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[...]in October 2011, the 780th MI Brigade activated at Fort Meade. MI Soldiers serve at every level from national agencies in the U.S. to tactical units in the field. [...]MI remains a vital part of the Army and Army operations.
Introduction
On July 1, 2012, the Military Intelligence (MI) Branch turned fifty years old. When it was established in 1962, it was the Army's first new branch since the Transportation Corps had been formed twenty years earlier. Today, it remains one of the youngest of the Army's fifteen basic branches (only Aviation and Special Forces are newer). Yet, while the MI Branch is a relatively recent addition, intelligence operations and functions in the Army stretch back to the Revolutionary War. This article will trace the development of Army Intelligence since the 18th century. This evolution was marked by a slow, but steady progress in establishing itself as a permanent and essential component of the Army and its operations.
Army Intelligence in the Revolutionary War
In July 1775, GEN George Washington assumed command of the newly established Continental Army near Boston, Massachusetts. Over the next eight years, he demonstrated a keen understanding of the importance of MI. Facing British forces that usually outmatched and often outnumbered his own, Washington needed good intelligence to exploit any weaknesses of his adversary while masking those of his own army. With intelligence so imperative to his army's success, Washington acted as his own chief of intelligence and personally scrutinized the information that came into his headquarters.
To gather information about the enemy, the American commander depended on the traditional intelligence sources available in the 18th century: scouts and spies. To scout the enemy's front lines, he used units such as LTC Thomas Knowlton's Rangers and COL Elisha Sheldon's 2d Continental Light Dragoons, combat forces that performed a vital reconnaissance function. To look beyond the front lines, however, Washington depended upon networks of spies. To ensure that his army had enough intelligence, he never willingly relied on a single source and, consequently established numerous spy networks over the course of the war. Many of these networks, like MAJ John Clark's in Philadelphia and COL Elias Dayton's on Staten Island, provided the Americans with critical information on British strength and plans.
One of the most effective American spy networks was MAJ Benjamin Tallmadge's so-called Culper Spy Ring on Long Island Tallmadge's two main agents were Abraham Woodhull of Setauket, Long Island, and Robert Towns end of New York City (NYC). The ring took its name from Woodhull's and Townsend's codenames: Samuel Culper and Samuel Culper, Jr., respectively. Tallmadge started organizing the network in the fall of 1778 to provide intelligence on the British forces that occupied NYC. Initially, Woodhull would travel to the city under the guise of visiting his sister, and personally gather information. After June 1779, however, his main task was receiving and transmitting Townsend's intelligence, although he continued to make observations of British forces on Long Island. As a merchant with British military contracts, Townsend was well-placed to gather intelligence; in addition, he often visited a coffeehouse that was frequented by British officers.
Townsend sent his reports to Woodhull via a courier, usually Austin Roe, a tavern keeper in Setauket. Roe used the excuse of buying supplies-often from Townsend-as a reason to make the trek to and from the city. Returning home, Roe placed the report in a box buried in an open field, where Woodhull recovered it, added his own observations, and gave it to Lieutenant Caleb Brewster, a Long Island whaleboat captain. Brewster then transported the report by boat across Long Island Sound to Tallmadge, who inserted his own analysis and forwarded it to Washington's headquarters via a series of dispatch riders.
As the Culper ring matured, it adopted sounder methods. Initially, the agents submitted uncoded reports written in ordinary ink. By May 1779, this dangerous practice was replaced by the use of a secret ink, which disappeared as it dried and required a reagent to make it visible. This allowed Townsend to write his reports on blank sheets of paper blank leaves of pamphlets, or in between lines of personal correspondence. In this way, if the British intercepted the report, neither the intelligence nor the spy would be compromised. Shortly afterwards, Tallmadge added another measure of security by developing a cipher and a codebook for his network. The cipher was relatively simple wherein each letter of the alphabet received a random substitute. For his codebook, Tallmadge assigned three digit codes to some 750 words taken from a published dictionary, and then he added 53 more three-digit codes for important proper names and locations, like Washington, New York, and Long Island. He prepared three such codebooks-one for Townsend, one for himself, and one for Washington. The disappearing ink combined with the codes and cipher gave the Culper network enough security to remain undetected by the British.
The Culper Spy Ring's most dramatic success came in July 1780. Anticipating the arrival of a French army in Rhode Island, Washington instructed Tallmadge to gather information regarding the British situation on Long Island and in NYC. Tallmadge quickly complied and learned that the British planned to attack the French before they had a chance to properly establish their defenses and coordinate with the Americans. Armed with this intelligence, Washington was able to maneuver his forces as if to attack Manhattan, which prompted the British to call off their attack on the French. The Culpers had supplied timely, accurate intelligence that gave Washington a decisive advantage against the British.
Most of the Culpers' information, however, was not nearly as spectacular. Tallmadge and his agents also ascertained the location of British units, made maps and sketches of defenses, noted the arrival and departure of British ships, and gauged the status of British morale. This more mundane information, nevertheless, provided Washington with a steady flow of accurate intelligence that permitted him to make appropriate plans and conduct operations with an excellent situational awareness of the British forces in NYC and on Long Island.
The success of the Culper Spy Ring was attributable to several factors. To be sure, the courage of the network's agents and couriers played a large role in its accomplishments. The network, however, was more than a collection of individuals, it was a system that came together through careful planning and direction. From the top, Washington was in constant contact with Tallmadge, issuing precise instructions and focusing the effort. At the bottom, each individual had specific assigned missions, and practiced solid tradecraft. In the middle, Tallmadge ensured that his agents had the resources they required-including secret ink and a system of codes-and arranged an effective system for communicating with his agents. Moreover, he provided overall direction for his intelligence organization.
When the Revolutionary War ended, the Culper ring and the rest of Washington's spy networks ceased operations and were ultimately dismantled. More significantly, the Army largely forgot the lessons of intelligence operations learned during the war. For the rest of the 18th century and into the 19th, Army Intelligence fell dormant.
Army Intelligence in the Early 19th Century
Without an intelligence minded commander like Washington at its helm, the Army of the new nation did practically nothing in the way of collecting and analyzing information about potential enemies. At the national level, the War Department's central staff mainly concentrated on questions of administration and supply rather than operational planning. In the field, commanders served as their own intelligence officers, relying mostly on simple reconnaissance by scouts or cavalry.
