Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Documents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Intelligence for an American Century: Creating the CIA
- 2 The Development of CIA Covert Action
- 3 A ‘Gangster Act’: The Berlin Tunnel
- 4 The CIA and the USSR: The Challenge of Understanding the Soviet Threat
- 5 Anglo-American Intelligence Liaison and the Outbreak of the Korean War
- 6 The CIA and the Bomber and Missile Gap
- 7 The CIA and Cuba: The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
- 8 The CIA in Vietnam
- 9 The CIA and Arms Control
- 10 The CIA’s Counter-Intelligence Conundrum: The Case of Yuri Nosenko
- 11 1975: The Year of the ‘Intelligence Wars’
- 12 Watching Khomeini
- 13 The CIA and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
- 14 Martial Law in Poland
- 15 Able Archer and the NATO War Scare
- 16 The Soviet Leadership and Kremlinology in the 1980s
- 17 The CIA and the (First) Persian Gulf War
- 18 A Mole in Their Midst: The CIA and Aldrich Ames
- 19 ‘The System was Blinking Red’: The Peace Dividend and the Road to 9/11
- 20 Reckoning and Redemption: The 9/11 Commission, the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA at War
- 21 The ‘Slam Dunk’: The CIA and the Invasion of Iraq
- 22 The Terrorist Hunters Become Political Quarry: The CIA and Rendition, Detention and Interrogation
- 23 Innovation at the CIA: From Sputnik to Silicon Valley and Venona to Vault 7
- 24 Entering the Electoral Fray: The CIA and Russian Meddling in the 2016 Election
- 25 Flying Blind? The CIA and the Trump Administration
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Anglo-American Intelligence Liaison and the Outbreak of the Korean War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Documents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Intelligence for an American Century: Creating the CIA
- 2 The Development of CIA Covert Action
- 3 A ‘Gangster Act’: The Berlin Tunnel
- 4 The CIA and the USSR: The Challenge of Understanding the Soviet Threat
- 5 Anglo-American Intelligence Liaison and the Outbreak of the Korean War
- 6 The CIA and the Bomber and Missile Gap
- 7 The CIA and Cuba: The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
- 8 The CIA in Vietnam
- 9 The CIA and Arms Control
- 10 The CIA’s Counter-Intelligence Conundrum: The Case of Yuri Nosenko
- 11 1975: The Year of the ‘Intelligence Wars’
- 12 Watching Khomeini
- 13 The CIA and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
- 14 Martial Law in Poland
- 15 Able Archer and the NATO War Scare
- 16 The Soviet Leadership and Kremlinology in the 1980s
- 17 The CIA and the (First) Persian Gulf War
- 18 A Mole in Their Midst: The CIA and Aldrich Ames
- 19 ‘The System was Blinking Red’: The Peace Dividend and the Road to 9/11
- 20 Reckoning and Redemption: The 9/11 Commission, the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA at War
- 21 The ‘Slam Dunk’: The CIA and the Invasion of Iraq
- 22 The Terrorist Hunters Become Political Quarry: The CIA and Rendition, Detention and Interrogation
- 23 Innovation at the CIA: From Sputnik to Silicon Valley and Venona to Vault 7
- 24 Entering the Electoral Fray: The CIA and Russian Meddling in the 2016 Election
- 25 Flying Blind? The CIA and the Trump Administration
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The 1946 UKUSA Agreement between the US and Britain, which later expanded to include Australia, Canada and New Zealand – consequently earning the moniker ‘Five-Eyes’ – provided for extensive liaison on sigint specifically. Close relations also existed between humint and military agencies, and between the CIA and Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) on the exchange of intelligence assessments. By and large, these relationships existed separately from the political whims of those in charge of the White House or Downing Street, but during the Korean War, political differences had a direct effect on the quality and quantity of intelligence material shared across the Atlantic.
The problem was China. Since the 1930s there had raged a civil war fought by the nationalists, supported by the US, and the communists, propped up by the Soviet Union. As the late 1940s wore on the civil war continued, and it became increasingly clear that the tide was turning towards the communists and their leader, Mao Zedong. In late 1948 the State Department confirmed to the British that the US would maintain a presence in China whichever way the civil war was won – but within six months, that position was being reversed as the communists stood on the brink of victory. In August 1949 this change of position was clear, for as the British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, informed his Cabinet colleagues, the decision had now been taken that all US government nationals would be withdrawn from China. Bevin succinctly summed up the situation: ‘[W]e are faced with the dilemma that unless we can persuade the United States authorities to agree with us we must either agree to differ and pursue our own policy of keeping a foot in the door, or abandon the whole of our interests in China in order to follow in the American wake.’
The divergence in opinion between Washington and London was based on different factors. For President Truman, one of the key issues was not to declare the civil war over and therefore not signal that it had been a communist success, the objective being to protect major allies and assets – particularly Japan, the largest and most significant American interest in the region. This was an early test of the logic that would become known as the domino theory a few years later.
- Type
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- Information
- The CIA and the Pursuit of SecurityHistory, Documents and Contexts, pp. 77 - 99Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020