacy, as well as
problems of both conducting and studying that role.52 In the case of Ivanov,
although we have British Foreign Office documentation and Lord Denning’s
report into the Profumo Affair, the only Soviet source is Ivanov’s memoir,
written in retirement, unaided by access to or corroboration from archives.53
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 333

With both Feklisov and Bolshakov, however, we have US and Soviet archival
sources, as well as memoirs and personal testimony.
Before access was gained to Soviet sources, it was known that Bolshakov,
working under cover as a TASS correspondent, formed a secret back-channel
of communication between Kennedy and Khrushchev.54 This was routed
through the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, with whom he held over 50
meetings in 1961 and 1962. Part of the historical interest of this was that
Bolshakov was used by Khrushchev to reassure Kennedy about Soviet
intentions in Cuba, and to deceive the US President about the secret
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deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles. Fursenko and Naftali have now

provided evidence of the role of Bolshakov both before and during the
missiles crisis.55 They argue that Bolshakov ‘shaped the Kremlin’s under-
standing of the US government’.56
Contrary to previous understanding, Bolshakov was not immediately
‘discontinued’ when Kennedy learned of the missiles, but played an
intriguing part in crisis diplomacy. Yet, once the missiles were discovered
in Cuba his role in Soviet deception was apparent. Like other Soviet officials,
including Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington, he was unaware of the truth.
Another probable example of deception concerns Yevgeny Ivanov, a fellow
GRU officer, who later in the week admitted to the British that the Soviets
had missile deployments in Cuba, but insisted that they only had the range to
strike Florida but not Washington.57 The nature and provenance of this
disinformation (or misinformation) remains unclear. Indeed the provenance
of Ivanov’s mission is not yet fully clear. Ivanov approached the British
government to encourage Macmillan to pursue an international summit.
Whether this was done on the instructions of Moscow rather than as an
initiative of the London Residentura has yet to be confirmed.
Perhaps the most intriguing episode during the crisis involved the role of
Aleksandr Feklisov (identified at the time and in the early literature as
Aleksandr Fomin). Feklisov was the KGB Rezident in Washington. At the
height of the crisis he contacted a US journalist, John Scali, who then
conveyed to the State Department an outline deal to facilitate the withdrawal
of the Soviet missiles from Cuba. The missiles were to be withdrawn under
verifiable conditions in return for assurances that the United States would not
invade Cuba. This outline deal was followed by the arrival of a personal letter
from Khrushchev to Kennedy, which was seen within the White House to
signal a willingness to find a negotiated solution. When Khrushchev then
publicly communicated a different proposal involving ‘analogous’ US
weapons in Turkey this greatly exercised the US government.58
The revelations from the Soviet side provide fascinating vignettes into the
workings of the KGB. It is clear that Feklisov was not acting under
instruction from Moscow when he met Scali, and that the initiative was his.
 334 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Second, when the Americans responded and Feklisov reported back to

Moscow, Fursenko and Naftali show how communications in Moscow
worked – or rather failed to work. Feklisov’s crucial report remained on the
desk of the Chairman of the KGB while events passed by.59 So the Americans
were mistaken in believing they were communicating with Khrushchev. The
general point this underlines is that the mechanics and procedures of channels
of communication are crucial. Without understanding how communication
and decision-making processes work, neither the participant nor the student
of clandestine diplomacy can properly understand events.
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A second aspect concerns archival records. Both Scali’s and Feklisov’s

