Military Intelligence Blunders

Military Intelligence Blunders Colonel John Hughes-Wilson Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. NEW YORK Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 19 West 21st Street New York NY 10010-6805 First published in the UK by Robinson Publishing Ltd 1999 Copyright © John Hughes-Wilson 1999 Maps and diagrams copyright © John Hughes-Wilson 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers. ISBN 0-7394-0689-2 Manufactured in the USA For Victor Andersen + of the British Intelligence Services And Val Heller + of the US Defense Intelligence Agency Who both made it possible Contents Preface ix 1 On Intelligence 1 2 The Misinterpreters - D-Day, 1944 16 3 "Comrade Stalin Knows Best" - Barbarossa, 1941 38 4 "The Finest Intelligence in Our History" - Pearl Harbor, 1941 60 5 "The Greatest Disaster Ever to Befall British Arms" - Singapore, 1942 102 6 Uncombined Operations - Dieppe, 1942 133 7 "I Thought We Were Supposed to be Winning?" - The Tet Offensive, 1968 165 8 "Prime Minister, the War's Begun" - Yom Kippur, 1973 218 9 "Nothing We Don't Already Know" - The Falkland Islands, 1982 260 10 "If Kuwait Grew Carrots, We Wouldn't Give a Damn" - The Gulf, 1991 308 11 Will It Ever Get Any Better? 353 Suggested Reading List 361 Glossary of Terms 365 Index 367 vn Maps and Diagrams The Intelligence Cycle 6 An Intelligence Collection Plan's Essential Elements of Information 11 Dispositions June 1944 22 The Allied Deception Plans for D-Day 30 Operation Barbarossa 45 Pearl Harbor - Japan's Grab for Empire, 1941/2 75 Malaya and Singapore, 1942 112 Disaster at Dieppe, 19 August 1942 153 The Vietnam War, 1956-75 182 The Tet Offensive, South Vietnam, 30-31 January 1968 199 "Greater Israel", 1967-73 232 Yom Kippur, 1973: Suez and Sinai 255 The Falklands War, 1982: relative distances 276 The South Atlantic, 1982 293 A Threat Curve 306 The Gulf War, 1990/1 324 via Preface This is a book that tries to tell the story of some recent events, all within living memory, from a different angle: intelligence. Most of us have read press accounts and books about the events that unfold on these pages. But very few of us have seen the events from the inside. The inside implies knowledge: and knowledge means power. By "inside", I do not mean the views of politicians or other self-satisfied classes like those senior civil servants or even very grand journalists who write memoirs on the lines of, "Well, as Margaret said to me . ." The real "inside knowledge" is always the intelligence available at the time. It was that secret intelligence that shaped events and made the people who took the decisions heroes or villains. This book tries to lift the veil on what really happened behind the scenes in the intelligence world during some of the most well-known military events of the last half-century. It tries to show why decisions were made, for good or ill, by a number of famous and not so famous characters, based on the intelligence and the secrets they had to work with at the time. This book concentrates on intelligence mistakes and blunders for the simple reason that they are more interesting than the far more numerous successes of intelligence, and in many cases the intelligence disasters have often been concealed from the taxpayer who funded them. The book also identifies numerous deceptions, lies and cover-ups. Not all of these were committed to deceive the enemy. This will not make the stories outlined in its pages IX Preface universally popular. Turning over stones invariably lets a hard sunlight onto some creatures of the shadows. There are many intelligence officers and government officials, in all regimes, who prefer to keep their role and decisions secret, and thrive on secrecy in order to protect their careers and way of life. It guarantees their income, their status and their pensions. Secrecy is everything to them. In this they are only outclassed by their bosses, those very senior civil servants of every country's administration, who equally thrive and prosper in the sure and certain knowledge that access to secret intelligence gives them the ultimate benefit of the harem: power without responsibility, mistakes without consequences. Like their political masters, good intelligence officers should always have the courage of their convictions, and be ready to show moral courage. Intelli- gence is, after all, about predicting the most likely future, not just regaling concerned decision-makers with recent events. CNN and the BBC World Service do that far better, as every professional modern intelligence officer knows. When careers are at stake, however, the past always seems easier to explain than the future. The various case-studies are intended to provide an accessible and readable narrative of the events they describe, accompanied by some professional intelligence insights into