LETTER TO VERNON A. WALTERS FROM DAVID D. GRIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 75
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 22, 1987
• Content Type: LETTER

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Central Intelligence Agency
OCA FILE ?
The Honorable Vernon A. Walters
U. S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, N.Y.
Washington, D. C.
I very much enjoyed our conversation at the farewell
banquet for Judge Webster last Thursday. Since you expressed
an interest in the inscriptions placed under the portraits of
American Presidents at CIA Headquarters, I have had these
copied and typed out for your use. However, after examining
the inscriptions, I am uncertain whether they are what you want.
I have also taken the liberty of enclosing a number of
other items that may be of interest to you. One is Walter
Pforzheimer's Bibliography of Intelligence Literature. Another
is Ed Sayle's Intelligence in the War of Independence, and a
third is a History Staff publication entitled Directors and
Deputy Directors of Central Intelligence. I also enclose
Ed Sayle's article entitled American Service taken from the
International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence.
It contains interesting anecdotal information about the early
days of intelligence in America.
Finally, enclosed is a product of the History Staff that
was originally pulled together for John McMahon's use in
speeches. Some of the anecdotes are quite interesting.
I hope you will find these items useful.
Yours sincerely,
David D. Gries
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
To the Central Intelligence Agency, a necessity to the
President of the United States, from one who knows.
Harry Truman - June 9, 1964
For the Central Intelligence Agency - an indispensable
organization to our country.
Dwight Eisenhower
For: The Central Intelligence Agency with esteem.
John F. Kennedy
To the Central Intelligence Agency with appreciation.
Lyndon Johnson
To the Central Intelligence Agency, a vital aid in the defense
of freedom.
To the Central Intelligence Agency - In peace there is no
substitute for intelligence.
I am impressed with the professionalism and responsiveness of
the Central Intelligence Agency. I think if all Americans know
what I know, there would be an alleviation of concern.
Jimmy Carter
With appreciation and very best wishes.
Ronald Reagan
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Fran The International Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence"
article by Edward ' F. Sayle
THE AMERICAN SERVICE
Washington is the unquestioned father of American military intelligence. A
glimpse at the inventory of his military library, accumulated during the years
between his disasters in the French and Indian War and his victory in the War
of Independence, reveals it to be well-based in intelligence theory. One of
the French editions, for example, forecasts quite accurately the intelligence
methods he would employ during the American Revolution, including the
successful deception operation that preceded his defeat of the British at
Yorktown.
From a present day perspective it is a bit ironic to recognize that the
origins of our foreign intelligence undertakings rest in the Continental
Congress. It was that body, fulfilling the executive responsibility in addition
to the legislative, that established our first foreign intelligence directorate -
the Committee of Secret Correspondence - in November 1775.10
The Continental Congress protected intelligence sources and methods
by authorizing deletion of the names of those employed by the committee
or with whom it had corresponded.1' The members of the committee used
this power wisely. When a courier brought word that France would provide,
covertly, the arms, ammunition, and funds that were needed desperately,
two of the committee's members, Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris,
noted: "We agree in opinion that it is our indispensable duty to keep it a
secret, even from Congress.... We find, by fatal experience, the Congress
consists of too many members to keep secrets."12
Their view was sustained by future Chief Justice John Jay, who cautioned
that public discussion of the transactions of the committee should be limited
to what "may be necessary to promote the common weal, not gratify the
curiosity of individuals.""
On 12 June 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the first secrecy
agreement for government employees. The oath read: "I do solemnly swear,
that I will not directly or indirectly divulge any manner or thing which shall
come to my knowledge as (clerk, secretary) of the board of War and
Ordnance for the United Colonies... So help me God. 114
The Congress also adopted a more stringent oath for itself, declaring
that each member "considers himself under the ties of virtue, honor
and love of country, not to divulge, directly or indirectly those things which
required secrecy. And, that if any member shall violate this agreement. he
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
shall be expelled this Congress and deemed an enemy to the liberties of
America, and liable to be treated as such.""
The Congress also extended the umbrella of confidentiality to its secret
journals. It sheltered sensitive intelligence and foreign relations matters in
this way, and imposed strict controls on the maintenance, access and copy-
ing of the records. 16 This led to Congress's first confrontation with the prob-
lem of what to do about government employees who breached that secrecy.
The talented patriot writer, Tom Paine, was the first to test the system.
In one of his pseudonymous "Common Sense" columns, Paine misused
sensitive intelligence information gained through his post with the Foreign
Affairs Committee. Paine was fired outright and the Congress passed a
patently false resolution refuting his disclosure of covert assistance by
France.17
The crusading oversight bodies of the 1970s (Church committee and Pike
committee) would have been appalled at the activities authorized by the
Congress's founders. For example, they devised and implemented covert
action operations, approved non-attributed black propaganda, and on learning
of abuses in mail opening did not bring it to a halt. Rather, it issued firm
instructions narrowing the scope of who was authorized to do so.'$
This was a time when money (including congressional salaries) was "not
worth a continental," and many members were forced to accept the humilia-
tion of secret charity from the French Minister as the only recourse to
returning home. Yet, despite these money problems, the Congress found the
way to fund intelligence operations in gold and silver, and permitted the
deletion of the names of intelligence sources to whom the specie was paid. 19
Even the Declaration of Independence reflects the Congress's use, on an
unattributed basis, of indications and warning intelligence - the charge
leveled at George III that the king "is at this time Transporting Armies of
Foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and
tyranny." That item was based on copies of the agreements reached by
George III with German princes for the provision of mercenaries - we lump
them all together as the Hessians - to supplement his own Hanoverian forces
destined for America. The documents had been smuggled from London to
Philadelphia via Canada by George Merchant, arriving on 18 May 1776 as
Jefferson was drafting the Declaration.20 ,
The Congress also learned the hard way about excessive compartmenta-
tion. Working with American sympathizers on Bermuda, Robert Morris
engineered a highly successful "smash and grab" raid on the Royal gun-
powder magazine there. But he neglected to tell General Washington of the
mission. Washington, then in Boston, learned quite independently of the
powder store and launched his own raid without telling Congress. By the
time Washington's men arrived in Bermuda, the gunpowder was long gone
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
and the Americans ran into a hornet's nest of British warships. This says
something about the need for a central intelligence agency.21
Our founding fathers were quite pragmatic when it came to intelligence
matters. They authorized gifts and the payment of gratuities for foreign
figures. to be influenced, permitted the expenditure of public monies for
what today is called "operational entertainment," and dedicated ships
under control of the secret bodies of Congress, not the Navy. The ships were
used for conveying secret intelligence and war materiel acquired clan-
destinely.22
There was also a strong element of tradecraft in the use of codes and
ciphers, chemical secret writing and letter-drops in intelligence communica-
tions between the Committee of Secret Correspondence and its agents
abroad. Recognizing the need to learn of thinking abroad, the Congress
established a program to gather foreign publications for analysis.23 Counter-
intelligence operations approved by the Congress included coercive recruit-
ments, penetrations, and many of the untidy aspects of that work. And
when it found U.S. laws inadequate to punish Benjamin Church, Surgeon
General of the military hospital at Boston, for spying on behalf of the
British, the Congress enacted our nation's first espionage law. (The legisla-
tion was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its adverse ruling against
German saboteurs during World War II.)24
Members of Congress and its agents met secretly with representatives of
European states to arrange various levels of support for our cause. Sweden,
for example, agreed to provide sanctuary for American privateers when
pursued by the British. The King of Prussia struck a propaganda blow when
he charged the German princes a fee for transiting cattle as they marched
their troops to ports of embarkation for America. During the covert action
period, Spain contributed the equivalent of a million pounds, and France
drove itself to near-bankruptcy by providing secret assistance before the two
nations entered the conflict with troops and ships. During this secret phase
France provided an estimated 90 percent of our gunpowder, the bulk of
cannon and weapons, and the officers and engineers needed to turn minute-
men into soldiers.25
Even then the Congress was concerned about the Russian menace. Because
we hoped to pay for our foreign military procurement with tobacco, William
Carmichael of Maryland, an agent of the Committee of Secret Correspon-
dence, was tasked with determining if Russian tobacco exports posed a
threat to our plans. He reported the following from Amsterdam in November
1776: "You have been threatened that the Ukraine would supply Europe
with tobacco. It must be long before that time will arrive. I have seen some
of its tobacco here, and the best of it is worse than the worst of our ground
leaf. Four thousand pounds have been sent here this year."26
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Carmichael was undisciplined, but a good agent. While in Paris he was
suspected of having been recruited by the British while meeting with them at
French direction, and was sent home. Later, while serving the State Depart-
ment in Spain, those charges continued to haunt him and the suspicion was
broadcast widely. When British intelligence records of the period became
available in the mid-1800s, scholars learned how thoroughly Benjamin
Franklin's Paris station was penetrated - but not by Carmichael. In the
wartime documents the British complain about some of Carmichael's opera-
tions and bemoan the fact that their "pitch" to him had been rejected.
