Black Ops: The Rise of Special Forces in the C.I.A., the S.A.S., and Mossad Read Online Free PDF Page B

is not alone in his emetic response to the moral ambiguities of realpolitik . But then, intelligence operations are often rough trade.
    The survival of the British SAS, alone among wartime special forces teams, is a textbook example of political escape and evasion. Though the Socialist Attlee government had decreed that it must die, in the gloomy corridors of the War Office a cell was created in 1946 to consider the future of SF, if any. It concluded that in the next European war, there would be no static front lines. It acknowledged that small parties of stay-behind forces could punch above their weight, so long as they did not try to take over the functions of SIS or become a reborn SOE. In what was an obvious compromise between letting the government have its way over Special Forces and covering an unguarded military flank, the War Office gave its blessing, in principle, to the creation of a reserve, Territorial Army (National Guard) unit. This exercise was massaged by the ubiquitous Brian Franks, former boss of 2 SAS in Occupied France. Over later years, he would emerge as a key player in the continuance of special operations, not all of them not authorized by government. Between 1946 and 1947, Franks took two initiatives. First, he arranged for the Gladio network, promoted by the SIS chief, Sir Stewart Menzies, in various European capitals, to be serviced by British Liaison Officers who were former SAS and SOE operators.
    He also arranged for a respected reserve regiment, the Artists Rifles, to be reborn as 21 SAS (Artists). Founded in 1859, the Artists accommodated such creative spirits as William Morris, Wilfred Owen, and Noel Coward and turned them into soldiers. It was disbanded in 1945 and reconstituted as an officer-training team two years later. By a process that is still not clear, Brian Franks arranged for the resurrected Artists to become 21 SAS (Artists) (Reserve). A humble national guard unit, 21 SAS was licensed to prepare for a stay-behind role in Germany, to wage guerrilla war against the Warsaw Pact invaders and identify targets for nuclear weapons. It was an awesome responsibility for weekend soldiers. The SAS reservists prepared by digging large holes in German soil for use as hides. In time, it found another role as a supplier of deniable soldiers for clandestine missions far from Europe and a recruitment agency for well-connected mercenaries.
    On the other side of the world, in the Malayan jungle, a very different sort of conflict was about to have a decisive impact on the SAS phenomenon. In the spring of 1948, ethnic Chinese Malayans, armed with an arsenal of British and Japanese weapons, began an offensive to turn Malaya into a Communist state. The emergency had a shocking beginning. Small groups of armed Chinese entered rubber plantations, seized their Chinese foremen, and summoned villagers to witness the executions of these alleged enemies of the people. On 16 June, three young Chinese men cycled into Elphil Estate in Perak and shot dead a fifty-year-old British planter, Arthur Walker. A few miles away, Ian Christian and his manager, J. Alison, were bound to chairs and murdered in the same fashion.
    One of the most charismatic leaders of the insurgency was Chin Peng, OBE. During the Japanese occupation, Chin Peng had worked with British agents from SOE’s Force 136 and with Spencer Chapman, to whom he was “a true friend.” It is believed that Chin took part in the London Victory Parade in 1945. But then he turned his guns on Britain. He became leader of the Communist guerrillas and took to the jungle. Chin Peng did not give up easily. His war against the British and Malayan governments continued until 1989. In 2008 he was living in exile in Thailand, hoping to return to Malaysia.
    In 1950, to fight this latest jungle conflict, Brigadier “Mad Mike” Calvert, a wartime SAS commander and heavyweight boxing champion, was instructed to raise a force able to survive in the jungle for long