The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy
This article examines Great Britain’s approach to covert action during the formative years of British Cold War intelligence operations, 1950–1951. Rather than shy away from such activity in the wake of the failure in Albania in the late 1940s, the British increased the number of operations they purs...
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| Format: | Article |
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MIT Press
2014
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35185/ |
| _version_ | 1848795022849212416 |
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| author | Cormac, Rory |
| author_facet | Cormac, Rory |
| author_sort | Cormac, Rory |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article examines Great Britain’s approach to covert action during the formative years of British Cold War intelligence operations, 1950–1951. Rather than shy away from such activity in the wake of the failure in Albania in the late 1940s, the British increased the number of operations they pursued. This was the start of a coherent strategy regarding covert activity that can be conceptualized as the “pinprick” approach. The strategy was overseen by a highly secretive Whitehall body, the Official Committee on Communism, which in effect became the government’s covert action committee. This article uses the commission’s recently declassified papers for the first time to assess the merits of this approach. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:25:29Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-35185 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:25:29Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | MIT Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-351852020-05-04T16:55:55Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35185/ The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy Cormac, Rory This article examines Great Britain’s approach to covert action during the formative years of British Cold War intelligence operations, 1950–1951. Rather than shy away from such activity in the wake of the failure in Albania in the late 1940s, the British increased the number of operations they pursued. This was the start of a coherent strategy regarding covert activity that can be conceptualized as the “pinprick” approach. The strategy was overseen by a highly secretive Whitehall body, the Official Committee on Communism, which in effect became the government’s covert action committee. This article uses the commission’s recently declassified papers for the first time to assess the merits of this approach. MIT Press 2014-10-14 Article PeerReviewed Cormac, Rory (2014) The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy. Journal of Cold War Studies, 16 (3). pp. 5-28. ISSN 1531-3298 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/JCWS_a_00469#.V45JvfkrIdU doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00469 doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00469 |
| spellingShingle | Cormac, Rory The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title | The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title_full | The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title_fullStr | The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title_full_unstemmed | The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title_short | The pinprick approach: Whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of British covert action strategy |
| title_sort | pinprick approach: whitehall’s top-secret anti-communist committee and the evolution of british covert action strategy |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35185/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35185/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35185/ |