Despite this "new" evidence, there are some fairly current works that repeat
the old charges. I suggest this stresses the need to exploit enemy records
(captured or otherwise) for counterintelligence information, no matter how
long after the fact.27
My favorite achievement of the Continental Congress grew from the ill-
fated military and covert action operation led by Benjamin Franklin and three
Marylanders, Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll, and Father John Carroll, to
acquire Quebec as the fourteenth colony. On 26 February 1776, and by
secret resolution, the Congress dispatched Fluery Mesplat, his printing equip-
ment, and family, to Canada "to establish a free press... for the frequent
publication of such pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United
Colonies."
The American political operatives and their military forces were forced
to withdraw, but Mesplat, undetected, remained. There he established the
first French-language press in Canada and Quebec's first newspapers, one of
which, the Montreal Gazette, is still published today. It might be described
as U.S. intelligence's longest-running proprietary and covert action opera-
tion, although one might suspect that somewhere along the line we lost
control of it.23
Before leaving the period of the Revolutionary War, there is one other
precedent to be noted from that conflict. It has affected all intelligence
officers, and others, at one time or another - travel vouchers. Yes, even for
his famous "early warning" operation, Paul Revere had a travel order and
had to submit a travel voucher to the Committee of Safety. His claim
included such expenses as boarding the colony's horses, printing some
leaflets, and the like, but it was in regard to something else that Revere
ran afoul of the bureaucrats. After waiting months for the voucher to
be processed, Revere got it back only to find they had reduced his per
diem.29
With victory over Britain, the new nation began writing its Constitution.
The Constitutional Convention provided in Article One for the continuation
of the secret journals, and over the objections of George Mason of Virginia
wrote it in such a way that there could be no pressure for short-term de-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
classification. It also tackled the problem of intelligence. A citation from
The Federalist might best illustrate this. Jay wrote:
There are cases where the most useful intelligence may be obtained, if the
persons possessing it can be relieved from apprehensions of discovery. Those
apprehensions will operate on those persons whether they are actuated by
mercenary or friendly motives; and there doubtless are many of both de-
scriptions who would rely on the secrecy of the President, and who would
not confide in that of the Senate, and still less in that of a large popular
general assembly. The Convention have done well, therefore, in so disposing
of the power of making treaties that although the President must, in forming
them, act by the advice and consent of the Senate, yet he will be able to man-
age the business of intelligence in such a manner as prudence may suggest.30
Another important issue resolved by the Constitutional Convention
was placing foreign intelligence in the hands of a civilian entity, the Depart-
ment of State, rather than the military.
After George Washington took office, the founding fathers were true
to their word; the President was, indeed, the manager of intelligence. When
Washington asked for a "competent fund," the Congress understood, and on
1 July 1790, it gave the President the Contingent Fund of Foreign Inter-
course, the so-called secret service fund. It also permitted accounting by
certificate, the same procedure delegated to the Director of Central Intelli-
gence by the Central Intelligence Act of 1949.31
Actually, Washington had already dispatched an agent abroad in antici-
pation of the funding authority to do so. The agent was Gouverneur Morris,
who thus earns the distinction of being our first intelligence agent abroad
under the Constitution.32 Of him, William MacClay said: "He has acted in a
strange kind of capacity, half pimp, half envoy, or perhaps more properly a
kind of political eavesdropper."33
Washington's secret service fund for the first year was $40,000. By the
third year it had risen to one million dollars, or 12 percent of the national
budget. Much of the money was for ransoming American hostages held in
Algiers, for paying off foreign officials and, in effect, "buying peace."34
Washington's Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, recognized the need
for intelligence and the importance of good cover for secret aides. In a letter
to James Madison dated 27 May 1793, Jefferson (not without whimsy)
said: "We want an intelligent and prudent native, who will go to reside in N.
Orleans as a secret correspondent for 1,000 dollars a year. He might do a
little business, merely to cover his real office. Do point out such a one.
Virginia ought to offer more loungers equal to this, and ready to do it, than
any other state."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
During his presidency, Jefferson received intelligence from France suggest-
ing that Napoleon would be willing to coerce Spain into yielding the Floridas
to the United States for seven million dollars, with Napoleon pocketing most
of the money. Jefferson sought, and in secret session the Congress appro-
priated an even greater secret discretionary fund of two million dollars. It
was used to start negotiations from which Napoleon later backed out.31
Earlier, Jefferson had convinced the Congress to appropriate a sum of
money "for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United
States." This cryptic language was intended to mask the funding of the
Lewis and Clark expedition, which (despite what the schoolbooks tell us)
was planned as an intelligence mission to enter the territories of foreign
states with whom we were at peace, for the purpose of locating and mapping
fortifications. 36
In 1806, the United States considered it essential to conduct another
military reconnaissance, the entire territory drained by the Arkansas and
Red Rivers. Selected to lead this intelligence mission was Lieutenant
Zebulon Pike, a reliable young officer who, the previous year, had conducted
an exploration of the upper course of the Mississippi River. The cover story
selected for the mission was that the expedition was returning a party of
Osage Indians to their homelands. If intercepted by Spanish forces, the party
was under instruction to say it was traveling to the American outpost at
Natchitoches, lost its bearings and had gone off course.
On 3 December 1806, Lieutenant Pike first saw the inspiring peak in the
Colorado Rockies that was later to bear his name. Shortly thereafter Pike's
party of trespassers was captured by the Spanish and taken first to Santa Fe,
then to Chihuahua, while the Spaniards considered what to do with them.
Ultimately, they were released and made their way to Natchitoches, arriving
the following July.
Not surprisingly, when Pike's party returned east they were enmeshed in
political controversy, not honors. The War Department was particularly
sensitive about any discussion of an espionage mission into friendly territory
and, four years later when Pike resolved to publish his journal of the expedi-
tion, it was over the Department's objection.
When the War of 1812 broke out, the man who had been an embarrassing
lieutenant only five years earlier was commissioned a brigadier general. In
April 1813, at age 34, he was killed at the Battle of York (Toronto). Yet,
because Pike had kept accurate journals and maps of both his reconnaissance
and the journey as a Spanish captive, when the Mexican War broke out some
30 years later, his were among the few reliable military intelligence docu-
ments concerning the Mexican territory.37
During Madison's administration, intelligence and other government
secrets gained the added protection of formal document classification;
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
"secret," "confidential," and "private." A fourth level was not added until
World War I, when "top secret" was created to contend with "most secret"
information received from Britain.
Madison, like his predecessors, recognized the need for intelligence,
dispatching secret agents to South America, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, and
Turkey. But, as with Jefferson, his eyes were on the Floridas, and in 1810
he sent agents to West Florida to convince American settlers that if they
separated from Spain, they would be welcome to join the United States.
The settlers responded as expected, adopted a "lone star" flag, captured
Baton Rouge and declared West Florida "free and independent." Within two
days of receipt of reports of the "lone star" declaration, Madison proclaimed
American control over the territory and sent troops.
Madison then took on the rest of the Floridas, dispatching General George
Mathews on the secret mission. Mathews was a veteran of the American
Revolution, a former member of Congress and a recent governor of Georgia.
His instructions were "to take over the Floridas from General Folch if the
Spanish are willing to surrender them."
Mathews opted once again for the "lone star" revolution tactic,
and in March 1812 a group of patriots, which included Georgia milita
in mufti and other volunteers and support by American gunboats,
occupied their first town and moved on to San Marcos near St. Augustine.
They failed in their second conquest attempt but, undaunted, organized
a government, chose a governor, and ceded East Florida to the United
States.33
In Washington the situation had changed. President Madison had paid
S50,000 for the letters of John Henry, a British spy, which exposed British
efforts to woo the Federalists.39 The documents had been well-publicized,
the New England Federalists embarrassed and the British thoroughly
denounced for intervention in our domestic affairs. Arriving in Washington
when it did, news of Mathews' action permitted President Madison to share
the embarrassment he had engineered. The British had been doing only a
little bit of spying and buying; General Mathews had successfully incited
a revolution, seized the territory of a nation with whom we were not at war,
and employed U.S. naval forces to boot.
Although there had been secret Congressional approval for launching
Mathews' mission" the President had no option but to reprimand him and
to promise return of the land to Spain. He did not return it, and Andrew
Jackson administered the coup de grace during the War of 1812.
It was also during Madison's term that a successful, if unholy, alliance
was made with gangsters of the period for intelligence purposes. The pirate
Jean Laffite and his men were used to scout, spy and sometimes fight for
General Jackson in Louisiana.41
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
In 1818, the question of declassifying the secret journals first arose.
Recognizing the role of the executive, the Congress permitted the President
to withhold from declassification those matters related to foreign affairs,
including foreign intelligence, that he deemed necessary to require continued
protection. Thus, the published secret journals of the revolution, (declassi-
fied in 1818) and the confederation period (declassified in 1820) - much
like the information released these days under the Freedom of Information
Act - are incomplete and fragmentary. Even then, there was embarrassment
to some - for example, disclosure of the unanimous secret resolution of
Congress authorizing the Secretary of State, for reasons of national interest,
to open any letter in any post office, except those to and from members of
Congress.42
From time to time, there had been rumblings in the Congress about secret
agents and the sums to support them, but it was not until March 1818 -
nearly 29 years after President Washington had sent his first secret agent
abroad - that the issue erupted in the Senate as a purely political one. By
then the framers of the Constitution and founders of the Republic had
retired or had died. The issue was raised by young men, examining the
system they had inherited. One, Henry Clay, objected to including in the
public appropriations bill monies for three individuals, saying he felt the
Contingent Fund was primarily, if not exclusively, to be used for such secret
agencies. The Congress affirmed this, struck the money from the appropria-
tions bill and added it to the Contingent Fund.43
The matter arose again in 1825 with Adams as President and Clay, Secre-
tary of State. The opposition condemned sending official observers to the
Panama Congress. Several members of Congress suggested from the floor that
secret agents - spies paid from the Contingent Fund - should have been
sent instead."
