The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [209]
Cadogan rather sympathised with Menzies: ‘Neither the S.I.S., so far as I know, nor the F.O. were consulted or inf[orme]d when the Dakar affair was first planned.’ But evidently the Prime Minister was looking for scapegoats, and Cadogan had his private secretary, Henry Hopkinson, convey the SIS defence to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Edward Bridges. Bridges, in turn, consulted General Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s chief of staff, but Ismay was much less understanding and effectively accused Menzies of being disingenuous. There was, he asserted, ‘a standing arrangement whereby every facility is given to S.I.S. to know what is going on. “C” can either come himself, or send people to this Office at all times to discuss matters . . . and to read Papers.’ The Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, he added, ‘knew all about the projected Dakar expedition’, and the service Directors of Intelligence (who were all members of the committee) each had a representative in SIS. Finally, he observed that SIS had a responsibility to show more initiative in these matters. It was, he said, ‘a false assumption that the Intelligence Services should not set about getting information until they are asked to do so’. It was their job ‘to keep in touch with plans of likely or pending operations, and to take steps to get information in relation to them without specific orders’. While conceding that ‘the relation between the Service Departments and S.I.S.’ was not ‘my affair’, Bridges thought it ‘obviously important that there should be no misunderstanding as to where the initiative lies with regard to obtaining information’. Clearly (and realistically) appreciating that Menzies might respond very badly to Ismay’s trenchant views, Bridges thought it ‘would be better’ that the note ‘should not be shown to “C”’. He suggested, however, that ‘discreet enquiries’ should be made ‘in order to make certain that the position is clearly understood’.30
The debate stimulated by Dakar exposed one of the most problematic aspects of SIS’s relations with its customers: that of tasking, and the overall question of who should take the initiative in the crucial matter of intelligence targeting. It also exposed the risk that SIS could run of being hoist with its own petard. Part of the Service’s mystique, and arguably an indispensable part of its modus operandi, was for ‘C’, as the keeper of the deepest secrets, to appear to ‘know everything’, and the substance of Ismay’s criticism was that SIS had not only been in a position to be well informed about the Dakar plans, but also ought to have made sure that it was so. Cadogan, however, sprang to Menzies’s defence, arguing that while the theory was all very well, it was a different matter in practice. He accepted that ‘C’ could ‘come himself ’ to the Cabinet Offices ‘to find out what is contemplated’, but this ‘hardly amounts to that full co-operation’ which he ‘thought to be eminently desirable’. Ismay’s point about the service Directors of Intelligence having representatives in SIS was only ‘satisfactory if those officers are kept fully informed by the three Directors’. While he conceded that it was Menzies’s job ‘to obtain information without being asked for it’, it was ‘difficult to pursue intensive investigations all over the world at all times’, and ‘if his activities could be concentrated on the important spots at the right time, I am sure that would help’. Neither was it all Menzies’s fault: ‘If it is his duty to keep enquiring as to what plans may be in hand, I should have thought that, to make assurance doubly sure, it would equally be the duty of the planners to take him into their confidence.’31
The row in the end appears to have been solved by the informal means traditionally favoured by SIS. Cadogan spoke to Ismay, evidently soothing ruffled feathers. Menzies, too, had ‘a long talk’ with Ismay and assured him that he now had ‘a most excellent liaison’ with the Joint Planning Staff. ‘At the