{"id":52,"date":"2007-02-01T11:58:40","date_gmt":"2007-02-01T16:58:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/a-brief-history-of-american-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2007-02-01T11:58:40","modified_gmt":"2007-02-01T16:58:40","slug":"a-brief-history-of-american-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/52\/a-brief-history-of-american-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of American Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"147322a129097e1fa44d6732c925fd6d\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-8134560547846945\";\r\n\/* 468x60 tha *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"1487607395\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action                  have been important tools of US political leaders since the founding                  of the Republic.\u00c2\u00a0 During the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/categories\/Revolutionary-War\/index.html\">Revolutionary War<\/a>, General George                  Washington and patriots such as Benjamin Franklin and John Jay                  directed a broad range of clandestine operations that helped the                  colonies win independence.\u00c2\u00a0 They ran networks of agents and                  double agents, employed deceptions against the British army, launched                  sabotage operations and paramilitary raids, used codes and ciphers,                  and disseminated propaganda and disinformation to influence foreign                  governments.\u00c2\u00a0 America&#8217;s founders all agreed with General                  Washington that the &#8220;necessity of procuring good intelligence                  is apparent and need not be further urged\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6[U]pon Secrecy,                  Success depends in Most Enterprises\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and for want of it,                  they are generally defeated\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Presidents in the early Republic were actively                  involved in intelligence activities\u00e2\u20ac\u201despecially covert actions.\u00c2\u00a0                  In his first State of the Union message, Washington requested                  that Congress establish a &#8220;secret service fund&#8221; for                  clandestine activities. Within two years the fund represented                  over ten percent of the federal budget.\u00c2\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson                  drew on it to finance the United State&#8217;s first covert attempt                  to topple a foreign government, one of the Barbary Pirate States,                  in 1804-05. It failed.\u00c2\u00a0 James Madison employed agents of                  influence and clandestine paramilitary forces in trying to acquire                  territory in the Florida region from Spain during 1810-12. Several                  presidents dispatched undercover agents on espionage missions                  overseas.\u00c2\u00a0 One spy, disguised as a Turk, obtained a copy                  of a treaty between the Ottoman Empire and France. Also during                  this period, Congress first tried to exercise oversight of the                  secret fund, but President James K. Polk rebuffed the lawmakers,                  saying, &#8220;The experience of every nation on earth has demonstrated                  that emergencies may arise in which it becomes absolutely necessary\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6to                  make expenditures, the very object of which would be defeated                  by publicity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/categories\/American-Civil-War\/index.html\">Civil War<\/a> both Union and Confederacy                  extensively engaged in clandestine activities. They acquired intelligence                  from clandestine agents, military scouts, captured documents,                  intercepted mail, decoded telegrams, newspapers, and interrogations                  of prisoners and deserters.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither side had a formal, high-level                  military intelligence service.\u00c2\u00a0 The North&#8217;s principal spymasters                  were Allen Pinkerton and Lafayette Baker\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwho both proved                  most effective at counterespionage\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand military officers                  George Sharpe and Grenville Dodge.\u00c2\u00a0 The confederacy had a                  loose array of secret services that collected intelligence and                  conducted sabotage and other covert actions.\u00c2\u00a0 Three of the                  South&#8217;s most celebrated agents were women\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRose Greenhow,                  Belle Boyd, and Nancy Hart.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1864 Confederate operatives                  tried to organize antiwar elements in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio                  into a secession movement, and set a rash of fires in New York                  City in an attempt to burn it down.\u00c2\u00a0 Northern and Southern                  agents in Europe engaged in propaganda and secret commercial activities.\u00c2\u00a0                  Overall, the North was more effective at espionage and counterintelligence,                  while the South had more success at covert action.\u00c2\u00a0 The hard-won                  expertise and organization built up during the Civil War was soon                  demobilized and dispersed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">The United States&#8217; first formal permanent intelligence                  organizations were formed in the 1880s: the Office of Naval Intelligence                  and the Army&#8217;s Military Intelligence Division.\u00c2\u00a0 They posted                  attaches in several major European cities principally for open-source                  collection.