The Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre was full for this interesting session by two men who had interesting stories to tell about the world of intelligence, albeit seen from different angles: Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, professor of American history emeritus at Edinburgh University, and former undercover policeman Christian Plowman.
Al Senter, in the Chair, started by suggesting that spying can perhaps be traced back to biblical times, indeed it may be thought of as the world's third oldest profession!
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, who authored "In Spies We Trust", agreed, but said that the area he had concentrated on was the relationship between British and American intelligence and how it had once flourished, but drifted apart, to some extent due to scandals, and the changed position of Britain in the world today.
Al Senter asked for a thumbnail sketch and suggested that John Buchan's "Thirty Nine Steps" might be a model, however, Jeffreys-Jones said that it was Sir Alfred Ewing, the Principal and Vice Chancellor of Edinburgh University, who should be the model as he managed Room 40, which was the the Admiralty's centre for cryptanalysis during the First War.
It was the work carried out here, through intelligence gleaned from signal exchanges, which led to the Battle of Jutland. In addition it was one of Ewing's team who decoded the famous Zimmerman message which outlined plans to draw Mexico into the war on the German side with the intention of keeping America out of the war. In fact, it had the opposite effect and America declared war on Germany just a few days later.
Asked how America started in the intelligence field, Jeffreys-Jones said that Lincoln had found that the south was trying to undermine the economy of the northern states. Later the intelligence organisation he set up was used to tackle the spread of illegal alcohol or 'moonshine'.
In 1908, the FBI was created from a group of special agents on the direction of President Roosevelt. Initially the FBI had responsibility for counter-espionage against other states but in 1940 a Special Intelligence Service was established.
Although in the First World War the US had started as a junior partner in intelligence with the UK, as it grew in economic and military power it gradually became the dominant partner.
However, during World War Two the UK led on the ability to break codes and was ahead of the US in this regard. Code-breaking led to a different kind of individual being recruited; instead of taking graduates from Harvard they came from institutions such as MIT with a more technical background. In addition the demographics were changing in the US and the whites were becoming a minority; added to which Britain was no longer an imperial power.
Asked if Churchill knew about Pearl Harbour, but did not tell the US in order to get them into the war, the answer was a very firm "no". When pressed about this, Jeffreys-Jones said that like all great leaders, Churchill had learned to take the unexpected calmly. But the difficulties faced by the US and the US President in particular, were considerable as the isolationists thought that the UK had manoeuvred the US into the First World War and were very wary of being 'tricked' again.
There were several leaders in the US who did not want to help Britain. As a sop to them Roosevelt made the promise, 'to end the Empire'. It was a barely disguised plan to reduce British influence in the world. (We saw the endgame of this with the American attitude towards Britain during the Suez crisis.)
Al Senter asked if he thought that Blair had given away too much to America? It appeared as if the US had access to British information, but the reverse was not so - was this correct? This was seen as very much an ongoing discussion and the impression does seem to be that we need to get more for what we give.
Turning to Christian Plowman, Al Senter said that it must have been extremely difficult to play so many different characters while under cover. Plowman agreed and said that he had to effect a very detailed transformation and needed to adopt new identities right down to the smallest detail, such as always having dirty finger nails for a particular character. But the basis was the whole background that had been put together, a date of birth, parentage, education, jobs and friends.
Asked why he took on this job and what motivated him, Plowman replied that he enjoyed the work and he felt satisfaction in doing the job well. Indeed he had established relationships and, he mentioned, had actually fathered a child with one of his contacts.
He said that at one stage he had 'run' eleven different identities. He conceded that this was something which was exceedingly difficult to manage.
Asked why he gave up the job, he said that it was partly the macho culture and a combination of a number of other factors, however, he had finally decided to leave when he found himself not in agreement with the way the job was being run.
In the question period, both speakers were asked if they felt that Bradley Manning and Andrew Snowden had done the US a favour by releasing classified documents?
Here the speakers seemed to differ with Jeffreys-Jones supporting the security community but Plowman suggesting that release of documents could be excused.
Crossing the Line by Christian Plowman (Mainstream, 2013)
In Spies We Trust by Rhodri Jeffreys Jones (Oxford University Press, 2013)