C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

9still active staff of intelligence and security services, but also responsible ministers, politicians, diplomatsand officials that acted as recipients of intelligence products concerning Bosnia.Inevitably, these one hundred off-the-record interviews did have consequences for thereferences of this study. This is why in the acknowledgement of sources, this study regularly has toresort to references such as ‘Confidential interview’. 3 Staff of foreign intelligence and security serviceswere prepared to speak to the NIOD on condition that their identities were protected in view ofprivacy considerations, because disclosure of their names and identities could considerably impede theirwork as analysts or operators in the future, or make it completely impossible, or because the prevailinglegislation in their country did not permit it. Anonymity was promised by the NIOD to a large numberof current and former staff of services in the Netherlands and other countries for reasons of their own.It was therefore necessary to opt for the footnote form that has been used. The most importantconsideration in making this choice was that the main issue was to reconstruct a general picture and notto establish the specific influence of individual people on the course of events.Moreover, there will be regular references to ‘Confidential information’. In general, these arewritten sources that the archive controller still considers to be confidential, or documents that havebeen passed to the NIOD privately, but which are still classified as ‘secret’ in the country concerned. Itgoes without saying that every effort has been made to verify the statements by means ofsupplementary interviews, background briefings or archival research whenever this was permissible.History is a discussion without end. This is all the more true for the history of intelligence andsecurity services, the archive material of which is subject to far longer terms than other government archivematerial before disclosure is permitted. Researchers are generally not given access to catalogues, but haveto ask for relevant documents more or less in the dark. Also because of confidentiality agreementsimposed on staff does information on intelligence and security services reach researchers, andconsequently the public, and then after a much longer period than in other cases. Whereas, with history ofother kinds, the picture of the subject generally changes in the course of time only as a result of new pointsof view. In the case of the history of intelligence and security services, new information can continue tolead to an adjustment of the picture for far longer.Fortunately this was not the case in the research for this study where Dutch archives wereconcerned. 4 Generous access was given to the archives by the Netherlands intelligence and securityservices, especially the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), where the author was able to makeindependent selections. In a number of cases, more detailed agreements had to be made for specificsources. These cases were concerned with the unity of the Crown, the private lives of those involvedand the Netherlands national security and security of the state. The latter point was especially relevantto sources for the activities of Dutch and other intelligence and security services. In particular, theidentity of informants, the origin of information that was gathered by these services and therelationship of trust with foreign counterpart services had to be protected. An additional study of relatedarchives was also carried out in the Netherlands, for example at the Cabinet Office, Foreign Affairs,Defence, and Justice. Comprehensive research in the archives of the United Nations in Geneva and NewYork sometimes yielded additional background material.It was also possible to speak freely with a large number of staff of the MIS and the NetherlandsNational Security Service (BVD). In addition to the usual privacy considerations, the fact thatdisclosure of their names and identities would impede or make impossible their future work as analystsor operators with intelligence and security services it was necessary to opt for referring to these morethan thirty interviews as ‘confidential interviews’.Finally, we must not omit to mention that much information for this study was obtained fromopen sources. Historical research is usually based on all available literature on the events to be studied.At the start of this investigation, it was expected that a large number of publications would not be3 The number in brackets after the Confidential interview note refers to the interviewee concerned.4 De Graaff & Wiebes, Villa Maarheeze, pp. 9 - 25.