1
In: Im Schatten der Geheimdienste. Südtirol 1918 bis zur Gegenwart, ed. G. Steinacher
(Innsbruck 2003) 13-36.
Siegfried Beer (University of Graz)
The Need for a Theory of Intelligence
as Exemplified in the Context of Austrian History, 1918 - 1955.
Towards an Agenda for Central European Intelligence Studies
Spies and speculators for thirty-three centuries have exerted more
influence on history than on historians.( R. Rowan, 1938; 1969)[1]
Simply put, intelligence is knowledge and foreknowledge of the
world that surrounds us. (CIA-booklet, undated)[2]
I. Introduction
The following reflections on the historical and scientific parameters of intelligence in the twentieth century as applied to a crucial period of Austrian history within the context of Central Europe have occupied and accompanied me ever since I became a committed historian of intelligence in the field of modern diplomatic and military history almost two decades ago.
It began for me one day in the warm spring of Washington, DC in 1984 when, during an extended research stay at the National Archives, I was - quite by chance - made aware of the fact that the American Government had created an intelligence organization during World War II which, in the course of that war, had also become interested in Central Europe and, specifically also in the territory of the former Republic of Austria. It was then that I began a journey of research which has taken me to the National Archives of the United States every summer since that year. In the meantime I have expanded my archival foundation for the study of Austria through the eyes of a foreign intelligence service named the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), active from 1941/42 to 1945, from a few hand-written notes about the contents of an OSS-card catalogue available for research in 1984 to a collection of roughly 12,000 photocopied documents on organizational, analytical and operational activities of the OSS concerning Austria and the Alpine and Danubian regions in which it is placed as close to 97% of the written record of this agency have become accessible to the researcher by the late 1990s. I have also long since expanded my focus to include the period from 1918 to 1941 and more particularly the period of the Allied occupation of Austria from 1945 to 1955.
Even as I have concentrated on the work and scope of American intelligence organizations in regard to Austria - not only the OSS but also military intelligence (G-2) already between the wars and especially after World War II (G-2 and the Counter Intelligence Corps, CIC) and including the Strategic Services Unit (SSU), the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[3] - I have also widened my research by studying the involvement of British intelligence in Austria roughly over the same time period. This, however, has proved much more difficult, mainly because of the very restricted access to British intelligence documents as compared to American research conditions. Most recently these conditions have been liberalized and a pre-selected portion of documents of the British Security Service MI5 and of the wartime Special Operations Executive (SOE) have become available for research at the Public Record Office in London in regard to Austria and other Central European countries.[4]
Clearly then, my own research work on intelligence issues has been limited to three countries: the United States, Great Britain and Austria, in that order of archival emphasis. It has been sufficient, however, for me to consider and study general issues of the craft and science of intelligence. The privilege of access to possibly the world’s greatest library in 1996/97, Widener Library of Harvard University, has provided me with the chance to consult the general literature, both monographic and periodical, on crucial intelligence issues and has sharpened my awareness of some of the major varieties and aspects of the study of intelligence.
In this article I will first characterize the actual and the scholarly intelligence revolutions, then discuss the nature of intelligence as an historical phenomenon and as revealed through definition and theory, and finally apply some of the important elements of the field of intelligence studies to the regional experience of Central Europe and more particularly of Austria over the time period of several dramatic decades from the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 to the re-establishment of a sovereign and independent Republic of Austria in 1955.
II. The Real and the Scholarly „Intelligence Revolutions“
Public knowledge about intelligence has greatly increased over the last quarter century as academic scholars, practitioners of the trade, and serious journalists have taken up the study of the „missing dimension“ in most diplomatic history,[5] and no less in military and political history. Rowan’s accusation cited above, declaring that spies have had a greater influence on the course of history than on historians, which was included in the introduction to his best-selling survey of espionage in world history, held true in 1938 and was still valid when it was reprinted in 1969. Since the 1970s, however, scholarly attention has been applied to the subject of intelligence and a distinct discipline has emerged which is generally designated „intelligence studies“. It can even be claimed that over the last two decades or so intelligence and intelligence studies have become a considerable growth industry with monographs, periodicals, anthologies and symposia proliferating, thereby marking the acceptance of intelligence as a serious and respectable academic discipline. Since the late 1970s historians have also claimed and tried to prove that the twentieth century has seen an intelligence revolution which has impacted on world history in a massive way, and not just militarily speaking.[6] It was mainly with the leakage of the „Ultra Secret“, that is the revelation of the painstakingly guarded successes of the western Allies against the German and Japanese („Magic“) war machines during the Second World War, but also with the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate attacks on the Central Intelligence Agency particularly, stimulated by aggressively pursued investigative journalism and widely televised congressional enquiries into the difficult role and questionable methods of the American intelligence community, that a wider and also an academic interest in intelligence issues was stirred.[7] Obviously, this interest has been dramatically reinforced by the impact of the rerrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. of September 11, 2001.