Six years later, in 1831, the appropriations bill was again at issue, this
time over treaty commissioners. To put an end to queries, the administration
moved to transfer money from the appropriations bill to the secret service
fund. The opposition objected, saying it did not mind the Contingent Fund
being used to pay secret agents, but that treaty commissioners were another
thing. They lost, and the issue was again buried in the secrecy of the Contin-
gent Fund.4s
During these debates, the first full public statement of the purpose of the
secret fund surfaced. Senator John Forsyth, later to be Secretary of State
to Presidents Jackson and Van Buren, declared: "The experience of the
Confederation having shown the necessity of secret confidential agencies in
foreign countries, very early in the progress of the Federal Government, a
fund was set apart, to be expended at the discretion of the President on his
responsibility only, called the Contingent Fund of Foreign Intercourse....
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
It was given for all purposes to which a secret service fund should or could
be applied to the public benefit. For spies, if the gentleman pleases ..... 146
Later challenges were defeated in 1838 and 1842, with one buried and the
second settled by removing payment of Department of State dispatch agents
from the sanctuary of the secret fund.47
The early years of our republic contain a number of fascinating intelli-
gence episodes, carefully detailed in the so-called "secret agent bundles"
(formally "Documents Relating to Special Agents of the Department of
State") in the National Archives.
In one bundle, for example, one may find a storybook-type agent, George
Bethune English. English, a former lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, had
resigned his commission to become a Muslim officer in the Turkish Army,
and served in Ismail Ali's campaigns into the Sudan. On his return to the
United States, he was recruited by President Monroe to return to the capital
of Islam as a secret agent. His mission was to determine the receptivity of the
Ottoman Empire to a commercial treaty with the United States and its
consent to our desire to trade on the Black Sea. Representing himself as an
American named Musselman, English managed "quietly and without observa-
tion" to obtain a copy of the Turkish treaty with France. 48
Another agent launched by President Monroe in 1823 was Alexander
McRae, who was sent to Europe to report on the possibility of European
intervention in South America. McRae's letter of instruction contained this
admonition, one not unfamiliar to those in the intelligence profession:
"You will assume no public character, but take passports of a private citizen
of the United States.... And you will take proper precautions for avoiding
any appearance or suspicion of your being employed by a public
agency....1149
Much has been written about Joel Poinsett's mission to purchase Texas
from Mexico for five million dollars. Most forget that it was a failure,
choosing only to recall that on Poinsett's return to the United States he
introduced our popular holiday flower. His successor, Anthony Butler, was
also a failure, but he did it magnificently. He attempted to bribe Mexican
officials into selling Texas and when that failed he came up with the unique
idea of an unrepayable loan to Mexico with Texas as collateral. Although it
was denied at the time, the Mexican government also accused Butler of being
behind attempts to recruit so-called "colonists" to revolutionize Texas."
After Santa Anna's defeat in 1836, the question arose in Washington
about diplomatic recognition of the Texans. A secret agent was sent to
inquire into the political, social and economic conditions in the new
republic, their military strength and financial resources and the ability of
Sam Houston's government to meet its international obligations. The agent,
Henry W. Morfit, came back with the word, in effect, "They're not ready
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
yet," leading Jackson to recommend to the Congress that the U.S. stand
aloof to Sam Houston's overtures. By March of the following year the situa-
tion had changed and the United States finally recognized the Republic of
Texas.s1
Another of President Jackson's agents is worth noting, if only because the
case reflects how little our fledgling nation knew about the world. Edmond
Roberts was assigned to investigate secretly the operations of the British East
India Company. He sailed for the Far East in 1832, rated as the captain's
clerk on the sloop Peacock. Only the ship's captain knew his true status.
Unfortunately, information at the Department of State regarding the coun-
tries he would visit was not very extensive or exact. In fact, titles and
identities of some of the national leaders he was to approach were unknown
in Washington. Simply, he was given a quantity of passports with blank
spaces so that he might enter the necessary information on the spot. And,
since he might-be able to negotiate a treaty here and there, he was furnished
with a supply of letters of credence with similar blank spaces. By the time
Roberts died in Macao four years later, he had concluded treaties with
Siam and the Sultan of Muscat! S2
President Tyler also had a bit of controversy over the natural combination
already mentioned: Texas, secret agents and the Contingent Fund. Duff
Green, a leading newspaper publisher and businessman, was sent to England
to collect intelligence and engage in a bit of covert action related to the
possible annexation of Texas. One of his letters about Texas was published
in the British press, naturally not over his own name. The letter created such
a stir that the Congress asked Secretary of State Calhoun to identify the
writer and summon him before Congress. Calhoun replied that he couldn't
ascertain the identity of the writer.
Congress. tried again, closer to target, asking if Duff Green had been
employed in Europe. Calhoun must have winced before responding, saying
there was "no communication whatever either to or from Mr. Green, in
relation to the annexation of Texas, to be found in the files of the Depart-
ment."
The next inquiry was to the point: Was Duff Green paid money from the
Contingent Fund appropriated by the Congress? By then the Senate had
already rejected the treaty of annexation, and the secret no longer needed to
be held. President Tyler answered that although he was not required to tell
the Senate whom he paid from the Contingent Fund, he would oblige just
this once. Yes, Duff Green had been employed to collect information about
a negotiation being contemplated, but later abandoned. You will note that
he did not answer the original question: Who wrote the controversial
letter?s3
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Tyler, after leaving office, was not to hear the last of his Contingent Fund.
It was charged in the Congress that Tyler's Secretary of State, Daniel
Webster, had used some $17,000 from the fund for propaganda in the U.S.
religious press to win support for an unpopular treaty with Canada. By
deposition, Tyler told the investigating committee that what they were
probing was a secret matter and Webster had been deputized to carry it out.
The committee backtracked. It said it had no intention of investigating the
acts of presidential secret agents or of judging the propriety of using them
within the United States.54
The full House wasn't mollified. It called on President Polk to surrender
the accounts of all payments from the fund during Tyler's administration.
Polk refused disclosure, noting:
The experience of every nation on earth has demonstrated that emer-
gencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely necessary for the public
safety or the public good to make expenditures, the very object of which
would be defeated by publicity... In no nation is the application of such
funds to be made public. In time of war or impending danger the situation of
the country will make it necessary to employ individuals for the purpose of
obtaining information or rendering other important services who could never
be prevailed upon to act if they entertained the least apprehension that their
names or their agency would in any contingency be revealed.ss
Polk's statement, for the first time in the nation's history, gave public
recognition to the clear linkage between "obtaining information," or collec-
tion, and "rendering other important services," undefined. It is rather like
the phrase "to perform such other functions and duties related to intelli-
gence affecting the national security..." found in the National Security Act
of 1947.
Polk had good reason to defend the integrity of the Contingent Fund and
to include "rendering other important services" in addition to collection. He
was then using the fund for agents to Mexico and to California for what we
would now call covert action to assure that California and Texas would drop
into the U.S. bucket.
As war clouds thickened, Polk received an intelligence report that Mexico
might cede California to Britain, effectively and permanently blocking
American dreams of stretching to the Pacific. He authorized Thomas Larkin,
a Massachusetts businessman, to assure the Californians that "Should Cali-
fornia assert and maintain her independence, we shall render her all the kind
offices of our power, as a sister Republic." Should the question of annexa-
tion arise, Larkin was empowered to say that the United States had no such
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
aspirations. "unless by the free and spontaneous wish of the independent
people of adjoining territories."
Larkin was instructed to propound these ideas secretly, but back in
Washington the opposition got it all wrong; they claimed that Larkin had
been instructed to produce a revolution in California and Col. John Fremont
had been given authority to sustain it. 16
The war with Mexico broke out in 1846, and once more President Polk
turned to a secret agent, this time Moses Yale Beach, a journalist and one of
the founders of the New York Associated Press. Beach traveled to Mexico,
using a British passport, and under instruction "never to give the slightest
intimation, directly or indirectly, that you are an agent of this Government."
Beach is said to have done well. He met with prominent Mexicans and
became actively involved in the political and social life of Mexico City, all
with the objective of seeking a way toward peace, a task some historians
say he almost 'accomplished. Interestingly, the suspicious American press
never unmasked his missions'
President Taylor also had his spy flap, and handled it with a flourish. It
surfaced in the Congress that he had dispatched an agent to take soundings
of the Hungarian revolt, and perhaps do a bit more if it looked as though the
Magyars would win. They didn't, and the Congressional leak resulted in a
strong note from the Austrians saying that had the American agent been
apprehended, he could have been treated in a manner traditional for spies.
