Beschloss, Michael.
Best, Antony. Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936-41. London: Routledge, 1995.
[Japan/PreWWII; UK/Interwar/30s]
Best, Antony. British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-1941. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Mercado, I&NS 18.1, finds Best's work to be "a fine account of British intelligence and policy in the face of the Japanese challenge in Asia." The author's "argument is well ordered and defined.... [T]hose interested in both the particulars of British intelligence and the general problem of intelligence's place in foreign policy will find this book well worth reading."
[UK/Interwar/Gen]
Best, Antony.
1. "Constructing an Image: British Intelligence and Whitehall's Perception of Japan, 1931-1939." Intelligence and National Security 11, no. 3 (Jul. 1996): 403-423.
"[B]y the summer of 1939,... a consensus began to emerge among some policymakers that Japan was considerably overrated as a military power and that its bluff was waiting to be called, a judgement that was to have disastrous effects in 1941."
2. "'This Probably Over-Valued Military Power': British Intelligence and Whitehall's Perception of Japan 1939-1941." Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 3 (Jul. 1997): 67-94.
Best finds a tendency in prewar Whitehall to "undervalue Japanese capabilities and intentions." He concludes that this tendency "was dangerous because it argued against the need to increase Britain's intelligence resources, warped the interpretation of the intelligence available and encouraged those in power, in the absence of good intelligence, to fill in the gaps in its knowledge with suppositions based on ideas about Japan's relative inadequacy."
[UK/Interwar/30s]
Best, Antony. "Intelligence, Diplomacy and the Japanese Threat to British Interests, 1914-41." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 85-100.
Best seeks to "assess the impact of the new intelligence records ... on the history of Anglo-Japanese diplomatic relations in the inter-war period, using as case studies MI5's surveillance of the spy Frederick Rutland, the origins of the Leith-Ross mission of 1935, and British intelligence on Japanese pan-Asianism."
[UK/Interwar/Gen]
Best, R. A. "Cooperation with Like-Minded Peoples": British Influences on American Security Policy, 1945-1949. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986.
[GenPostwar/40s; Liaison]
Best, Richard A., Jr., with others
Best,
Sigismund Payne. The Venlo Incident. London: Hutchinson, 1950.
Clark comment: The kidnapping by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) of two British SIS officers in Holland on 9 November 1939 is not really told by this book. There are only 20 pages devoted to the kidnapping and its background, with the remainder of the book covering Best's war years in Gestapo prisons.
Farago gives a brief account of the incident in The Game of the Foxes, pp. 121-129. The fullest account is contained in Leo Kessler's Betrayal at Venlo (1991) (see below).
Constantinides points to the negative effect that the Venlo incident had on "future British contacts with German dissidents, since the British officers were lured in the belief that they were making such a contact. Psychologically, the consequences of the German operation were almost strategic."
[UK/WWII]
Bethel,
Elizabeth. "The Military Information Division: Origin of the Intelligence
Division." Military Affairs 11 (Spring 1947): 17-24. [Petersen]
[MI/Army/WWI]
Bethell, Nicholas.
Betrayed! New York: Random House, 1978. The Great Betrayal: The Untold Story of Kim Philby's Greatest Coup. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985. Betrayed. New York: Times Books, 1985.
Hood, IJI&C 1.3, finds Betrayed to be "an excellent text on the vast and probably insurmountable difficulties involved in covert armed subversion in peacetime." One of Philby's assignments while in Washington as SIS representative "was to serve as 'commander' of the British/American committee that would coordinate the joint effort" to overthrow the Albanian government.
[CA/Europe; UK/Spycases/Philby; WWII/OSS/Balkans/Albania]
Bethell,
Nicholas. Spies and Other Secrets: Memoirs from the Second Cold War. London: Viking/Penguin, 1995.
Surveillant 4.2 notes that the author "lost his post in the Heath government due to []his obsession with human rights." He was "an opponent of the Soviet state throughout the Cold War period, and this account illustrates the ironies and difficulties of communication and understanding between East and West." The reviewer directs attention to chapters on "My Friend Oleg," on his meeting with Oleg Gordievsky, and "The Katyn Murder Mystery: 1942-92."
