Email: r dot j dot aldrich at warwick dot ac dot uk
Tel: 02476 574 074
Room: B0.12
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11am

Profile

Richard J. Aldrich is a Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick and joined PAIS in September 2007. His main research interests lie in the area of intelligence and security communities. Currently he is serving at Director of the Institute of Advanced Study.

He is leading an AHRC project entitled "Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy, 1947-2001" which has just received follow on funding. This involves a team of eight scholars at the universities of Nottingham and Warwick who are examining the creation of the public record of the CIA in realms such as history, memoirs, novels and film. His own contribution to this project is a study of the CIA and its relationship with the press. The end of project conference took place at the University of Nottingham in the East Midlands Conference Centre on 29 and 30 April 2011 and the full conference is now available as a podcast.

Research interests

He also maintains related interests in issues of security, liberty and privacy, set against a background of accelerating globalization. These wider interests extend to developments in information technology, including public key cryptography. The technology of secrecy - particularly secure communications - has exerted an important but largely neglected influence upon the conduct of international relations. He has recently completed a history of GCHQ which was published by Harper Collins in June 2010. (GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency HarperCollins, 2010, ISBN 9780007357123 Pp.666 32 photographs)

Additional interests include contemporary history and how the past connects to the present. He has a particular interest in the nature of war diaries, contrasting private records with the narratives that emerge from records managed by government. He advises a number of UK government departments on issues of records management, declassification and corporate memory.

He was co-editor of the journal Intelligence and National Security for eight years and now co-edits the companion book series Studies in Intelligence with Christopher Andrew.

Resources for Secret Intelligence: A Reader

Teaching and supervision

Please note that I am currently on secondment to the Institute of Advanced Study during the period 2011-2014. During this time the postgraduate modules listed below are being delivered by colleagues. Normally I teach on the following:

Vigilant State: The Politics of Intelligence and Secrecy; PO382 - BA Year 3 - both terms; This module is delivered jointly by Richard Aldrich and Simon Willmetts.

Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency; PO972 - MA - term one

Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism; PO973 - MA - term two