President Taylor, in angry response, defined a spy as one sent by one belliger-
ent against another to gain secret information for hostile purposes. The
United States was neutral in the conflict, ergo the man was an observer, not
a spy. Furthermore, the President of the United States took great offense at
the suggestion this country would employ spies."
President Pierce, as Polk, made extensive use of agents and covert action.
One of the most innovative plans was one to acquire Cuba from Spain.
Spain had refused to part with the troublesome island, and a scheme was
devised to force them to sell. It called for cooperative European money-
lenders to call in their loans to the Spanish Crown, pressuring Madrid to sell
Cuba to the United States as a means to raise the needed cash. The plan went
well until leaked to the New York Herald S9
In another ploy aimed at the same target, President Pierce acquiesced to
the formation of an exile army in New Orleans for the "liberation of Cuba."
When political realities forced Pierce to end his support of the proposed
invasion, he used positive intelligence on Cuban fortifications to convince
an old friend, who was the leader of the rebel army, to call it off.60
To demonstrate the problems Pierce faced, one need only look at one
intercepted letter brought to his attention. In it were British plans to sell
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
guns to Costa Rica for use in a war with Nicaragua, which would have the
effect of driving out the Americans there. Pivotal then, as now, were the
Miskito Indians.61
President Buchanan had his spies, too. Francis J. Grund, the newsman
credited with being the father of the sensational style of journalism, served
in Europe as a roving spy-at-large, investigating a number of issues of concern
to the President. He was authorized to reveal his true status only to U.S.
ministers in whatever countries he visited, but to all others he was to be only
an interested and inquisitive private citizen.62
Hours could be spent on the Civil War: the exploits of the civilian Pinker-
tons in uncovering plots against the Union; the military men of Lafayette
Baker's secret service; overhead reconnaissance by Professor Lowe's "Aero-
naut Corps" of balloonists; and President Lincoln's fascination with com-
munications intelligence. (He wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in the
War Department telegraph office to keep it a secret from others in the White
House who might have leaked advance knowledge of the plan.)63
For the first time since the American Revolution, the United States was
unsparing in staffing and funding its intelligence activities abroad. Evidence
of this includes:
1. Agents with some ten million dollars to engage in preclusive purchasing
in Britain, a measure to block similar Confederate purchases of materiel.
2. Some two dozen agents in Britain and on the continent to identify secret
sales and ship construction as part of British and French covert support of
the Confederacy. The Federal Intelligence Service, as it was called, had
little difficulty in recruiting clerks in business houses and shipyards to
obtain the information.
3. Seizure on the high seas of a Scots-registry ship with a British crew sailing
with false documentation for a fictional destination because we knew from
our agents that it was actually being delivered to the South. The ship was
held in a neutral port throughout the war. When the conflict ended, rather
than expose the intelligence on which its capture was based, the U.S.
apologized and agreed to a small compensation.
4. Secret negotiations to recruit General Garibaldi to accept senior rank in
the Union Army in order to increase immigrant enlistments. Initially, his
terms were excessive and could not be met. When the General finally made
the necessary concessions, he was no longer needed; the tide of war had
turned and immigrant enlistments were up.
5. Operations into Canada to thwart Confederate operations being launched
from there and to build a case for claims against the Canadians and British
for assisting the Confederacy covertly. Lincoln and Secretary of War
Stanton, for example, dealt personally with a "doubled" courier who
served as a vital link between Canada and Richmond 6t
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
The conflict was not without the type of unauthorized disclosure that has
plagued other national endeavors and endangered the lives of many. To see
the effect of one leak during the Civil War, for example, we turn to an angry
letter by Major General Joseph Hooker to the Secretary of War. Referring to
a leak in the Washington Morning Chronicle, Hooker complained:
Already all of the arithmeticians in the army have figured up the strength
of sick and well, as shown in this published extract, as belonging to this army.
Its complete organization is given, and in the case of two corps, the number
of regiments. The chief of my secret service department would have willingly
paid $1,000 for such information in regard to the enemy at the commence-
ment of his operations, and even now would give that sum for it to verify
the statements which he has been at great labor and trouble to collect and
systemize ss
An investigation disclosed that the information had been given to the
newspaper by a member of the Surgeon General's staff. In his defense, the
offender wrote:
...to his entreaties for news as to the health of the army, I let him copy
the letter, directing him, however, to omit the address and signature, and any
marks which might denote the official and thus attach to it importance or
credibiility.... In this connection it might be stated the only newspaper
reporters who visit this office belong to the New York Trines and the Wash-
ington Oironicle, both of which I believe to be loyal papers, and incapable of
using to the public injury information that they might obtain... 6s
Hooker was right and the leaker was wrong. The newspapers, although
seen by the leaker as "loyal," had indeed used the information to the public
injury. In the National Archives one may still examine General Robert E.
Lee's report to the Confederate Secretary of War citing the Chronicle article:
According to Lee, "Taking the report... his aggregate force, by calculation,
amounts to more than 159,000 men."61
A landmark court decision regarding the nation's intelligence service stems
from the Civil War. William A. Lloyd, under personal contract to President
Lincoln, was sent south to collect tactical and political information. He was
to be paid $200 a month, but when the war ended and he returned north,
his case officer had been assassinated and he was reimbursed for expenses
only. He took the matter to the Court of Claims seeking additional compen-
sation.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in deciding the case, acknowledged that the
President had the authority to employ secret agents, that all such agent
contracts were binding on the government, and that the sums should be paid
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
from the Contingent Fund. Yet, because Lloyd had taken the matter to the
courts, it ruled against him, stating:
The service stipulated by the contract was a secret service; the information
sought was to be obtained clandestinely and was to be communicated pri-
vately; the employment and the service were to be equally concealed. Both
employer and agent must have understood that the lips of the other were to
be forever sealed respecting the relation of either to the matter. This condi-
tion of the engagement was implied by the nature of the employment, and is
implied in all secret employments of the Government... If upon contracts
of such matters an action against the Government could be maintained in the
Court of Claims... the whole service in any case and the manner of its dis-
charge with the details of its dealings with individuals and officers, might be
exposed to the serious detriment of the public. A secret service, with liability
to publicity in this way, would be impossible... The publicity produced by an
action would itself be a breach of a contract of that kind, and thus defeat
recovery... 66
In this decision are the roots for the so-called "Glomar defense;" that is,
the government is not admitting such information exists, but if it does
indeed exist, it would be properly classified and could not be disclosed. The
Supreme Court decision put it this way:
It may be stated, as a general principle, that public policy forbids the
maintenance of any suit in a court of justice, the trial of which would in-
evitably lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards as
confidential, and respecting which it will not allow the confidence to be vio-
lated ... Much greater reason exists for the application of the principle to cases
of contract for secret services with the Government, as the existence of a
contract of that kind is itself a fact not to be disclosed."
After the Civil War, Presidents continued to dispatch agents, with Canada
a favorite destination. In 1869, for example, President Grant dispatched
James Wickes Taylor to the area of the Red River rebellion in Canada to
determine if sentiment existed for the annexation of the Selkirk area, or
even more, by the United States. It didn't exist. The dissidents did not want
to leave Canada; they just wanted to be a second Quebec.67
In 1881, the Army devised the idea of "hunting and fishing leave," a
means by which officers could be dispatched to conduct terrain reconnais-
sance, yet provide some degree of official deniability." Captain Daniel
Taylor performed such a reconnaissance along the St. Lawrence River in
1881, and in 1890, Lt. Andrew Summers Rowan (of later "message to
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Garcia" fame) did a detailed reconnaissance of the entire line of the Canadi-
an Pacific Railway.
Perhaps one of the most daring, as well as most publicized, intelligence
missions of this type was that of 1st Lieutenant (later Brigadier General)
Henry H. Whitney to Puerto Rico in 1897. Whitney infiltrated Puerto Rico
by signing on as a crew member of a British tramp steamer. Before his
arrival, however, the story was leaked and newspaper articles discussed his
secret mission at length. Forewarned by the American media coverage,
Spanish authorities conducted an extensive search of the ship on its arrival,
but failed to detect or apprehend him. He not only landed safely, but was
able to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the southern part of the
island.69
The need for such intelligence was great, and in 1902, the Military Infor-
mation Division of the Army instructed commanding officers of a number of
frontier posts.to send secret tactical reconnaissance missions into Canada
for mapping purposes.'? ("Hunting and fishing leave" existed in Army
regulation, in one form or another, until 1928.)
This period saw heightened interest in military intelligence. The Office of
Naval Intelligence was formed in 1882, followed by the Bureau of Military
Intelligence (Military Information Division after 1901) in the Army in 1885,
the year that President Cleveland also authorized the posting of military and
naval attaches at our foreign legations.''
But perhaps the best evaluation of this period is that of Thomas Miller
Beach, a British intelligence agent who served under cover in the United
States from 1867 to 1888, as part of a network the British and Canadians
maintained along the border and in such cities as Chicago, Detroit, and
Buffalo. In his memoirs, Beach provides this critique of the American
service: "America is called the Land of the Free, but she could give England
points in the working of the Secret Service, for there, there is no stinting of
money or men.""
