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After 1945, Western capitals were dominated by fear of a 'Nuclear Pearl Harbor'. London and Washington responded by demanding better warning systems and so followed the prodigious growth of a Western intelligence community of unparalleled size and power. Meanwhile, under the precarious ceiling of nuclear deterrence, London, Washington, Moscow and Peking all sought new ways to play out the Cold War struggle. They turned, once again, to the secret services, but now to further develop the clandestine warfare that had mushroomed during the Second World War, including underground armies, radio warfare, economic destabilisation and cultural subversion. The era of Cold War Fighting had begun.

But these new forms of 'hidden hand' conflict were nothing less than explosive. Bitter arguments over provocative Cold War Fighting threatened to tear Western capitals apart. By 1952 the CIA was accusing SIS of 'fouling up their operations' in the Eastern Bloc. Many in London had come to regard the Americans as bent on provoking World War III.  Documents sent to Attlee and Churchill, revealed for the first time in this book, show that British intelligence chiefs believed that the American military had set a target date for war in which Britain would be obliterated. This remarkable study reveals that the major British aim in the Cold War was not to contain the Soviet Union, but instead to contain the danger of a hot war provoked by the US Air Force and the CIA.

What role did Western secret service play in the Cold War? For British Prime Ministers, the fancy footwork of imperial retreat from locations such as Palestine and Malaya required constant assistance from the 'hidden hand' of secret service. This was never more apparent than in their awkward relations with Washington, where Britain's intelligence contribution often allowed influence over volatile friends. For American Presidents, use of the 'hidden hand' also helped to square difficult circles - the glass ceiling on American power created by nuclear weapons - and the need to coerce the disconcerting number of troublesome neutrals. Above all, American secret service allowed continual extension of Presidential power over American foreign policy. Only with the revelations of the mid-1960s was the 'golden era of special operations' brought to an end.

Recent reviews >>>>

Max Hastings in The Sunday Telegraph 'Books of the Year'  2 December 2002 >
The Hidden Hand by Richard Aldrich . is as good an account of Cold War Intelligence between 1945 and 1962 as we are likely to get for some time.
 

George Walden in The Evening Standard  23 July 2002 >
From riveting case-histories of individual operations to the furious intrigues of the transatlantic intelligence community, from the unsung role of the low-level agent to the evolution of electronic espionage - everything is here.

Cal McCrystal in The Financial Times  1 July 2002 >
What makes Aldrich's book so delightful is its abundance of marvellous anecdote

Lawrence Freedman in The Sunday Times  1 July 2002 >
Aldrich has certainly dug deep. The result is a masterly history of the British intelligence effort.

Alan Judd in The Sunday Telegraph  1 July 2002 >
a major contribution to the history of the second half of the 20th century

John Crossland in The Independent on Sunday  1 July 2002 >
The first full account of the shadowy war by proxy ... unauthorised history at its most incisive

Raymond Seitz in The Times  4 July 2002 >
a superlative record of Anglo-American intelligence collection, co-operation and competition.

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