178
counterintelligence in their areas, for they, not ISLD, bore the final
responsibility for it and for making that responsibility clear. Dick White
added that, whereas it was clearly SIME’s responsibility to neutralize
enemy intelligence activities throughout the region, ISLD also had a most
important contribution to make to the same end. They alone possessed
certain important assets, such as ULTRA (known regionally as
TRIANGLE); secure, rapid communications through their own signal
and cipher channels; and freedom from military red tape and rigid estab-
lishments, all of which could greatly benefit SIME operations. To this end,
White suggested that ISLD activities should therefore be disclosed to
DSOs.^21 One can well imagine how popular that suggestion must have
been among serving SIS officers even amidst the exigencies of war, and
there is certainly no record that it was ever broadly implemented.
Notes
- Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of MI6 (New York: Penguin, 2010), 421.
- Somerset de Chair, The Golden Carpet (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1945),
140–3, 149–52, 168–70. - History of SOE in the Arab World, September 1945, HS 7/86, TNA. The
liaison officer was Mark Leslie Pilkington (D/H.385) of the Life Guards,
who was killed in action in North Africa on 18 November 1942 while serv-
ing with the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG). Pilkington’s P/F is at
HS 9/1189/2, TNA. - Part I—Military Operations, A Report on the Role Played by the Arab
Legion in Connection with the Recent Operations in Iraq, 10 June 1941,
Sir John Glubb Collection, GB165-0118, Middle East Centre Archive, St
Antony’s College (Oxford) [MECA]. - Ibid.
- Ibid.; James D. Lunt, Glubb Pasha: A Biography: Lieutenant-General Sir
John Bagot Glubb, Commander of the Arab Legion, 1939–1956 (London:
Harvill, 1984), 101–3; Trevor Royle, Glubb Pasha (London: Little, Brown,
1992), 256–8. According to John Bagot Glubb, Britain and the Arabs: A
Study of Fifty Years, 1908 to 1958 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1959),
241, before the campaign the British army had not requested assistance
from Transjordan and had deprecated the use of the Arab Legion. Glubb
therefore had something to prove; he and his ‘Girls’ had definitely acquit-
ted themselves honourably. - United Kingdom, Naval Intelligence Division, Iraq and the Persian Gulf,
B.R. 524 (Restricted), Geographical Handbook Series (London: NID,