Intelligence and international relations in the early Cold War

Abstract

Almost no historian of the Second World War nowadays fails to acknowledge the important role of signals intelligence (SIGINT). By contrast, most histories of postwar international relations omit – without explanation – all reference to SIGINT. Neglect of this and other aspects of intelligence has significantly distorted the study of the Cold War. A new generation of scholars, however, has begun to challenge this neglect. The article seeks to show how recent research on intelligence is changing our understanding of the early Cold War.