At least one positive development in intelligence, however, resulted from the American experience in the War of 1812. In 1814, the War Department created a unit of topographic engineers to reconnoiter and map positions and routes in support of military operations. Over the next quarter of a century, these engineers underwent a number of reorganizations which culminated in the 1838 formation of the elite Corps of Topographical Engineers. Building upon an Army tradition that dated back to the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803, these "topogs" conducted a series of surveys and mapping missions of the American West during the antebellum years. As a result, they were able to produce the first comprehensive maps of the Trans-Mississippi West in 1857. More important, the topographic engineers provided invaluable topographic and cultural intelligence of the regions beyond the Mississippi River, paving the way for settlement of the American West.
When the U.S. declared war on Mexico in 1846, the Army suffered from lack of operational and intelligence preparedness. During the Mexico City campaign (March-September 1847), however, MG Winfield Scott developed an effective intelligence arrangement for his army in the field. To perform tactical reconnaissance, Scott augmented his cavalry with his staff engineers, including CPT Robert E. Lee and 1LT Pierre G.T. Beauregard. These officers conducted scouting forays to discover potential avenues of approach and determine enemy positions. More than once, they provided critical information that allowed Scott to outflank enemy defenses.
In addition, he made widespread use of spies to gather information. LTC Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Scott's inspector general, managed the secret service, dispersing payments and establishing contacts. In June 1847, Hitchcock hired Manuel Domínguez, a well known leader of a gang of Mexican bandits, and eventually placed him in charge of between 100 and 200 men released from prisons. The group was dubbed "The Mexican Spy Company" and worked as guides, couriers, scouts, and spies. This organization kept the Americans accurately informed of Mexican military movements during the remainder of the campaign. Between his engineers, scouts, and spies, Scott was kept adequately informed of the enemy and terrain that he faced.
While Scott's intelligence operations were the most successful since the Revolutionary War, they remained traditional and ad hoc affairs. He did use members of his staff to gather information and manage his secret service, but essentially remained his own intelligence officer. Although CPT Lee and the other staff engineers gave him a dynamic collection asset, he relied on the same traditional sources as had Washington: scouts and spies. Once the campaign was over and Scott's army returned to the U.S., much of the intelligence system dissolved. Even after Scott became the Army's Commanding General, nothing was done to establish a centralized intelligence staff or agency. Once again, MI was largely forgotten until the next war.
Army Intelligence during the Civil War
In April 1861, the nation once again became embroiled in conflict, this time with itself. The modern nature and large scale of the Civil War broadened intelligence gathering beyond the long-established methods of spies and scouting. With the widespread use of the telegraph to communicate between the field and headquarters, both sides attempted to tap the wires to gather intelligence. This practice quickly led to the employment of rudimentary codes and ciphers, with the Union Army having both better codes and code breakers. Less technologically innovative than the telegraph, the Civil War armies also used signal flags for tactical communications. This method was highly susceptible to enemy interception, and led to increased use of field ciphers and codes. Stationed on high ground to facilitate communications, signal flagmen could also observe enemy movements and thus became an important source of combat information. Both armies also experimented with the use of balloons, but despite initial successes, had ceased aerial operations by June 1863.
Because both the North and the South shared, for the most part, a common language and culture, Civil War armies could make use of readily available intelligence sources. Commanders on both sides were avid readers of enemy newspapers, despite the fact that they frequently printed rumors and factual errors. Captured documents could provide key order of battle intelligence. With methodical and careful analysis, the interrogation of prisoners, deserters, escaped slaves, refugees, and ordinary civilians could yield information on the enemy's order of battle, its location, and its movements.
Of the traditional sources, the scout eclipsed the spy. While often flamboyant, Civil War spies, as a whole, rarely produced the steady stream of accurate information that spies had in the Revolutionary War or even the Mexican War. On the other hand, groups of scouts that infiltrated behind the enemy front lines provided their commanders with a wide range of information from locations of fording sites across rivers to the strength of enemy positions. Without a doubt, however, the single most important intelligence asset was the armies' cavalry units. Regardless of the information coming in from the other sources, Civil War commanders needed cavalry to provide immediate combat intelligence to ensure battlefield success.
When the war broke out, neither the Union nor Confederate armies were prepared for the war in terms of intelligence or much else. Neither had effective centralized intelligence apparatus that could make full use of the variety of intelligence sources. Instead, commanders in the field had to make their own arrangements for intelligence collection. Consequently, they hired spies, sent out scouts, and assigned intelligence missions. Some commanders personally supervised the intelligence operations, while others assigned the responsibility to various members of their staffs. The result of this decentralized activity was a hodgepodge of uncoordinated intelligence structures that occasionally worked at cross purposes.
When MG George B. McClellan took command of the Union forces in the summer of 1861, he brought in Allan Pinkerton, the head of a private detective agency, to establish an intelligence service. During the subsequent months, Pinkerton excelled at counterintelligence (CI) work and, to a large degree, shut down Confederate spy networks in and around Washington. Unfortunately, he was not as successful as an intelligence officer and his estimates of enemy strength were often exaggerated. On the Confederate side, GEN Robert E. Lee never established an intelligence service for his Army of Northern Virginia. Instead, he relied heavily on his cavalry commander, MG J. ?. ?. Stuart, to be "the eyes of his army." In the West, MG Grenville Dodge, the Union commander in Corinth, Mississippi, established a network of over a hundred agents as well as a corps of scouts that ranged as far east as Atlanta, Georgia and as far south as Montgomery, Alabama. In all three of these cases, the intelligence operations were largely improvised, limited in scope, and relied heavily on the analytical skills of their commanders.
In February 1863, MG Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, established the Bureau of Military Information (BMI), under the direction of COL George H. Sharpe. Unlike other intelligence agencies of the Civil War, the BMI was not a temporary expedient. Instead, it was a permanent part of the Army of the Potomac's staff. As such, the BMI travelled with the commander, giving Sharpe almost immediate access to his commander. Normally, the bureau consisted of seventy to eighty men. Most of these were scouts, but Sharpe also had several assistants at the headquarters. Mr. John Babcock and CPT John McEntee were particularly important for Sharpe. Babcock, a civilian, was Sharpe's chief interrogator who kept the BMI's records, sketched maps, and compiled the Order of Battle charts. McEntee organized the scouting operations, assisted with interrogations, and established, when necessary, "branch offices" for the BMI.
The scouts were the BMI's dedicated collection assets. Most of them were veteran noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and enlisted men. These veterans would venture into no man's land or even behind enemy lines with specific instructions from Sharpe. Sometimes they would look for enemy forces. On other occasions, they would explore road networks. Often, they would link up with Southern Unionists who were operating as spies, and return with their reports. These scouts provided the basis of the BMI's knowledge of the enemy's location and movements.