The Spanish-American War was a time of testing for Naval Intelligence,
and its hastily assembled networks had a successful track record in collect-
ing both political and strategic intelligence. But, with the end of the war and
demobilization, the networks were all but scrapped; few saw the need for an
energetic and continuing intelligence capability." Proof of this is found in
the emasculation of the Military Information Division in 1908, when it was
assigned to what might be called a map and document library function at the
Army War College. As with Presidential agents, when military intelligence
missions were required, personnel were recruited ad hoc.
An example of this was a joint intelligence mission launched in 1909. Two
military officers were sent on a two-year reconnaissance of Taiwan, the
Ryukyus, the Japanese home islands, Korea, and Manchuria. Commander
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
THE HISTORICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
Joseph "Snake" Thompson of the U.S. Navy Medical Service and 1st Lt.
Consuelo A. Seoane, 3rd Cavalry, traveled under assumed names and South
African nationality, posing as naturalists while mapping Japanese fortifica-
tions and coastal facilities. To enhance their cover, they collected specimens
and maintained bogus diaries of botanical finds (for the benefit of Japanese
surreptitious entry teams) and checked in regularly with British consular
authorities to affirm Crown protection due South African nationals.74
Similarly, when communications intelligence about the Mexican Army
was desired, the task was given to the Arizona National Guard. They were
quite successful in the assignment, crossing the border and stringing a land-
line "tap" to a Mexican military telegraph pole.''
There were those who recognized the need for an informed military
intelligence establishment, but their efforts were not always wise or success-
ful. Shortly before World War I, for example, the Commandant of the Com-
mand and General Staff School, Fort Leavenworth, acting on the suggestion
of the Chief of the War College Division, determined to prepare a regular
intelligence publication for appropriate Army distribution. The first issue,
which drew on intelligence reports forwarded to the Command and General
Staff School, resulted in a strong note of protest from the British. One item
in the new publication, they said, had been given to the U.S. military attache
in London only after securing his solemn promise to maintain it with utmost
secrecy. The promising intelligence publications program came to a complete
halt. 76
There were the inevitable feuds as well. In January 1916, the Director of
Naval Intelligence complained to the Chief of Naval Operations that the
Assistant Secretary of the Navy was attempting to usurp the control of the
DNI over intelligence by organizing his own secret intelligence bureau. The
Navy intelligence chief asked, unsuccessfully, which office held responsi-
bility for coordination of intelligence activities within the Navy Department.
The DNI survived the crisis, but what of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
who dabbled in intelligence? Franklin D. Roosevelt went on to become the
Constitutional manager of intelligence for the nation."
The U.S. declaration of war against Germany in World War I stemmed
from an intelligence success, the interception and decoding by the British
of the infamous Zimmerman telegram. President Wilson sought the declara-
tion after unilateral confirmation of the proposed collusion of Germany and
Mexico detailed in the encrypted message.
That conflict also saw the establishment of the nation's first permanent
combat intelligence system. On 31 August 1917, General Pershing created
the Intelligence Section, General Staff, and by the end of the year had
ordered creation of a Regimental Intelligence Service. Training began
immediately and by mid-1918 an Army Intelligence School had been estab-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
lished in Europe. Regimental and battalion S-2's were given the manpower
and the sole purpose of collecting intelligence. This wartime precedent led
to the inclusion of intelligence sections at the battalion, regimental, and
brigade level when the Army was restructured at the end of the war. Albeit
the poor intelligence officer at the battalion level also found himself detailed
as adjutant, plans and training, and supply officer.""
During the postwar years there were proposals that something be done
to coordinate intelligence. One plan called for the creation of a Bureau of
Intelligence with a director appointed by and responsible to the President.
Too many turfs would have been trod on, and the plan was doomed.
Another concept was a clearing house, without a central bureau, to com-
pare reports and to assign investigations. That plan was shelved when the
MID pointed out that it was already serving as such a clearing house, receiv-
ing and indexing reports from the various intelligence components. Pro-
prietary interest set the stage for a disaster yet to come.79
This is not to say the various components in the intelligence arena were
ineffective. Each toiled away in its own environment, producing the intelli-
gence necessary to meet individual command requirements. I will not
belabor here the fact that one of the critiques of Pearl Harbor was that there
was too much of this individual "noise," and no one to pull it together. Nor
did the intelligence components act in concert; each was vulnerable to the
budgetary and political whims of those above.
One telling example of this is the demise of the State Department's code-
breaking office, the so-called "Black Chamber." After Henry L. Stimson had
been in office for a few months as Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State,
Herbert Yardley, who operated the "Black Chamber," felt it was time
Stimson lost some of his innocence. He sent Secretary Stimson copies of an
important series of diplomatic messages, which had just been decrypted.
Stimson was shocked. To the new Secretary of State, the "Black Cham-
ber" was a violation of the principle of mutual trust on which he conducted
both his personal affairs and foreign policy. In his memoirs almost two
decades later, he explained he was guided then by the belief that the way to
make men trustworthy was to trust them. He was dealing as a gentleman
with other gentlemen sent as ambassadors and ministers from friendly
nations, and "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
Stimson withdrew all State Department funding from the 10-year old
operation, and on 29 October 1929, the "Black Chamber" was closed and
its staff dispersed. Fortunately for the nation, the Army saw it as time to
consolidate its code-making and code-breaking in a small Signal Intelligence
Service created the following year. (Although Stimson said he never re-
gretted the decision to close the "Black Chamber," by 1940 the world had
changed, and so had the Secretary of War. In that post, Stimson found no
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
ethical objection to the vital intelligence being gained through the cnypto-
analysis known asMAGIC.)ao
We were back in the ad hoc mode that had seemed to plague our national
intelligence effort after every war. When an estimate of the German Air
Force was needed. Charles Lindbergh was prevailed on to destroy his reputa-
tion with a "good will" visit to Germany and its military air bases. (The
estimate he penned for the signature of the U.S. Military Attache in Berlin
was wrong, despite his good intentions. The Germans had shuttled aircraft
about from field to field so that at each visit Lindbergh was, unknowingly,
counting the same planes.)" When the President needed information on
German rearmament he turned to scholars, businessmen, industrialists, and
reporters to serve as executive agents, just as other Presidents had done
before him. Dilettantes agreed to hike through Germany, observing what the
President had asked them to observe.
The disaster came and the nation was unprepared politically and mili-
tarily.92
There is a lesson in all this, and none said it better than President
Woodrow Wilson in discussing his dilemma at the time of the Zimmerman
Telegram:
You have got to think of the President of the United States as the chief
counsellor of the Nation, elected for a little while but as a man meant con-
stantly and every day to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, ready to order them to any part of the world where the
threat of war is a menace to his own people.
And you cannot do that under free debate. You cannot do that unde-
public counsel. Plans must be kept secret.
Knowledge must be accumulated by a system which we have condemned,
because it is a spying system. The more polite call it a system of intelligence.
You cannot watch other nations with your unassisted eye. You have to
watch them with secret agencies planted everywhere.
Let me testify to this my fellow citizens, I not only did not know it until
we got into this war, but did not believe it when I was told that it was true,
that Germany was not the only country that maintained a secret service.
Every country in Europe maintained it, because they had to be ready for
Germany's spring upon them, and the only difference between the German
secret service and the other secret services was that the German secret service
found out more than the others did, and therefore Germany sprang upon the
other nations unaware, and they were not ready for it."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02: CIA-RDP90M00004ROO0300010003-1
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004ROO0300010003-1
I30C3d006G3G~1Da~l Off
UJTUJUJCL UTNJL
EIGHTH EDITION, 1985
Edited by
Walter Pforzheimer
Defense Intelligence College
Washington, D.C.
20301-6111
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
The Uneven Evolution of American Intelligence
An independent state needs intelligence once it acquires at least
one foreign enemy. When an enemy is immediately dangerous--most
obviously in time of war--the need for good intelligence can be crucial
for survival. When a state is relatively secure, either because it has
no significant enemies, or its enemies are at least temporarily weak,
the need for intelligence diminishes. Sometimes, of course, a state
thinks that it is secure when it is not--and sometimes it is much more
secure than it thinks.
The history of American intelligence is not the story of small and
simple beginnings that gradually and steadily over two centuries evolved
into our present large and complex intelligence establishment. Rather,
after a good deal of attention to intelligence in the dangerous first
fifty years of our independence the United States enjoyed a period of
relative security for the rest of the 19th century and up to the First
World War. In that war the United States reluctantly took its place as
a world power, and since the Second World War America has been forced to
face such an array of foreign enemies--actual and potential--that we
have had to develop an intelligence community to match our immensely
powerful military forces.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Sparse Intelligence Activity in
19th Century America: Reasons
In 19th century America intelligence efforts, such as they were,
were for the most part organized only in time of war. After the War of
1812 and by the time of the Monroe Doctrine declaration in 1823 the
threat of foreign enemies to the United States had faded. From that
time until the First World War the United States enjoyed what historians
have called a period of "Free Security". Only the European great powers
could threaten us, and we were protected from them by the Atlantic Ocean
and the Royal Navy. Canada was a hostage for Great Britain's good
behavior, and in any case Britain had found a mutual interest with the
United States in keeping European powers from expanding into the Western
Hemisphere.
