In an earlier chapter I described the massive, multinational, near real-time coverage of Soviet military activity as a defining characteristic of the intelligence war. NATO's credible military posture came to depend on warning of Soviet attack, and American influence made this surveillance a prime Sigint objective. The cost of this arrangement was essentially doing things the American way, harnessing technology for twenty-four-hour operations. At GCHQ we contributed to this transatlantic effort while also seeking to present objective British assessment in Whitehall. We ran an efficient production machine to meet the needs of our customers quickly, but did I sufficiently encourage the kind of analytical breakthroughs which allowed for deeper knowledge of the Soviet target? At times I worried about this balance, but I am reassured by the memory of Harry Burke, my deputy at GCHQ who led the British reassessment of the 1983 Able Archer crisis. My recollection of this episode has been briefly summarised by Len Scott, but I offer an expanded account here to underline the importance of recruiting and deploying the right people in intelligence analysis.

It was perhaps remarkable that the leaders of GCHQ – a secret organisation, its role undeclared until 1983 – took pride in cultivating the reputation of a well-managed government department, yet this was the case throughout my career. Wartime Bletchley had been the model when GCHQ's post-war structure was drawn up in 1945, and officials sought to recruit successors to the mathematicians who achieved codebreaking triumphs. Among the new recruits, it was hoped that at least some would combine a personal flair for cryptanalysis with the ability to provide technical leadership for the organisation. Bletchley's output of decrypted Enigma messages had risen from 39,000 monthly at the beginning of 1943 to 90,000 from the end of that year; this was mass intelligence production, on a scale that needed high-quality management to direct it to best effect. The initial position in 1945 was that GCHQ would have a single senior graduate entry, but GCHQ soon took the view that more people were needed than they were getting for a general managerial role. Whitehall was persuaded to move to separate lines of entry for specialists and generalists.