Confronting the Colonies (28 page)

OMAN, 1968–1975

Much of Britain's formal empire had been consigned to the shelves of history by the time Aden attained independence as part of the new South Yemen. That did not mean, however, that Whitehall was willing to give up political influence overseas. Within the context of debates about neo-colonialism, certain leading imperial historians have argued that ‘decolonization was the pursuit of imperialism by other means'.
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Discussing Harold Macmillan's ‘audit of empire' in 1957 for example, A.G. Hopkins has described Whitehall's approach as follows: ‘it was better to have friends than enemies in distant places, and if friendship could be sustained without burdening the Exchequer, a shift to informal influence had much to commend it'.
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Given Britain's financial insecurity and the decreasing legitimacy of imperialism in the eyes of many on the international scene, British interests had to be furthered via indirect means: through enhanced political influence as opposed to coercion.

This was certainly the case in the Persian Gulf, which, according to one of its last political residents (and future JIC chair) Geoffrey Arthur, was ‘the last province of the Pax Britannica'.
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Oman, however, occupied a slightly different position from its neighbours. Oman's close relationship with the United Kingdom stretches back over two hundred years, with numerous treaties of friendship signed since the first treaty of commerce
in 1798. In more recent terms, a treaty in 1958 streamlined London's military, economic and technical assistance to the Sultanate. It allowed the British use of air bases in Salalah and Masirah Island in return for the secondment of British army personnel to the Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF). For example, the commander of SAF (CSAF) was British and, due to the Sultan's refusal to commission Omani Arabs, so too were SAF officers. Consequently, SAF remained reliant on the British.
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Unlike the lower Gulf States however, Britain never regarded ‘protectorate regime' status as being applicable to Oman. Despite not being a colony however, London held much influence over the Sultanate. According to leading imperial historian Wm Roger Louis, Oman ‘in international law was an independent and sovereign state but in effect [was] a British protected state'.
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Throughout the 1960s, Britain was afforded ‘significant latitude' and handled Omani foreign and defence policy as London ‘saw fit'. The local ruler might have been made to feel important and irreplaceable, but his true powers ‘were tightly controlled'.
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Violent insurgency engulfed the Omani region of Dhofar in the late 1960s. Accordingly, the host country's quasi-independent status provided a fascinating framework that shaped the British response, including the role of strategic intelligence. Indeed, it laid some of the foundations for counterinsurgency in the post-imperial twenty-first century. The British authorities found themselves covertly participating ‘in a civil war pitting an autocratic Middle Eastern monarchy against leftist rebels'.
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Owing to anti-colonial normative constraints, however, British involvement in counterinsurgency operations was publicly limited. Geraint Hughes argues that Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were determined to keep British involvement ‘as limited and discreet as possible and claim publicly that British personnel were not actually involved in fighting Dhofari insurgents'. Thomas Mockaitis puts it more bluntly: Britain was ‘no longer willing to expend “moral credit” in wars that smacked of colonialism'.
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Despite the political risks and enforced constraints, authorities in Whitehall were keen to aid the beleaguered (yet autocratic) Sultan. Oman possessed strategic and economic importance. This was crucial in a world where British formal assets were waning but political leaders were determined to maintain some semblance of British power. In terms of location, Oman's position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz guarded the Persian Gulf. During the Cold War, the Gulf was ‘one of the main
highways between east and west',
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and policy practitioners feared that an anti-western regime in Muscat could have severed NATO's sea lines of communication with the Gulf oil fields. The Soviet Union would then have had the capability to interdict western oil supplies. Such fears perhaps illustrate the primacy of economic concerns for the British, as opposed to the Americans' broader Cold War containment focus.
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The violence also played out against the backdrop of British withdrawal from the Gulf. In 1968 Harold Wilson announced the complete withdrawal of British armed forces from the area by the end of 1971. However, he intended to leave behind regimes sympathetic to Britain's national interest. Therefore Britain's wider regional designs also demonstrated the significance afforded to stability in Oman. A hostile Omani regime was feared to potentially ideologically threaten British attempts to unite certain Gulf States into what would eventually become the United Arab Emirates,
