Handbook of intelligence studies / edited by

MICHAEL WARNER
his judgments accordingly, erring always on the side of caution, and building to generalizations
only on stable bases of fact.
Such a labor has traditionally resembled the writing of ancient history, with the advantage
(sometimes) of having living participants to interview. Like ancient history, much of the best
work is heavily literary in character, rather than historical in the Rankean sense of depicting
events wie es eigentlich gewesen war (“as they actually happened”). This is not meant as a criticism
or a pejorative. Livy, Tacitus, and Thucydides, to name but three ancient historians, sought by
the portrayal of fascinating but flawed characters against the backdrop of grand narratives to
illustrate the larger themes of nature, society, and Man himself. 3 Where histories of intelligence
aspire to be more Rankean than literary, they tend to resemble in some ways the works of
modern historians writing about ancient times. They have to rely on fragments, not files. Their
chronologies are sometimes hazy. Physical evidence is sparse, and mostly monumental (i.e. on
the scale of ruined public works). There are few surviving pictures to consult. Rumor and
myth are everywhere, often so intertwined with fact that, in some cases just beyond the reach
of living memory, truth and fiction can no longer be separated. The one obvious advantage that
intelligence historians have over ancient historians is in the opportunity to interview their
subjects – if they will talk.
A careful researcher first tracks down any and all official documents, studies, reports, and
histories that might be available on his or her topic. In Western countries these documents are
usually well-intended attempts at explaining their subjects. Such official releases have their
distinct limitations: they are restricted by the scope of their charters (sometimes lamentably
narrow), by the rigors of the declassification process (sometimes exhaustive), and by the
objectivity, aptitude, and curiosity of their authors (sometimes curiously lacking). Nonetheless,
they provide an important touchstone of accepted fact that the researcher can use as a platform
for further inquiry, or at least a landmark along the way.
Such official products can be crucial. Indeed, the quality of the work done on the inside
can eventually determine the prospects that outside scholars have for getting a story right (that
should be a sobering thought for official historians). The multi-volume history of British
intelligence in World War II produced under the supervision of Sir F.H. Hinsley in the 1980s
remains a seminal work and a guide to scholarship not only in British but in Allied and Axis
activities as well. The big break for scholars of the US Intelligence Community was the
publication of the Final Report of the US Senate’s special committee that met under the
leadership of Sen. Frank Church in 1975–76. The so-called Church Committee’s seven
volumes mark the watershed in forming public knowledge of American intelligence. The
Committee’s survey of the history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding to the
mid-1970s is not comprehensive but it is still particularly valuable, in being balanced, insightful,
and reliable (in large part because it was based on the still-classified histories produced or held
in the CIA’s History Staff). The Church Committee volumes laid the bedrock for academic
work on the Intelligence Community.
The researcher next looks for the declassified documents themselves, beginning with the most
authoritative. The availability of such records depends on the country and the time period in
question. For the years before World War II, many Western nations have made military and
diplomatic files related to intelligence available to scholars, although often not the files of the
actual intelligence bureaus. Many researchers in intelligence are interested in the period of the
Cold War and its aftermath, however, and declassifications for them are typically piecemeal and
incomplete. In some countries few if any records have been declassified. The bulk of those
released in the United States represent finished intelligence products. 4 Few policy or administrative
documents, and even fewer operational records, are available. Complete files are rarer still.
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