\u00c2\u00a0 When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898,                  the attaches switched to espionage.\u00c2\u00a0 They created informant                  rings and ran reconnaissance operations to learn about Spanish                  military intentions and capabilities\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmost importantly, the                  location of the Spanish Navy.\u00c2\u00a0 One U.S. military officer                  used well-placed sources he had recruited in the Western Union                  telegraph office in Havana to intercept communications between                  Madrid and Spanish commanders in Cuba.\u00c2\u00a0 The US Secret Service\u00e2\u20ac\u201din                  charge of domestic counterintelligence during the war\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbroke                  up a Spanish spy ring based in Montreal that planned to infiltrate                  the US Army.<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/categories\/World-at-War\/WWI\/index.html\">World War I<\/a> started in 1914, the United                  States&#8217; ability to collect foreign intelligence had shrunk drastically                  because of budget cuts and bureaucratic reorganizations.\u00c2\u00a0                  The State Department began small-scale operations against the                  Central Powers in 1916, but not until the United States declared                  war on Germany in 1917 did Army and Navy intelligence receive                  infusions of personnel and money\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtoo late to increase their                  intelligence output correspondingly.\u00c2\u00a0 The most significant                  advance for US intelligence during the war was the establishment                  of a permanent communications intelligence agency in the Army\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe                  forerunner of the National Security Agency.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the                  Secret Service and military counterintelligence aggressively interdicted                  numerous German covert actions inside the United States that included                  psychological warfare, political and economic operations, and                  dozens of acts of sabotage against British-owned firms and factories                  supplying munitions to Britain and Russia.\u00c2\u00a0 The Justice Department&#8217;s                  Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) took on a counterintelligence                  role in 1916, and Congress passed the first federal espionage                  law in 1917.<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">Between the wars, American Intelligence officers                  concentrated on codebreaking and counterintelligence operations                  against Germany and Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 Notwithstanding Secretary of                  State Henry Simson&#8217;s alleged dictum that &#8220;gentlemen do not                  read each other&#8217;s mail,&#8221; by 1941 the United States had built                  a world-class signals intelligence capability.\u00c2\u00a0 The &#8220;Black                  Chamber&#8221; under Herbert Yardley, the Army&#8217;s Signal Intelligence                  Service under William Friedman, and Navy cryptanalysts cracked                  Tokyo&#8217;s diplomatic encryption systems.\u00c2\u00a0 Working backward                  from intercepts, Friedman&#8217;s team figured out what kind of cipher                  device the Japanese used\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe &#8220;Purple&#8221; machine.\u00c2\u00a0                  During the 1930s, the FBI launched an extremely effective counterintelligence                  attack on German and Japanese espionage and sabotage operations                  in the Western Hemisphere, infiltrating many networks and arresting                  dozens of agents.\u00c2\u00a0 The Bureau had less success against Soviet                  efforts to penetrate US governmental and economic institutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"bodytext\">As American entry into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/categories\/World-at-War\/WWII\/index.html\">World War II<\/a> seemed to                  draw closer in 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the                  country&#8217;s first peacetime, civilian intelligence agency\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe                  Office of the Coordinator of Information\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto organize the                  activities of several agencies.\u00c2\u00a0 Soon after, however, the                  United States suffered its most costly intelligence disaster ever                  when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.\u00c2\u00a0 That failure\u00e2\u20ac\u201da                  result of analytical misconceptions, collection gaps, bureaucratic                  confusion, and careful Japanese denial and deception measures\u00e2\u20ac\u201dled                  to the establishment of a larger and more diversified intelligence                  agency in 1942, the Office of Strategic Services.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thehistoricalarchive.com%2Fhappenings%2F52%2Fa-brief-history-of-american-intelligence%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowTransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px;margin-top:5px;\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action have been important tools of US political leaders since the founding of the Republic.\u00c2\u00a0 During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington and patriots such as Benjamin Franklin and John Jay directed a broad range of clandestine operations that helped the colonies win independence.\u00c2\u00a0 They ran networks of agents and double [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thehistoricalarchive.com\/happenings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}