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in Churchill's decision to "Open the Window" (42). Shortly thereafter, it was used by the RAF to great effect on the night of 24/25 July 1943 in a raid on Hamburg. Whether this delay in deployment was an enlightened decision (as has been argued by Price (43) and by Watson-Watt (44) or, ("like the Colonel on the River Kwai some of our own authorities [a reference to Watson-Watt] most closely associated with radar could hardly bring themselves to face a countermeasure... [to a] ... system they had built up" (45)) a case of emotion dominating reason as Jones has argued, it furnishes a concrete illustration of a more general dilemma. That is, how and when to employ a depreciable asset that is perhaps costly to maintain.
It is also interesting to note that concern over whether an asset will become valueless once used or that, upon compromise, an effective countermeasure can and will be developed are often overly pessimistic. In spite of the agonizing over the first use of CHAFF, it is still considered effective in today's sophisticated electronic warfare environment. Similarly, in the use of double agents, a refusal to believe the asset is other than genuine has been observed to continue in the face of strong evidence of hostile control.
