The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret Intelligence

America and Britain have long enjoyed what leaders in both countries have deemed a "special relationship." Their closeness has long been cemented, Richard Aldrich writes, by shared intelligence--"the hidden hand" of his title, even if their intelligence communities have sometimes been at odds and worked to different purposes. In the postwar era, writes University of Nottingham professor of politics Aldrich, American intelligence was aided immeasurably by Britain, which had had considerable experience in keeping tabs on Russian agents for decades, thanks to the long-played "great game" in Central Asia. One successful joint enterprise took place in Iran, threatened by Soviet invasion after World War II: even with a few missteps, joint American-British efforts led to victory in a battle largely fought through propaganda, even if that battle gave America strategic advantage in the Persian Gulf region at Britain's expense. Other joint efforts were less successful, including the cynical abandonment of the Hungarian rebels of 1956, and relations between the two powers were often strained by competing interests, such as those made evident by the Suez crisis. Despite errors of judgment, spy scandals, interagency and international competition, and other blights on the record, Aldrich observes that "Cold War intelligence was neither fruitless nor a zero-sum game, and its most substantial benefits might be measured through inaction"--that is, the fact that the war stayed for the most part cold. Aldrich considers the whole range of operations in this detailed account, which will be of considerable interest to students of cold war history. --Gregory McNamee