The Craft of Intelligence Read online

  The Greeks, with their rather pessimistic view of man’s relations with the gods, seem to have run into trouble even when they had information from the gods because it was so wrapped in riddles and contradictions that it was either ambiguous or unintelligible. The stories about “intelligence” that run through Greek mythology reflect a basic conviction that the ways of the gods and of fate are not for man to know.

  Herodotus tells us that when the Lacedaemonians consulted the Delphic oracle to learn what the outcome of a military campaign against Arcadia would be, the oracle answered that they would dance in Tegea (a part of Arcadia) with “noisy footfall.” The Lacedaemonians interpreted this to mean that they would celebrate their victory there with a dance. They invaded Tegea, carrying fetters with which to enslave the Tegeans. They lost the battle, however, and were themselves enslaved and put to work in the fields wearing the very fetters they had brought with them. These, shackled about their feet and rattling as they worked, produced the “noisy footfall” to which the oracle had referred.

  Over the centuries the Delphic oracle evolved through a number of stages, from a “supernatural” phenomenon to an institution that was apparently more human and more secular. In its earliest days a virgin sitting over a cleft in the rock from which arose intoxicating fumes received in a trance the answers of the god Apollo to the questions that had been asked, and a priest interpreted the magical and mysterious words of the “medium.” The possibility of error and prejudice entering at this point must have been great. Later the virgins were replaced by women over fifty because the visitors to the oracle seem to have disturbed its smooth operation by an undue and strongly human interest in the virgins. But that did not necessarily affect the allegedly divine nature of the revelations given. What did make the oracle more of a secular institution at a later date, as we know today, was the fact that the priests apparently had networks of informants in all the Greek lands and were thus often better appraised of the state of things on earth than the people who came for consultation. Their intelligence was by no means of divine origin, although it was proffered as such. At a still later stage, a certain corruption seems to have set in as a result of the possession on the part of the priests of the secrets which visitors had confided to them. A prince or a wealthy man who either was favored by the priests at Delphi or perhaps bribed them could have picked up information about his rivals and enemies which the latter had divulged when they consulted the oracle. In their most productive period, the oracles frequently produced excellent practical advice.

  But in the craft of intelligence the East was ahead of the West in 400 b.c. Rejecting the oracles and the seers, who may well have played an important role in still earlier epochs of Chinese history, Sun Tzu takes a more practical view.1

  1For my remarks on Sun Tzu I am indebted to the recent excellent translation of the Art of War with commentaries by General Sam Griffith (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1963).

  “What is called ‘foreknowledge’ cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor from calculations,” he wrote. “It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation.”

  In a chapter of the Art of War called the “Employment of Secret Agents,” Sun Tzu gives the basics of espionage as it was practiced in 400 b.c. by the Chinese—much as it is practiced today. He says there are five kinds of agents: native, inside, double, expendable and living. “Native” and “inside” agents are similar to what we shall later call “agents in place.” “Double,” a term still used today, is an enemy agent who has been captured, turned around and sent back where he came from as an agent of his captors. “Expendable agents” are a Chinese subtlety which we later touch upon in considering deception techniques. They are agents through whom false information is leaked to the enemy. To Sun Tzu they are expendable because the enemy will probably kill them when he finds out their information was faulty. “Living” agents to Sun Tzu are latter-day “penetration agents.” They reach the enemy, get information and manage to get back alive.

  To Sun Tzu belongs the credit not only for this first remarkable analysis of the ways of espionage but also for the first written recommendations regarding an organized intelligence service. He points out that the master of intelligence will employ all five kinds of agents simultaneously; he calls this the “Divine Skein.” The analogy is to a fish net consisting of many strands all joined to a single cord. And this by no means exhausts Sun Tzu’s contribution. He comments on counterintelligence, on psychological warfare, on deception, on security, on fabricators, in short, on the whole craft of intelligence. It is no wonder that Sun Tzu’s book is a favorite of Mao Tse-tung and is required reading for Chinese Communist tacticians. In their conduct of military campaigns and of intelligence collection, they clearly put into practice the teachings of Sun Tzu.

  Espionage of the sort recommended by Sun Tzu, which did not depend upon spirits or gods, was, of course, practiced in the West in ancient times also, but not with the same degree of sophistication as in the East; nor was there in the West the same sense of a craft or code of rules so that one generation could build on the experiences of another. Most recorded instances do not go far beyond what we would call reconnaissance. Such was the case in the second and more successful attempt of the Israelites to reconnoiter the situation in the Promised Land.

  Joshua sent two men into Jericho to “spy secretly,” and they were received in the house of Rahab the harlot (Josh. 2). This is, I believe, the first instance on record of what is now called in the intelligence trade a “safe house.” Rahab concealed the spies and got them safely out of the city with their intelligence. The Israelites conquered Jericho “and utterly destroyed it and its people except that Rahab and her family were saved.” Thus was established the tradition that those who help the intelligence process should be recompensed.