contemporaneous records have now emerged, and both men have openly
debated the episode. According to Feklisov it was the American who
proposed the deal. According to Scali it was the Soviet official. So who to
believe? The question assumes an additional interest given that the missile
crisis provides examples of contending accounts of Americans and Soviets
where the latter have proved reliable and the former deliberately
misleading.60 Yet, Scali had no reason at the time to misrepresent what
he had been told. While there may have been confusion about what was
said, Feklisov had good reason not to tell Moscow Centre that he had taken
an initiative in Soviet foreign policy at a crucial moment in world history.
In his memoir Feklisov admits that he did overreach his authority in
threatening retaliation against Berlin in the event of an American attack on
Cuba.61 Yet, he maintains that the initiative for the outline of the deal came
from Scali.
It may be that further clarification will eventually become possible. The
FBI encouraged Scali to meet Feklisov and it is conceivable that records exist
of FBI surveillance of their meetings. In the meantime the episode is a
reminder of the potential fallibility of archives as well as memory, and indeed
provides what appears a good example of an intelligence document written
for a purpose that hides part of the truth. And of course what this shows the
intelligence historian, as indeed any historian, is that an archival record is a
not a simple statement of truth – it is what someone wrote down at a
particular time for a particular purpose.
The Scali–Feklisov back-channel now turns out not to have been a back-
channel, and was not significant in the resolution of the crisis. When the US
government needed to communicate urgently with Khrushchev to offer a
secret assurance to withdraw the missiles from Turkey, it did not choose
Soviet intelligence officers, but Ambassador Dobrynin. This is a further
reminder that evaluating the importance of secret intelligence channels needs
to be done within a broader framework of decision making and diplomacy.
And it is also a reminder that that which is secret is not a priori more
significant.
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 335

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Just as the Reagan administration vowed never to negotiate with hostage

takers, the Thatcher government made clear it would not talk to terrorists. Yet
since the early 1970s the British intelligence services established and
maintained lines of communication with the Provisional Irish Republican
Army (PIRA) which eventually involved government ministers, and played a
role in the political process in the 1970s and the 1990s, culminating in the
Good Friday agreement.62 There were clear historical precedents in the 1920s
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for this kind of activity.63 In 1971, after Prime Minister Edward Heath
involved SIS in Northern Ireland, lines of communication were opened with
Sinn Fein/PIRA, leading to ministerial level dialogue with the PIRA in 1972.
Contacts continued at a lower level and in the 1990s were reactivated
following intelligence on potential reassessments within Sinn Fein/PIRA of
political and military strategies.
Some details of the role of SIS (and later MI5) in the secret negotiations
between the PIRA and the British government became known though
disclosure and testimony, most interestingly on the British side. The role of
two SIS officers, Frank Steele and Michael Oatley, has been described. Both
Steele and Oatley have provided testimony of their activities and Michael
Oatley has indeed appeared on camera speaking of his experience.64 This is
of note as it was only in 1993 that a former senior SIS officer, Daphne Park,
appeared on television with unprecedented authorisation from the Foreign
Secretary (and when it was made clear that SIS engaged in disruptive
activity).65 It is a reasonable assumption that Michael Oatley had similar
dispensation. Moreover the former SIS officer wrote an article in the Sunday
Times in 1999 in which he argued forcefully in support of the Republican
leadership in the face of Unionist attacks on the PIRA’s failure to
decommission its weapons.66
Why Frank Steele and Michael Oatley chose to make their views and their
roles known, and how far this was sanctioned by SIS or by ministers are
interesting questions. Frank Steele’s assertion that he ‘wanted to set the
record straight’, while no doubt sincere, is hardly a sufficient explanation.67
Certainly Oatley appears to have been motivated by his personal view that the
Sinn Fein leadership, in particular Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness,
were genuinely committed to political solutions and political processes. The
fact that former SIS officers have provided such testimony without appearing
to provoke official disapproval (or indeed prosecution), suggests that SIS and/
or the government do not see the disclosure of such information in the same
way as other disclosures by security and intelligence officers. The revelation
that British intelligence ‘talked to terrorists’ is potentially embarrassing and
politically problematic in dealing with Unionist opinion. A more considered
 336 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

response is that the British government understood that while it could thwart
the PIRA’s objectives it could not defeat them by military means. Many in
the military (and the Unionist community) believed that military victory was
possible and that negotiating with the terrorists was counter-productive.
Whichever is true, the role of SIS certainly provides contrast with the role of
other security and intelligence agencies. As the Stevens Enquiry has
concluded, elements of the RUC and the Army colluded with loyalist
paramilitaries in murder and other crimes – findings that damage the
credibility and legitimacy of the British security forces and indeed the British
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state in Northern Ireland.68