In addition to his scouts, Sharpe obtained valuable information through systematic interrogations of enemy prisoners and deserters. Sharpe and his assistants asked every enemy captive in uniform a battery of questions: identification of his regiment, brigade, division, and corps; when and where he entered the line; location of his corps; when it arrived on the front; and how he was captured or why he deserted. They asked other questions depending upon what information they needed. Treating the answers with careful consideration to weed out exaggerations and misinformation, Babcock was able to assemble an impressive order of battle for GEN Lee's army. By mid- 1863, Sharpe's intelligence service was well acquainted with each Confederate regiment, brigade, and division in Virginia and North Carolina as well as their commanders and locations.
Other information came to the BMI. Reports from cavalry reconnaissance, Signal Corps observation posts, captured correspondence, and communication interceptions made their way to Sharpe and his staff. Newspapers provided an important BMI source, since they shed light on the larger military, economic, and political situation in Richmond. In short, Sharpe developed an all-source collection effort, one of the first in American MI.
When Sharpe reported to his army commander, he did not present raw data, but a careful and thoughtful analysis of the enemy and the terrain situation. Based on the two pillars of scouting and interrogations, Sharpe established a standard of credibility with which to gauge other pieces of information as they arrived at the BMI. The mass of the all-source information was collated, analyzed, condensed, and presented in daily written reports to the commanders of the Army of the Potomac.
Shortly after its establishment, the BMI proved invaluable to Union operational planning. In April 1863, Hooker planned an envelopment of Lee's army to avoid making a frontal attack on the Confederate positions around Chancellorsville. Critical to the strategy was knowledge of the enemy's strength, location, and movements as well as an understanding of the surrounding terrain. Sharpe obliged. In mid- April, one of BMI's patrols discovered a weakly defended area in the Confederate lines, northwest of the main body of Lee's army. Other patrols discovered alternate routes to the area. On top of this, Babcock developed a Confederate order of battle with an estimated enemy strength of 55,300, a figure that came within two percent of Lee's actual strength. Acting on this accurate information, Hooker was able to place his army on Lee's flank. Unfortunately, Hooker was unable to withstand Lee's own brilliant flanking, and thus lost the advantage that the BMI's superb intelligence had given him.
In June 1863, Sharpe and the BMI faced the larger challenge of tracking a moving enemy force during the Gettysburg campaign. Lee wanted to move the war away from Virginia and take it into Union territory. After his victory at Chancellorsville, he marched up the Shenandoah Valley to Maryland and Pennsylvania. Sharpe learned of Lee's advance in late May, but could not confirm the exact locations. Quickly, he sent his scouts out to key fords and gaps-named areas of interest-to pinpoint the Confederate movements. By June 12, Sharpe was able to confirm the location and individual components of Lee's army as it moved eventually assume advantageous north. This allowed the Union forces to set off in a timely pursuit and positions around the Pennsylvanian town of Gettysburg by June 30th.
On the first three days of July 1863, the Union and Confederate forces clashed at Gettysburg. As the armies fought on July 1 and 2, Sharpe worked to update and upgrade the picture of the enemy. Making use of information gleaned from the numerous Confederates taken prisoner, the BMI leadership projected that the Confederates had committed all of their forces except for the four brigades of MG George E. Pickett's division. Despite being made during the high pressure situation of an ongoing battle, this estimate proved remarkably accurate. During the evening of July 2, Sharpe met with MG George G. Meade, the Army of the Potomac's newly appointed commander, and reported that Pickett's division had the only fresh troops available to Lee. That report virtually compelled the Union commanders to remain on the battlefield. As predicted, Lee used Pickett's uncommitted brigades to launch one final attack on Meade's lines on July 3. It failed, leaving the Union forces victorious.
For the remainder of the war, Sharpe and the BMI continued to provide intelligence to the Union commanders in the Virginia theater. Eventually, they supported GEN Ulysses S. Grant, commander-in-chief of all Union forces and his campaigns against Lee and his army. To maintain this support, Sharpe expanded the BMI's sources and assets. He strengthened his ties with the network of Richmond Unionists, such as Elizabeth Van Lew and Samuel Ruth, and established five "depots" to pick up information from Van Lew's or Ruth's agents. Moreover, he organized a network to watch enemy railroads to detect large scale activity. In the end, Lee could not move any large body of troops without Grant knowing about it. In the spring of 1865, the BMI detected Lee's movement from defenses around Petersburg, allowing the Union commanders to plan what would become the final Appomattox campaign.
When the Civil War ended in April 1865, the vast armies were hastily demobilized and the wartime arrangements for gathering intelligence discontinued. Despite the success of the BMI, the Army made no effort to set up a similar organization at the War Department or at any other level. Once again, the organizations and concepts that developed slowly and painfully during wartime were quickly forgotten in peacetime.
First Steps to Modern Army Intelligence
In the decades following the Civil War, much of the Army was scattered across the American West in isolated troop and company-sized detachments with the mission to police and pacify the region. To support military operations, Congress authorized the establishment of a Corps of Indian Scouts in 1866. Locally recruited, they fought alongside the Regulars, but also provided invaluable tracking and scouting skills. Into the 1880s, Army intelligence activities were largely limited to tactical reconnaissance by individual scouts and cavalry troopers in the western U.S.
Against this unlikely background, the Army established its first permanent intelligence organization at the national level. In October 1885, Brigadier General Richard C. Drum, the Army's Adjutant General, created the Military Information Division (MID) as a small subsection in The Adjutant General's Office. As part of its duties, Drum directed the division to collect military data on foreign armies. To support these efforts, he asked senior Army leaders to have their officers submit reports on intelligence gathered during their foreign travels. Initially, the division acted as a relatively passive repository for military related information.
In 1889, the division was able to take a more active collection role when it assumed control and responsibility for the Army's new military attaché system. Congress had authorized the system in 1888, and the Army dispatched officers to the overseas capitals of Berlin, London, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. More important, the Secretary of War required all information from the attachés to go to the MID. By 1898, the Army had 16 attaché posts in Europe, Mexico, and Japan. Until the early 1940s, the attaché system constituted the foundation of the Army's strategic collection effort.