  According to Herodotus, the Greeks sent three spies to Persia before the great invasion of 480 b.c. to see how large the forces were that Xerxes was gathering. The three spies were caught in the act and were about to be executed when Xerxes stayed their execution and to the great surprise of his counselors had the spies conducted all around his camp, showing them “all the footmen and all the horse, letting them gaze at everything to their hearts’ content.” Then he sent them home. Xerxes’ idea was to frighten the Greeks into surrendering without a fight by deliberately passing them correct information as to the size of the host he had assembled. Since, as we know, the Greeks were not intimidated, he did not succeed in this psychological ploy. I have an idea that Sun Tzu would have advised the opposite. He would have recommended that Xerxes bribe the spies and send them home to report that this army was far smaller and weaker than it really was. When the Persians later invaded, Sun Tzu would have expected the three men to report to him what was going on in the Greek camp.

  Just before the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes himself sent a “mounted spy” to see what the Greeks, who were holding the pass, were doing and how strong they were. This was clearly nothing but a short-range reconnaissance mission. But Xerxes’ scout got very close because when he returned he was able to give the famous report that some of the men he saw were “engaged in gymnastic exercises, others were combing their long hair.” This was a piece of “raw intelligence,” as we would call it today, that obviously stood in need of interpretation and analysis. Accordingly, Xerxes called in one of his advisers who knew Greek ways and who explained to him that “These men have come to dispute the pass with us; and it is for this that they are now making ready. It is their custom, when they are about to hazard their lives, to adorn their heads with care. . . . You have now to deal with the first kingdom in Greece, and with the bravest men.” Xerxes did not put much faith in the “estimate” and lost vast numbers of his best troops by throwing them directly against the little band of Greeks under Leonidas.

  Altogether in the Western world in ancient times the use and the extent of espion
age seems to have depended on the personality and strength and ambition of kings and conquerors, on their own propensity for wiles and stratagems, their desire for power and the need to secure their kingdoms. Athens in the days of democracy and Rome in the days of the republic were not climates that bred espionage. Government was conducted openly, policy made openly, and wars usually planned and mounted openly. Except for the size and placement of enemy forces at key moments before the engagement in battle there was little need felt for specific information, for the foreknowledge that could affect the outcome of great exploits. But for the great conquerors, the Alexanders and the Hannibals, the creators of upstart and usually short-lived empires, this was not so. Subject peoples had to be watched for signs of revolt. Whirlwind campaigns which were frequently great gambles were more likely to succeed if one had advance knowledge of the strength and wealth of the “target” as well as the mood and morale of its rulers and populace. The evidence suggests that empire-builders such as Alexander the Great, Mithridates, King of Pontus, and Hannibal all used and relied to a much greater extent on intelligence than their predecessors and contemporaries. Hannibal, a master of strategy, is known to have collected information before his campaigns not only on the military posture of his enemies but on their economic condition, the statements in debate of public figures and even civilian morale. Time and again Plutarch makes mention of Hannibal’s possession of “secret intelligence,” of “spials he had sent into the enemies’ camp.”

  Hannibal appears to have been weaker as a linguist than as a strategist. Plutarch tells us that while in Southern Italy Hannibal commanded his guides to take him to the plain of Casinum. (This was Cassino of World War II fame.) “They, mistaking his words . . . because his Italian tongue was but mean, took one thing for another and so brought him and his army . . . near the city of Casilinum.” The terrain was such that Hannibal was nearly trapped, but he took time out to dispose of those who had misled him. “Knowing then the fault his guides had made and the danger wherein they had brought him, he roundly trussed them up and hung them by the necks.” This story is often told today in intelligence schools to impress upon junior officers the need for accuracy.

  Mithridates fought the power of Rome to a standstill in Asia Minor in part because he had become an outstanding intelligence officer in his own right. Unlike Hannibal, he mastered twenty-two languages and dialects and knew the local tribes and their customs far better than did the Romans.

  During the Middle Ages, due as much to the fragmented political situation as to the difficulties of transportation, supply and mobilization, it was impossible to attain strategic surprise in military campaigns. It took weeks, even months, to assemble an army, and even when the force had been collected, it could move only a few miles a day. Seaborne expeditions could move somewhat more unobtrusively, but the massing of ships was difficult to conceal. For example, in 1066 King Harold of England had all the essential intelligence long before William the Conqueror landed at Hastings. He had been in Normandy himself and had seen the Norman Army in action. He knew that William was planning an attack; he estimated the planned embarkation date and landing place with great accuracy; and, judging by the size of the force he concentrated, he made a very good guess about the number of William’s troops. His defeat was not due to strategic intelligence deficiencies. He lost, rather, because his troops were battle-weary. He had just beaten the Danes in a smashing victory at Stanford Bridge. Also, they were exhausted after a long forced march.

  The most serious political mistakes of Western Europe in the Middle Ages were made in relation to the East, due in large part to inadequate intelligence collection. European rulers consistently weakened Byzantium instead of supporting it as a bulwark against invasion. They failed to recognize both the dangers and the opportunities created by the Mongol drive to the west. They underestimated the Turkish threat during the period when the Ottomans were consolidating their power. Given their prejudices, they might have made the same mistakes even if they had had better intelligence support, but without it they had almost no chance of making correct decisions.

