Bicheno, Hugh. Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006. Bicheno, Hugh. Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2006.
To Fox, The Guardian, 31 Mar. 2006, the strength of this work is that the author "tells the story in detail from both sides.... The game of intelligence and diplomatic bluff is explained in piquant detail." However, "mistakes of significant detail ... make Bicheno's Olympian judgments on the conduct of the campaign appear eccentric and snide or ... absurd.... A rattling good read this book may be, but rattling great history it ain't."
Cavallini,
Enrique H.J. "The Malvinas/Falkland Affair: A New Look." International
Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 2, no. 2 (Summer 1988):
203-216.
"My thesis is that a crucial influence in the Argentine decision to invade the Malvinas Islands -- other than the pressure of the domestic situation in 1982 -- was the Argentine intelligence community's reluctance to interpret the available information appropriately; that is, in a manner that would contradict the military government's preconceived views and expectations."
Freedman, Lawrence.
"Intelligence Operations in the Falklands." Intelligence and
National Security 1, no. 3 (Sep. 1986): 309-335.
The focus here is on British intelligence in the Falklands war of March-June 1982. The author notes that it is "often assumed that Britain was extraordinarily well informed concerning every move ... made by the Argentine.... By contrast, the essential theme of this article is that the task force commanders and the British government were hampered by a chronic shortage of high-quality strategic intelligence.... [This] shortage ... made it difficult to assess accurately the risks when planning specific operations and to manage the crisis at critical moments."
King, David E. "Intelligence
Failures and the Falklands War: A Reassessment." Intelligence and
National Security 2, no. 2 (Apr. 1987): 336-340.
King believes that "there is a strong argument that reliance on military intelligence [to prevent being surprised by the Argentine attack] was never a sensible or viable policy." The real deception in this case was a political one that prevented effective decisionmaking.
Lebow, Richard Ned. "Revisiting the Falklands Intelligence Failures." RUSI Journal 152, no. 4 (2007): 68-73.
West,
Nigel. [Rupert Allason] The Secret War for the Falklands: The SAS, MI6, and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost. London: Little, Brown, 1997.
Bates, NIPQ 13.3, calls this "an authoritative book about intelligence" in the Falklands War. The book includes "an excruciatingly detailed technical description of the sinking of HMS Sheffield" by an Argentine Exocet missile. West provides "an interesting description of the British intelligence system and how it functioned, or did not function, in the crucial weeks before the Argentine invasion." He "is not kind" to the Franks report, "nor to the people the report is about." A similar review by Bates is carried in AIJ 17.3/4.
For Hanrahan, New Statesman, 17 Jan. 1997, the details in West's work are "fascinating, if tantilisingly incomplete." In the end, West has tried to do too much: "This is straining to be an account of the whole intelligence process over several decades, and loses coherence by trying to relate everything to the Falklands war."
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