CIA activities in the United Kingdom

There is a long history of close cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom intelligence services; see Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for World War II and subsequent relationships. There are permanent liaison officers of each country in major intelligence agencies of the other, such as CIA and Secret Intelligence Service ("MI6") (which is the British counterpart of the CIA), FBI and the Security Service (MI5), and National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence colonel, who was a defector in place, was a joint US-UK espionage operation. Much of Penkovsky's product is available online at the CIA FOIA Reading Room under the code name IRONBARK.[1]

A major source of tension between the two countries was Kim Philby, a senior UK SIS officer who was a Soviet agent. Philby, at one point, was the SIS liaison officer resident in the US. James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence, was surprised by Philby's activity, and, as a consequence, began hunts for moles within CIA.

1984

In January 2014, newly released documents revealed that Margaret Thatcher had been warned 30 years earlier that the CIA did not always give sufficient notice in advance when it carried out operations in the UK. In 1984, Paddy Ashdown, who later became leader of the Liberal Democrats, raised fears about clandestine approaches made by CIA agents, but his allegations were dismissed by Thatcher.[2]

1985

A series of CIA memos were released in January 2017. One, dated from 1985, said that the CIA believed that Labour Party was "in the hands of urban leftists given to ideological extremes with only fringe appeal".[3]

1999

An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main US military communications network. Previously, the marking of NOFORN (i.e., NO FOREIGN NATIONALS) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-US countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL EYES ONLY, used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. This marking is now used as FVEY or Five Eyes.[4] There is also a marking for US/UK access only, which is "REL TO USA, GBR."

2004

In his early 2005 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA Director Porter Goss mentioned that the UK had detected and dismantled an al-Qaeda cell the previous year.[5]

2009

In February 2009, journalist Tim Shipman revealed in The Spectator that the CIA was "running its own agent networks on an unprecedented scale in the British Pakistani community." He claimed "somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent of CIA activity designed to prevent a new terrorist spectacular on American soil is now directed at targets in the UK."[6]

See also

References
  1. "Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)". www.cia.gov.
  2. Bowcott, Owen (3 January 2014). "Thatcher received warning about CIA's activities in UK, secret file reveals". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  3. "CIA fears about 1980s Labour 'threat' revealed". January 20, 2017 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  4. US Defense Information Services Agency (19 March 1999), DMS [Defense Messaging Service] GENSER [General Service] Message Security Classifications, Categories, and Marking Phrase Requirements Version 1.2 (PDF)
  5. Goss, Porter (16 February 2005), Global Intelligence Challenges 2005, archived from the original on 2 December 2008
  6. Shipman, Tim (28 February 2009). "Why the CIA has to spy on Britain". The Spectator. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
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