‘clogged by masses of paperwork’: Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), Whitehall and the early Cold War, 1949 – 1956

This article examines the work and organisation of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) in the early Cold War, broadening the study of the service beyond the 1949 cut-off date of the service’s authorised history. It shows that whilst efforts to reform the service for peacetime had started before the end of the Second World War, this process remained incomplete over a decade later. It also explores SIS’s relations with the rest of Whitehall, especially liaison with customers on the main Soviet target, and the financial aspects of the service’s work and the oversight of HM Treasury.