The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [204]
Lord Hankey’s report, delivered on 11 March 1940, broadly gave SIS a clean bill of health. No fundamental changes were recommended concerning the Service’s core human intelligence functions and Hankey specially mentioned ‘the strong impression I have derived of the healthy spirit of loyalty, esprit de corps and devotion to duty which animates all ranks of S.S. [the Secret Service]’. This was no doubt a great relief to Menzies, who had evidently been extremely concerned that the very existence of the Service was at risk. On 14 February he had sent Jebb a ‘brief historical sketch’ of SIS which affirmed ‘that success in S.S. work must always be the result of years of patient work, and not of improvisation’. Menzies warned Jebb that ‘the machine can be destroyed by a stroke of the pen, lessons can be forgotten overnight, but I can personally conceive of no greater catastrophe from a national point of view’.18
Clearly Jebb and Hankey heeded this Cassandra-like warning, and Menzies’s own responses to criticisms of SIS were included in the final report. Hankey noted Air Intelligence’s desire for ‘more information as to the numbers of aircraft present on German aerodromes’. He remarked that ‘at first sight’ this would ‘appear to be relatively easy information to obtain’, but he had been informed ‘that the Germans exercise the utmost precaution to prevent any approach by strangers to their aerodromes’. Not only was this an unrealistic complaint, therefore, but Hankey thought it largely superfluous. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he added, ‘the Air Intelligence Service is well informed about the location of the German air forces from a source which it is unnecessary to disclose.’19 To the Air Ministry’s complaint about the lack of technical intelligence, Hankey reported SIS’s observation that not only was ‘a certain amount of information of a detailed character . . . already supplied’, but that it took ‘years to develop regular and dependable sources’ for specific technical information. ‘The funds available before the war were not sufficient for this and it is extremely difficult to build up the necessary contacts in time of war.’ It would take a long time ‘before the machine can be built up afresh in Poland and Czecho-Slovakia and even in Holland, where the Venloo [sic] incident has badly dislocated the organisation’. ‘I do not think’, commented Hankey, ‘that Colonel Menzies’ explanations can be contested.’
Despite his broad support for SIS, Hankey appreciated that improvements could be made in the higher co-ordination of intelligence and in liaison with its customers. For the former he proposed that there should be a monthly meeting of the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, the Directors of Intelligence of the armed services and the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and the Chief of SIS. This body would discuss policy and review the collection and processing of secret intelligence generally. Hankey had originally thought that this should be linked to the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee (which had been set up before the war to co-ordinate the armed services’ intelligence), ‘but Colonel Menzies pointed out that from the earliest days S.S. had, for vital reasons of secrecy, deliberately been kept aloof from regular Government Committees such as the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Chiefs of Staffs organisation, and that meetings on a less formal basis . . . would be preferable’. As for liaison, Hankey argued that the development of closer relations between the customer departments and SIS (for example by the secondment of officers) was desirable and ‘should create a closer mutual understanding between all concerned’. While the navy and