Introduction: Reconstructing the Identities of an International Non-Governmental Intelligence Agency

In January 1919, delegates to the Paris Peace Conference gathered to discuss the construction of a new international order in the wake of the First World War. The event raised substantial expectations, as reflected in a plethora of petitions and resolutions addressed to the ‘peacemakers’ in the French capital. One such submission came from the Union of International Associations (UIA) , whose Charter of Intellectual and Moral Interests stated that the ‘great international associations’ had been furthering the cause of international cooperation for half a century. Now was the time to acknowledge their work by including a ‘Charter of Intelligence’ alongside a ‘Labour Charter’ and an ‘Economic Charter’ within ‘a kind of Global Constitution of the League of Nations’. The document encapsulated many of the UIA’s core tenets: a belief in the role played by international associations in the making of global order; the impetus to...