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F OR MORE THAN half a century, the Joint Intelligence Committee or JIC has been a central component of the secret machinery of British government. It represents the highest authority in the world of intelligence, acting as a broker between the realms of the spy and the policymaker. According to Britain’s most experienced Whitehall watcher, Peter Hennessy, the JIC and its supporting staff constitute ‘the most sensitive of all the “black boxes” in the Cabinet Office’. 1

The official guide on this subject, entitled National Intelligence Machinery , claims that the JIC aims to ‘provide Ministers and senior officials with coordinated inter-departmental intelligence assessments’. 2 This rather broad definition can be better understood by a description offered by one former JIC Chairman, Sir Percy Cradock, who calls it the ‘final arbiter of intelligence’. 3 The JIC also acts as the government’s watchdog – monitoring global developments in an attempt to provide early warning. From the early Cold War days, the committee compiled regular reviews on activities around the Soviet perimeter. It has watched for impending wars ever since. In addition, during the Cold War, the JIC drew up a target list of subjects on which intelligence was urgently required by policymakers. This was then used to guide the activities of the intelligence services in their activities, ranging from agent running to communications monitoring and overhead photography.

The JIC was established in 1936 as a military body to serve the Chiefs of Staff. It performed strongly during the Second World War and its status was upgraded from sub-committee to full committee shortly after 1945, since when it has been involved in almost every key foreign policy decision taken by the British government. During the Cold War the role of the JIC expanded again – not least because intelligence was such a vital component in assessing the character and nature of the Soviet Union. In 1957 it was brought within the Cabinet Office, a move that, according to officials, was ‘a reflection of the broadened scope and role of intelligence’. 4 This ensured that the JIC was now at the centre of not just defence policy but also broader foreign policy and that it contributed to a growing culture of national security policy at the centre of government.

Today the JIC enjoys a remarkably high profile and since 2001 has often constituted a current political issue. Intense controversies surrounding the Iraq War and weapons of mass destruction, together with the Hutton Report and the Butler Report, ensured that the then JIC Chairman, John Scarlett, found himself centre-stage in a major political controversy. Even as an abbreviation, the initials ‘JIC’ are known to all and its importance is public knowledge. Moreover, the passionate interest evoked by the release of the government dossier Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government and the subsequent furore underline the public demand for more information about the precise connection between the core executive of British government and the intelligence services.

This dramatic growth in public interest has had a direct impact on the attention given to the workings of the JIC. For example, an internet search conducted by Dr Julian Lewis, a Conservative MP and member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, revealed that

in the 10 years from 1982 to the beginning of 1992, which includes the first Gulf War, there were just 99 references to the JIC in British newspapers. Even in the 10 years from the beginning of 1992 to the beginning of 2002, which includes the events of 11 September, there were only 431 such references. However, in the 18 months from January 2002 until [July 2003], in that year and a half alone there have been a massive 502 references.

How does the JIC fit into the broader intelligence community? How does the JIC work in practice? Partly as a result of the neglect of intelligence in wider writings on the British governmental system as a whole and partly as a result of the fragmentary nature of archival releases, the committee often gets treated in isolation by commentators. In reality, the JIC lies at the heart of a Whitehall intelligence machine. The committee is involved at the start and end of the intelligence process: it has traditionally set the requirements and priorities for the collection agencies, and it disseminates intelligence assessments to consumers under its own name (although it does not itself write the assessments).

The British system contains three primary intelligence agencies responsible for collection: the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Security Service (MI5), and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). After collection, validation of sources is carried out within each agency. Intelligence must then be analysed. This stage tends to take place within Defence Intelligence. Part of the Ministry of Defence and created in 1964, Defence Intelligence is Whitehall’s largest analytical body and conducts all source analysis from overt and covert sources. It is therefore a core, but often overlooked, player in the Whitehall intelligence machinery. Defence Intelligence also has some collection responsibilities in support of military operations.

