DEFENCE
No Room for Dissent?
By D. C. WATT
ON the south side of Whitehall stands Inigo Jones's magnificent banqueting hall. Until 1962, its entrance was guarded outside by a small brass cannon, and inside by the majestic figure of a Zulu in full war attire. It housed, in fact, the museum of the Royal United Services Insti- tute, to whom it was given in the 1890s by Queen Victoria as a grace-and-favour gift. It was one of the most idiosyncratic and delightful museums in London; and above its clutter of battle models, uniforms and mementos of Britain's military past, Inigo Jones's glorious proportions stood out clean and magnificent. Today it stands vacant and rarely visited. For in 1962, on the advice of Sir Kenneth Clark. who has since admitted his mis- take, a Conservative government repossessed what Queen Victoria had granted. Inigo Jones's banqueting hall was to be restored to its original purpose. And now, once a month or so, govern- ment hospitality is dispensed at tea. cocktails or cold buffet suppers (for there are no kitchens). For the remaining 350-odd days of the year the hall remains empty and untenanted, a reminder of what is beginning to look very much like a vendetta pursued by the authorities of Whitehall against the RUSI.
The RUSI is the learned society of the armed services, the only independent institution through which the military and the interested civilians of press, Parliament or the universities can discuss the defence problems of Britain. The Institute of Strategic Studies does not compete in this field. Very wisely it has deliberately preserved its international character and refuses to be drawn into discussing purely British problems. For the 5.000 members of the RUSE its journal, its excellent library, its press cuttings and its lecture programmes are the only vehicle for self-education and the only means by which any service opinion can be formed, independently of official channels.
This is perhaps its major fault in official eyes. Before 1962 the Ministry of Defence contributed £3,000 annually to help the RUSI cover part of its deficit. In 1962, in return for the re- possession of the museum, the Ministry of Defence agreed to raise the subsidy to £4,000 for a period of five years. Since the beginning of this year talks have been in progress on the continuation of the subsidy. No decision has yet been reached; and Ministry of Defence officials have only themselves to blame if the impression is beginning to get about that they would like to see the Institute disappear.
The economics of the Institute are very simple. Its members contribute about £15,000 in sub- scriptions. All but 1,500 of them are covered by life membership or long-term covenants which make it very difficult to raise more money by increasing the subscriptions. A further £2,000 or so is brought in by endowments and sales of the journal to non-members. The Institute's run- ning costs are about £24,000 per annum. Since 1956 the annual deficit has been covered by dipping into reserves. To break even the RUSI would need a subsidy of about twice that at present paid.
This position has given the mysterious powers of Whitehall the impression that they have the Institute over a barrel. At the moment they are indulging themselves in a number of supposedly helpful suggestions as to how the Institute might redeem itself financially by expanding its activities. These suggestions, which range from a very, very senior admiral's proposal that the Institute should establish a wine and cheese bar (presumably in competition with all the govern- ment canteens and service clubs with which Whitehall abounds) to the establishment of seminars, research posts, special studies, etc.. all ignore the Institute's basic problem. Its current budget allows for two secretaries, an accountant, two library assistants, two hall porters and some clyIrladies, a minute staff for what the Institute comprises. To run this it has one full-time officer, Brigadier John Stephenson, who com- bines the posts of chief librarian, secretary for the council, director of the Institute's activities, promoter of its lectures, press-cuttings officer and reviews editor of the journal. The editor of the journal, Commander P. K. Kemp, comes in one day a week; in private life he is chief archivist and librarian to what we used to call the Ad- miralty. There is also a research assistant who comes in two days a week to answer the in- numerable postal queries on details of military history which pour into the Institute. How these activities can be expanded with no extra staff so as to cover an annual deficit of £8,000 is something the gentlemen of the Ministry of Defence have not yet been able to explain.
The Institute's other regular contacts with the Ministry of Defence arise from the latter's con- tinuous carping criticism of the contents of the journal. Broad hints have been dropped by indi- vidual civil servants that the journal cannot be allowed to survive any reorganisation of the Institute's activities. The lectures given at the RUSI are usually boycotted by the pundits of the Ministry, no matter how eminent the lec- turer. An occasional article, such as that by Anthony Verrier a few years ago attacking the basis of the annual manoeuvres in Germany, becomes a cause celebre, provoking angry re- joinders from the most Olympian quarters.
All this, no doubt, seems very small beer, but it is difficult not to see it as symptomatic of the whole spirit in which the Ministry of Defence in its latest incarnation was conceived, and in which it has been run for the last four years. The reduction in rank of the ministers for the three armed services and the consequent down- grading still further of their political juniors has greatly reduced the degree of political control ministers can exercise over defence matters. Par- liament has been presented with a succession of Defence White Papers whose glossiness increases annually in direct proportion to the decrease in their informative contents. Informed debate on defence matters, let alone the Great Debate so recently called for by Mr Wilson, has been made almost impossible.
Ministry of Defence officials will reply to such charges by pointing indignantly to the latest proposals to create fellowships and lecture- ships in defence studies at the universities. At academic gatherings they will welcome the in- creasing intellectual interest in defence problems. They may even be heard expressing the desire to recruit university staff to serve on temporary contract in the Ministry itself. But there is no question of such recruits being able to publish anything on returning to university life. Academic 'fallout' of the kind which has resulted from the similar scheme operated for economists by the Treasury will at best be very limited. The Cowley Committee's report to the Chief of the General Staff, recommending the transformation of the RUSI into an independent institute of defence studies, was squashed early this year after two years of silence by the Permanent Under- Secretary, Sir Henry Hardman.
It is becoming virtually impossible to escape the impression that the permanent establishment of the Ministry of Defence will not brook any
public criticism or discussion of the policies they choose to recommend to their minister. Such dis- cussion as does take place, they can dismiss as ill-informed, since they have been careful to give no information to Parliament or to the public. It is the independence of the RUSI which makes it so unwelcome to them. They cannot sqt?ash it, nor can they take it over, for it is registered under the Charities Act and owns its own premises under a lease which has five years more to run. Its council seems determined to keep it going no matter what the cost.
One is left to wonder why the civil servants are so afraid of discussion; why the minister, Mr Healey, an intelligent intellectual who has had thirteen years of being outside the official machine, is prepared to tolerate a system which is steadily suppressing any and every source of information and ideas which it does not itself control; and why room cannot be found within a defence budget of £2,000 million for .0004 per cent of that figure to be spent on keeping the RUSI alive even at the cost of retaining its independence.
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