The official history of the Joint Intelligence Committee volume I: from the approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis

摘要

This book provides the Joint Intelligence Committee's (JIC) official history compiled from memoirs, interviews, meeting minutes, de-classified assessments and classified intelligence products drafted by many different agencies. Synthesizing these documents, the research is centred on how the JIC developed, the value of all-source assessment, its impact on policy and the JIC's role in managing the intelligence community. Michael S. Goodman examines the JIC from 1936 to the Suez Crisis of 1956, showing the organization's evolution from having an undefined role to becoming an 'effective' intelligence coordinator for Whitehall. Jon Day, then JIC chair, explains in the foreword that he hopes 'this volume on the history of the JIC will go some way towards completing the picture as the Committee sits at the centre of the intelligence community,' and also provide researchers with a 'basis' to use released JIC records (p. xv). Goodman argues that the JIC's first 20 years demonstrate how it was 'effective,' providing a clear and centralized voice for the intelligence community to the government. He writes, The JIC has worked best when it has been used as a forum for debate and where its assessments have been relevant to decision making' (p. 2).