Assessment then takes place inside the central intelligence machinery housed within the Cabinet Office. As mentioned earlier, the JIC does not write JIC assessments. During the Second World War, a body known as the Joint Intelligence Staff was created to act as the committee’s drafters. This group was strengthened and renamed the Assessments Staff in 1968. Consisting of around thirty individuals seconded from relevant government departments, the Assessments Staff collate and assess incoming intelligence from all sources. Having done so, they compose the intelligence report. The Assessments Staff, however, are not subject experts. Each assessment is therefore discussed in what are known as Current Intelligence Groups. Here experts from across Whitehall scrutinise and challenge the assertions. Once approved, papers are sent up to the JIC for further scrutiny and comment, before dissemination to consumers. 6 Most intelligence, unless it is particularly time sensitive, is then disseminated by the JIC.

Aside from the committee approach, the JIC system is also defined by a quest for consensus. The JIC does not rely on dissenting footnotes (as the Americans do), but instead aims to issue reports expressing an agreed interdepartmental viewpoint. On the one hand this prevents the policymaker from becoming his own intelligence analyst, from being able to cherry-pick the most desired evidence, and from bickering with colleagues over what constitutes the most accurate intelligence. On the other hand, it leaves the committee open to accusations of providing bland ‘lowest common denominator’ assessments. Using the declassified documents in this volume, readers can make up their own minds about which depiction is more accurate.

Since its creation, the JIC has gradually increased in prestige, status and closeness to policymakers. It has evolved from a sub-committee of the Chiefs of Staff to lie at the heart of Whitehall’s core executive. After a slight dip in policy impact at the turn of the century, the JIC’s intelligence assessments are now read by the highest levels of government.

Certain academics have questioned the future of the committee. Philip Davies, for example, has suggested that the government has ‘effectively abandoned’ the tried and tested JIC formula. He has asked whether the committee has entered its twilight years. 7 Whitehall insiders are quick to argue the opposite and insist that the JIC is in excellent health for the future. The JIC may well be ‘just a committee’ and historians should be wary of misty-eyed nostalgia, but it is certainly an important one in terms of the relationship between intelligence and policy. It is also a committee (and part of a broader system) which has long been admired and indeed copied by British allies around the world.

The growing importance of the JIC is clearly underlined by the increasing rank of its chair over the decades. Although the JIC’s evolution is characterised by a remarkable ascent of the Whitehall hierarchy, numerous highs and lows have punctuated the committee’s history. Many will be brought out within this volume. Overall, the JIC’s record is broadly successful. Indeed, it would not have reached its seventy-fifth anniversary – quite an achievement for a government committee – in 2011 had it demonstrated a history of failure. Successes within these pages include the JIC’s performance during the Second World War when military consumers drew upon intelligence to inform strategically important offensives. Similarly, the committee was accurate on Suez and deserves credit for anticipating the nature of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Furthermore, its performance on irregular threats gradually improved as it became more experienced in assessing and understanding the issues involved. It was one of the first government actors to recognise the importance of non-traditional security issues and by the late 1970s had even broadened its scope to consider the threat of radioactive accidents at nuclear power stations.

Traditionally, the JIC has been most impressive in terms of providing cumulative, regular and cautious advice to military and political consumers. This background material gradually increases consumer knowledge and understanding to ensure that policymaking discussions are well informed. It would, however, be an oversimplification merely to state that intelligence informs policy. Indeed, policy is often devised independently of intelligence, rendering intelligence important only in aiding the operation and execution stages. Either way, intelligence is vital to at least one stage of the policymaking cycle.

A second area of traditional JIC strength is detail and analysis. The joint intelligence machinery receives a vast amount of intelligence from all available sources: human, signals, imagery, open and so on. This includes both qualitative and quantitative data. Staff must therefore assimilate this range of material, which may be contradictory, into a coherent report. Indeed, the committee has a strong track record of crunching data and reducing a great deal of intelligence into a manageable product for busy consumers.