When the war with Spain began in April 1898, the Army for the first time entered into a conflict with at least a semblance of intelligence preparation. For six years, MID had been collecting terrain and order of battle intelligence on the situation in Cuba. When war broke out, it had already prepared detailed maps of the likely theaters of operations in the Caribbean. The intelligence on Spanish strength in Cuba was immeasurably assisted by the accurate reports on Spanish deployments received from CPT Tasker H. Bliss, the attaché in Madrid. In April 1898, MAJ Arthur L. Wagner, the MID chief, sent experienced military observers to Cuba and Puerto Rico to collect specific information on the enemy's capabilities. 1LT Andrew S. Rowan travelled to Cuba, while 1LT Henry H. Whitney went to Puerto Rico. Both returned with valuable information before American forces deployed. As the war progressed, the MID published comprehensive handbooks for both Caribbean countries.
After the dramatic American naval victory in Manila Bay, the Army sent troops to the Philippines in July 1898. American forces gained an easy victory against the Spanish, but then fighting broke out as Filipinos sought independence. To provide information about the Filipino forces beyond tactical reconnaissance, the American commander in Manila created the Bureau of Insurgent Records to translate and collate captured documents. In December 1900, the bureau became the Division of Military Information (DMI) with a mission broader than just that of document exploitation.
The officer in charge of Manila's DMI was CPT Ralph Van Deman, who had previously served on Wagner's staff. Under Van Deman's leadership, the division established a mapping section, maintained liaison with other agencies, relayed intelligence to the field commanders, and provided photographs and descriptions of known Filipino insurgents. At the local level, commanders appointed post intelligence officers to gather information on the surrounding terrain, attitudes of local villagers, and the dispositions of Filipino insurgent groups. In 1902, the division in Manila became a branch office of the MID in Washington.
A year later, the War Department's MID itself underwent resubordination. Secretary of War Elihu Root had established the Army's first General Staff in 1903 to perform administrative, intelligence, and planning functions. The General Staffs Second Division acquired the MID from The Adjutant General. It was given four major duties: collecting and disseminating information on foreign countries; directing the work of the attaché system; supervising mapping, and maintaining a reference collection. For the moment, the intelligence function had achieved equal standing with other staff missions.
This status, however, would not last long. Over the next several years, the Army's intelligence organization was caught up in bureaucratic maneuvering with unfortunate results. In 1908, the Army merged the General Staffs Second Division (MID) with the Third Division, which was responsible for contingency and operational planning, to become the War College Division. The union proved a setback for the function at the Army level. The function was now assigned to a Military Information Committee, which no longer produced intelligence the Army as a whole, but only for the War College Division. Over time, committee produced less and less intelligence, despite having an attaché system. By 1915, the committee was an organization on paper only.
While Army Intelligence had almost ceased to exist at the national some positive developments occurred in the field. In early March 1916, Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, and killed over a dozen Americans. In response, President Woodrow ordered BG John J. Pershing to lead a division- sized punitive into Mexico to hunt down Villa's guerrilla band. Pershing, who the value of good intelligence, appointed MAJ James A. Ryan as the tion's intelligence officer. Ryan organized an effective "service of information" that provided a detailed knowledge of northern Mexico. Ryan and his successor, CPT Nicholas W. Campanule, made profitable use of local informants. Active patrolling complemented this information. In addition to a large number of horse cavalry, the expedition fielded Indian Scouts for the last time.
These traditional collection methods were supported by newly emerging technologies. MAJ Benjamin D. Foulois led his 1st Aero Squadron into Mexico with eight aircraft. The squadron made several reconnaissance flights and even brought along an aerial camera. The Signal Corps sent some of its new "radio tractors"-trucks equipped with radio sets-to support Pershing's forces. Although procured for communications work, the equipment could easily be adapted to intelligence purposes. At times, the radio tractors were used to monitor Mexican government communications. Although the Punitive Expedition achieved only limited success and failed to capture Villa, Pershing's forces had deployed the widest range of intelligence assets that the Army had yet managed to field.
In the same month that Villa led his raid, now-MAJ Van Deman submitted several reports to his superiors on the status of intelligence on the Army Staff. At the time, Van Deman had considerable experience with intelligence, having worked with the Military Information Divisions in both Washington and Manila, performed undercover work in China, and served as the General Staffs mapping section chief. He had returned to the General Staff in July 1915 and found that almost no intelligence work was being performed. In his reports, he urged the re-establishment of a separate Military Intelligence Division to deal exclusively with military information. Initially, the Army leadership rebuffed or ignored Van Deman's recommendations .
Once the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917, Van Deman had more success. After another rejection through normal channels, Van Deman discreetly lobbied Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. The secretary agreed with the major and, on May 3, 1917, established a Military Intelligence Section with Van Deman as its chief. The Army once again had a functional intelligence organization at the Army level. Moreover, the new designation "Military Intelligence" (rather than military information) was symbolic of the new approaches that Army Intelligence would take over the next eighteen months.
Army Intelligence in World War I
During WW I, the evolution of Army Intelligence proceeded along two parallel lines. In the U.S., MI evolved into a full-fledged member of the War Department General Staff. Meanwhile, in France, GEN John J. Pershing's American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) established its own field intelligence organization to meet tactical and operational needs. Together, both lines greatly improved the intelligence function in the Army.
At the War Department, Van Deman's MI Section began modestly. Besides Van Deman, its staff included two other officers and two civilian clerks. Its responsibilities, however, were considerable. In addition to the long-recognized task of overseeing Army attachés, the section was charged with developing policies and plans for intelligence activities and controlling the Army's military counterespionage system. Consequently, the section not only served as a planning element but performed operational functions as well.
To accomplish these missions, Van Deman separated the section's efforts into "positive" and "negative" intelligence. Positive intelligence consisted of collecting information from the enemy, while negative intelligence meant denying the enemy intelligence about one's own forces. As his staff grew, Van Deman's operations expanded in both areas.
The most innovative aspect of Van Deman's positive intelligence collection was the establishment of a cryptologie capability at the War Department level. In June 1917, he formed the Code and Cipher Bureau, and placed it under newly commissioned 1LT Herbert O. Yardley, who had been a code clerk with the State Department. Under Yardley, the bureau prepared codes for the War Department and also performed some noteworthy feats of cryptanalysis. In one case, it broke a German cipher that led to the arrest of Lothar Witzke, a German spy. By the end of the war, the Yardley's staff totaled 151 codebreakers, clerks, and translators. During the war, it read almost 11,000 foreign messages, and solved about 50 codes used by eight different governments.
Van Deman also expanded collection of other foreign intelligence as resources permitted. Not only did his staff gather data on foreign armies and their capabilities, it began to collect details about worldwide economic, social, and political factors. To do so, he conducted widespread coordination with the various U.S. military and civilian agencies, as well as both British and French intelligence activities. These efforts, however, were overshadowed by the fact that the AEF's intelligence agencies were 3,000 miles nearer the enemy and in a much better position to gather information on the European theater. The great distances between the stateside and overseas organizations discouraged cooperation and collaboration.