  They were not very well informed about the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Slavs; they knew even less of the Moslem world, and they were almost completely ignorant of anything that went on in Central and East Asia. Emperor Frederick II (1212–50) tried to keep up contacts with Moslem rulers (and was denounced as a heretic for his pains), and Louis ix of France (1226–70) sent emissaries to the Mongols. Marco Polo’s famous book about China contained material that would have been useful for strategic intelligence, but no one looked at it in that light. Throughout most of the Middle Ages Italian merchants did obtain considerable information about the East; unfortunately, they seldom had a chance to pass it on to the people who determined Europe’s Oriental policy. The popes disliked the merchants’ willingness to trade with enemies of the faith, and kings had little contact with them.

  In the fifteenth century the Italians made an important contribution to intelligence collection by establishing permanent embassies abroad. The envoys of Venice were especially adept at obtaining strategic intelligence. Most of their reports were of a very high quality, full of accurate observations and shrewd judgments. Not only did permanent embassies provide for this kind of observation, but they also provided bases from which to establish regular networks of espionage. By the sixteenth century, most European governments were following the example of the Italian city-states.

  Because map making was an almost unknown art in earlier times, an important item of intelligence was information on local geography. Knowledge of a river ford might allow an army to escape encirclement; discovery of a mountain path could show the way past a strong enemy position. Local inhabitants could usually be induced to give this kind of information, and Louis IX gave a large reward to a Bedouin who showed him where to cross a branch of the Nile, thereby enabling him to stage a surprise attack upon a Moslem army. Louis’ son turned a strong defensive position in the Pyrenees by buying information about a little-used route through the mountains. Better known is the incident in the Crécy campaign when Edward III was nearly hemmed in by a large French Army. A shepherd showed him a ford across the Somme, and Edward not only escaped pursuit but also obtained such a strong defensive position that he was able to break the French Army when it finally attacked.

  With the rise of nationalism and the religious struggles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the first real specialists in intelligence began to appear on the Western scene—ministers and secretaries of cabinet who devoted much of their careers to organizing the collection of secret information. Because of the frequency of internal dissension and civil strife in this era, we also see at the same time the beginning of a distinction between foreign intelligence and internal security. It was still too soon for the existence of two separate services with distinct responsibilities—that came later—but it was a period in which spies at home were as important as spies abroad, all of them manipulated by the same hand.

  One of the masters of both arts was Sir Francis Walsingham, who spent most of his life as Secretary of State and chief spymaster in the service of Queen Elizabeth. Walsingham’s hand can be discovered behind many of the major undertakings of Elizabeth’s reign, preparing the ground, gathering the necessary information, provoking conspiracies and then exposing them. There is hardly a technique of espionage which cannot be found in his practice of the craft. Thanks to him the foolish and weakly conceived Babington conspiracy to bring Mary Queen of Scots to the English throne grew to such dimensions that it finally gave Elizabeth the pretext to sign Mary’s death warrant. The most gifted graduates of Oxford and Cambridge were enlisted by Walsingham to study in France and to penetrate the French court and learn of its designs against England. Christopher Marlowe appears to have been one of them, and his premature death in a tavern brawl at Deptford is thought to have been the unfortunate result of one of Walsingham’s plots.

  W
alsingham’s greatest coup was undoubtedly the skillful roundabout operation which procured for England the naval intelligence on which its defense against the Spanish Armada was in great measure based. Instead of trying to strike directly against his target, the court of Philip II of Spain, Walsingham avoided the obvious, the direct reconnaissance tactic, so often doomed from the start, and operated through other areas where he knew there were vulnerabilities that could give him access to Spain. He dispatched a pair of young Englishmen to Italy who had excellent connections at the Tuscan court. (Throughout Walsingham’s operations we find professed religious affiliations playing a major role, Protestants masquerading as Catholics and claiming to espouse the cause of England’s enemies.) One of these young Englishmen, Anthony Standen, cultivated the Tuscan Ambassador to Spain with such success that he arranged for the employment of his agents with the latter’s mission in Spain, thus infiltrating into the Spanish ports trustworthy observers who were not Englishmen and in no way would arouse suspicion of being in the service of the English. As a favor the Tuscan Ambassador even let Standen’s “friends” in Spain use his diplomatic pouch to send “personal” letters to Standen in Italy.

  Under Walsingham it became established practice for Her Majesty’s Secretary of State to intercept domestic and foreign correspondence, to open it, read it, reseal it and send it on its way. Should such correspondence be in code or cipher, Walsingham had in his service an expert, a certain Thomas Phelippes, who was both cryptographer and cryptanalyst; that is, he invented secure codes for Walsingham’s use and at the same time broke the codes used in messages which Walsingham intercepted. It was Phelippes who deciphered the rather amateurish secret messages which went to and from Mary Queen of Scots at the time of the Babington conspiracy.

  Walsingham, in short, created the first full-fledged professional intelligence service. He was shortly after to be rivaled by Richelieu, but hardly by any other master of espionage until the nineteenth century.