Propaganda And Intelligence In The Cold War

This book offers the first account of the foundation, organisation and activities of the NATO Information Service (NATIS) during the Cold War. During the Cold War, NATIS was pivotal in bringing national delegations together to discuss their security, information and intelligence concerns and, when appropriate or possible, to devise a common response to the ‘Communist threat’. At the same time, NATIS liaised with bodies like the Atlantic Institute and the Bilderberg group in the attempt to promote a coordinated western response. The NATO archive material also shows that NATIS carried out its own information and intelligence activities. Propaganda and Intelligence in the Cold War provides the first sustained study of the history of NATIS throughout the Cold War. Examining the role of NATIS as a forum for the exchange of ideas and techniques about how to develop and run propaganda programmes, this book presents a sophisticated understanding of the extent to which national information agencies collaborated. By focusing on the degree of cooperation on cultural and information activities, this analysis of NATIS also contributes to the history of NATO as a political alliance and reminds us that NATO was – and still is – primarily a political organisation. This book will be of much interest to students of NATO, Cold War studies, intelligence studies, and IR in general.

A range of clandestine Cold War activities in Asia, from intelligence and propaganda to special operations and security support, is examined here. The contributions draw on newly-opened archives and a two-day conference on the subject.

In the Cold War battle for hearts and minds Britain was the first country to formulate a coordinated global response to communist propaganda. In January 1948, the British government launched a new propaganda policy designed to 'oppose the inroads of communism' by taking the offensive against it.' A small section in the Foreign Office, the innocuously titled Information Research Department (IRD), was established to collate information on communist policy, tactics and propaganda, and coordinate the discreet dissemination of counter-propaganda to opinion formers at home and abroad.

This book presents an overview about the activities of intelligence services and their role during the Cold War period. Contributions from a wide range of disciplines - by historians, political scientists, journalists, legal experts, former officers of secret services, and former military men from various countries around the world - discuss the services in the US, Germany, Korea, the Caribbean Sea, the Baltic, Russia, and Europe, including the famous US counter-intelligence Venona project. (Series: Politics and Modern History / Politik und Moderne Geschichte - Vol. 18)

The Princeton University conference at which the papers included in this book were first presented addressed the following basic concerns: the role of American information, official and private, in the Cold War; American information policy as an effective instrument for the advancement of the national interest and the cause of world security; and the special responsibilities of American industry abroad.

This new book examines the construction, activities and impact of the network of US state and private groups in the Cold War. By moving beyond state-dominated, ‘top-down’ interpretations of international relations and exploring instead the engagement and mobilization of whole societies and cultures, it presents a radical new approach to the study of propaganda and American foreign policy and redefines the relationship between the state and private groups in the pursuit and projection of American foreign relations. In a series of valuable case studies, examining relationships between the state and women’s groups, religious bodies, labour, internationalist groups, intellectuals, media and students, this volume explores the construction of a state-private network not only as a practical method of communication and dissemination of information or propaganda, but also as an ideological construction, drawing upon specifically American ideologies of freedom and voluntarism. The case studies also analyze the power-relationship between the state and private groups, assessing the extent to which the state was in control of the relationship, and the extent to which private organizations exerted their independence. This book will be of great interest to students of Intelligence Studies, Cold War History and IR/security studies in general.

The Cold War is often considered to be the quintessential intelligence conflict. Yet secret intelligence remains the `missing dimension' of Britain's Cold War history. This volume offers an authoritative picture of Britain's clandestine role in the development of the Cold War focusing upon the key issues of intelligence and strategy.