In terms of negative intelligence, the MI Section had to contend with the problems of possible espionage, sabotage, and subversion directed at the Army. To start, Van Deman simply increased vigilance and established physical security for the War Department offices in the Washington area. In June 1917, he set up a security force that initially performed guard functions, and later began security screening of military personnel and applicants for government employment. Later, it opened field offices in NYC and other major cities, and at embarkation points to provide CI coverage. The section also maintained an active liaison with other government agencies, especially the Department of Justice, to cope with suspected civilian subversion directed against the Army and the war effort.
Van Deman was also concerned with a potential threat from within the Army. With the military draft bringing both citizens and resident foreign nationals into the ranks, he believed that Germany, through the large German-American population, would introduce agents and sympathizers into the newly forming divisions. These agents would not only spy, but work to undermine efficiency and subvert morale. To combat this situation, Van Deman coordinated the CI efforts on Army posts nationwide. This extensive CI network would eventually include nearly 400 officers and an undercover agent network throughout the Army's regiments, battalions and even companies. Once this system was in place, it produced a growing stream of incident reports that led to a significant expansion of the War Department's intelligence organization.
As the War Department's intelligence agency grew larger and its operations became more far flung, it achieved a position of greater prominence. In February 1918, the section was upgraded in status to the MI Branch and given more independence. The increase in size and complexity meant that Van Deman needed to standardize the structure and procedures for his organization. He divided his staff into eight numbered sections.
In addition to planning and conducting both intelligence and CI activities, Van Deman played an important role in establishing the first fields of specialization for intelligence personnel. In July 1917, the Army established the Corps of Interpreters (COI) to ensure it had the necessary numbers of competent linguists. The corps consisted of 17 captains, 41 lieutenants, and 72 sergeants. Van Deman and his staff oversaw the recruitment and examination of corps applicants, ensuring that the COI maintained its full authorization throughout the war. Initially, the Army allocated the interpreters to the field headquarters in France. By the end of the war, members of the corps also served on the Army Staff.
In August 1917, the Army established the Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) in response to a request from the AEF in France. The AEF was concerned about the possibilities of German sabotage, espionage, and subversion directed against American troops in France and asked for 50 company grade officers proficient in foreign languages with police training. The Army decided to staff the CIP with 50 sergeants. Tasked with furnishing the appropriate personnel, Van Deman ran into difficulties, and ended up recruiting the first set of agents by placing newspaper advertisements in NYC and New Orleans. In late November 1917, as this first group was arriving in France, Van Deman requested an allotment of 250 CIP agents to assist the considerable CI program in the U.S. This was only the beginning. In France alone, over 400 CIP agents investigated 3,700 cases and neutralized 230 enemy agents.
In June 1918, LTC (later BG) Marlborough Churchill succeeded Van Deman, who departed for Europe to inspect the AEF's intelligence operations. Three months later, GEN Peyton C. March, the new Army Chief of Staff, restructured the War Department's General Staff. He established the MI Division (MID) as one of the four principal divisions, restoring the intelligence function to a position of institutional equality on the Army Staff. Under the new arrangements, the division continued to expand its operations. One section assumed direction of the Army's Radio Intelligence Service, which had begun intercept operations along the Mexican Border in February 1918. By the end of the war, the service consisted of a number of collection sites, including one in Houlton, Maine, to monitor German diplomatic and agent communications. When hostilities ceased in November 1918, MID was a large organization of 282 officers, 250 CIP agents, and over 1,000 civilians that conducted both staff and operational functions.
Meanwhile Pershing arrived in France in June 1917 with a small headquarters staff, the vanguard of what would become an AEF of one million men. To properly command and control this force, Pershing needed a modern staff organization, including an intelligence structure. To shape a modem staff, he required his officers to study the French and British staff systems. By July 1917, he had organized his staff along French lines, with staff elements for Personnel, Intelligence, Operations, and Supply. On the AEF staff, these elements were designated corresponding sections: Gl, G2, G3, and G4, respectively. By the end of 1917, all AEF units from field army to battalion had adopted this structure. Thus the "2" had intelligence duties at all levels.
While the AEF's staff organization had French roots, its intelligence system had British origins. In July and August 1917, MAJ (later BG) Dennis E. Nolan, the AEF's G2, looked at both French and British intelligence theories and procedures. While he found both were effective, Nolan modeled his organization and operations on the British system, which stressed enemy order of battle development. By December 1917, he had his system in place.
. Tne AEF s intelligence system rested on two underlying pnncipies: independence and interdependence. From battalion to army, units had enough resources and personnel to independently produce intelligence along their own fronts. Moreover, the AEF's system was interdependent. At each level, the intelligence sections collected and studied information on the enemy, used it for their commanders, and then passed it to higher headquarters. In turn, the higher staffs studied the information, added intelligence from their own sources, reached their conclusions, and furnished this intelligence to lower staffs. This exchange of information was critical to both higher and lower intelligence sections. Upward, it provided information on the enemy; downward, it gave lower echelons a broad picture of the enemy's situation and helped verify their conclusions.
At the battalion and regimental levels, the S2s were responsible for gaining information on the enemy along their front lines. In addition to small staff sections, they had their own dedicated scouts and observers. Scouts accompanied patrols and raids into enemy lines to obtain all possible information on the enemy and terrain. The observers established observation or listening posts that moved forward as the front lines advanced. The S2s sent their information up to the next level.
At the division level, the G2 was responsible for combat intelligence on the enemy front for a depth of two miles. The G2's small section consisted of a deputy for combat intelligence, a commissioned interpreter, a topographic officer, and a number of enlisted men. The interpreter often oversaw the division's interrogation of prisoners of war and collection of enemy documents. The intelligence staff supervised patrolling and other ground observations. Furthermore, the division G2 provided oversight for the intelligence officers of the regiments and battalions.
A corps G2 had responsibility for surveillance of the area between two and five miles beyond the enemy's forward line of troops. To accomplish this, corps had larger intelligence staffs and a wider array of resources. Documents and prisoners were given a more detailed examination. Sound- and Flash-Ranging teams targeted enemy artillery and often augmented the corps observation posts. Moreover, corps intelligence assets included aerial visual observations and photographic images obtained from aircraft and balloons. Several officers and men of the corps G2 were dedicated to the interpretation and dissemination of aerial photographs and the results of visual aerial observation. In addition, each corps had its own dedicated CI element consisting of twelve CIP sergeants.