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thus hindering Britain's intricate withdrawal from the region. In terms of practicalities, Britain's main strategic asset in Oman was the use of the craggy Masirah Island. Lying off the east coast of Oman, the rugged island had long hosted a British military base. According to the JIC, this was important as a staging post on the CENTO air route to the Far East between Akrotiri in Cyprus and Gan in the Indian Ocean. It was also a crucial base from which air surveillance of the Gulf, Arabian Sea and northwest Indian Ocean could be carried out. Economically, Oman did begin to produce oil itself, but perhaps more significantly it was an importer of British arms.
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A large region in southwest Oman, Dhofar remains a diverse landscape encompassing fertile mountains, wild desert and rugged coastline. Highly seasonal weather, including an annual monsoon, severely challenged counterinsurgency efforts. Dhofar was culturally and ethnically distinct from the rest of Oman and, having endured years of neglect, many Dhofaris harboured secessionist ambitions. The nationalist Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF), initially backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, began low-level violence in 1965 before intensifying their activities in the late 1960s. The nature of the rebel movement was, however, fundamentally transformed following the creation of South Yemen (in the wake of British withdrawal from Aden). From 1967, radical leftists in South Yemen began to aid the Dhofari rebels and in August 1968 the group changed its name to the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf (PFLOAG). Indicating a shift to the left, Marxists
ousted nationalists from leadership positions whilst guerrillas began to receive training from the Communist bloc. As Walter Ladwig argues, it was ‘a classic example of a nationalist rebellion, based on legitimate grievances, that was taken over by radical Marxists for their own purposes'.
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By late 1968, PFLOAG had around 2,000 fighters for offensive operations supported by 3,000 militiamen. By 1970 the insurgents were better trained than SAF, which was wholly inadequate, whilst most of Dhofar lay in rebel hands. The insurgents had pushed the military onto the back foot and concern was growing in London.
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Senior figures within the military and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) concluded that increased British involvement, albeit covertly, was necessary. Consequently, in April 1970 Brigadier Roderick Semple, director of the Special Air Service (SAS), led a British military team to Oman to contemplate the possibility of using his forces in the Dhofar war.
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This visit was followed by a near-bloodless coup on 23 July 1970, when Sultan Sa'id was deposed and replaced by his son Qaboos. Under Sa'id's authoritarian leadership, counterinsurgency operations had failed amid the Sultan's stubborn refusal to sanction development projects in Dhofar. The arrival of Qaboos provided grounds for a fresh start, and the new Sultan, a staunch Anglophile, pledged a less ruthless approach to counterinsurgency. This included civil development plans eschewed by his repressive father. The first SAS units, known as British Army Training Teams (BATTs) arrived in Dhofar shortly after Qaboos's succession. Among other roles, they began to raise, train and direct groups of local fighters known as firqats. By January 1971, the first firqat had been raised and progress was slowly made in the conflict. Up to 60 SAS troops on four to five month tours of duty were transferred to Oman to work with the SAF. The British-led forces successfully established a permanent base on the rugged Dhofari hills whilst supply lines from Yemen were eventually reduced. Sultan Qaboos declared an end to hostilities in December 1975.
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Back in the corridors of Whitehall, the year 1968 proved to be a seminal one in the history of the British intelligence machinery. The JIC, a single unit since its inception in 1936, was bifurcated; the Joint Intelligence Staff was dissolved and replaced by a newly created Assessments Staff;
and a new post of intelligence coordinator was formed. Combined, these reforms sought to strengthen centralised all-source intelligence assessment and to allow for a more holistic approach to strategic intelligence. The JIC was split into two new committees: JIC(A) and JIC(B). The former continued the work of the JIC in political and security intelligence. By contrast, the latter held a remit over non-military economic, scientific and technical intelligence matters. It was chaired by the Treasury. Importantly, this indicated another move that broadened the JIC agenda and made the committee's work increasingly inclusive. The economic dimension was belatedly being brought into understandings of national security, threats and intelligence. The experiment, however, proved short-lived and the JIC(B) was dissolved in September 1974, with its responsibilities transferred to the Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee. For purposes of continuity of narrative, this chapter will refer to the JIC(A) simply as the JIC.

