TECHNOLOGIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND THEIR RELATION TO NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY: A CASE STUDY OF THE U.S. AND THE V-2 ROCKET John McKinney Tucker, Jr. Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Science and Technology Studies Gary Downey, Co-Chair Shannon A. Brown, Co-Chair Janet Abbate J. Dean O’Donnell Lee Zwanziger May 29, 2013 Northern Virginia Center Key Words: History, Modern, Sociology, Organizational, Anthropology, Cultural TECHNOLOGIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND THEIR RELATION TO NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY: A CASE STUDY OF THE U.S. AND THE V-2 ROCKET John McKinney Tucker, Jr. ABSTRACT While government intelligence—knowledge to support policy decision making— is often characterized as an art or science, this dissertation suggests it is more akin to what Science and Technology Studies call a “technological system” or a” sociotechnical ensemble”. Such a policy support tool is a mechanism socially constructed for the production of policy-relevant knowledge through integration of social and material components. It involves organizational and procedural innovations as much as it does specialized hardware for obtaining, manipulating, and distributing information. The development and function of American intelligence is illustrated here through a case study of how the United States and its European allies learned about Germany’s World War II secret weapons, especially the long-range liquid fueled rocket known to their military as the A4, but better known to the public as the V-2. The colonial British heritage and the unique American experiences of participating in wars taking place in domestic and foreign territories set the cultural stage for both the strengths and weaknesses with which American intelligence approached the rapidly evolving German secret weapon capabilities of World War II. The unfolding events that American and British intelligence dealt with in building their knowledge evolved through three stages: early speculation about the existence and nature of the secret weapon threat derived from frequently misleading or misunderstood espionage reports, followed by improvements in knowledge from direct access to information sources provided by enabling technologies, and, finally, systematic reflection on the aggregate of earlier knowledge and new data. This allowed government decision makers to build plans and resources with which to counter the new threats and to prepare for post-war management of similar political and technical issues. However, it also illustrated the difficulties that large and complex systems create for stabilization of institutional innovations. Table of Contents 1. Introduction and Definitions - 1 Description of the Research Problem – 8 Some Definitions – 10 The German V-2 Example as a basis for the Case Study - 15 Significance of this study - 16 Source Material – 20 Organization of the Paper - 23 2. Historical Frame of Reference: The Evolution of American Strategic Intelligence - 26 The British Heritage – 28 American Adaptations of British Intelligence Processes – 30 Later Evolution in American Intelligence Activities – 42 Slow Movement Toward Wartime Coordination and Integration of American Intelligence Activities - 48 3. Operational Frame of Reference: A Functional Model of American Intelligence – 53 The Three Factors – 54 The Intelligence Network – 61 The Enabling Social and Mechanical Technologies – 75 4. Intelligence Goals and Key problems: The German Rocket Development Effort - 84 Interwar German Army Rocket Research – 85 Early Development at Peenemünde – 86 Shifting Priorities and a Successful A-4 Launch – 89 iii Planning for Production – 91 Troop Training and Operational Testing in Poland – 97 Series Production at Nordhausen Mittlewerk – 99 Significant Failures in Series Production A-4s – 101 Operational Launches – 107 The End of V-2 Operations – 112 5. Users’ Practice from 1930-1943: Intelligence from Speculation Based on General Theories of Rocketry and Isolated Pieces of Reported Data - 115 Popular and Academic Knowledge of Rocket Technology – 119 The Impact of Pacifism and Economic Depression on Interwar American Intelligence – 125 An unsuccessful First American Attempt to Develop knowledge of German War Rockets – 130 Early—But Unrecognized—Success in Discovering Knowledge of the German Rocket Program – 141 American Intelligence Preparation and British Operational Focus – 144 6. Users’ Practice from 1943-1944: Intelligence from Direct Access to German Rocket Technology - 158 American Intelligence Becomes A More Important Actor in Europe – 159 Improving Allied Intelligence Assessment of the Secret Weapons – 175 The First Allied Decision to Attack the Secret Weapons – 183 European Resistance Movements Encounter the Secret Weapons - 186 Examination of Secret Weapon Wreckage - 189 7. Users’ Practice from 1944 -45: Intelligence and Action from Reflection on Accumulated Knowledge - 193 Organizational Innovation – 194 iv Allied Concern with a German Atomic Weapon Program – 199 Speculation on the Timing of Secret Weapon operations – 201 CROSSBOW Replaces BODYLINE – 208 D-Day Approaches – 215 Britain Focuses on the Flying Bomb in Preparation for the D-Day Invasion – 227 The Secret Weapons Become Operational – 230 8. Merging Intelligence Into Operational Decision Making- 236 Formalizing and Assigning Allied Intelligence Requirements – 239 Evolving Improvements In Tactical And Strategic Countermeasures – 250 Intelligence Sharing Between the Western Allies – 264 Increasing Detail on A-4 Characteristics – 268 9. Soviet Participation and Shifting Allied Intelligence Problems - 276 The Blizna Episode – 277 Allied Intelligence Sees The First V-2s in Combat, while Some Allied Decision Makers Start to Look to the Future – 286 Policy Changes Allow Wider Distribution of V-2 Information - 289 1945: The Western and Eastern European Allies Compete for Possession of German Technical Accomplishment – 299 10. Conclusion: Intelligence and the V-2 After The War - 308 Bibliography – 327 v List of Figures 1. Components of a Technology - 11 2. Three-Part Definition of Intelligence Technology – 55 3. Increasing Complexity of Intelligence Technology - 61 4. A Simple Formulation - 62 5. Navy Intelligence Cycle - 63 6. A More Complex Model – 74 7. Intelligence Socio-Technical Ensemble During the American Revolution – 310 8. Secret Weapon-Related Intelligence Socio-Technical Ensemble/System – Europe 1945 - 313 9. Complexity of American Secret Weapon Intelligence at War’s End - 316 vi Government Classification Review All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the CIA or any other U.S. Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or Agency endorsement of the author’s views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information. vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITIONS There is a discussion that occurs occasionally among intelligence practitioners about the nature of their enterprise. Is intelligence, in discharging its role as a producer of specialized knowledge to support policy making and operations, a science or an art? Is it an effort built on wholly rational methods and managed through an efficiently operating organization? Or is it an effort depending on the unique experience and intuition of a corps of exceptionally talented experts? One theme underlying this dissertation is that intelligence production is neither exclusively an art nor a science but combines elements of both. In this, it follows Science and Technology Studies models in breaking down existing perceptual barriers between society and its tools. Intelligence is better understood as a technology, a tool constructed by people for the production of policy-relevant knowledge. This tool integrates social and material components and involves organizations and procedures as much as it does specialized hardware for obtaining, manipulating, and distributing information. Its history exhibits successes and failures as well as the evolution of processes and machines for collecting, analyzing, and distributing knowledge. As a tool for supporting policy making and implementation, intelligence gives the most weight to factors of human organization and relationship. But it also makes 1 great use of enabling mechanical technologies to improve access to knowledge which competitors would like to hold secret. As such, this model of intelligence strongly reflects three themes developed within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS): • Both people and things are important as components of actor-networks, • these actor-networks comprise complex technological systems, and independent systems may be acting in parallel, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes in competition, and • these networks are systems constructed socially and the processes of interaction between people and machines may be usefully described through analysis of their historical context. The Science and Technology Studies-based analysis in this dissertation allows a new perspective to be employed in understanding how human and material actors interacted during the World War II search for information on a German secret weapon development. The existing literature on intelligence frequently emphasizes specific historical activities of individual organizational components—largely