At the field army, the G2 had over 50 officers and more than a hundred soldiers. Each of the two AEF field armies included additional aerial reconnaissance units. A topographic battalion allowed the Army G2 to draw up large scale war maps and distribute graphic intelligence summaries. The First Army's intelligence section also contained a radio intelligence section that intercepted enemy radio traffic.
At the top of this interconnected intelligence structure was Nolan's own G2 at AEF General Headquarters. Nolan organized his large intelligence section into four divisions. The Military Information Division, or G2-A, produced finished intelligence reports and studies from the mass of information available from the AEF's tactical units and the other divisions of the G2. The division was able to draw upon the full range of intelligence fields (human, photographic, and signals) to supply operational intelligence, and it also produced political and economic intelligence. Under the G2-A, a radio intelligence element engaged in cryptanalysis and supplied the subordinate Army sections with the necessary material to decode the messages.
The AEF's "secret service," G2-B, supervised both undercover collection and CI operations. The division did run some agent networks, including "train- watchers" who monitored German rail movements behind the lines. For its CI, the AEF initially depended heavily on British and French assistance, but the expansion and development of the CIP gave G2-B an instrument of its own in this field. At the end of the war, the CIP agents supported both the rear areas and provided CI coverage to corps and divisions along the front lines.
The mish-mashed G2-C (Topographic, Map Supply, and Soundand Flash- Ranging Division), provided topographic intelligence and battle maps-over 4.5 million-to the AEF. The staff division coordinateci the activities of the 29th Engineers that manned the AEF's large map printing facility, supplied topographic troops to the field armies, and provided administrative control over the sound- and flash-ranging troops. Finally, the Censorship and Press Division, G2-D, handled press and censorship matters and managed the AEF's propaganda program aimed at undermining German morale. It also supervised the publication of Stars and Stripes, the famous troop newspaper. By the end of the war, Nolan's intelligence organization had grown into a full-fledged theater intelligence center.
As the war progressed, the AEF's intelligence staffs became more proficient. In mid-October 1918, the G2s and S2s of the Second Army worked together to build an accurate disposition of the German forces facing them. The process started with the AEF G2 issuing a Graphic German Order of Battle, which laid out the German army group and army sectors from the North Seas to Switzerland down to the division level. Using his own assets and analysis, LTC Charles F. Thompson, the Second Army G2, disseminated a graphic intelligence summary overprinted on a 1:100,000 map that broke down the disposition of eight German divisions into regimental sectors and included incidents of gas, artillery fire, patrolling, and machine gun fire. The IV Corps G2, LTC Joseph W. Stilwell (of later WW II fame as commander of American troops in China), in turn issued an intelligence summary that further developed the situation of the five enemy divisions in the corps area of interest. Furthermore, Stilwell ensured that aerial photographs from his observation squadrons reached the division level. This imagery included key terrain, road junctions, and enemy trench lines.
The 28th Division G2, LTC William H. Clendennin, used this intelligence to inform his regimental and battalion S2s. Meanwhile, the S2s directed patrolling and laid out observation posts that discovered the German outpost lines and points of resistance. Moreover, battalions and regiments captured German prisoners who were sent back to the division G2 for interrogation. From some of these prisoners, CPT Ernst Howald, the G2's lead interrogator, determined the identification and placement of regiments, strength of outposts, and location of minefields. Significantly, this information placed the regiments of the German 224th Division in different locations than the army and corps summaries. Howald and his colleagues then constructed a detailed template of the enemy facing the 28th Division, including regimental sectors, battalion and company positions, command posts, and minefields, and forwarded this estimate to corps. Subsequently, based on this information from the front, Thompson's graphic estimates depicted the correct disposition of the 224th Division. Surveys after the war proved the accuracy of the intelligence.
The AEF built an intelligence organization parallel, but not completely similar, to the War Department's MID. Because of Pershing's G-staff system, Army Intelligence achieved a position of equality with other functional areas a year before it did so in the U.S. Nolan created the G2/S2 system that would become the framework for intelligence work in operational and tactical units into the 21st century.
WW I was the watershed in the evolution of U.S. Army Intelligence. The intelligence function at both the War Department and in the field was revitalized and placed on a footing of organizational equality with other major administrative and operational functions. The Army ventured into new fields of CI and cryptology and made use of the full spectrum of intelligence sources. In addition to such sources as prisoner of war interrogation, captured document exploitation, and ground reconnaissance, the newer fields of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and aerial photography played an important role. At both the War Department and theater levels, the definition of MI was enlarged to include the collection of political, economic, and social data.
Beyond the War Department and AEF staffs, Nolan's G2/S2 system meant intelligence soldiers were present in every unit from battalion to field army. The Army also fielded intelligence related units, including topographic engineers and aerial reconnaissance squadrons. Although Army Intelligence was not yet considered an official career field, the Army began to recognize the need for specialized skills in this area and created the COI and CIP. For Army Intelligence, WW I represented a great leap forward.
Army Intelligence during the Inter- War Years
In the years immediately following WW I, the Army attempted to build upon the intelligence experiences it had gained. The MID issued a series of comprehensive handbooks covering various areas of interest for the Army, including Mexico and Russia. In 1920, GEN March, the Chief of Staff, distributed Intelligence Regulations, the first attempt to create Army-wide intelligence doctrine. These regulations were based on the AEF's operational experiences with intelligence. In addition, the Army's tactical units adopted the S2 system for their intelligence staffs. When Pershing succeeded March as Chief of Staff in 1921, he reorganized the War Department General Staff along the lines of the AEF's General Staff. Consequently, the chief of the MID became the Army G2. The first officer to hold the position was, not surprisingly, BG Nolan.
Earlier in the year, Nolan had established the MI Officer Reserve Corps (MIORC) to retain the services of the large number of officers who had served in intelligence positions throughout the war. These officers would provide a pool of trained manpower when the Army mobilized for another war. In the 1920s and 1930s, the MIORC's numbers ranged between 400 and 800 officers.
These early positive steps, however, soon wavered as the U.S. returned to a peacetime footing and underwent the retrenchment made necessary by the worldwide depression. By 1927 the Army had shrunk to less than three percent of its wartime strength and budget. The strength of the Army G2's staff, still referred to as the MID, fell from 230 officers, enlisted men, and civilians in 1920 to less than 70 in 1936. Lack of funding forced the G2 to cut back a number of its military attaché posts, which remained its principal means of gathering foreign intelligence. Without a serious threat of foreign espionage and subversion against the Army, the MID's Negative Branch was discontinued. Moreover, the Army lacked sufficient general officer authorizations to retain all of the General Staff division chiefs. The Army G2 often remained a colonel throughout the 1920s and 1930s, thus essentially relegating the position to the second-class status.
