Editing Special Operations Executive (section)

===Relationships===
At the government level, SOE's relationships with the [[Foreign Office]] were often difficult. On several occasions, various governments in exile protested at operations taking place without their knowledge or approval, provoking Axis [[reprisal]]s against civilian populations, or complained about SOE's support for movements opposed to the exiled governments. SOE's activities also threatened relationships with neutral countries. SOE nevertheless generally adhered to the rule, ''"No bangs without Foreign Office approval."''{{Sfn|Foot|2004|pp=35–36}}

Early attempts at bureaucratic control of Jefferis's MIR(c) by the [[Ministry of Supply]] were eventually foiled by Churchill's intervention.{{sfn|Milton|2016|pp=38,80,83}} Thereafter, the Ministry co-operated, though at arm's length, with Dudley Newitt's various supply and development departments.{{Sfn|Boyce|Everett|2003|pp=233,238}} The [[HM Treasury|Treasury]] were accommodating from the start{{sfn|Foot|2004|p=26}} and were often prepared to turn a blind eye to some of SOE's questionable activities.{{sfn|Foot|2004|p=243}}

With other military headquarters and commands, SOE cooperated fairly well with [[Combined Operations Headquarters]] during the middle years of the war, usually on technical matters as SOE's equipment was readily adopted by commandos and other raiders.{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|p=98}} This support was lost when [[Vice Admiral]] [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Louis Mountbatten]] left Combined Operations, though by this time SOE had its own transport and had no need to rely on Combined Operations for resources. On the other hand, the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] objected to SOE developing its own underwater vessels, and the duplication of effort this involved.{{Sfn|Boyce|Everett|2003|pp=129–158}} The Royal Air Force, and in particular [[RAF Bomber Command]] under [[Arthur Harris|"Bomber" Harris]] were usually reluctant to allocate aircraft to SOE.

Towards the end of the war, as Allied forces began to liberate territories occupied by the Axis and in which SOE had established resistance forces, SOE also liaised with and to some extent came under the control of the Allied theatre commands. Relationships with [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]] in north-west Europe (whose commander was General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]) and [[South East Asia Command]] (whose commander was Admiral Louis Mountbatten, already well known to SOE) were generally excellent.{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|pp=141–145, 191–195}} However, there were difficulties with the Commanders in Chief in the Mediterranean, partly because of the complaints over impropriety at SOE's Cairo headquarters during 1941{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|pp=90–91}} and partly because both the supreme command in the Mediterranean and SOE's establishments were split in 1942 and 1943, leading to divisions of responsibility and authority.{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|pp=138–141}}

There was tension between SOE and SIS, which the Foreign Office controlled. [[Stewart Menzies]], the chief of SIS, was aggrieved to lose control of Section D.{{sfn|Smith|2019|p=24}} Where SIS preferred placid conditions in which it could gather intelligence and work through influential persons or authorities, SOE was intended to create unrest and turbulence,{{sfn|Hastings|2015|pp=264-266}} and often backed anti-establishment organisations, such as the [[Communist]]s, in several countries. At one stage, SIS actively hindered SOE's attempts to infiltrate agents into [[German occupation of France during World War II|enemy-occupied France]].{{Sfn|Foot|2004|p=87}}

Even before the United States joined the war, the head of the newly formed Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), [[William J. Donovan]], had received technical information from SOE and had arranged for some members of his organisation to undergo training at a [[Camp X|camp]] run by SOE in Oshawa in Canada.{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|p=95}} In early 1942, Donovan's organisation became the [[Office of Strategic Services]]. SOE and OSS worked out respective areas of operation: OSS's exclusive sphere included China (including [[Manchuria]]), [[Korea]] and Australia, the Atlantic islands and Finland. SOE retained India, the Middle East and East Africa, and the Balkans. While the two services both worked in Western Europe, it was expected that SOE would be the leading partner.{{Sfn|Wallace|Melton|2010|p=7}}

In the middle of the war, the relations between SOE and OSS were not often smooth. They established a joint headquarters in [[Algiers]] but the officers of the two organisations working there refused to share information with each other.{{Sfn|Hastings|2015|p=292}} In the Balkans, and [[Yugoslavia]] especially, SOE and OSS several times worked at cross-purposes, reflecting their governments' differing (and changing) attitudes to the [[Yugoslav Partisans|Partisans]] and [[Chetniks]]. However, in 1944 SOE and OSS successfully pooled their personnel and resources to mount [[Operation Jedburgh]], providing large scale support to the French Resistance following the [[Normandy landings]].{{sfn|Boyce|Everett|2003|p=205}}

SOE had some nominal contact with the Soviet [[NKVD]], but this was limited to a single liaison officer at each other's headquarters.{{Sfn|Wilkinson|Astley|2010|p=95}}