Intelligence can be said to have two principal roots: one is diplomatic, seeking information about the policy making of other states, actually or potentially inimical to that state or states; and the other is military-operational, securing knowledge of the capabilities, intentions and movements of other armed forces. Thus, a necessary precondition of intelligence is the systematic observation of foreign powers, their armies, and their ruling elites over longer periods of time.[8] Though spying is as old as organized mankind (even if only „the second-oldest profession“), it was only slightly over a hundred years ago that governments, or more exactly government agencies started to pursue a strategy of systematic gathering of information, at first mainly of military, but soon also of state secrets, about other countries.[9] As imperial tensions of the late nineteenth century and fast-paced technological changes, particularly in the field of armaments, combined, a public fascination but also a fear about subversive activities and espionage began to be generated; this in turn led to a widely perceived need for protection (counter espionage) and offence (foreign intelligence) mainly in the period before the Great War.[10] At about the same time the genre of spy fiction was launched on its successful path into the twentieth century.[11]
Intelligence historians and other intelligence scientists have illuminated the history of espionage and of intelligence organizations quite thoroughly, yet it must be admitted, that to this day their academic discipline, intelligence studies, still occupies only a small part of the international relations agenda. It is not easy to understand why this state of affairs has persisted for so long.
The intelligence studies community is by and large comprised of four groups: historians, political scientists, practitioner-scholars and freelance writers/ journalists. Among these the historians are pre-eminent, and scholars from the English-speaking world have been leading the way. Senior members of the club are the British scholars D.C. Watt, Christopher Andrew and Richard J. Aldrich, the Canadians David Stafford and Wesley Wark, and the American historians Ernest May, Robin Winks, Bradley F. Smith, John Prados and David Kahn, most of whose work is mainly on the pre-1945 period.[12] To this group must be added a number of prominent CIA and KGB specialists[13] and an exciting group of younger, meanwhile established academicians, both American and European.[14]
The historians’ pre-eminence within the intelligence studies community is based on their conceptual as well as empirical work, as they have been able to give direction in terms of typology, methodology and even theory of intelligence, as well as providing the context for intelligence studies within political, social, military and international history. The leading political scientists within intelligence studies are mostly American. My own list of most important contributors to the field includes Robert Jervis, Richard K. Betts, Roy Godson, Michael I. Handel, Michael Herman, Arthur S. Hulnick, Loch K. Johnson and Jeffrey T. Richelson. Their work is mainly analytical-descriptive and deals primarily with the post-1945 development of intelligence.[15] The practitioner-scholars are also mainly American-British and almost exclusively concerned with the Cold War era. So are the leading intelligence journalists and freelance writers. Some of the work of both of these groups is impressive and even essential, particularly for historical research.[16]
One of the main indicators for the liveliness of intelligence studies has been the growth of intelligence literature in scholarly journals and the founding of periodicals exclusively, or at least partly, devoted to intelligence matters. The leading international intelligence journals were both founded in the mid-1980s: Intelligence and National Security (INS), published by Frank Cass in London, and the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (IJIC), now published by Taylor&Francis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, these are just the two most influential journals. An annotated guide of the past and present periodicals, dealing at least in part with questions of intelligence of every sort, appeared in 1992 and listed altogether 155 entries.[17] It has practically become impossible for one and the same scholar to cover and master the whole range of the science of intelligence. Its diversity, particularly in the technical field, is almost forebearing.
Furthermore, the teaching of intelligence has become wide-spread, at least in the English-speaking world. The National Intelligence Study Center (NISC) in Washington, DC has conducted three surveys of college and university courses on the subject of intelligence and published their results in 1980, 1985 and 1992.[18] A further survey, this time conducted world-wide, was published in 2000.[19] In the United States the relationship between the Intelligence Community and the academic community, which had been close and fruitful during World War II and during at least the first decade of the Cold War, deteriorated to suspicion in the 1950s and to disillusionment in the Vietnam years and beyond. However, there are now signs that a reconciliation between these two communities has been reestablished, as many of the leading American universities, among them Harvard University and Yale University, have again established and endowed intelligence-related programs.[20]
Finally, professional associations devoted to the study and discussion of intelligence have been established and blossomed, first in Great Britain, Canada and the United States, and finally also in Europe. Among the main and oldest associations three deserve to be singled out: the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies, the British Study Group on Intelligence, and the Intelligence Section of the International Studies Association in the United States. European associations exist in several Scandinavian countries, in Holland (The Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association) and in Germany (Arbeitskreis Geschichte der Nachrichtendienste).[21] They all profit from a dialogue with veterans of national intelligence who have organized themselves in a variety of professional organizations consisting mainly of retired personnel from the British, American and Canadian intelligence communities. In Europe these retired professionals are usually integrated into the respective national associations of intelligence studies.