[UK/Memoirs]
Betser,
Muki, with Robert Rosenberg. Secret Soldier: The True Life Story of Israel's Greatest Commando. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996.
According to Cohen, FA 75.4, Betser is a former senior officer in Sayeret Matkal, the Israeli equivalent of the U.S. Delta Force or the U.K. Special Air Service. Despite the title, this book is not filled with bravado. Betser has some insightful criticisms of the Israeli military, but also "reveals the qualities that have made the IDF a remarkable overall success."
Karl, WIR 16.2, finds that one of the book's attractions "is that it deals with intelligence successes and failures and provides detailed descriptions of specific operations." Betser provides insight into the culture, history, and personalities of the IDF's key special forces units.
[Israel]
Bettelheim, Adriel. "Does Ridge Have the Clout to Carry It Off?" Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 3 Nov. 2001, 2586-2590.
[Terrorism/DHS]
Betts, Mitch.
"Agents Spy Internet Data." Computerworld 28 (1 Aug. 1994):
1, 101.
Comments from Joseph Markowitz, "director of the CIA's Community Open Source Program Office," on Intelligence Community components hooking up to the Internet "to collect and share 'open-source,' or unclassified, information." On the use of open-source information generally, Markowitz states: "The creation of our office is a recognition that open sources are a valuable resource. As we draw back in some parts of the world, our office provides an information safety net."
[GenPostwar/Issues/OpenSource][c]
Betts, T.J. "Operation Columba." Studies in Intelligence 5, no. 2 (Spring 1961): A35-A41.
In 1944,G-2 began dropping pairs of pigeons into northwest France, Belgium, and Holland, with notes to use these homing fowl to send information back to Britain. The return was negligible, but the German reaction actually strengthened resistance in the affected areas. More than that, the Germans concluded that the area of the drops supported their conclusion that the Allied invasion would come near Calais. The author draws some thoughts about intelligence from the experience.
[WWII/Eur/Gen]
Betz, David J. "The More You Know, the Less You Understand: The Problem with Information Warfare." Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 3 ( 2006): 505 – 533.
From abstract: "[T]he experience of recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests that both IW [Information Warfare] and NCW [Network-Centric Warfare] are extremely tricky to implement in practice. Moreover, 'information' is a double-edged sword which benefits, strengthens, and enhances the operational effectiveness of non-conventional forces as much as or more than it does conventional forces."
[GenPostwar/InfoWar]
Bevilacqua, A.C.
"Intelligence and Insurgency." Marine Corps Gazette 60
(Jan. 1976): 40-46. [Petersen]
[MI/SpecOps]
Beyea, Richard S., Jr. "Security Countermeasures: The 'Prodigal Son' of Counterintelligence." American Intelligence Journal 10, no. 2 (1989): 25- 27.
[MI/CI]
Beyer, Lisa. "'Top Hat' Knocked Off: Moscow Discloses the Capture of a Master Spy." Time, 29 Jan. 1990, 54.
Concerns arrest by Soviet Union of alleged U.S. spy "Donald F.," codenamed "Top Hat." See also: NSI Advisory, Editors, "Spy Arrested by Soviets Was Top U.S. Agent" 5, no. 7 (1990), 10; Michael Wines, "Cold-War Riddle: A Most Unusual Spy," New York Times, 23 Jan. 1990, A10; and Frank W. Lewis, "The Day of the Dodo," Cryptologia 14, no. 1 (Jan. 1990): 11-12.
[CIA/90s]
Beyers,
Dan. "The National Security Agency Exists -- Pass It On." Washington
Post National Weekly Edition, 2-8 Sep. 1991, 31.
On 9 March 1991, NSA's headquarters at Ft. George Gordon Meade in Maryland finally acquired a sign at the front gate. This is one instance of a loosening in the tight security that has previously surrounded the agency.
[NSA][c]
Beymer,
William Gilmore. "Miss Van Lew." Harper's Monthly Magazine
(June 1911): ?. [P]
[CivWar/Un/Women]
Beymer,
William Gilmore. On Hazardous Service: Scouts and Spies of the North and South. New York: Harper, 1912.
[CivWar/Overviews]
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