A more successful reform, at least in terms of longevity, was the creation of a new, integrated Cabinet Office Assessments Staff to replace the long-serving JIS. The Assessments Staff maintained a similar report-drafting function to its JIS predecessors, but held a higher profile. Consisting of around twenty members of different disciplines across a range of departments, the Assessments Staff was more inclusive and more integrated than the previous system. Despite being small and informal it drew in additional manpower, including high-flying seconded diplomats. It was also more independent. Members were no longer the link between the JIC and parent departments as members of the JIS had been. The result, according to former JIC secretary Michael Herman, was ‘to produce strong central leadership of the collegial process'.
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With the creation of the Assessments Staff also came the new post of its chief. Incumbents of this post enjoyed influence over the JIC agenda and output, perhaps siphoning some of the power from the JIC chairman himself.

Current Intelligence Groups assisted the Assessments Staff in the drafting process, particularly regarding current intelligence. They were organised into seven geographical sectors, each composed of the departments and agencies represented on the JIC. Each sector was chaired by an Assessments Staff member. This ensured that experts in particular geographic fields were drafting reports.
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A third structural change was the creation of the post of intelligence coordinator. This was first filled on a part-time basis by Dick White. As
a former head of both MI5 and SIS, White was a long-time JIC member. Having first joined MI5 in 1934, he possessed a vast and unrivalled experience of intelligence matters and understood the intricate workings of Whitehall. Indeed, upon becoming chief of SIS, White was tasked with bringing order and restraint to the slapdash service in the wake of the embarrassing Buster Crabb incident of 1956.
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According to one biography, White was well-trusted and commanded confidence. Importantly, he resisted the temptation to turn the new position into an ‘over-lordship' of the various intelligence agencies, but concentrated instead on offering advice when asked. Others, however, have interpreted this as weak and ineffective passivity.
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As part of efforts to improve the JIC's management role, White was responsible for assisting the coordination and organisation of intelligence, for supervising the preparation of assessments, for preparing an annual review of the state of British intelligence, and for refereeing budgetary negotiations between the agencies, Treasury and political departments.
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The role of the intelligence coordinator in practice, however, is more difficult to assess. Although the JIC continued its broader theoretical management function of keeping intelligence as a whole at home and overseas under review, in practice this can be viewed with severe limitations, as the committee lacked the authority (and perhaps the courage) to manage the British intelligence organisation as a whole. Like the JIC chairman, White was limited to suggesting, commenting and advising.

In terms of other JIC functions, the committee's terms of reference remained the same as in previous years. Along with management and liaison, the committee was expected to continue to issue assessments as required by consumers and as the committee itself deemed necessary. Nor was there tangible change in the JIC's composition. It continued to be chaired by a Foreign Office official, although with a distinctly Persian Gulf flavour. Stewart Crawford, chair from 1970 to 1973, and Geoffrey Arthur, 1973 to 1975, had both been political residents there before taking up intelligence posts. Both men therefore had experience in the politics of the Persian Gulf. Crawford for example was political resident when Harold Wilson announced the withdrawal of forces and had to deal with the opprobrium of the local rulers. It also fell to Crawford to oversee the intelligence implications of the withdrawal once he was transferred to Whitehall. Meanwhile, Arthur in particular was considered a Middle Eastern expert at the Foreign Office and spoke both Arabic
and Persian. They were two very different types of chairmen. Crawford was a more organised committee man. He spent a great deal of time crossing the ‘i's on intelligence assessments. Arthur was more chaotic—although both were very able men.