The role of SIS also raises aspects of broader interest in the study of
intelligence, concerning the role of the individual and the nature of
accountability. The essence of clandestine diplomacy is that the participants
can deny that they are engaging in talks or negotiations. Michael Oatley
operated under strict regulations governing contacts with the paramilitaries.
Yet he and Frank Steele engaged creatively with these, and both appear to
have enjoyed some latitude to pursue their own initiatives. The people who
constitute the secret channel may be more than just a conduit, and their own
initiative may be an important element. Just as Aleksandr Feklisov initiated
what US officials took to be a back-channel of communication to Nikita
Khrushchev, Michael Oatley appears to have developed contacts on his own
initiative. His success in winning the trust of his adversaries reflected his
skills and his understanding of those he dealt with.69 This raises intriguing
questions about where plausible deniability ends and personal initiative
begins.
Clandestine diplomacy is an activity undertaken by secret intelligence
services where deniable communication between adversaries may be helpful,
especially where the adversary is a paramilitary group with whom open
political dialogue may be anathema for one or both sides. As an activity,
clandestine diplomacy may overlap with gathering intelligence and/or
conducting deception. One purpose may be to influence the behaviour of
the adversary toward political as against military action, as appears the case
in the actions of Aleksandr Feklisov and Michael Oatley. Yet clandestine
diplomacy is distinct from secret intervention inasmuch as those involved
may need to reveal their identity and risk exposure as intelligence officers.
Critics of clandestine diplomacy (or specific cases of clandestine
diplomacy) would argue that it undermines other approaches such as
counter-insurgency or conventional diplomacy. Other examples of back-
channel diplomacy such as in Soviet–US arms negotiations certainly afford
examples of where circumvention of professional diplomatic expertise risked
major policy errors. And Bolshakov’s role as a personal emissary of
Khrushchev illustrates the risk of deception. Whether the risks of making
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 337

mistakes or being deceived are greater where an intelligence service is

involved than where diplomats are used is an interesting question.

CONCLUSION

Clandestine diplomacy presupposes a willingness to talk to an adversary,

even if talking may not lead to negotiation. There are clearly many political
contexts in which the prospect of negotiation or agreement is illusory. To
suggest that there might come a time when the US government could engage
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in clandestine diplomacy with al-Qaeda would seem beyond credulity and

acceptability, although negotiations with allies or sponsors of the group or its
associates may be another matter. And there are, of course, other states
friendly to the United States who would have less political qualms about such
contacts. Such reflections should be placed firmly in the context of the
intelligence-led ‘war against terror’, where gathering and analysing secret
intelligence is the overriding priority, and where covert action is given a new
relevance and (arguably) a new legitimacy.
For critics, Western covert action undermined the legitimacy of Western
(especially US) intelligence if not indeed Western (especially US) foreign
policy during the Cold War. For their supporters they represented (usually)
discreet forms of intervention that obviated more violent methods. The
United States’ current mood shows little aversion to using force, and overt
action is less constrained by domestic opposition or international restraint.
US political and bureaucratic debates about covert action will for some time
occur within a different context to much of the Cold War.
Cold War critics of covert action saw secret intervention not as instruments
of statecraft but tools of political and economic self-interest designed to serve
hegemonic, if not imperialist, aims. How far the events of September 11 and
the search for Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction have strengthened the
legitimacy of secret intelligence remains to be seen. Covert action may rest on
a more secure domestic US consensus. Yet international support for a policy
of pre-emptive or preventive attack is a different matter. Whether the war on
Iraq reflects a sea change in the norms of intervention or the high tide of US
belligerence remains to be seen. Covert action promises to deliver much of
what it promised to deliver in the Cold War. As US action against Iraq
demonstrated, the US government has limited interest in the views of others,
even its allies. Yet is it conceivable that specific forms of covert action might
be sanctioned in specific contexts, if not by the United Nations itself then by
regional security alliances? Most probably not. Legitimising covert action
risks weakening the legitimacy of the institutions of international society.
Such discussion reflects how far covert action can be viewed as an
American phenomenon. Many questions – from the operational to the ethical
 338 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

