The Knowledge of Intelligence – Scientification, Data Processing and Information Transfer in Secret Services, 1945 -1990

Conveners:
PD Dr. Rüdiger Bergien, Leibniz Centre of Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF)
Prof. Dr. Debora Gerstenberger, Freie Universität Berlin FU Berlin)
Christopher Kirchberg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

WITH SUPPORT OF

The development of secret services in the 20th century is described as a transition "from espionage to intelligence”. Until the First World War intelligence organizations were primarily oriented towards the acquisition of military and diplomatic secrets. But in the age of the World Wars and in the course of the Cold War, these services developed into "gigantic machines for storing and producing knowledge". The storage of incoming information - in card indexes, on punched cards and electronic databases - moved from a secondary task to a priority of organizational development. Besides, the services approached science: Through the recruitment of researchers, the mechanization of the "intelligence collection", which increasingly required expert knowledge, and the networking with "think tanks", at least the Anglo-American services of the 1970s appeared "less of a 'cloak and dagger' affair and more like a branch of the social sciences".

From a contemporary historical perspective, the interpretative paradigm of an increasingly knowledge-oriented secret intelligence service seems to correspond, at first glance, with the secular trend towards the scientification of the social and political. But the extent to which the services participated in this scientification and how their information processing practices changed has not yet been systematically explored.  The consequences of the increased recruitment of natural and social scientists for the services have not been investigated so far, nor has the consequences of the transfer of paper into electronic data storage for the practice of information processing. Also open - and controversial – is the question of to what extent secret services in dictatorships also participated in the process of scientification.

Taking up these questions, the planned workshop approaches intelligence services as places of knowledge production from a comparative perspective. On a methodological level, the workshop aims to explore what added value the application of scientific and knowledge-historical perspectives can have for researching intelligence services. The overall aim of the workshop is to embed the secret intelligence services in historiographical approaches that aim to historicize "information" or "knowledge societies". 

Programflyer (pdf)
 

Program

JUNE 28, 2019

12.00  REGISTRATION      

13.00 
Debora Gerstenberger/Rüdiger Bergien: Introduction

13.30 
Panel 1: From “Need to Know” to “Need to Share”? Inter-Service Knowledge Transfer

Ananda Simões Fernandes (Porto Alegre): Knowledge Circulation and Shared Information between the Brazilian and Uruguayan intelligence services under National Security
David Schaefer (London): Intelligence Liaison and Professionalism: Shared Secrets and Knowledge in Cold War Australia

14.15  COFFEE BREAK

14.30 
Sascha Gunold (Potsdam): The Hidden Nukes: Inter-Service Knowledge Transfer About Soviet Nuclear Weapons Storages in East Germany
Jens Wegener (Philadelphia): Enhancing or Obscuring Patterns? Intelligence Services     and the Circulation of Computer Knowledge within the Transatlantic Alliance, 1964-       1980
Discussant: Michael Wala (Bochum)

16.00   COFFEE BREAK

16.30 - 18.15 
Panel 2:  Becoming a Part of Information Society? The Digitalization and its Impacts

Franciszek Dąbrowski (Warschau): Data storage and indexing systems: Information circuits in the Communist Security Police in Poland, 1950s–1989
Marcelo Vianna (Osório): From Darkness to Explicit Control: Brazilian Informatics under the National Security Doctrine, 1977-1984
Christopher Kirchberg (Bochum): Between Advanced Information Gathering and New Blind Spots: The Impact of Data Processing in the West German Domestic Intelligence Service, 1965-1985
Discussant: Rüdiger Bergien (Potsdam)

19.00 DINNER

JUNE 29, 2019

9.30    
Panel 3: Creating Images of Societies and Enemies: Intelligence Knowledge as a Resource of State Power

Andreas Lutsch (Berlin): On the Evolution of Analysis and Policy Relations in the U.S. Intelligence Community during the Cold War
Marcel Schmeer (Bochum): Popularizing Domestic Intelligence? The Annual Reports on the Protection of the Constitution: Between Security Communication, Transparency and Public Relations
Lukas Nyffeneger (Zürich): Surveillance and Transfer of Power: The Disenfranchisement of Swiss Citizens and the Governments’ Monopoly Knowledge Production and Organisation in the 1970s
Discussant: Gerhard Sälter (Berlin)

11.15   COFFEE BREAK

11.45  
Panel 4:  Towards “Social Sciences Branches”? Professionalization and Scientification of Intelligence Collection and Analysis

Thomas Wolf (Potsdam): ‘Brain Trust': Cooperation between West German 'Ostforschung' and the Gehlen Organization, 1946-1956
Jane Lezina (Potsdam): Scientific-Technical Progress and the KGB: Attempts of the Soviet Political Police to Improve its Technological and Academic Base in the 1970s and 1980s
Samantha Viz Quadrat (Niterói): The Serviço Nacional de Informações (SNI) during the Brazilian dictatorship: The Professionalization of Agents in the 1970s
Discussant: Jan C. Behrends (Potsdam)

13.15  
Conference Resume: Constantin Goschler (Bochum) /Jens Gieseke (Potsdam)

14.00:  SNACK