Military Intelligence History: General American Military Intelligence History

Foreign policy in peacetime and command decision in war have always been driven by intelligence, and yet this subject has often been overlooked in standard histories.Honorable Treachery fills in these details, dramatically recounting every important intelligence operation since our nation's birth. These include how in 1795 President Washington mounted a covert operation to ransom American hostages in the Middle East; how in 1897, Kaiser Wilhelm II's plans for an invasion of the United States were scuppered by the director of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence; and how President Woodrow Wilson created a secret agency called the Inquiry to compile intelligencefor the peace negotiations at the end of World War I.Honorable Treachery puts America's use of covert intelligence into a broader historical context, and is sure to appeal to anyone interested in American history and the secret workings of our country.

Although intimate knowledge of an enemy has played a role in almost every historical conflict, intelligence is often underdeveloped, misused, and misunderstood. Keegan examines a range of war experiences to show why intelligence is not always a critical element in great battles. With sensitivity and narrative verve, Keegan recounts crucial military incidents where intelligence has played a part, including Horatio Nelson's misguided chase of the French fleet up and down the Mediterranean, Stonewall Jackson's remarkable campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, and the nail-biting endeavor to crack the Enigma ciphers during World War II.

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From a systematic point of view, all intelligence work can be studied on three levels: Acquisition, analysis, and acceptance. The author focuses on the third of these levels, studying the attitudes and behavioural patterns developed by leaders during their political careers, their willingness to consider information and ideas contrary to their own, their ability to admit mistakes and change course in the implementation of a failing policy and their capacity to cooperate.

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