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Full-Text Articles in Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration
Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman
Writing The Official History Of The Joint Intelligence Committee, Michael Goodman
Secrecy and Society
This article recounts the experience of a professional historian in being given the keys to the kingdom: access to the classified vaults of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee. This article includes some of the problems in having access, but complying with the sensitivities around official accounts, difficulties in writing a global history, or trying to make the work of a committee interesting and accessible, and of trying to determine the impact of intelligence on policy.
Historical Amnesia: British And U.S. Intelligence, Past And Present, Calder Walton
Historical Amnesia: British And U.S. Intelligence, Past And Present, Calder Walton
Secrecy and Society
Many intelligence scandals in the news today seem unprecedented - from Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, to British and U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring activities of their citizens. They seem new largely because, traditionally, intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were excessively secretive about their past activities: even the names “GCHQ” and “NSA” were airbrushed from declassified records, and thus missing from major historical works and scholarship on on post-war international relations. The resulting secrecy about British and U.S. intelligence has led to misunderstandings and conspiracy theories in societies about them. Newly opened secret records now …