ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the key ideas of the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence (CSI). An analysis of attendance at seven colloquia between 1979 and 1984 sets out the interest groups, drawn from both sides of the Cold War state-private network, which shaped CSI thinking. The Consortium’s literature is then considered in relation to each of the four elements of intelligence– collection, analysis, covert action and counterintelligence – and to intelligence policy as a whole.
The Consortium’s prescriptions will be shown to constitute a paradigm favouring a renewal of political warfare over détente, reflecting the wider political struggle over foreign policy which drew many former Cold War liberals towards the conservative movement in the early 1980s.