We nevertheless fought three wars between 1815 and 1917. Of these,
however, two were short limited wars: one fought against a weak
neighbor in 1846 and the other against the dying Spanish Empire in
1898. The only great American war in this period we fought against
ourselves, from 1861 to 1865. Secure in the Western Hemisphere and
blessed with a dearth of foreign enemies, the United States grew rapidly
in territory, population and strength in the century before World War I
without worrying much about foreign enemies or world politics. Our
armed forces (except during the Civil War) were tiny, our diplomacy
amateur, and an intelligence capability was hardly needed at all.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
America as a Weak New State, 1775-1823
Once we took up arms against George III, and decided to form an
independent state, intelligence work--both with Washington's army and
abroad--was crucial for our survival. For some fifty years after the
Revolutionary War the United States was a weak new state that pursued
non-alignment but was nevertheless frequently embroiled in the balance
of power politics of the European great powers, who fought a global war
from 1791 to 1815. From Lexington and Concord in 1775 to the
declaration of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States depended
mainly upon skillful diplomacy and very slender military resources first
to achieve, then to preserve, our independence. Living in a threatening
world, we had to work hard for our safety and survival.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Nathan Hale
American military intelligence began with the Revolution. The first
U.S. intelligence and reconnaissance unit was established in 1776.
Known as Knowlton's Rangers, it was an all-volunteer unit whose officers
included a young Yale graduate named Nathan Hale. Hale volunteered to
go behind British lines in New York posing as a Dutch schoolmaster, to
get information for General Washington. He volunteered on 11 Sept.
1776, a date once proposed as the birthdate for Military Intelligence
but rejected by the Army on the grounds that Hale's capture and hanging
within two weeks was not an auspicious beginning. His statue stands in
front of Headquarters, inscribed with his last words, "I only regret
that I have but one life to lose for my country."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Continental Secret Service
As a result of Nathan Hale's failure, George Washington organized a
secret intelligence bureau, the Continental Secret Service, commanded by
Hale's friend and Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge. This organization
ran an agent net targeted against New York, then occupied by the
British. The organization worked well for over five years, and provided
Washington with a great deal of useful intelligence.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Washington's $17,000
During the American Revolution George Washington, who often
dispatched his own agents, is known to have spent $17,000 on secret
intelligence. About the only person Washington fully trusted in the
secret intelligence effort was Alexander Hamilton, who worked
principally with cyphers and secret writing.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Benedict Arnold
In the Revolutionary War an early American intelligence
success--although probably by accident--was the uncovering of Benedict
Arnold's conspiracy.
On the other hand, identifying Arnold's disaffection and recruiting
him was a British intelligence success.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Counterintelligence in the American
Revolution: Washington Quotation
On 24 March 1776 General George Washington wrote:
"There is one evil I dread, and that is, their spies. I could wish
therefore, the most attentive watch be kept.... I wish a dozen or more
of honest, sensible and diligent men, were employed...in order to
question, cross question etc., all such persons as are unknown, and
cannot give an account of themselves in a straight and satisfactory
line.... I think it a matter of imnportance to prevent them from
obtaining intelligence of our situation."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
"The necessity of procuring good Washington's Morristown
Intelligence... Letter, 26 July 1777
After writing about his wish to have trusty persons sent to Staten
Island to get intelligence about the enemy, Washington concludes:
"The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not
be further urged-- All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the
whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends
in Most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are ?enerally
defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.'
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Withholding Secrets from Wriston, pp 14-15
Congress, 1776
Speaking of a despatch from the American agent, Arthur Lee, in
London, the Committee of Secret Correspondence (established by the
Continental Congress, 29 Nov. 1775) wrote:
"Considering the nature and importance of [the despatch], we agree
in opinion, that it is our indispensable duty to keep it a secret, even
from Congress.... We find by fatal experience, the Congress consists of
too many members to keep secrets."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Protection of Sources: 1776 Wriston p. 15
When the Continental Congress, on 10 May 1776, called upon the
Committee of Secret Correspondence "to lay their proceedings before
Congress Monday next," an exception was made to permit them to withhold
"the names of persons they have employed or with whom they had
corresponded."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
President Washinton's Contingent Fund Henry Wriston, Executive
for Secret Agents. Agents in American Foreign
Relations 1929 p. 695
Writing in 1929 on the use of executive agents by U.S. presidents
from George Washington onward, Henry Wriston explained how the very
existence of the President's "contingent fund" (provided annually by
Congress) implied his power to use such agents for secret purposes in
foreign relations:
"The contingent fund, from which a very large proportion of
executive agents have been paid, has implicit in its very character the
expectation that there is need for secret business. No other
explanation is possible for the provision which appeared in the very
first appropriation, allowing the President simply to state the amount
of his expenditures from the fund for foreign relations without
revealing either the purpose or the person to whom the money was paid.
So general has been the idea that this fund was designed for secret
business that it has often been called the secret service fund."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
War of 1812
After the Revolutionary War the Army practically disappeared for a
time, and nothing was done to maintain any kind of military intelligence
capability.
In the War of 1812 the U. S. Army had little or no formal
intelligence organization, although scouts were widely used for
reconnaissance. The Army was small and unprofessional, and had lost
even the intelligence skills developed at the strategic level in the
Revolution. In the War of 1812 there was no leader with the awareness
of the importance of intelligence that Washington had demonstrated. The
American set-backs at Detroit and in the abortive attempt to invade
Canada were part of the price the U.S. paid for poor intelligence.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Mexican War
In 1845, on the eve of the Mexican War, the U. S. Army's
Quartermaster General did not know whether the Army could use wagon
transportation in Mexico--and no one in Washington could tell him.
Once in the war, however, General Winfield Scott organized the
Mexican Spy Scout Company under Col. Ethan Allen Hitchcock. Made up of
local bandits hired on a temporary basis, the company provided
information that helped Scott conquer Mexico City. The unit's operating
plan was simple -- the scouts changed into civilian clothes and rode
into town.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Pinkerton & McClellan
When Lincoln was elected in 1860 he hired Allen Pinkerton to protect
him on the way to Washington. Pinkerton's uncovering of the "Baltimore
Conspiracy" earned him Lincoln's confidence, and led to his working for
General McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac.
Pinkerton was not notably successful at collecting military
intelligence, and he left the Army of the Potomac soon after McClellan
was fired. Since McClellan's greatest fault was his hesitancy to fight,
and Pinkerton habitually overestimated enemy strength, theirs was an
unpromising partnership from the outset.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
In the Civil War neither side was prepared for military intelligence
work. Some effective work was done, and some innovations introduced,
but the Civil War was not a war in which intelligence played a major
part.
Allen Dulles once observed of the Civil War, "No great battles were
won or lost or evaded because of superior intelligence. Intelligence
operations were limited for the most part to more or less localized and
temporary targets."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Prof. Lowe's Balloons in the Civil War
Aerial reconnaissance, in the form of balloon observers, was a
common and fairly successful method of intelligence collection for the
Union Army.
The best of the Northern balloonists was Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, who
sent Lincoln a telegram describing what he could see from 500 feet above
Washington, in June of 1861. (This was the first time that an
electrical message had been transmitted from a balloon.)
Lincoln was impressed and got the reluctant Army to employ Lowe.
Lowe was the first to adjust gunfire from the air, by telegraphing
corrections to Union artillery. And Lowe was also the first effectively
to use a camera from a balloon.
Lack of Army support led Lowe to leave govenment service in May 1863.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Confederate Intelligence
Although in the South as in the North there was no unified
intelligence organization of effort, the Confederacy ran many effective
agent operations, especially in Washington, D.C.
Union newspapers, a very productive source of intelligence for the
South, were always easily available.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Civil War - Results
Although many new intelligence techniques were used in the Civil
War, sometimes with excellent results, there was little effective
organization, doctrine or coordination of efforts on either side. What
organization was developed was completely disbanded after the war. For
some 20 years Indian Scouts were the U. S. Army's only intelligence
activity.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Office of Naval Intelligence, 1882
In March 1882 the Secretary of the Navy established an Office of
Intelligence in the Bureau of Navigation, "to collect and record such
naval information as may be useful to the Department in wartime as well
as peace."
ONI mainly collected technical military information, but political
reports were also sometimes submitted by naval officers abroad.
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Naval Attache System Corson, P. 593
The USN sent its first naval attache to London in 1882. In 1885 an
officer was assigned to Paris, with additional responsibilities for
Berlin and St. Petersburg. An attache was sent to Rome in 1888, with
responsibility also for Vienna.
Between the Spanish American War and the First World War the naval
attache network expanded to Tokyo, Madrid, Caracas, Buenos Aires and the
Hague.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Military Information Division, 1885
In 1885 the Army formed what became the Military Information
Division, by detailing one officer and one clerk to file information
received from embassies and newspapers.
