London Controlling Section
The London Controlling Section (LCS) was a British secret department established in September 1941, under Oliver Stanley, with a mandate to coordinate Allied strategic military deception during World War II.
The LCS was formed within the Joint Planning Staff at the offices of the War Cabinet, which was presided over by Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.
In June his post of Controlling Officer was handed over to Colonel John Bevan, who managed the LCS until the end of the war.
In early 1941 Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke's 'A' Force department, based in Cairo, undertook deception operations for the North African campaign.
His task was made more difficult by the fact that strategic deception was a wholly new concept in England, and had few champions in the military establishment.
The army sent Lieutenant Colonel Fritz Lumby, while the RAF, refusing to send any Group Captains due to the Battle of Britain, commissioned the author Dennis Wheatley as their representative.
The climate was not right for strategic deception on the Western Front, very few offensive operations were being planned, and Stanley was not able to do much to raise the profile of the department.
To make matters worse, Stanley's wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and he took extensive sick leave to care for her.
The letter seems to have invigorated Churchill's interest in deception; when Bevan arrived at the department on 1 June he found himself promoted to Controlling Officer; Stanley's request to return to politics having been speedily granted in the interim.
He recognised the role that the London Controlling Section could play in Allied strategy and set to work making it happen.
[15] For an operation to be successful, there must be a clear statement of the true situation along with the objective and a road map of how to bring a certain belief into the mind of the enemy.
John Bevan, the first Controlling Officer of the LCS, added two additional elements to strategic deception: codebreaking and double agents.
In this respect, British intelligence was in a very strong position since it had broken the German agent codes at a very early stage and was soon after able to intercept and read exchanges between Abwehr headquarters and their outstations.
[22][23] As head of the LCS, John Bevan would clearly rank as one of the four preeminent deception planners in World War II along with Dudley Clarke, Peter Fleming, and Newman Smith.
The strategic plan for Allied deception in 1944, Operation Bodyguard, was drawn up by LCS, which set down the general story of Fortitude.
Ultimately, the TWIST committee was abolished and Ops (B) was allowed to deal directly with Section B1A of MI5, which managed controlled agents.