The committee’s history also includes numerous intelligence failures. Broadly speaking, these revolve around forecasting and warning. For example, the JIC failed to predict a number of Cold War confrontations, including the Berlin blockade, the Korean War and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It failed to warn of any early post-war insurgencies or of the Irish violence – although these are notoriously difficult phenomena to predict. Many of these intelligence failures can be ascribed to mirror-imaging. Korea, Czechoslovakia and the Falklands War are certainly instructive examples. Slow to learn lessons, the JIC continually applied Western values and thinking to foreign leaders, using home-grown cultural assumptions about a reluctance to use military force in place of hard intelligence. Despite offering broadly accurate strategic assessments regarding the Falklands, for example, the JIC misread the Argentineans and assumed a process of escalation in a way that was inherently unlikely. This case is particularly concerning given that the JIC was explicitly warned about this particular cognitive trap just twenty-nine days before the invasion. 8

Other notable failures include the Iraqi WMD fiasco, which has been blamed on a number of factors from groupthink and overcorrection to poor validation of sources. A further potential cause of failure is that of perseveration, or the danger of getting stuck in an assessment rut. If the JIC merely reports each week that a given situation has changed little, consumers become blind to the potentially large change over a longer period of time. This has occasionally proved problematic and has required the intervention of particularly sharp minds to correct. Underestimating the Argentine threat to the Falklands is a case in point. When the committee is used effectively, however, this potential danger can actually become a strength of the JIC’s all-source assessment function. In the case of assessing Middle Eastern terrorism, for example, the JIC used its interdepartmental authority effectively to overcome precisely this phenomenon, which was occurring at departmental level.

If the JIC is poor at warning of impending crises, its performance is generally impressive after they erupt. The committee has provided authoritative, regular and balanced briefings to consumers including at the highest levels of Cabinet. This is a pattern throughout the committee’s history. Crises and conflicts bring out the best in the JIC.

Accuracy of JIC assessments is only one half of the story. The most precise and insightful intelligence is rendered useless if it is not read by those making policy decisions. Impact is therefore vital. Broadly speaking, there are two main schools of thought regarding producer–consumer relations. The first, a traditionalist approach, argues that the two should be kept separate. Intelligence must be apolitical and simply inform policymakers of the neutral facts from which they can make judgements. Distance would ensure objectivity of intelligence by reducing the dangers of politicisation.

This approach is too idealistic. In practice, intelligence assessments are rife with ambiguity and uncertainty. Political concerns permeate every aspect of intelligence work, from requirement setting all the way through to assessment and dissemination. Moreover, if intelligence is too distinct from policy, then the intelligence community struggles for relevance, becomes isolated and produces superfluous material. 9 Knowledge of current national policy and its impact on the wider international environment can also be a vital input into future forecasting.

The second, an activist approach, is more realistic. It argues that some level of interaction between the two camps is vital to ensure that intelligence is relevant, timely and useful. 10 This position does, however, increase the risk of politicisation and the abuse of intelligence by policymakers. It should be noted, however, that overt politicisation is rare. It more frequently takes the form of subtle pressure and, according to former JIC Secretary Brian Stewart, includes bias, prejudice, closed mindsets and the fear of harming one’s career or losing friends amongst peers. But politicisation can also be caused by ignorance, complacency, arrogance and lack of moral courage. 11 Although a danger of the ‘activist’ model, it can be overcome by better communication, trust and openness between producers and consumers. 12

Moreover, there is a distinction, albeit a fine one, between politicisation and policy contextualisation. Policymakers should not dictate analysts’ conclusions and analysts should not withhold assessments which contain bad news. However, policymakers should be able to request intelligence assessments that address the issues currently under policy consideration. To ensure timeliness and relevance, intelligence should be brought ‘within the realm of politics’ by presenting and packaging assessments in ways that effectively engage policymakers’ concerns. 13

The JIC sits firmly in the ‘activist’ camp. For much of its history, it has brought together the intelligence and policy communities. Sitting at the interface of the two, the JIC has certainly aided the policy relevance of intelligence over the years, whilst smoothing over the inevitable tensions between the two communities. Indeed, each group has inherently different objectives, pressures and working patterns. Elected policymakers operate in the short term and desire papers which are concise and free from ambiguity, and allow decisive and speedy action. The analyst’s professional imperative, however, is to produce an objective paper that reflects reality in all its complexity (as well as to ensure that intelligence is read). 14 In bringing together policymakers and intelligence officers, the JIC helps enhance interdepartmental harmony and create a sense of community cohesion.

