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all three services, CICI was to be responsible for such interservice tasks as
security, civil censorship, propaganda, and publicity. However, clearly in
deference to the embassy’s supremacy in the latter two areas, and to avoid
potential disputes over competence with the FO (or SOE), the charter
stated unequivocally that CICI was to cooperate with the embassy’s Public
Information Office (PIO) (Stewart Perowne, Freya Stark, and Adrian
Bishop, all former Section D [SIS] officers) in carrying out the general
policy for propaganda. Liaison between CICI and Perowne’s PIO was in
fact close. The central propaganda committee met every week at the
embassy under the chairmanship of Vyvyan Holt and was responsible for
advising the ambassador on (white) propaganda policy. The committee
included representatives of the PIO, CICI, the Political Advisory Staff
(PAS), Persia and Iraq Force (PAIFORCE) public relations, and the Tenth
Army General Staff Intelligence Branch (GSI). All questions relating to
the conduct of white propaganda were discussed, including radio.
According to Perowne, most of the ‘donkey work’ for this committee was
done by CICI.^15
As distinct from propaganda, CICI was also required to produce peri-
odical intelligence summaries and appreciations to be circulated widely
throughout the Middle East, India, and the Far East. But the political
advisers on the CICI staff, who would provide most of the tribal and
political (T&P) intelligence in the periodical reports, were to work under
the direct orders and control of the embassy.^16 Finally, again clearly to
prevent possible conflict with the FO, CICI was ‘to afford all assistance to
the local representative of MI6 and to distribute locally ... all information
received from him.’^17 While Stewart Perowne became bitterly critical of
the periodical intelligence reports produced and distributed by CICI, he
must have realized that much of that reporting—on T&P intelligence—
originated not from CICI military-intelligence officers but from the polit-
ical advisers operating directly under embassy control, as he was.
Furthermore, it is unlikely that Perowne’s scathing criticism of CICI’s
local reporting performance was at all representative of the ambassador’s
(or the FO’s) view, for Perowne was dismissed by some older diplomats as
a highly strung ‘misfit’ known for his ‘bizarre clothes,’ ‘scintillating but
inappropriate witticisms,’ and ‘unbridled tongue,’ which landed him in
deep trouble later in his career as a senior official in the West Indies.^18
Perowne may also have conflicted with formidable personalities in Iraq
like Chokra Wood (a former cavalry officer), which may have caused him
to harbour ad hominem malice towards CICI, leading him to write to a
THE MOON PALACE