Historically speaking, I agree with Wesley Wark’s argument, that a widely effective intelligence revolution has been manifesting itself throughout the course of the twentieth century and that this particular revolution has finally found an echo in a scholarly revolution which has started to describe and interpret its impact over the last quarter century. The scholarly revolution has started slowly only after 1975, but it accelerated over the 1980s and has produced impressive results particularly in the 1990s.[22] This, however, has not meant that the scholarly revolution has been acknowledged or received positively by all its academic brethren. Sceptics and convinced traditionalists have been quick to label intelligence studies as trendy or even lacking in relevance. Considerably more effort to convince these sceptics will have to be undertaken if intelligence studies are to become fully integrated partners in the fields of international and national politics.[23]
III. The Search for a Definition, Doctrine or Theory of Intelligence
Is there a correct definition of intelligence?[24] Thomas Troy, one of the more prolific scholarly authors on American intelligence during and after World War II, believes so, and at the same time opts for brevity, actually adopting Constantine Fitzgibbon’s succinct description: „intelligence is knowledge of the enemy“, and further qualifying the enemy as actual or potential.[25] With this designation, experts of American intelligence will be immediately reminded of one of the first and still very influential theoretical expositions of what today is called „modern intelligence“ by an experienced practitioner of the trade and former Yale professor of French history, Sherman Kent, who in 1949 published his seminal work „Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy“.[26] Kent characterized the whole of what was then known as intelligence in three parts: 1. Intelligence is Knowledge; 2. Intelligence is Organization; 3. Intelligence is Activity. This breakdown of intelligence into three major components is still recognized today as standard intelligence doctrine, certainly for the period of World War II and the First Cold War, although Kent’s specific definition of intelligence as „the knowledge upon which our nation’s foreign relations, in war and peace, must rest“ has been widely criticized, not least for setting an unfortunate precedent in separating intelligence as research and analysis from the world of spying and dirty tricks, perhaps in order to make intelligence as a whole more acceptable to ordinary American voters.[27]
There is no lack of attempts to define intelligence. I can here refer to only a few pertinent ones.[28] A former CIA chief, for example, offers a definition of intelligence as „information about the plans, the intentions, and the capabilities of other nations“[29], whereas a former CIA officer turned scholar offers a more complete, yet still brief characterization of intelligence as product and process: „Intelligence is 1) information about an adversary useful in dealing with him; 2) an organization or activity concerned with such information.“[30] What is missing in many definitions is a reference to hostility and warfare, and most definitions ignore the element of espionage and spying which the theorists of military intelligence have long since seen as one of their main concerns, namely: „the discovery of military secrets.“[31] If one includes secrets and espionage, and maybe even counter-intelligence, as part of the realm of intelligence, why do they not figure in any of these definitions? It is because they are considered distinct and separate from knowledge and the process by which knowledge is distilled.[32] Clearly, secrecy is necesary if the sources or the policy issues are sensitive. What is even more important, and therefore has to be addressed in a comprehensive definition, is the recipient of intelligence. My definition of intelligence therefore is: „Intelligence is information - often secret - collected, organized and/or analyzed on behalf of decision-makers (be they military, political or economic/ private“.[33]
These realizations must lead us to conclude that the search for the correct definition of intelligence can only serve as the starting point for a characterization of or toward a doctrine or even a theory of intelligence that can claim to encompass the whole gamut of what modern intelligence organizations are expected to do and represent. In the particular context of American intelligence, this brings us back to its historical development, and specifically to the early years of the OSS, when its chief William J. Donovan managed to assemble one of the most impressive gatherings of academics ever employed by the U.S. Government. These social scientists, historians and other specialists formed the Research and Analysis (R&A) Branch which at least until 1944 was at the core of the OSS as a whole. Sherman Kent was already at an early stage put in charge of the Europe-Africa Division of R&A, and it is not surprising that his famous book on strategic intelligence, written between his years of employment by the OSS and the CIA, reflects the conviction that intelligence can provide all the information necessary for conducting a nation’s foreign policy.[34] Kent and his specialists in the OSS, and then in the Office of National Estimates (ONE) at the CIA, were certainly imbibed with the tremendous optimism of the social sciences in the 1940s and 1950s, even when the intelligence problem posed by the Soviet Union presented a much stiffer challenge than the Axis Powers ever had.[35] It was in the late 1950s that the belief gained ground that intelligence had to be put on a sounder theoretical basis. However, intelligence practitioners and pragmatists remained very sceptical of this and even argued that a theory of intelligence would create unnecessary complications.[36] Like the majority of the leading intelligence practitioners, most international relations scholars then (as they still tend to do now) looked upon intelligence as a mere craft rather than as a science. [37] This may in part explain why there have been so few attempts to propose holistic concepts of intelligence which could be tested as a theory or even as a doctrine of intelligence.