This ethos of cooperation permeates the theoretical foundations of the JIC. It owes itself largely to the intimacy of Whitehall and the uniqueness of the British Cabinet government, relying on consensus, interdepartmentalism and collective responsibility. Whitehall is geographically small, allowing analysts and policy officials to easily meet their counterparts in different departments. This ease of face-to-face communication is in contrast to the United States, for example, where the CIA is based outside Washington DC. 15 Michael Herman, another former JIC Secretary, has described how some business was conducted through such informal Whitehall channels as the Cabinet Office mess. It is here, he states, that consensuses were built up and information flowed horizontally across the otherwise strict vertical lines of Whitehall hierarchy. He recalls how after JIC meetings on Thursdays he would head to the mess to ‘drink red wine and dissect the day’s performance of the JIC’s Heads of Agencies’. 16 This intimacy and informal communication helped build trust between members of the JIC, and to overcome the traditional intelligence–policy divide.

Thanks to its remarkable record of policy relevance, the JIC has gradually acquired impact at the highest levels of government. Again, however, this broad trend masks some fluctuation between high and low points. The first major high was in May 1940, when the Chiefs of Staff began to look towards the JIC for advice. By 1942, military plans, such as Operation Torch, drew heavily upon JIC assessments. This continued after the war. For example, the Chiefs of Staff accepted (flawed) assessments on Korea and used JIC intelligence as a briefing document when dealing with the Americans. This pattern continued even after 1957, when the JIC moved to the Cabinet Office.

Given the importance of Soviet nuclear and missile capabilities, JIC assessments on this topic became a core part of post-war military planning. In short, the committee maintained impact. However, the Chiefs of Staff doubted certain JIC estimates, and discrepancies existed between the producers (the JIC) and the consumers (the Chiefs of Staff) over Soviet capabilities until the mid-1950s. Regarding Suez, tactical intelligence was appreciated by the military, but strategic assessments were marginalised by senior policymakers despite the accuracy of the intelligence provided.

Senior policymakers became increasingly interested in irregular threats. Cabinet committees welcomed the JIC’s appraisals of Middle Eastern terrorism, whilst Edward Heath was personally briefed on JIC papers assessing Northern Ireland. The rise of terrorism on the JIC agenda in the late 1960s altered the purpose of intelligence. Intelligence to counter terrorism not only intends to inform decisions but also leads to direct intervention. Terrorism makes intelligence more active. Closer relations between the intelligence community on the one hand and policy and operational actors on the other are vital.

The relationship between intelligence and policy is symbiotic. The JIC has evolved over the years to ensure that its product is tailored to policy needs and is easy for the busy minister to quickly consume. It even engages in periodic feedback surveys to enhance the impact of its intelligence. Certain officials, such as Burke Trend, Cabinet Secretary from 1963 to 1973, and JIC Chairmen such as Patrick Dean and Denis Greenhill, went to great lengths to ensure intelligence is relevant and has impact.

Impact is, however, a two-way street. Some policymakers are far more intelligence literate than others. Some have had huge appetites for intelligence. Others have expected too much of intelligence and have treated the JIC as a crystal gazer. Still others have marginalised the JIC altogether. Winston Churchill was a notoriously keen consumer of intelligence. He had a voracious appetite, including not only raw intelligence but also daily JIC reports. Similarly, Margaret Thatcher had a deep interest in the secret world. Such was her desire to know more about how the system worked that in 1980 she became the first Prime Minister to ever attend a JIC meeting. 17 David Cameron is also highly conscious of JIC material and begins each meeting of the National Security Council with a briefing from the JIC Chairman. The benefits of an interested Prime Minister extend beyond JIC impact on Number 10. Once ministers realised that Thatcher was reading JIC reports, they decided that they should probably pay attention to them too.