– apply equally to other states. One consequence of September 11 is that

much more has become known of intelligence activities and operations.
Either the sophistication with which covert action is kept secret will need to
increase. Or we may learn more about the phenomenon. The problems of
learning about covert action (and clandestine diplomacy) will nevertheless
persist, as the need to evaluate and judge them will undoubtedly grow.

NOTES
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1. John Bruce Lockhart, ‘Intelligence: A British View’, in K.G. Robertson (ed.), British and
American Approaches to Intelligence (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1987), p. 46.
2. Christopher Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community
(London: Sceptre 1986), pp. 21–9.
3. Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence
(London: John Murray 2001), p. 5.
4. See M.R.D. Foot, SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive 1940–6
(London: British Broadcasting Corporation 1984).
5. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, pp. 128–34, 443–63.
6. See John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World
War II through Iranscam (New York: Quill 1985).
7. See, for example, Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth
Estate 2000) and Aldrich, Hidden Hand.
8. For example, Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press 1996) and Intelligence Services in the Information Age: Theory
and Practice (London: Frank Cass 2001).
9. For detailed accounts of Soviet practice see Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB:
The Inside Story (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1990) and Christopher Andrew and Vasili
Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West (London: Allen Lane/
Penguin Press 1999).
10. NSC 10/2 18 June 1948, quoted in Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only:
Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (London:
HarperCollins 1995), p. 173.
11. Intelligence Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1991, P.L. 102–88, 14 August 1991, quoted in
Abram Shulsky, Silent Warfare – Understanding the World of Intelligence (London:
Brassey’s 1993), p. 84. The CIA’s definition is ‘An operation designed to influence
governments, events, organizations, or persons in support of foreign policy in a manner that
is not necessarily attributable to the sponsoring power; it may include political, economic,
propaganda, or paramilitary activities.’ CIA, Consumer’s Guide to Intelligence (Washington
DC: CIA 1995), p. 38, quoted in David Rudgers, ‘The Origins of Covert Action’, Journal of
Contemporary History, 35/2 (2000), p. 249.
12. Oleg Kalugin with Fen Montaigne, The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and
Espionage against the West (London: Smith Gryphon 1994), p. 180.
13. See Mark Urban, Big Boys’ Rules: The SAS and the Secret Struggle against the IRA
(London: Faber & Faber 1992).
14. See Philip H.J. Davies, ‘From Special Operations to Special Political Action: The ‘‘Rump
SOE’’ and SIS Post-War Covert Action Capability 1945–1977’, Intelligence and National
Security, 15/3 (2000). For accounts of operations see Aldrich, Hidden Hand, Mark Urban,
UK Eyes Alpha (London: Faber & Faber 1996) and Dorril, MI6.
15. For accounts of operations and planning in the Middle East see Tom Bower, The Perfect
English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90 (London: Heinemann 1995), pp.
185–224; Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp. 464–93, 581–606; Dorril, MI6, pp. 531–699.
16. The Intelligence Services Act 1994, Chapter 13, section 7.1 states that the functions of SIS
are: ‘(a) to obtain and provide information relating to the actions or intentions of persons
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 339
outside the British Islands; and (b) to perform other tasks relating to the actions or intentions
of such persons’. The legal formula is similar to the US legislation that created the CIA in
1947 that speaks of ‘other functions and duties’. Rudgers, ‘The Origins of Covert Action’, p.
249.
17. The 1998–1999 Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report (Cm 4532) makes
reference to the fact that British agencies ‘may be required to undertake disruptive action in
response to specific tasking’ on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Cm 4532
para 58. I am grateful to Marc Davies for drawing my attention to this.
18. The document can be found at: [Link]/qadahfi-[Link].
19. Richard Tomlinson, The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security (Edinburgh:
Cutting Edge Press 2001), p. 73.
20. Elizabeth Anderson, ‘The Security Dilemma and Covert Action: The Truman Years’,
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International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 11/4 (1998/99), pp. 403–4.

