Strategic Defence by Deception
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Abstract
British strategic deception during the Second World War provided some of the most extraordinary and successful achievements in the history of British intelligence. Deception operations have been described in some detail in the most accessible volume of the official history of British intelligence. Very little however has emerged of British efforts to engage in strategic deception during the Cold War. The problems of conducting such operations in peacetime and against an adversary possessed of formidable security, intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities were clearly enormous. The success of the Soviet (and Warsaw Pact) intelligence services in penetrating Western intelligence and counter-intelligence services created further problems. Yet there is no reason to believe that that any of these obstacles and problems caused British officials to abandon their interest in an approach that they had pursued with such vigour and (eventual) success before 1945. Within the field of air defence there was early recognition that there had been ‘little co-ordination between the departments concerned in the implementation of Air Defence Deception’. Early responsibility for air deception developed with the Visual Inter-Service Training and Research Establishment (VISTRE) and then with the Air Defence Deception Working Party. The attached document appears to have emerged under the auspices of this or a successor committee within the Air Ministry. The paper by Colonel S. E. Skey sets out a case for defence against nuclear attack by deception. The document cannot be fully assessed until more is known of the context of British deception planning. Colonel Skey’s proposal for defence by deception may be little more than an ingenious idea divorced from the practicalities of intelligence/counter-intelligence, if not indeed divorced from the realities of strategic defence. It is nevertheless of interest in highlighting themes and issues in deception planning. Colonel Skey’s proposal was that the Soviets should learn that the UK should have under research and development ‘some form of defensive weapon infallible against all forms of air attack’, which he himself likened to the ‘the “Eldorado” of scientific fiction ... some form of Death Ray’. The