New Database – Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence

The Templeman Library has added the unique database, Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, to our collections for your use.

This database will be of particular interest if you study History or Politics.

More about this resource

Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, Monitoring the World places the all-important work of signals intelligence (Sigint) carried out by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and its predecessors alongside the central machinery of intelligence at the Cabinet Office, providing scholars access to government documents including decrypts of intercepted telegrams, correspondence, reports, daily records, assessments and analysis from 1914 to 1985.

This module presents 17 series of material from GCHQ, including detailed records from wartime Bletchley Park, surviving files from regional bureaus in the Far East, Middle East and Brisbane, and a wealth of intercepted communications decrypted, assessed and disseminated by hundreds of men and women working in secret. This material is digitised here for the first time, alongside 10 series of Cabinet Office material from the Central Intelligence Machinery division, comprising minutes, memoranda and reports from various committees and subcommittees of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Stretching from the earliest days of signals intelligence, up to the era of worldwide networks playing a key role in global conflicts, this collection provides unparalleled insight into the British intelligence web of the twentieth century, making it a key resource for the study of international politics and diplomacy, warfare and conflict, as well as imperial history, the development of the Cold War, and the national histories of countries such as Japan, Afghanistan and Russia.

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  • You can access this resource through the Digital Resources Directory here.

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