By 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish American War, the Military
Information Division had 12 officers, 10 clerks and 2 messengers. Since
1894 it had operated on an annual budget of $3,640--which also funded 16
military attaches abroad.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Naval & Military Attache Corson, p. 593
Systems: 1880s
The formation of an attache system, by the U.S. Navy in 1882, and by
the U.S. Army in 1889, provided for continuing full-time US military
representatives abroad, with freedom to move in both military and
diplomatic circles.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Military Attache System, 1889
In 1889 Congress approved the U. S. Army's first permanent military
attache system. This was an important step toward establishing a
national strategic collection effort. In fact, until about 1940 the
military attache system was the backbone of the Army's peactime foreign
intelligence effort.
Originally an attache was sent to each of the five major European
capitals: Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London and St. Petersburg.
By the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898 military attaches
were sent to 16 capitals, including Madrid.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
First World War Impact Kahn, MD, p. 141-2
on Cryptology
Before 1914, codebreaking was a negligible intelligence source. The
First World War demonstrated its value beyond question. Before the war
only three great powers--France, Russia and Austria-Hungary--had
cryptanalytic agencies. Afterward, all did. When peace returned the
four great powers that had not been breaking codes before WWI--Germany,
Italy, Britain and the U.S.--all retained their wartime agencies.
Cryptology thus won widespread government support and a permanent
organizational existence.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Breaking the Japanese Code and the 1921
Washington Naval Disarmament Conf.
After World War I the State and War Department set up the "American
Black Chamber" strategic cryptologic operation in New York, headed by
Herbert Yardley. By the time of the Washington Naval Disarmament
Conference in late 1921 sixteen of the Japanese diplomatic codes had
been broken. A principal issue at the Washington Conference was the
limitation of capital ships by a ratio between the five major naval
powers, the U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy. The Japanese
Government authorized its delegation to offer three positions, each to
be insisted upon as long as possible before falling back to a lower
ratio. The U.S. Secretary of State, having read Japan's instructions,
was able to press the Japanese delegation until they reached their final
position, for the famous 5: 5: 3 battleship ratio between the U.S.,
Great Britain and Japan.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Secretary of State Stimson
closes down the Black Chamber, 1929
In 1929 President Hoover's new Secretary of State, Henry Stimson,
closed down the "Black Chamber," Herbert Yardley's cryptologic operation
in New York. Stimson is alleged to have said, "Gentlemen do not read
each other's mail."
An embittered and unemployed Yardley wrote his best-seller, The
American Black Chamber, which covered his operations so thoroughly that
19 nations reportedly changed their code systems.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Gen. Marshall on Military Attache Intelligence
before World War II
General George C. Marshall once observed that "Prior to World War
II, our foreign intelligence was little more than what a military
attache could learn at dinner, more or less over the coffee cups."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Results of Military Eisenhower, Crusade
Attache System to WW II in Europe, p-3
Writing of the War Dept's severe intelligence deficiencies before
World War II, Gen. Eisenhower criticized its total reliance on military
attaches for foreign intelligence. Explaining his opinion of the
quality of attaches, he wrote:
". . . since public funds were not available to meet the unusual
expenses of this type of duty, only officers with independent means
could normally be detailed to these posts. Usually they were estimable,
socially acceptable gentlemen; few knew the essentials of intelligence
work."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Pearl Harbor and Surprise
Thomas. E. Schelling,
Foreword to Roberta
Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor:
Warning and Decision )
"Surprise, when it happens to a government, is likely to be a
complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of
responsibility, but also responsibility so poorly defined or so
ambiguously delegated that action gets lost. It includes gaps in
intelligence, but also intelligence that, like a string of pearls too
precious to wear, is too sensitive to give to those who need it. It
includes the alarm that fails to work, but also the alarm that has gone
off so often that it has been disconnected. It includes the unalert
workman, but also the one who knows he'll be chewed out by his superior
if he gets higher authority out of bed. It includes the contingencies
that occur to no one, but also that everyone assumes somebody else is
taking care of. It includes straightforward procrastination, but also
decisions protracted by internal disagreement. It includes, in
addition, the inability of individual human beings to rise to the
occasion until they are sure it is the occasion--which is usually too
late.... Finally, as at Pearl Ha_rFor, surpise may include some measure
of genuine novelty introduced by the enemy, and possibly some sheer bad
luck."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Pearl Harbor: Intelligence Failure? R. Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor
Warning and Decis on.
There is a considerable body of opinion that the cause of the Pearl
Harbor disaster was not a lack of intelligence but rather the lack of a
system to pull the available intelligence together and distinguish the
warning signals from the surrounding noise. Tension between Japan and
the United States had been building up for years, and especially since
the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. In the years just before war broke
out both Army and Navy intelligence organizations had focused mainly on
the Japanese threat, and the U.S. had broken their major codes. In
retrospect it seems clear that by November 1941 Washington had adequate
evidence that Japan was preparing to attack U.S. forces somewhere in the
Pacific on short notice, and probably by surprise.
Before the event, however, it was nowhere near so clear, and the
best analysis of Pearl Harbor concludes that we failed to anticipate the
Japanese attack "not for want of relevant materials, but because of a
plethora of irrelevant ones." And even if the signals had been
correctly interpreted as warning of imminent danger from Japan, there
were still very large problems in determining exactly what specific
danger was imminent, and what specific action should follow. All this
would have been difficult at best, and in fact the small, fragmented and
competing American intelligence organizations failed to collect,
identify and interpret the relevant signals to provide a warning that
those at the top could act on.
The United States flunked these tests on 7 December 1941 and since
then the fear of another Pearl Harbor has been an extraordinarily
powerful argument for a permanent and professional central intelligence
organization in peacetime. There were continual allusions to Pearl
Harbor in the discussions and debates surrounding the formation of CIA
in 1947, and not much has happened since then to give the American
people less reason to fear surprise attack.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Contributions of
Codebreaking to
Pacific War
Kahn, MD, p. 147
Although American success in breaking Japanese codes did not prevent
Pearl Harbor, this form of intelligence made great contributions to our
war against Japan. As Admiral Nimitz said later, the Battle of
Midway--the turning point in the war--was "essentially a victory of
intelligence. In attempting surprise, they themselves were surprised."
Because of codebreaking, General Marshall observed, "We were able to
concentrate our forces to meet their naval advance on Midway when
otherwise we would almost certainly have been some 3000 miles out of
place."
Communications intelligence contributed in two other major ways to
Pacific Victory. It stepped up American submarine sinkings of Japanese
merchant shipping by one-third, and it made possible the dramatic
mid-air assassination of Admiral Yamamoto in 1943.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Donovan and the Formation of COI, 1941
In 1940-41 President Roosevelt had sent William J. Donovan, a World
War I Medal of Honor winner and influential Wall Street lawyer, on a
fact-finding mission to assess the war in Europe and the chances of
Great Britain. On his return Donovan reported, among other things, that
the British had an important advantage in a coordinated intelligence,
propaganda and special operations effort. He pointed out that American
intelligence was being collected and handled by at least eight
agencies: Army G-2, ONI, FBI, State, Secret Service, Customs Service,
Immigration Service and FCC.
Donovan proposed a single agency to coordinate all intelligence and
counterpropaganda, and to conduct training for sabotage and subversion.
On 11 July 1941--five months before Pearl Harbor--Roosevelt
appointed Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI), with a mission "To
collect and analyze all information and data which may bear on national
security, to correlate such information and data...and to carry out when
requested by the President such supplementary activities as may
facilitate the securing of information important for national
security...."
The COI reported directly to the President, and not surprisingly
both the Army G-2 and ONI objected strenuously to the new organization.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Donovan and Formation of OSS, 1942
In the summer of 1942 COI was reorganized into a new Office of
Strategic Services--OSS. COI's "white" foreign propaganda functions
were given to the new Office of War Information, while OSS retained
COI's responsibility for "black" propaganda, for collecting and
analysing strategic intelligence, and for training and organizing for
unconventional operations. Donovan was appointed Director of OSS, and
instead of reporting directly to the President, OSS was placed under the
operational control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In many respects OSS was created to have an opposite number to
cooperate with British intelligence, just as the JCS was created to have
an opposite number for the British Chiefs of Staff Committee. The
British were the most important influence on the evolution of OSS, which
operated principally in Europe and Southeast Asia, where Britain was
also committed.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Formation of OSS 1942 Mark Lowenthal U.S.
Intelligence, p. 9
Under charter of 13 June 1942 COI was renamed OSS and placed under
JCS jurisdiction to "collect and analyse such strategic information" as
JCS required, and to "plan and operate such special services" as they
directed.
Notes OSS handicaps:
1. Continuing competition with other agencies and intelligence
producers (especially FBI and Army's G-2)
2. As part of JCS organization, OSS had to compete with Joint
Intelligence Committee (JIC), which had been created to fill JCS needs.
3. JCS members never convinced of utility of subversion,
propaganda and resistance groups. (British stressed these efforts in
1940-41; US planners rejected them as too indirect and merely a product
of British limited military capabilities--assumed the British were
making a virtue out of necessity.)
(It was in fact the British model that was most influential in the
establishment of OSS, and most of original operational expertise came
from the British.)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS compared to British Intelligence Orgns Eliz. Barker, TLS
12/2/83 Review of
B.F.Smith, Shadow
Warriors
"The OSS was the American equivalent of at least four British
organizations operating in the Second World War: M16 or the Secret
Intelligence Service; SOE (the Special Operations Executive); PWE (the
Political Warfare Executive); and the Foreign Office Research
Department, composed of distinguished academics and retired ambassadors."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Formation of OSS 1942 Mark Lowenthal U.S.
