Ford, Christopher, and David Rosenberg. The Admirals' Advantage: U.S. Navy Operational Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005.
Ford, Christopher, and David Rosenberg. The Admirals' Advantage: U.S. Navy Operational Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2005.
Mazzafro, NIPQ 21.2 (Jun. 2005), describes this work as an "easy to read, well-researched, and nicely-indexed slim volume." The authors "effectively use a chronological approach to let their research tell the Navy OPINTEL story through the recollections and commentary of those who lived and used it."
While he sees this work offering "many lessons both to the intelligence professional and to anyone doing research into intelligence matters," Guenther, NIPQ 21.3 (Sep. 2005), is disappointed by how much better the book could have been had it reflected Marine Corps participation.
Reveron, DIJ 14.2 (2005), notes that the authors "had unprecedented access to naval intelligence archives and senior consumers and producers of Operational Intelligence (OPINTEL)." They have produced a book that "is a rich history of the origins of Navy OPINTEL, its transformation during the Cold War, and important lessons for the future."
Beyond a cautionary note ("the contention that the Navy’s concept of all-source operational intelligence was in any sense pace setting is open to question"), Peake, Studies 50.1 (Mar. 2006), accepts that "[l]ittle has been published on the topic of naval OPINTEL and this book fills that gap admirably. While it is replete with acronyms (over 130) and turgid Pentagonese, its basic message comes through loud and clear: Intelligence is the admiral’s advantage."
Evans, Proceedings, Mar. 2006, calls this work a "comprehensive and meticulously researched study." It "provides a remarkable insight into the chronicles of U.S. Navy" OPINTEL, and "the impact it had on the ultimate victory of the United States ... during the Cold War."
For Kruh, Cryptologia 30.2 (Apr. 2006), this is a "path-breaking work" that goes "as close to the edge of classification as possible."
See Emil Levine [CAPT/USNR (Ret.)], "NFOIO's Place in the History of OPINTEL: A Commentary on 'The Admirals' Advantage,'" NIPQ 21.2 (Jun. 2005): 21-22.
See also John Prados' review in Journal of Military History 70.3 (Jul. 2006): 865-867, and NIPQ 22.4 (Sep. 2006): 34-35.
[MI/Navy/Overviews; WWII/U.S./Services/Navy]
Ford, Christopher A., and David A. Rosenberg. "The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan's Maritime Strategy." Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 2 (2005): 379-409.
From abstract: "Relying on a variety of interviews and newly declassified documents, the authors assert that the Maritime Strategy represents one of the rare instances in history when intelligence helped lead a nation to completely revise its concept of military operations."
[MI/Navy/To90s]
Ford, Corey.
Donovan of OSS. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
Pforzheimer says that this book is "both a biography ... and a history of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)." It is based "in part on some of Donovan's ... private papers.... However, many sources were not exploited."
For Troy, "Writing History...," IJI&C 7.4, this is "more a tribute to an idol than a history"; it is "based only on open sources."
Constantinides adds that "Ford's admiration for his subject dulled his critical capacities and led to an incomplete portrayal of the man."
Lowenthal thinks Ford overemphasizes OSS' "operational aspects and their effects on World War II."
[WWII/OSS/Donovan][c]
Ford, Corey.
A Peculiar Service: A Narrative of Espionage in and Around New York during
the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.
Constantinides: This work covers "the cases of Nathan Hale, Major André, and Benedict Arnold and the work of the Culper Ring"; therefore, it is not a complete history of U.S. intelligence during the Revolutionary War.
[RevWar/Arnold, Hale, & Overviews]
Ford, Corey,
and Alastair MacBain. Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of the OSS. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1945. New York: Random House, 1946.
Kent, Studies 17.1 (Spring 1973), comments that this book "contains scarcely a paragraph without some dismal error of omission or commisssion."
[WWII/OSS/Gen]
Ford, Douglas. "'The Best Equipped Army in Asia'?: U.S. Military Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Army before the Pacific War, 1919-1941." Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 21, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 86-121.
The author concludes that "defective intelligence led the U.S. Army establishment to believe that its forces were capable of dealing effectively with whatever challenges the IJA might put up. The fact of the matter was that the War Department had neither the material nor the intellectual resources needed to formulate an accurate image of its Japanese opponent."
[Interwar/U.S.]
Ford, Douglas. "'A Conquerable Yet Resilient Foe': British Perceptions of the Imperial Japanese Army's Tactics on the India-Burma Front, September 1942 to Summer 1944." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 65-90.
"[I]ntelligence played a vital role in enabling Fourteenth Army to employ its scarce resources effectively, by building a strategy whereby further setbacks could be avoided and wartime objectives attained in an economical manner."
[UK/WWII/FE/Pac]
Ford, Douglas. "Planning for an Unpredictable War: British Intelligence Assessments and the War Against Japan, 1937-45." Journal of Strategic Studies 27, no. 1 (2004): 136-167 .
From abstract: ""The intelligence pointing to the unpredictability of Japan's strategy and the disparity between the opposing forces in the Far East ... played a crucial role in shaping the evolution of a strategy that was within Britain's capacity to implement."
[UK/WWII/FE/Pac]
Ford, Douglas. "Strategic Culture, Intelligence Assessment, and the Conduct of the Pacific War: The British-Indian and Imperial Japanese Armies in Comparison, 1941-1945." War in History 14, no. 1 (2007): 63-95.
[UK/WWII/FE/Pac]
Ford,
Franklin L. Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Petersen: "Addresses intelligence and security subjects."
[Terrorism/80s]
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