COURTING A RELUCTANT ALLY - National Intelligence University

In the area of intelligence exchange, the Ingersoll Mission also seemed topromise a new chapter in the relationship between the two navies. Unfortunately,distrust continued to be a common feature of the relationship and intelligence andtechnical information exchange would not improve significantly in the periodimmediately following the Ingersoll Mission. In February 1938, the U.S. NavalAttaché, CAPT Willson, was instructed to pursue a more aggressive informationexchange policy with the British. Willson was successful in securing some generalinformation on British fleet tactics, but his requests for information on thedefenses of Singapore and on harbor boom defenses were denied by the Britishbecause the U.S. would not release information on its Norden bombsight or onthe arresting-gear capabilities of its aircraft carriers. 116 Attempts by the British AirAttaché in Washington, DC to obtain information on the Norden bombsight, perhapsthe most closely held piece of technology the U.S. possessed in the interwarperiod, were also rebuffed by ONI. 117 Although both countries encouraged amore liberal intelligence-exchange policy following the Ingersoll Mission, quidpro quo was still the criteria for these exchanges, which seriously impeded theflow of information. While the policy divisions (plans and intelligence) wanted agreater level of exchange, they were often overruled by the technical divisions,such as ordnance, which were fearful of hard-earned technical secrets getting intothe wrong hands. 118 Despite the restrictions, exchanges on seemingly mundanematters like personnel issues gave the U.S. some insight into British capabilities.For example, even though the NID was not allowed to share any informationabout anti-submarine technical equipment with the U.S. naval attaché, Willsonsurmised the British must have been successful in developing these capabilitiesduring the interwar period as he had received detailed knowledge about the substantialnumber of “Submarine Detectors” (Sonarmen) in the British fleet. 119With restrictions like these in place, however, substantive progress on theexchange of intelligence would require a major policy shift on the part of at leastone of the participants to release both sides from the tyranny of the quid pro quoparadigm. That shift did not occur until after the beginning of the war.116 James R. Leutze, “Technology and Bargaining in Anglo-American Naval Relations: 1938-1946,” Proceedings 103, no., sequence 892 (June 1977): 51-52, cited hereafter as Leutze, “Technologyand Bargaining”; Leutze, Bargaining for Supremacy, 31-33; David Zimmerman, Top SecretExchange: The Tizard Mission and the Scientific War (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press,1996), 27-28.117 G.C. Pirie, Group Captain, Air Attaché, Letter to Director of Naval Intelligence, 28 May1938, DNI Correspondence. Commander F. T. Spellman, Bureau of Ordinance, Memorandum tothe Director of Naval Intelligence, 21 June 1938, DNI Correspondence.118 Leutze, Bargaining for Supremacy, 31.119 Russell Willson, CAPT, USN, Letter to Captain Alan G. Kirk, 23 September 1938, Papers ofAlan G. Kirk, Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.34