Richard J. Aldrich

A - K

Aldrich, Richard J. "American Intelligence and the British Raj: The OSS, the SSU and India, 1942-1947." Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 132-164.

Abstract: "The scale of OSS reporting on India's economic and political condition is striking. This underlines how OSS always perceived itself as providing long-term political and commercial intelligence beyond 1945."

[WWII/OSS/CBIOps]

Aldrich, Richard J. "Britain's Secret Intelligence Service in Asia during the Second World War." Modern Asia Studies 32, no. 1 (Feb. 1998): 179-217.

[UK/WWII/FE/Pac & Services/MI6]

Aldrich, Richard J. "British and American Policy on Intelligence Archives: Never-Never Land and Wonderland?" Studies in Intelligence 38, no. 5 (1995): 17-26. Contemporary Record 8, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 132-150. [With footnotes]

The author initially looks at the importance of recently released papers, using the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and Pearl Harbor as a case study. Aldrich finds nothing in the JIC minutes for 1941 to support the revisionist suggestion that Churchill had and withheld foreknowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In comparing British and American policy on releasing archival material, Aldrich is positive about the briefer de facto waiting period of the U.S. government and the broader U.S. definition of intelligence which includes military intelligence. In addition, there seems to be a profusion of British secret service materials for the period before 1945 available in the U.S. archives.

[RefMats/Release/UK][c]

Aldrich, Richard J. "British Intelligence and the Anglo-American 'Special Relationship' during the Cold War." Review of International Studies 24, no. 1 (Mar. 1998): 331-351.

[Liaison; UK/Postwar]

Aldrich, Richard J. "British Intelligence and the 'Barbarian' Enemy, 1941-1944." Everyone's War 15 (Spring/Summer 2007): 56-60.

[UK/WWII/Overviews]

Aldrich, Richard J. British Intelligence, Strategy, and the Cold War, 1945-51. New York: Routledge, 1992.

[UK/Postwar]

Aldrich, Richard J. "Dangerous Liaisons: Post-September 11 Intelligence Alliances." Harvard International Review 24, no. 3 (Fall 2002): 50-54.

The United States "is a massive exporter of technical intelligence while it is also surprisingly dependent on friends for certain kinds of espionage," particularly human intelligence from Africa and the Middle East. Nevertheless, "the overall result has been a mutual dependence that is healthy and ensures a greater reservoir of unique skills in the service of Western policy."

[Liaison]

Aldrich, Richard J. Espionage, Security and Intelligence in Britain, 1945-1970. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.

[UK/Postwar]

Aldrich, Richard J. "GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War, 1945-70." Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 67-96. "GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War, 1945-70." In Secrets of Signals Intelligence during the Cold War and Beyond, eds. Matthew M. Aid and Cees Wiebes. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001.

"[B]y most forms of measurement,... the volume of product, the size of budget, or numbers of personnel, GCHQ was the most important service" of the British secret services during the early Cold War.

[UK/Postwar/Sigint]

Aldrich, Richard J. "'Grow Your Own': Cold War Intelligence and History Supermarkets." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 135-152.

"Ultimately, historians who feast only on the processed food available in the PRO's efficient history supermarket may begin to display a flabby posture. There is no such thing as a free lunch and the hidden tariff at the PRO is a pre-selected menu."

[RefMats/Release/UK; UK/Overviews/I&NS17.1]

Aldrich, Richard J. The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence. London: John Murray, 2001.

From advertisement: "What role did Western secret service play in the Cold War? For British Prime Ministers, secret service helped to sustain post-imperial influence and to protect interests with minimum costs and visibility.... For American Presidents,... secret service allowed the extension of the power of the President over American foreign policy."

From http://www.rsars.org.uk/aldrich.htm: This "study reveals that the major British aim in the Cold War was not to contain the Soviet Union, but instead to contain the danger of a hot war provoked by the US Air Force and the CIA."

Deighton, I&NS 17.1, calls this book "a delight to read." The work "is episodic, and only touches on the key moments of [the] period," but the author "combines scholarship with a light touch."

[GenPostwar/CW; UK/Overviews/00s]

Aldrich, Richard J. "Imperial Rivalry: British and American Intelligence in Asia, 1942-46." Intelligence and National Security 3, no. 1 (Jan. 1988): 5-55.

[UK/WWII/FE/Pac; WWII/FE/Pac][c]

Aldrich, Richard J. Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

According to Jonkers, AFIO WIN 23-00, 9 Jun. 2000, this work explores "the complex wartime connections between the politics of secret service and the politics of empire.... Readable ... and expertly done, for the scholar and student of political science and history."

Bath, NIPQ 16.4, notes that the geographic scope of this work is more limited than the title suggests. The work covers only Mountbatten's South East Asia Command and Stillwell's China-Burma-India Theater. Nonetheless, the author "has produced a thoughtful study of a previously unexplored aspect of Anglo-American wartime intelligence.... [I]t is not an easy read, but one that is destined to become a cornerstone of future research."

For Kruh, Cryptologia 25.2, this is a "comprehensive, scholarly history of the development of the British secret intelligence and its relations with its American counterparts during the war against Japan." The author supplies "a cogent analysis of the role of intelligence in Far Eastern developments."

Best, I&NS 16.1, notes that Aldrich's work is divided into two parts. The first, shorter portion deals with "the development of British intelligence in East and South-East Asia in the period up to December 1941." The reviewer wonders whether the author "goes a little too far in his efforts" to show that British estimates of Japanese ambitions and capabilities were not as skewed as is usually accepted. Nonetheless, "Aldrich has provided a most interesting account of the run-up to war." The second, longer portion of the work "analyses the activities of the various British and American intelligence services in the Indian, Chinese and Southeast Asian theatres during the war." Aldrich's "is clearly an important work.... There are few books that describe the activities of the intelligence community in such detail and demonstrate so clearly that intelligence is a vital aspect of decision-making."

To Wiant, Studies 46.1, the author's "trenchant treatment of the achievement of strategic surprise against the British in Malaysia and Singapore and the Americans at Pearl Harbor is among the best summations in indications and warning literature."

[UK/WWII/FE/Pac; WWII/FE/Pac]

Aldrich, Richard J. The Key to the South: Britain, the United States, and Thailand During the Approach of the Pacific War, 1929-1942. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993.

According to Surveillant 3.2/3, Aldrich "examines the accelerating Western struggle with Japan for control over 'independent' Thailand.... Many clandestine aspects of this struggle are explored for the first time."

Kruh, Cryptologia 18.1, notes that "[a]lthough this excellent, meticulously researched study ... does not focus on espionage or other types of intelligence, it contains numerous references to clandestine activities."

Return to Ald-Alh