British Intelligence, Counter-Subversion, and ‘Informal Empire’ in the Middle East, 1949-63 CHIKARA HASHIMOTO This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2013 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where *correction services have been used, the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ [*this refers to the extent to which the text has been corrected by others] STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ..................................................................... (candidate) Date ........................................................................ 2 SUMMARY This thesis is a history of a hitherto unexplored dimension of Britain’s engagement with the post-war Middle East with a particular focus on intelligence and security aspects. More specifically, it examines the counter-subversive policies and measures conducted by the British Intelligence and Security Services, and Britain’s secret propaganda apparatus, the Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office, in Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, during the period between 1949 and 1963. This thesis is also about intelligence liaison – the relationship between British Intelligence and Security Services and their Middle Eastern counterparts. This thesis argues that the British Empire declined between 1949 and 1963; in this, intelligence was understood by British policymakers as a tool to maintain British influence and preserve British strategic and economic interests in the Middle East. The imperial drive derived from a mixture of strategic and economic interests in the region but it was Britain’s anti-Communist attitudes which were shared with Middle Eastern governments. This was the context in which intelligence liaison was established between Britain and Middle Eastern states on the basis of their common interests. Although Britain’s anti-Communist policy contributed to preventing the spread of Communist movements in the region, it sought to strengthen the repressive capability of Middle Eastern governments which undermined their own political position by their repressiveness. An unintended consequence was that the Middle Eastern governments conducted counter-subversion not only against Communists, but also their own people. This thesis concludes that Britain’s anti-Communist policy sustained British influence and British interests in the region in the short term, but failed to sustain its objectives in the long term. It demonstrates the importance of common interests in encouraging intelligence liaison and the significance of conflicting interests in restricting it. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Liaison: Short-Term Success, Long-Term Failure pp.6-29 Chapter One Fighting the ‘Communist Menace’ Overseas: pp.30-64 The Development of British Counter-Subversive Policy in the “Informal Empire” in the Middle East. Chapter Two Police Training in Anti-Communist Measures pp.65-97 and the Introduction of British Security Liaison Chapter Three The Defence of the Realm in the Middle East pp.98-131 Chapter Four Multilateral Intelligence Cooperation and the pp.132-167 Security of Systems Chapter Five Counter-Subversion by Propaganda: pp.168-200 The Conflicting Interests of the Baghdad Pact Chapter Six The Use and Abuse of State Power and pp.201-234 the Limits of British Influence Conclusion The Limited Benefits of Intelligence Liaison pp.235-248 Appendixes pp.249-253 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without a lot of help. I would firstly like to acknowledge the financial support from the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University which funded this thesis substantially through an E.H. Carr Studentship. I was also supported by generous grants: the Caroline Adams Travel Bursaries of the Department (twice in row); the Aberystwyth Alumni Student Hardship Fund; the Royal Historical Society; and the Founders Fund Award for 2012 of the British International Studies Association. I would secondly like to thank my supervisors, Len Scott, Paul Maddrell, and James Vaughan, for their invaluable expertise and their support. A particular thank again goes to Len, not as my supervisor, but as my employer for his generosity to sustain my family in the final year of my PhD. Thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers at Intelligence and National Security and The International History Review for their comments on articles drawn from the thesis. I would also thank James Simpson, who knows my (in)ability in writing English from my undergraduate here, for his friendship and kindness to read final drafts of this thesis. Any mistakes may appear in the text are of course entirely my own. I would thirdly like to thank people who kindly helped my journey of a historical enquiry into state secrets. I am grateful to Mustafa Ozcan, who helped my fieldtrip in Turkey, and Hamid Soorghali, who translated transcripts from Farsi into English, for their friendship. I am also grateful to various people for sharing their knowledge/experience with me, whose identities remain anonymous. I would also thank to Youmna Asseily for her generosity to allow me to consult her late father’s private papers. Finally, not the least, I would like to thank my family for their support. Words must go to my mother, Shoko, for her financial and moral support for my academic career in Britain from undergraduate. I should also thank my daughter, Miyaka, who was not born when I started my PhD but has grown rapidly, for distracting me from my obsession with this PhD research whenever I was at home. Above all, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Sawa, for her continuous and dedicated support for my entire academic career, without which I could not have completed this thesis. CHIKARA HASHIMOTO Aberystwyth September 2013 5 Introduction Liaison: Short-Term Success, Long-Term Failure 6 There is no such thing as ‘friendly intelligence agencies’. There are only the intelligence agencies of friendly powers. - Henry A. Kissinger1 This thesis is a history of a hitherto unexplored dimension of Britain’s engagement with the post-war Middle East with a particular focus on intelligence and security aspects. More specifically, it examines the counter-subversive policies and measures conducted by the British Intelligence and Security Services, and Britain’s secret propaganda apparatus, the Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office, in Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, during the period between 1949 and 1963. Since counter-subversion in foreign countries inevitably entailed cooperation with local authorities, this thesis is also about intelligence liaison – the relationship between British Intelligence and Security Services and their Middle Eastern counterparts. In recent years, the ‘War on Terror’ has raised the public profile of British intelligence liaison with Middle Eastern governments. 2 This is not a new phenomenon, however. Sir Stephen Lander, former Director-General of the Security Service, MI5, for instance, reminds us that the British Intelligence Services maintained a relationship with their Middle Eastern counterparts long before the ‘War on Terror’. 3 According to him, international intelligence cooperation is ‘something of an oxymoron’; while intelligence services serve national self-interest of individual states, they often cooperate with their foreign counterparts on their common interests.4 He also explains that intelligence liaison, in other words international intelligence cooperation, is not only intelligence sharing, but also has a variety of forms, including exchanges of ‘technical know-how’ and intelligence and security training. Such ‘operational collaboration’ happened ‘where there [was] a pressing 1 Henry Kissinger was the National Security Advisor (1969-75) and the Secretary of State of the United States (1973-1977). Quoted from Mark M. Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 3rd ed. (Washington: CQ Press, 2006), p.146. 2 Documentary evidence of such dealings has been found in Tripoli as a result of the turmoil in Libya. Cf. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Sir Mark Allen: the secret link between MI6, the CIA and Gaddafi’, The Guardian, 4 Sep 2011, assessable on-line at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/04/mark-allen-mi6-libya-profile (accessed, 9 Sep 2013); Ian Cobain, Mustafa Khalili, and Mona Mahmood, ‘How MI6 deal sent family to Gaddafi’s jail’, ibid., 9 Sep 2011, accessible on-line at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/09/how- mi6-family-gaddafi-jail (accessed, 9 Sep 2013); Nick Hopkins, ‘The Libya papers: a glimpse into the world of 21st-century espionage’, ibid., 9 Sep 2011, accessible