Intelligence, p. 8
On war as great simplifier for policy decisions and functions--larger
issues of friend and foe, and goals become simpler than in peacetime.
"Intelligence is urgently needed in war, but wartime is not necessarily
the best period for an intelligence to develop."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS Organization
OSS was organized into the following branches:
A. Research & Analysis (R&A): provided economic, social and
political analyses.
B. Secret Intelligence (SI): engaged in clandestine collection from
within enemy and neutral territory.
C. Special Operations (SO): conducted sabotage and worked with
resistance forces.
D. Counterespionage (X-2): engaged in protecting U.S. and Allied
intelligence operations from enemy penetrations.
E. Morale Operations (MO): responsible for covert or "black"
propaganda.
F. Operational Groups (OG): conducted guerrilla operations in enemy
territory.
G. Maritime Unit (MU): carried out maritime sabotage.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS in World War II:
Research & Analysis
The U.S. had never before had an organization like OSS's Research
and Analysis Branch. Headed by the historian William Langer of Harvard,
it brought together scholars and experts from a host of disciplines, who
formed the first organization for the coordination and production of
strategic intelligence.
Corey Ford, in Donovan of O.S.S. writes:
"...the Research and Analysis branch was the very core of the
agency. The cloak-and-dagger exploits of agents infiltrated behind the
lines captured the public imagination; but the prosaic and colorless
grubbing of Dr. Langer's scientists, largely overlooked by the press,
provided far and away the greater contribution to America's wartime
intelligence. From the files of foreign newspapers, from obscure
technical journals, from reports of international business firms and
labor organizations, they extracted the pertinent figures and data.
With infinite patience, they fitted the facts together into a mosaic of
information... on which the President and his Chiefs of Staff could form
their operational decisions."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS R & A Branch and Area Studies McGeorge Bundy in The
Dimensions of Diplomacy
(1964)
"It is a curious fact of academic history that the first great
center of area studies in the United States was not located in any
university, but in Washington, during the Second World War, in the
Office of Strategic Services. In very large measure the area study
programs developed in American universities in the years after the war
were manned, directed, or stimulated by graduates of the OSS--a
remarkable institution, half cops-and-robbers and half faculty meeting."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Contribution of OSS in World War II Mark Lowenthal U.S.
Intelligence, P7-g-_10
"The overall contribution of OSS to the allied war effort was
modest."
1. R&A assembled impressive array of talent, produced some
excellent studies and analyses--but OSS only one of seven major
intelligence producers.
2. There were nearly a dozen joint intelligence groups with
specific fuctions or areas of expertise, as well as other less important
efforts in other agencies or groups.
3. Little coordination of all these efforts, and competition was
promoted rather than controlled or channelled toward specific results.
4. Absence of any regular lines of reporting & disseminating
information also minimized the OSS role as Intelligence
producer--especially for president and his top advisers.
N.B. OSS postwar emphasis on more glamorous operational aspects of
its work also helped undercut an understanding of its role as
intelligence producer.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS Contributions to WWII: No role in MAGIC Lowenthal,U.S.
Intelligence, p. 9-10
One important US intelligence contribution to conduct WWII was impact of
the MAGIC translations of decoded Japse messages on Pacific naval
battles.
NB. OSS had no role in MAGIC for Pacific--nor any except cooperating
(and receiving) role in British ULTRA decoding.
US clandestine collection in Europe and Far East was of no great
consequence.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Legacy of OSS Lowenthal, U.S.
Intelligence, p. 10
In spite of uneven record in WWII effort, OSS created many traditions in
US intelligence:
1. Important training ground for a generation of intelligence
personnel, both operators and analysts
2. Provided an esprit, which those who stayed in intelligence work
carried with them.
3. Established a tradition of housing analysis and operations in
the same organization. (And OSS activities demonstrated some of the
underlying tensions between these two aspects of intelligence.)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Donovan: OSS Lesson for postwar intell. organization Lowenthal, U.S.
Intelligence, p. 10
OSS's difficulties in establishing a clear role for itself
strengthened Donovan's conviction that a peacetime (civilian and
central) successor intelligence organization should be responsible to
the president.
(In this Donovan aroused opposition of military, who wanted a committee
that would report to Secretaries of War, Navy and State, not to the
president.)
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Donovan's Proposal for a Postwar Central
Intelligence Organization, 1944
In 1944 General Donovan prepared a long memorandum for President
Roosevelt proposing that OSS be used as the nucleus for a permanent,
centralized national intelligence organization. "Once our enemies are
defeated," he wrote, "the demand will be equally pressing for
information that will aid us in solving the problems of peace."
Donovan's plan outlined three principles that should govern a
peacetime central intelligence organization:
A. The supervision of this central agency should be accomplished by
the President;
B. It should have central authority to oversee the entire national
intelligence effort;
C. It should have no police or law enforcement powers.
Although neither Roosevelt nor Truman accepted Donovan's proposal,
these three principles were in fact incorporated in the National
Security Act of 1947 that created CIA.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Demise of OSS: 1 Oct. 1945 Lowenthal, U.S.
Intelligence, p. 12
OSS was one of first casualties of rapid postwar demobilization
Bureau of the Budget recommended a return to departmental rather
than central intelligence, with an interdepartmental committee for
coordination.
In an order signed 20 September 1945, President Truman ordered
termination of OSS operations effective 1 October 1945.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
OSS Surviving Components (R&A, SI & X-2) Lowenthal, U.S.
Intelligence, p. 12
1. Research & Analysis (R&A) went to State Dept., where it was
joined with other units to form the Interim Research and Intelligence
Service. (Pres. Truman hoped that State Dept. would "take the lead" in
coordinating intelligence.)
2. Secret Intelligence (SI--clandestine collection) and X-2
(counterespionage) went to the War Dept.; which combined them into the
Strategic Services Unit (SSU), headed by General Donovan's former
deputy, General Magruder.
All three surviving branches continued their previous activities.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Dissolution of OSS, 1 October 1945
Soon after V.J. Day President Truman, by Executive Order 9621 of 20
September 1945,, dissolved the Office of Strategic Services, effective 1
October 1945. The Research and Analysis Branch (R&A) was transferred to
the Department of State, while the War Department got the Secret
Intelligence (SI) and X-2 (counterintelligence) branches, and whatever
else was left over after demobilization.
Since the OSS paramilitary services phased out rapidly, what the
Army got was an independent organization, named the Strategic Services
Unit (SSU), which contained mainly espionage and counterespionage
elements.
General Donovan retired to civilian life, and his deputy, General
Magruder briefly headed SSU. William Langer took R&A to the State
Department before returning to Harvard.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Central Intelligence Group, January 1946
On 22 January 1946, less than four months after the dissolution of
OSS, President Truman, by presidential directive, established a National
Intelligence Authority (NIA) made up of the Secretaries of State, War
and Navy, along with the president's personal representative, Admiral
William D. Leahy. This NIA was responsible for a new coordinating body,
to be called the Central Intelligence Group (CIG). Staff and funds for
CIG were to come from the departments of State, War and Navyy and these
departments continued to maintain their own autonomous intelligence
services. CIG was expected to reassemble some analysts--the original
plan was for about 80--to process intelligence from other agencies.
Sidney Souers, a Missouri friend of Harry Truman who had served with
distinction as a reserve rear admiral in ONI during the war, was the
first Director of Central Intelligence--the title for the head of CIG.
Within six months Lt. General Hoyt Vandenberg succeeded Souers, serving
till May 1947. Vandenberg was succeeded by Rear Admiral Roscoe
Hillenkoetter, who remained DCI until 1950 after the formation of CIA in
September 1947.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
Creation of CIA
National Security Act of 1947
Since CIG was not an independent central intelligence organization,
the question of centralization versus confederation became part of the
larger debate on the unification of the armed forces. The National
Security Act of July 1947, which created the National Security Council,
an independent Air Force and what became the Department of Defense, also
provided for a permanent and independent civilian Central Intelligence
Agency.
The sections of the act concerning CIA had a good deal of similarity
to the concept of Donovan's original OSS charter and his 1944 memorandum
proposing a central intelligence organization to President Roosevelt.
Its language in many respects also closely followed the directive
setting up CIG, most notably in its omnibus provision that the CIA
should "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence
affecting the national security as the National Security Council may
form time to time direct." This clause has been the legislative basis
for a number of important CIA missions--most notably covert action--that
are not specifically mentioned in the act.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1
U. S. Bias against Spies
In 1973 a U. S. Army history of Military Intelligence observed:
"Throughout U. S. military history it can be seen that intelligence
capabilities for wartime spring from a nucleus of counterintelligence.
Between wars, what little intelligence was preserved was normally only
defensive in nature, at least until the time of the Cold War Era. While
the reason for this is not entirely clear, it could be hypothesized that
American traditionally abhor 'spies' or 'spying' and that it reflects
the public will that only 'counterspies' are acceptable in peacetime."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/07/02 : CIA-RDP90M00004R000300010003-1