21. See Roy Godson, Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: US Covert Action and Counterintelligence
(London: Brassey’s 1995); Shulsky, Silent Warfare; Loch Johnson, Secret Agencies: US
Intelligence in a Hostile World (London: Yale University Press 1996).
22. Dorril, MI6, p. xiv.
23. Godson, Dirty Tricks, p. xii.
24. The pattern of declassification is not entirely uniform. Documents detailing CIA operations
against Iran in the early 1950s have apparently been systematically destroyed. Craig
Eisendrath (ed.), National Insecurity: US Intelligence after the Cold War (Washington:
Center for International Policy 1999), p. 3.
25. Bob Woodward, Bush at War (London: Simon & Schuster 2002), pp. 5–6.
26. Pavel and Anatoli Sudoplatov (with Jerrold L. and Leona P. Schecter), Special Tasks: The
Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness – a Soviet Spymaster (London: Little, Brown 1994).
27. Tomlinson, The Big Breach, pp. 106–7, 140, 179–96.
28. Jerrold L. Schecter and Leona P. Schecter, ‘The Sudoplatov Controversy’, Cold War
International History Project Bulletin, 5 (Spring 1995), p. 155.
29. In Le Carré’s novel it is Walter who says this, whereas in the film of the same name, it is
Ned. Walter and Ned are SIS officers. John Le Carré, The Russia House (London: Hodder &
Stoughton 1989) p. 110; The Russia House (Pathe Entertainment 1990).
30. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Iron Maze: The Western Secret Services and the Bolsheviks
(Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998).
31. Bower, Perfect English Spy.
32. See for example, John Barry, ‘Covert Action can be Just’, Orbis (Summer 1993) pp. 375–90;
Charles Beitz, ‘Covert Intervention as a Moral Problem’, Ethics and International Affairs, 3
(1989), pp. 45–60; William Colby, ‘Public Policy, Secret Action,’ Ethics and International
Affairs, 3 (1989), pp. 61–71; Gregory Treverton, ‘Covert Action and Open Society’, Foreign
Affairs, 65/5 (1987), pp. 995–1014, idem, Covert Action: The Limits of Intervention in the
Postwar World (New York: Basic Books 1987), idem, ‘Imposing a Standard: Covert Action
and American Democracy’, Ethics and International Affairs, 3 (1989), pp. 27–43; and
Johnson, Secret Agencies, pp. 60–88.
33. For documentary sources of CIA covert action and accounts based on these see the National
Security Archive website: [Link]/*nsarchiv/.
34. For recent criticisms of CIA covert action see Eisendrath, National Insecurity. For an
excoriating attack on US policy see the views of former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman,
‘Espionage and Covert Action’, ibid., pp. 23–43. For a more general caustic critique of the
CIA, see Rhodri Jeffrey-Jones, Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence
(London: Yale University Press 2002).
35. John L. Gaddis, What We Now Know: Rethinking the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University
Press 1997).
36. Vojtech Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity (Oxford: Oxford University Press
1996).
37. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, pp. 160–79.
 340 INTELLIGENCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY

