This article is an updated version of a paper of the same title which I delivered to a conference on SOE at the Imperial War Museum in October 1998, when I was SOE Adviser to the Foreign and ...Commonwealth Office, a post which became redundant in early 2002 with the final releases of SOE files to the Public Records Office. Among my sources were documents which have not been released, but which I was permitted to cite, concerning the transfer of responsibility for the SOE Archive to SIS in early 1946 and its subsequent history. The article thus describes the largely unsuccessful attempt by SOE, during the last year of its existence, to collate its most important papers into a central filing system after destroying an unquantifiable mass of so-called ephemeral material; the post-war destruction of an unknown number of files in the fire in Baker Street; further waves of destruction by SIS based on judgements about the possible future utility of material in the Archive; and the eventual reorganization in the early 1970s by a professional archivist from the PRO who established the order in which we have it today and who estimated that at least 87 per cent of the original Archive had by then been destroyed.
The Special Operations Executive was the least secret of the British secret services during the Second World War. Initially, its public image was formed by popular accounts of celebrated agents and ...controversial (real and imagined) causes célèbres. Whitehall's attitude to SOE since the organization's disbandment in 1946 had, until recent times, been cautious and restrictive. Early initiatives such as the appointment of an SOE Adviser and the commissioning of official histories gave the impression of a commitment to promoting SOE's history, but this was largely misleading. The Adviser's brief was, in large part, to inhibit research, and the histories met with mixed fortunes including delays, indifferent quality and, in one case, remaining on the classified list for over 50 years. SOE's papers were only released to the Public Record Office (the National Archives) in 1993 and now most are available to researchers. The question has to be asked whether access to the records has inspired a radical improvement in the study of the subject.
SOE's Foreign Currency Transactions Murphy, Christopher J
Intelligence and national security,
03/2005, Letnik:
20, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article provides an account of the work of the Finance (D/Fin) Directorate of the Special Operations Executive in acquiring foreign currency for use by the British intelligence community and the ...service departments during the Second World War. This activity earned SOE the gratitude of the Bank of England, which had experienced mounting difficulties in the acquisition of such currency. SOE's involvement in such financial operations also played a significant part in Lord Selborne's response to the JIC enquiry into SOE of December 1943. This article suggests that the significance of these financial operations is missed when SOE is examined through a geographical, country section, perspective, and argues that greater attention needs to be given to SOE's non-geographical sections.
This paper examines the development of SOE's 'irregular political activities'. It argues that SOE's approach to political warfare evolved considerably over the course of the war, partly as a response ...to changes in SOE's leadership, but primarily on account of its failure to carve a niche for itself within British diplomacy in Europe that did not 'threaten' the interests of the established government agencies in this area. Despite a recrudescence of its covert political work in the final year of the war, SOE was unable to persuade the political and military leadership of the benefits of conducting 'irregular political activities' in support of British diplomacy and as a consequence the legacy it was able to leave for Britain's post-war operations in this area was a meagre one.
During the early days of the Second World War, the British government created a number of clandestine agencies whose mission was to undertake covert intelligence and propaganda work. One of the ...problems these organizations, such as SOE and the PWE, experienced was the lack of qualified linguists who could be used in the murky world of espionage, political warfare and counter-propaganda. By early 1941, unable to find large numbers of qualified people in Britain or the Empire, Whitehall - in desperation - looked towards the United States with its large Italian émigré community and the little known anti-fascist organization known as the Mazzini Society. This article is a study in failure. Using British attempts to forge a Free Italy movement between 1941 and 1943, it examines the sometimes farcical attempts by SOE, and later the PWE, in recruiting Italo-Americans for clandestine political warfare work in the fight against fascist Italy.
SOE and Repatriation Murphy, Christopher J.
Journal of contemporary history,
04/2001, Letnik:
36, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article uses the recently released files of the Russian (D/P) Section of the Special Operations Executive to examine the tension between repatriation and subversion in the second world war. When ...information reached the D/P Section that Russian POWs were fighting for the Germans in France, plans were formulated to attempt to turn them against the Germans. Interrogations of a number of these Russian POWs, taken prisoner by the Allies, revealed that some kind of guarantee of immunity from repatriation would be necessary in order to gain their support. As such, D/P's plan collided with the views of the British government on repatriation. The article continues to examine the correspondence which took place on the issue between Selborne and Eden, and argues that the existing context in which this discussion is placed needs to be revised in the light of Selborne's knowledge of D/P's plans in his capacity of Minister of Economic Warfare.
The publication of Professor M. R. D. Foot's SOE in France — an officially sponsored account of the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War — stands out as a ...significant moment in the historiography of British intelligence. However, little is known about the period between the original submission of Foot's manuscript in May 1963 and the book's publication in April 1966. This chapter explores the manuscript's journey during this time and considers why an editorial period of such length failed to address the issues that would cause such trouble after publication. As such, it aims to shed some light upon Whitehall's first experience of preparing official ‘secret history’ for publication, highlighting the key issues and decisions taken, which emerge in the file material that is now available at the National Archives.
Review(s) of: The ministry of ungentlemanly warfare: Churchill's mavericks, plotting Hitler's defeat, by Giles Milton, Hodder and Stoughton: London, 2016, 368 pages, ISBN: 978-1-4447-9895-1, $45.