how those events came about and unfolded. They tread a delicate path between the laboriously footnoted and exhaus- tive detail of the academic tome, and the trivial, flippant (and often inaccurate) "popular history" of cheap journalism. Where possible, quotations are clearly indicated. For those who would like to delve into the stories in more detail, a short reading list is provided at the end of the book so that they can be better informed about events and individuals. History is, after all, "a never-ending argument". In putting together this book I have been aided enor- x Preface mously by the Director and staff of the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall, and in particular by their patient and helpful librarian, John Montgomery. For details of Vietnam I owe a considerable debt to my many American friends and colleagues over the years, especially Colonel John Moon and Colonel John Robbins of the United States Army for their perceptive comments on my drafts of American events and also for their previously unpublished memories of the Tet Offensive. The staff of the Conflict Studies Centre at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, have also been invaluable allies over Barbarossa and the Byzantine details of Stalin's court, while Peter Shepherd's astonishing re-eva- lations of his meeting with a drunken Japanese engineer who revealed the secrets of Pearl Harbor really deserves a book of its own. On the Falklands and the Gulf I should declare a personal interest, having been intimately involved in both wars. How- ever, the best recollections of the intelligence organization and operations "down south" during the Falklands War have invariably come from those who fought the war directly. Many others in the intelligence world of several nationalities have helped me, both on and off the record, and I could not have done this without their help and guidance. Mrs Hughes-Wilson made an important contribution to the book too - she typed up most of it, and only Cathryn Corns' skill and patience with the computer made the maps possible. The book also owes much to refinements to the manuscript by the eagle-eyed, tactful and patient editor, Mark Crean: to distort the old military truism, "there are no good authors: only good editors." Any errors and omissions are, however, mine, as are the opinions expressed. They represent the broad overview of twenty-five years working with, and thinking about, "military intelligence". Having said that, this is most certainly not a heavy, theoretical text about international XI Preface affairs. Instead I have tried to provide an accessible collection of true stories for the interested outsider that will, I hope, add weight to the idea that "history is a novel that has already been written", based on a sound blend of fact and comment. Above all, this is a book that is meant to be read and enjoyed by the general reader and the intelligence professional alike; I gen- uinely hope both gain something from my labours. John Hughes-Wilson June 1999 xn 1 On Intelligence "Military Intelligence", runs the old saying, "is a contra- diction in terms". This weary old joke has about the same impact on professional intelligence officers as jokes about striking oil have on drilling dentists. It is a commonly held view, however, because history is littered with disastrous intelligence mistakes. From the earliest recorded times down to the Gulf War, soldiers of all kinds have been taken by surprise. How could the military be so stupid? Yet surprise is one of the cardinal principles of war. Every military academy and staff college in the world teaches the need to achieve surprise - and to guard against it - to every single student of the military art. Despite this, the military appears to have been caught out with almost predictable regularity. Is the failing one of endemic stupidity or of an opponent's cunning? The answer is both. Just as every military commander hopes not to be taken by surprise, potential adversaries strive equally hard with every trick and resource to mislead, to deceive and to catch their enemy unawares. To avoid being surprised, commanders rely on intelligence and their intelligence staffs. Sometimes they are successful, sometimes not. On the success of intelligence hinges a military commander's decisions and his reputation; and very often the future of his country and its population as well. Therein lies our fascination with the decisions of the military professional, and the difference between his and other On Intelligence callings. Military decisions simply carry more weight than those of other professions. For while other professionals in a host of occupations make key decisions, none of them, with perhaps the exception of a politician in war, carry such an awesome responsibility.

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