38. See Sara-Jane Corkem, ‘History, Historians and the Naming of Foreign Policy: A
Postmodern Reflection on American Strategic Thinking during the Truman Administration’,
Intelligence and National Security, 16/3 (2001), pp. 146–63.
39. Ludo de Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba (London: Verso 2002).
40. Bower, Perfect Spy; Dorril, MI6; Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence
and Covert Action (Dingle, Ireland: Brandon Books 1983).
41. Godson, Dirty Tricks, p. 120.
42. Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States (London: Routledge 1991), p. 11.
43. Jim Risen and Tim Weiner, ‘CIA Sought Syrian Aid’, New York Times, 31 October 2001.
The article also suggests a similar approach may have been made to Libyan intelligence.
44. Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb (London: HarperCollins 1995), pp.
25–7, 292–301.
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45. Shulsky, Silent Warfare, pp. 90–1. Apparently 200 agents were killed as a result of this
operation. A senior KGB officer who defected to the British supplied the information to the
CIA.
46. See for example, Bower, Perfect Spy, pp. 185–254; Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp. 464–93.
47. Peter Taylor, The Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury 1997) and Brits:
The War Against the IRA (London: Bloomsbury 2001); Michael Smith, New Cloak, Old
Dagger: How Britain’s Spies Came In From The Cold (London: Victor Gollancz 1996), pp.
211–30; Urban, UK Eyes Alpha and Big Boys’ Rules.
48. Hesi Carmel (ed.), Intelligence for Peace (London: Frank Cass 1999).
49. ‘Keeping a link to Hamas’, The Guardian, 29 September 2003, p. 19.
50. Michael Smith uses the term ‘parallel diplomacy’ to describe this activity. New Cloak, p.
211.
51. On Alekseev see Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’:
Khrushchev, Castro, Kennedy the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958–1964 (London; John Murray
1997). On Cooper, Kent, Tidwell and Smith see Sherman Kent, ‘The Cuban Missile Crisis of
1962: Presenting the Photographic Evidence Abroad’, Studies in Intelligence, 10/2 (1972).
52. See in particular, Fursenko and Naftali, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’.
53. Yevgeny Ivanov (with Gennady Sokolov), The Naked Spy (London: Blake 1992). For
discussion, see L.V. Scott, Macmillan, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Political,
Military and Intelligence Aspects (Basingstoke: Macmillan Palgrave 1999), pp. 102–12.
54. See Michael Beschloss, Kennedy v. Khrushchev: The Crisis Years 1960–63 (London: Faber
& Faber 1991), pp. 152ff.
55. Fursenko and Naftali, ‘One Hell of a Gamble’, pp. 109ff.
56. Ibid., p. x.
57. Scott, Macmillan, Kennedy, p. 109. The medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba had a range
of 1,100 miles enabling them to strike Washington.
58. For details of the various exchanges on 26–27 October see Ernest May and Philip Zelikow
(eds), The Kennedy Tapes (London: Belknap 1998), pp. 439–629.
59. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, ‘Using KGB Documents: The Scali–Feklisov
Channel in the Cuban Missile Crisis’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 5
(Spring 1995), pp. 58–62.
60. The testimony of Ambassador Dobrynin on the US offer to remove NATO nuclear missiles
from Turkey proved truthful, in contrast to contemporary public testimony of Kennedy
administration officials, and Robert Kennedy’s posthumously published account, as edited by
Theodore Sorensen, Thirteen Days (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1969).
61. For Feklisov’s account see Alexander Feklisov and Sergei Kostin, The Man Behind the
Rosenbergs: by the KGB Spymaster who was the Case Officer of Julius Rosenberg, and
helped resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Enigma Books 2001), pp. 362–402.
62. Taylor, The Provos, pp. 129–47 and Brits, pp. 80ff.; Smith, New Cloak, pp. 220–30.
63. Smith, New Cloak, pp. 211–19.
64. See remarks by Oatley in transcript of BBC TV, ‘The Secret War’, BBC News,
[Link]/hi/english/static/[Link]/2000/brits/.
65. BBC TV Panorama, ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, 22 November 1993.
 COVERT ACTION AND CLANDESTINE DIPLOMACY 341
66. Michael Oatley, ‘Forget the Weapons and Learn to Trust Sinn Fein’, Sunday Times, 31
October 1999; BBC Panorama, ‘The Secret War’.
67. Taylor, Provos, p. 129.
68. Stevens Enquiry, Overview and Recommendations, 17 April 2003, [Link]/
index/[Link].
69. Oatley, transcript of ‘The Secret War’.
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