Of the two specialized corps formed during WW I, only the CIP survived through the inter-war period. In March 1921, the Army dissolved the COI, and the CIP withered to just 16 noncommissioned officers in 1934, most of whom were used as classified file clerks rather than as CI investigators. Only in the overseas departments and in the Eighth Corps Area on the Mexican border did CIP agents still provide useful CI services.
Despite the problems facing Army Intelligence, it was able to experiment with new technologies such as aerial photography and radar during the years between the wars, but achieved its greatest successes in the field of cryptology. In the fall of 1919, Yardley, now retired from the Army, set up a clandestine government cryptanalytic unit in NYC. Jointly funded by the Army and the State Department the small civilian staff, dubbed the Black Chamber, worked mainly on diplomatic code breaking. It achieved several notable successes, the most important of which was breaking the Japanese diplomatic code in time to give American diplomats a key negotiating edge during the Washington Peace Conference of 1921-1922.
By 1929, however, Yardley's unit had become increasingly less relevant. Its diplomatic intelligence met no direct military requirement for an Army that was already strapped for funding. Thus, when the State Department withdrew its backing for the project, the Army followed suit and the Black Chamber was closed. Anticipating the closure, the Army had already begun to place all of its cryptologie functions under the Office of the Chief Signal Officer. In 1930, the Army established the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) under William F. Friedman, who had served as a cryptographer with the AEF. Friedman quickly began to recruit a small, but talented staff.
By the mid- 1930s, the SIS had established a chain of monitoring stations in the Philippine and Hawaiian Departments, and in the Western and Southwestern U.S. In 1939, these sites were placed under the control of the 2d Signal Service Company, a centralized radio intelligence unit located at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. This combination of the SIS analysts and an intercept organization would represent one of the Army's greatest strengths in the intelligence field.
The SIS's greatest achievement was the breaking of Purple, a Japanese cipher machine used for diplomatic communications. Japan, which had begun an aggressive expansion against China in the 1930s, introduced the new machine in early 1939. For eighteen months, the SIS joined with the Navy in an intense effort to crack the cipher. Finally, in September 1940, they discovered an exploitable pattern, and within a week, they had produced the first two translated "solutions" of Japanese diplomatic messages. SIS experts then built an analog machine that allowed the U.S. to read the messages as fast as their intended recipients. The resulting decrypts of Japanese diplomatic communications were assigned the code name Magic, and their contents were closely controlled. Over the next five years, Magic would be the Army's single most important intelligence source.
As the SIS struggled with breaking the Japanese code, WW II had broken out in Europe, and German forces had occupied much of that continent. Despite an official position of neutrality, the U.S. slowly began to expand its Army and its intelligence activities. In 1941, at the Army level, MID grew to a strength of almost 850 officers and civilians, more than ten times the total a year earlier. With war in Europe and China, MID refocused collection activities on Germany and Japan, as well as Latin America. The attaché system, Army's traditional strategic source of information, had grown to encompass 136 attachés on duty in 50 countries. At the same time, the SIS also underwent expansion and the Army activated tactical radio intelligence companies.
To assist the growing number of intelligence officers in field units, the Army issued a series of doctrinal manuals that covered topics ranging from combat intelligence and observation to the examination of prisoners and the use of aerial photography. As world tensions intensified, the Army's need for security correspondingly increased, and the CIP's strength continued to expand throughout 1940 and 1941, exceeding 500 individuals by May 1941. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Army Intelligence had taken major strides toward preparing for war.
Army Intelligence in World War II: The Homefront
The conduct of Army Intelligence during WW II resulted largely from the foundations laid during WW I. At the national level, the Army G2 functioned as an equal member on the General Staff. Intelligence support to the field commanders came from G2/S2s at every echelon. The Army relied heavily on collection sources such as aerial photography and radio interception that had been developed a quarter-century earlier.
The Army G2 and his MID staff were at the head of Army Intelligence. Unlike the WW I agency, this MID after 1942, had no operational functions. Instead it formulated policy, made plans, and supervised intelligence on an overall basis. It also coordinated intelligence activities with the Navy and Army Air Forces. Moreover, it oversaw operations of the Army's three intelligence organizations: the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), the Signal Security Agency (SSA), and the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC).
In March 1942, the Army organized MIS to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence at both strategic and tactical level. By the summer of 1942, the service, headed by BG Hayes A. Kroner for most of the war, began publishing a series of unclassified intelligence products for the field. These publications covered enemy tactics, organizations, and equipment at the tactical level and were widely distributed. As much as possible, they were specifically customized for use by the front line commanders and intelligence officers, often taking the form of lessons learned as much as intelligence. For example, MIS disseminated the comprehensive Company Officer's Handbook of the German Army in the months immediately before D-Day.
At the strategic level, the Army leadership increasingly came to rely on information from Communications intelligence. To properly exploit this important source of intelligence, the Army created the Special Branch in May 1942 and placed it in Kroner's organization. COL (later BG) Carter W. Clarke led the branch with COL Alfred W. McCormick as his deputy. The branch placed information from intercepted traffic into the larger intelligence picture. At first, the branch evaluated and processed Magic information almost exclusively. After May 1943, the branch had access to Ultra intelligence, which was derived from the British breaking of the highest German radio codes. The British agreed to share this intelligence with the U.S. Army on an unrestricted basis, in exchange for reciprocal access to American Magic intelligence.
Access to Ultra provided the Army with information having both strategic and operational value in the war against Germany. Ironically, so did Magic. Through Magic, Army Intelligence read the messages of Baron Hiroshi Oshima, the Japanese Ambassador to Germany. A former general in the Japanese Army, Oshima was a keen observer and sent hundreds of detailed reports to Tokyo on the status of German forces, defenses and intentions.
To supplement the incoming communications intelligence, the MIS exploited other sources of information as well. At Fort Hunt, Virginia, it established a strategic prisoner-of-war interrogation center for high ranking German prisoners. It constructed a similar facility at Camp Tracy, California for Japanese prisoners. Both of these were joint service operations. The MIS also operated the Military Intelligence Research Section, with offices in Washington, D.C. and London, to exploit captured documents. Finally, military attachés remained a mainstay of Army's strategic information collection. During the war, the service reached peak strength of 1,500 officers, 2,000 enlisted men, and 1,100 civilians.
