Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones

D - Z

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. The FBI: A History. New Haven,CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2007.

Clark comment: Jeffreys-Jones's interpretation of FBI history is not uninteresting; however, it often seems that he is trying too hard to shoehorn his two main themes (racism and civil liberties) into his narrative.

Although he finds rather strange ("historical sleight of hand") the author's locating the FBI's beginning in 1871 rather than 1908, Peake, Studies 52.1 (Mar. 2008) and Intelligencer 16.1 (Spring 2008), judges this work to be "a balanced review of the FBI's organization and functions from ... 1908 to the present."

[FBI/00s/Gen]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "The FBI's Continuing Challenge: Centralized Intelligence vs. Civil Liberties." Chronicle of Higher Education 51, no. 20 (21 Jan. 2005).

The joint Congressional inquiry into the September 11 attacks "recommended the creation of a cabinet-level director of national intelligence. At a stroke, the time-honored functional split between the FBI and CIA would be eradicated. Implicitly, civil liberties would be subordinated to the more urgent need to fight terrorism.... [T]he 9-11 Commission, too,... called for the creation of an intelligence czar -- its members saw the lack of intelligence coordination as a critical fault in antiterrorist operations -- and called for a national counterintelligence center.... The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, of December 2004, created the post of director of national intelligence, or DNI, but the law reflected political compromises and is vague in vital areas.... Intelligence turf wars and controversy are likely to continue."

[FBI/00s/Gen]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "The Historiography of the CIA." Historical Journal 23 (Jun. 1980): 489-496. [Petersen]

[CIA/Overviews; RefMats]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "The Montreal Spy Ring of 1898 and the Origins of 'Domestic Surveillance' in the United States." Canadian Review of American Studies 5 (Fall 1974): 119-134.

Petersen: "Discusses Secret Service counterintelligence operations."

[Canada/Spies; Historical/U.S./1865-1918; Other Agencies/Treasury][c]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "Review Article: Manual Indices and Digital Pathways: Developments in United States Intelligence Bibliography." Intelligence and National Security 9, no. 3 (Jul. 1994): 555-559.

Reviews Petersen; Electronic Database of the Russell J. Bowen Collection; CIABASE; NameBase.

[RefMats][c]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "The Role of British Intelligence in the Mythologies Underpinning the OSS and Early CIA." Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 5-19. And in American-British-Canadian Intelligence Relations 1939-2000, eds David Stafford and Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, 5-19. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000.

Abstract: "Two mythologies helped to underpin the OSS and early CIA. One was the Miracle Thesis [attributed by the author to Ray Cline], which held that US intelligence was inadequate in the interwar years, but miraculously recovered in World War II with British help. The moral of this tale was that you cannot always rely on miracles, so it is best to have an ever-ready peacetime intelligence capability. The second myth stemmed from the Conspiracy Thesis, according to which the British manipulated American intelligence in furtherance of their own imperial designs. Though contrary to the first myth, this one, too, played into the hands of CIA boosters, as it suggested that a full US intelligence capability was necessary to the defence of American sovereignty."

[CIA/40s/Gen; WWII/OSS/Gen]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "The Socio-Educational Composition of the CIA Elite: A Statistical Note." Journal of American Studies 19, no. 1 (1985).

[CIA/Culture]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "US Intelligence and Cult of the Confidence Man" The Chronicle Review 22 Mar. 2002, B12.

[Overviews/U.S./00s]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "United States Secret Service." In Government Agencies, ed. Donald R. Whitnah, 592-597. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1983.

[OtherAgencies/Treasury]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "Why Was the CIA Established in 1947?" Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): 21-40.

The author tackles the debate between those who see the CIA as a child of the Cold War and those who find the Agency's origins rooted in the Pearl Harbor debacle. His conclusion: Yes. The most interesting line of thought pursued here is that in seeking to single out the "major causes of the CIA's establishment, it is necessary to distinguish between the executive and Congress." Jeffreys-Jones argues that President Truman and those around him were focused on the Soviet threat. On the other hand, "Pearl Harbor was the burning issue" for the members of Congress.

[CIA/EarlyYears][c]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, and Christopher Andrew, eds.

A. "Special Issue on 'Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA.'" Intelligence and National Security 12, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): entire issue.

Click for Table of Contents.

B. Eternal Vigilance? 50 Years of the CIA. London: Frank Cass, 1997.

First published as a special issue of I&NS (see above).

[CIA/Overviews/I&NS][c]

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, and Andrew Lownie, eds. North American Spies: New Revisionist Essays -- Perspectives on Intelligence History. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press [from Edinburgh University Press], 1992.

For Boyle, I&NS 8.2, this compilation provides "useful substance ... on a number of issues in intelligence history." Because they were written "mainly by former postgraduate students who have taken the MSc in American Espionage at Edinburgh University..., [t]he essays show some signs of the rawness and immaturity of postgraduate work." In addition, it is a "somewhat disparate collection of relatively unconnected pieces." Nonetheless, it is a "very good pioneering effort."

Naeseth, MI 19.3 says that this "is not the best intelligence history book..., but it does have something for everyone.... This book is worth checking out at the local library, but save your money for a title with less academic overtures."

[Canada; Overviews/Gen]

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