ABSTRACT
The Co-ordinator’s proposal is one way of getting the DEI out of the Ministry of Defence which seems to me a desirable object in itself.
JIC(B) is a very weak runner and I very much doubt if it is either necessary or desirable … I do not believe that the Departments concerned with Economic Intelligence are likely to agree to a centralised organisation which would collect, evaluate and disseminate economic information …
The British Government responded to Rhodesia’s unilateral and illegal declaration of independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965 by ruling out military force to break the rebellion in favour of a comprehensive regime of economic sanctions. The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Burke Trend, moved swiftly to create ‘a formidable structure of committees with its assembly of economic learning’ to manage sanctions.4 This superstructure included ‘a small inter-departmental unit which will effectively be in day-to-day charge of all economic aspects of the Rhodesian situation whether they relate to our economic pressures on Rhodesia itself or by the means by which we hope to protect Zambia or to the steps which may have to be taken to minimise the risks to our own economy’.5 The JIC set up a sub-committee (the Rhodesia Intelligence Working Group (RIWG)) to make regular assessments and with special reference to the effects of economic sanctions.6 On 17 December 1965 the RIWG made the MoD’s DEI responsible for preparing the economic section of the special assessment ‘on behalf of the DIS and all the Economic Departments’.7 Rhodesia’s UDI proved to be the catalyst for
the reorganisation two and a half years later of the central economic intelligence machinery.
