Conflicting worldviews, mutual incomprehension: The production of intelligence across Whitehall and the management of subversion during decolonisation, 1944–1966

Writing on British intelligence has tended to concentrate on the collection machinery in specific local contexts, the development of the Joint Intelligence Committee and the use of intelligence product by government. The emphasis has been on the optimisation of the intelligence bureaucracy in the face of Colonial Office intransigence. What this analysis largely leaves out, however, is a description of the culture and practices of the Colonial Office as it attempted to work with various colonial governments. Instead there is a tendency to overemphasise the rational nature of the bureaucratic changes in Whitehall and the contribution of MI5 and MI6 in the maintenance of security in the colonies. This article seeks to address these oversights by examining the divisions between the Colonial Office and the rest of the Whitehall intelligence machinery and show how counter-subversion remained a challenge to administrators both before and after the emergence of the Joint Intelligence Committee system.