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and delicate.’^62 Elsewhere, Kellar wrote: ‘American commercial interests
in the area and their strong sympathy for the Jewish case in Palestine will
probably cause her to operate an intelligence network in the area which we
shall doubtless require to counter. There is evidence already of American
backstairs intrigue to persuade the Arabs ... that the Americans can be bet-
ter friends than the British.’^63
As is sometimes the case in the secret world, such divergence found at
the policy or planning level was not necessarily reflected at the tactical
operational level. There is no doubt that, as the war drew towards its con-
clusion, and the Allied powers began to realign themselves to accommo-
date a postwar world order, their strategic political and economic needs in
the future Middle East required a corresponding adjustment to their intel-
ligence and security priorities and policies. Clearly, Axis intelligence would
no longer be a factor, leaving a vacuum in the region to be filled by the
British, American, and Soviet services. The greatest danger was a total loss
of clandestine equilibrium among the three predatory powers, disoriented
by changes to the region caused by six years of global warfare. The cus-
tomary predictability of the Great Game, whose rules were clear and
straightforward, had suddenly vanished. Now, incredibly, the British were
contemplating total loss of empire; the Soviet Union was in full-throttle
expansionist mode; and the United States was clearly out for as much oil,
trade, and influence as could be had. While the Soviets were zeroing in on
Kurdistan (and Persian Azerbaijan), and the Americans on Saudi Arabia,
the British were struggling with looming bankruptcy, serious instability in
Palestine, and the possible loss of India, all of which posed immense
intelligence and security problems, but none greater than India. As Wavell
wrote to Churchill in 1944: ‘To my mind, our strategic security, our name
in the world for statesmanship and fair dealing, and much of our economic
well-being will depend on the settlement we make in India. Our prestige
and prospects in Burma, Malaya, China, and the Far East generally are
entirely subject to what happens in India. If we can secure India as a
friendly partner in the British Commonwealth, our predominant influence
in these countries will, I think, be assured; with a lost and hostile India, we
are likely to be reduced in the east to the position of commercial bag-
man.’^64 Of course, what Wavell neglected to mention was the potential
impact of the security of India on the intelligence and security equilibrium
of the Middle East too.
However, few of these lofty concerns troubled regional administrators
in Cairo, certainly not the Americans. The important work that went into