Behind the enigma : the authorised history of GCHQ, Britain's secret cyber-intelligence agency / John Ferris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ferris, John Robert, 1956- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Government Code and Cypher School (Great Britain)--History.

Government Code and Cypher School (Great Britain).

Great Britain. Government Communications Headquarters (1948- ).

Intelligence service--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Intelligence service.

Cryptography.

History.

Electronic intelligence.

Radio in espionage.

Great Britain.

Radio in espionage--Great Britain.

Electronic intelligence--Great Britain--History.

Cryptography--Great Britain--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 823 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020.

Summary:

For a hundred years GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters has been at the forefront of British secret statecraft. Born out of the need to support military operations in the First World War, and fought over ever since, today it is the UK's biggest intelligence, security and cyber agency and a powerful tool of the British state. Famed primarily for its codebreaking achievements at Bletchley Park against Enigma ciphers in the Second World War, GCHQ has intercepted, interpreted and disrupted the information networks of Britain's foes for a century, and yet it remains the least known and understood of British intelligence services. It has been one of the most open-minded, too- GCHQ has always demanded a diversity of intellectual firepower, finding it in places which strike us as ground-breaking today, and allying it to the efforts of ordinary men and women to achieve extraordinary insights in war, diplomacy and peace. GCHQ shapes British decision-making more than any other intelligence organisation and, along with its partners in the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, has become ever more crucial in an age governed by information technology. Based on unprecedented access to documents in GCHQ's archive, many of them hitherto classified, this is the first book to authoritatively explain the entire history of one of the world's most potent intelligence agencies. Many of the major international episodes of the last century including the retreat from empire, the Cold War and the Falklands become fully explicable only in the light of the secret intelligence record. Written by one of the world's leading experts in intelligence and strategy, Behind the Enigma reveals the fascinating truth behind this most remarkable and enigmatic of organisations.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. The Origins of Modern British Sigint, 1844

1914

Comint and Empire

Victorian Intelligence and the Information Revolution

The Edwardian Roots of British Sigint

Cryptography

The Comint Revolution

2. Britain and the Birth of Signals Intelligence, 1914

18

The Emergence of Sigint

The Emergence of Comint

Sigint at Sea

Military Sigint

Blockade and Diplomatic Comint

Siginters

Women Siginters

Sigint Alliances

Sigint and British Victory

3. Whitehall's Black Chamber: British Cryptology and the Government Code & Cypher School, 1919

39

The Politics of Sigint

Sigint Between the Wars

The Government Code & Cypher School

Interwar Siginters

Defence

Attack

Codebreaking

4. Cryptanalysis and British Foreign Policy, 1919

Comint and Naval Arms Limitation, 1921

36

Judging the Effect of Diplomatic Comint

Comint and British Policy in the Middle East, 1919

23

Conspiracies and Conspirators: 1919

22

The Chanak Crisis

Comint at Chanak

Lausanne and Later

Comint and the Main Enemy, 1919

Intelligence, Appeasement and the Road to War, 1933

The Anti-Comintern Pact

Comint and Strategy

Conclusions

5. Bletchley

Decline of a Black Chamber

The Road to Bletchley Park

The Limits to Preadaptation

Diversity and Union

The Turing Test

Craft to Industry

The Struggle for Sigint

Sigint and Intelligence

A Crisis in Comint

The Problem of the Trinity

Acting on Intelligence

6. Ultra and the Second World War, 1939

45

Axis Swords, British Shield

The Turning Point

Ultra and Its Enemies

Sigint and Strike Warfare

Sigint at Sea, 1940

43

Ultra and the Mediterranean Strategy

Stormy Weather

Tsunami

Ultra and the Strategy of Overthrow

Ultra and Overlord

British Sigint and the Pacific War

Conclusion

7. Cheltenham: GCHQ, Britain and Whitehall, 1945

91

Strategy and Power

Cryptology and Intelligence

Politics and Path Dependency

Autonomy on a Margin

Masters and Commanders

The Directors

Rise and Stagnation

High Tide

Decline

Rise Again

Coming in from the Cold War

8. UKUSA and the International Politics of Sigint, 1941

92

The Path Dependency of Politics

The Emergence of UKUSA

Getting to Know You

Friendships and Frictions

Towards a Gentleman's Agreement

UKUSA: Secrets and Rules

UKUSA in Practice

Hands Across the Water

Two Eyes

Three Eyes

UKUSA: Crises and Friction

The Suez Crisis, 1956

Exchange during the Middle Cold War

Personalities and Friction

Lessons Learned

Enemies and Third Parties

9. `We Want to Be Cheltonians': The Department

Recruitment and Retention

After Avowal

The Department

Specialists

Linguists

Comint and Technology

How Computers Came to Cheltenham

The Birth of Computerised Cryptanalysis in Britain

GCHQ and the British Computing Industry

The Rise of Computerised Cryptanalysis in Britain

10. Just Who Are These Guys, Anyway? A Hiorical-Sociological Analysis of GCHQ, 1939

89

Women at GCHQ

British or Not?

Character Defects?

Outstations

Strife and Strikes

The Union Ban

11. Intercept to End Product: the Collection, Processing and Dissemination of Sigint, 1945

Forms of Collection

The Story of H

Codebreakers

Modes of Analysis

Consumers and Consumption

End Product and Its Effect

12. GCHQ vs the Main Enemy: Signals Intelligence and the Cold War, 1945

The Echo of Ultra, 1945

53

British Sigint and NATO Strategy

Sanitisation and Strategy

Formal and Informal Estimates

Strategic Forces

Economic and Technological Intelligence

The Early Cold War: Challenge and Response

GCHQ and Crises in the Early Cold War

GCHQ and the Middle Cold War

The Test of Czechoslovakia

Living in the Force: the High Cold War

GCHQ and Crises during the Later Cold War

At the Cold War's End

13. Comint and the End of Empire, 1945-82: Palestine, Konfrontasi and the Falkland Islands

Sigint and the End of the Palestine Mandate, 1944

48

The Anglo-Zionist Divorce

An Intelligence Struggle

Comint in Palestine

Operation Agatha

Attlee and Irgun

After the Fall

Konfrontasi: Living Dangerously

Sigint Preparation of the Battlefield

Comint and Claret

Reconsidering Konfrontasi

So What?

Sigint and the Falklands Conflict

Origins and Impulse

Wrong-footing to War

GCHQ and the Outbreak of the Falklands Conflict

GCHQ and the Falklands Conflict

Crisis and Recalibration

Approaching a New Age of Sigint

The General Belgrano

To San Carlos Sound

To Port Stanley

Professional Deformations

14. Secrecy, Translucency and Oversight, 1830

2019

Comsec and Communications-Electronic Security, 1945

The Contradictions of Secrecy

Coming Out: Scandal and Avowal

15. GCHQ and the Second Age of Sigint, 1990

2020

Reinvention

On the Cyber Commons

Cyber Intelligence, Terrorism and Strife

From Secrecy to Translucency

The National Cyber Security Centre and the Cyber Commons.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781526605474

1526605473

163557465X

9781635574654

1526605465

9781526605467

OCLC:

1202694783