Conversely, Eden famously marginalised the JIC over Suez. Fifteen years later, Harold Wilson also failed to heed JIC assessments – this time over sanctions and Rhodesia. 18 Indeed, Michael Palliser, one of Wilson’s private secretaries, recalls ‘not always’ showing JIC assessments to the Prime Minister. 19 It appears that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were also less interested in JIC material – although Blair developed a sudden keenness when his first crisis erupted in the late 1990s and it seemed that the Provisional IRA ceasefire was breaking down. 20 Working beneath the National Security Council, the JIC now once again has impact and access to the highest levels of government.

In the mid-1990s, the decision was taken to declassify and release most of the highly secret papers of the JIC. These are now in the National Archives. The process began with the JIC material for the Second World War and more recently has extended to provide JIC material for the period up to the early 1980s. This volume reproduces some of the core documents from the committee’s rich history. It places them within their historical and policy context to provide readers with an original insight into the secret workings of Whitehall.

1 .	Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989), p. 391.
2 .	National Intelligence Machinery (London: The Stationery Office, 2006), p. 23.
3 .	Percy Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray, 2002), p. 260.
4 .	Central Intelligence Machinery (London: HMSO, 1993), p. 11.
5 .	Dr J. Lewis MP, Security and Intelligence Services Annual Debate, July 2003. Available at http://www.julianlewis.net/speech_detail.php?id=80 (last accessed 14 October 2013).
6 .	Michael S. Goodman, ‘The British Way in Intelligence’, in Matthew Grant (ed.), The British Way in Cold Warfare: Intelligence, Diplomacy and the Bomb, 1945–1975 (London: Continuum, 2009), pp. 127–40.
7 .	Philip Davies, ‘Twilight of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee?’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 24/3 (2011), p. 428.
8 .	Michael S. Goodman, ‘Avoiding Surprise: The Nicoll Report and Intelligence Analysis’, in Robert Dover and Michael S. Goodman (eds), Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011), p. 274.
9 .	Michael Handel, ‘The Politics of Intelligence’, Intelligence and National Security 2/4 (1987), p. 7; Roger Hilsman, Strategic Intelligence and National Decisions (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1956), pp. 163–5.
10 .	For more details on this debate see Jack Davis, ‘The Kent–Kendall Debate of 1949’, Studies in Intelligence 36/5 (1992), pp. 91–103.
11 .	Brian Stewart, Scrapbook of a Roving Highlander: 80 years round Asia and Back (Newark: Acorn, 2002), p. 269.
12 .	Robert Gates, ‘Guarding against Politicization’, Studies in Intelligence 36/5 (1992), pp. 6–9.
13 .	Richard K. Betts, ‘Politicization of Intelligence: Costs and Benefits’, in Richard K. Betts and Thomas G. Mahnken (eds), Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 60–1.
14 .	Michael I. Handel, ‘Leaders and Intelligence’, in Michael I. Handel (ed.), Leaders and Intelligence (London: Frank Cass, 1989), p. 10; Richard K. Betts, ‘Policy-Makers and Intelligence Analysts: Love, Hate or Indifference?’, Intelligence and National Security 3/1 (1988), pp. 184–5.
15 .	Gregory F. Treverton, Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). p. 213.
16 .	Michael Herman, ‘Up from the Country: Cabinet Office Impressions, 1972–75’, Contemporary British History 11/1 (1997), p. 85.
17 .	Ian B. Beesley and Michael S. Goodman, ‘Margaret Thatcher and the Joint Intelligence Committee’, History of Government blog, 1 October 2012, https://history.blog.gov.uk/2012/10/01/margaret-thatcher-and-the-joint-intelligence-committee/ (last accessed 14 October 2013).
18 .	Cradock, Know Your Enemy , pp. 234–9.
19 .	Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War , rev. ed. (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 292.
20 .	Private information.