At the beginning of 1942, the SIS had operated seven small fixed collection sites stretching from Fort Hancock, New Jersey to Fort McKinley in the Philippines. Between these field sites and its headquarters, the SIS consisted of about 330 personnel. Once the war began, the SIS had shifted its focus to reading Japanese military traffic, which relied on different cryptologie principles than the Japanese diplomatic communications. This required an expansion of both the headquarters analytical elements and the field collection sites. The latter was accomplished with the establishment of two large collection sites at Vint Hill Farms in Warrenton, Virginia and Two Rock Ranch near Petaluma, California.
To accommodate the growing headquarters and to provide a more secure location, the SIS moved from downtown Washington, D.C. to Arlington Hall, a former girls' school in Arlington, Virginia. The soldiers at both Arlington Hall and the field sites came under the administrative control of the 2d Signal Service Battalion (formerly company). During the ensuing year, the SIS underwent two name changes: first, to the Signal Security Service in 1942 and then to the SSA in 1943. Although William Friedman remained at the heart of the organization, COL (later BG) Preston W. Corderman became its commander.
As the war progressed, the SSA made steady progress against the Japanese military codes. Once the Japanese messages proved readable, the agency dramatically expanded; in 1943, it grew tenfold, recruiting a largely civilian work force. To process the increase in material, it employed a battery of 400 IBM punch card machines. It also extended its intercept operations with fixed collection sites in India, Eritrea, and Guam as well as Alaska and Hawaii. Arlington Hall additionally received intercepts and information from American tactical field radio intelligence units supplemented by material forwarded by the British and other allies. By the end of the war, the SSA consisted of 10,371 (777 commissioned officers, 15 warrant officers, 3,918 enlisted men and women, and 5,661 civilians).
For most of the war, the SSA fell under the jurisdiction of the Chief of the Signal Corps. In December 1944, however, the MIS gained operational control of the agency and began to direct its collection, processing, and analytical priorities. This meant that both the primary user and producer of the Army's single most important source of high grade intelligence fell under the same intelligence authority.
On January 1, 1942, the Army changed the name of the CIP to the CIC. The new designation better reflected its duties, since it did not include police functions. At first, however, the CIC performed much the same duties as the CIP had performed in WW I: investigating reports of subversive activities. Local commanders, not the corps, however, directed these investigations. Since it did not control the CI operations, its mission was largely administrative: to recruit, train, and administer the Army's CI personnel.
In January 1943, the CIC moved its headquarters to Baltimore, Maryland on the campus of Goucher College. From there, it oversaw a new role for its agents. Besides the continued need for investigators in the U.S., CIC agents had begun to deploy overseas with tactical units. The CIC established a staging area for deployments at nearby Camp Holabird, beginning a long association between Army Intelligence and the installation. By July 1943, the corps had an authorized strength of 543 officers and 4,431 enlisted personnel.
After the Inspector General issued a report critical of CIC investigative procedures, the Army directed that the Corps would be employed largely in the overseas theaters. Most of the agents who remained in the U.S. merged with the criminal investigators of the Provost Marshal General's Office to form a new consolidated Security Intelligence Corps that operated under the control of the service commands. Furthermore, the Army closed the CIC staging area and abolished the Chief, CI Corps position.
The Manhattan Project, the program to develop the atomic bomb, provided one of the few exceptions for the employment of CIC agents in the U.S. Since the spring of 1942, a CI detachment under the command of MAJ (later LTC) John Lansdale, Jr. had provided security for the project. When the project moved its headquarters from Chicago to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Landale's agents established and monitored procedures to prevent loss of classified material. Over two years, they also conducted about 1,500 investigations to reveal possible leaks caused by careless talk or mishandling of classified documents. Finally, the detachment set up special agents in the project's offices, plants, and laboratories to uncover security breaches and espionage directed against the project.
With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, the role of Army CI in post-war Germany increased. Moreover, the pending occupation of Japan would make even further demands upon CI agents. The Army, however, lacked an effective means to adequately procure new CI specialists or even redeploy the ones that it had. The weakening of the CIC had deprived Army CI functions of essential institutional support. Consequently, the Army re-established the Office of Chief, CIC, in July 1945, and organized a new CIC Center and School at Camp Holabird a few months later. In August, the Provost Marshal released the agents of the Security Intelligence Corps to the G2, Army Service Forces, where it eventually merged back into the CIC.
The CIC, SSA, and MIS all provided support to the War Department effort in the U.S. In addition, all three organizations provided manpower to support the field units in the theaters of operations across the globe. The CIC deployed 241 detachments, over 85 percent of its strength, overseas. As the war progressed, these detachments matured into 17-man units for each combat division with larger organizations attached to higher echelons and the rear areas. The MIS supplied four types of intelligence specialists to the theaters: Interrogator of Prisoners-of-War, MI Interpreter, Photo Interpreter, and Order of Battle. The first three teams consisted of two officers and four enlisted men, while the order of battle teams had a single officer and two enlisted men. Division G2s normally received two interrogation teams and one of each of the other types. Higher formations received a larger number of teams.
In Europe alone, MIS deployed 3,500 officers and men organized into specialist teams. Rather than just teams and detachments, the SSA sent radio intelligence platoons and, later, companies to support the field. By the end of the war, the agency generally deployed a company to support each corps, field army, and army group. It also deployed theater-level special SIGINT staffs to provide analytical support to the radio intelligence companies. The MIS teams and the CIC detachments both were attached to the various G2s; the SSA's radio intelligence companies, however, belonged to the unit's signal section, with the G2s normally exerting operational control.
Army Intelligence in WW II: Europe
During the months after D-Day, the U.S. Army fielded two army groups, six field armies, fifteen army corps, and sixty-one divisions to northwest Europe. The Army Intelligence system that supported these combat elements stretched from the front lines to offices in England. It relied on a full range of intelligence sources from infantry patrols and prisoner interrogations to signals traffic analysis and aerial imagery. To a large degree, its success depended on the quality of the G2 and S2 staffs that supported every level from battalion to army group. One of the most effective and successful of these staffs was the Third Army's G2.
LTG George S. Patton, the Third Army's commander, valued good intelligence. Willing to take risks and exploit unexpected openings, he was the kind of leader who wanted to know everything about the enemy. As a result, he appreciated the efforts of the army intelligence system led by COL Oscar W. Koch, his G2. Koch had gained valuable experience as Patton's intelligence officer in both the North African and Sicilian campaigns.
When Koch became Third Army G2 in February 1944, he used his experiences to organize his shop into five functional branches: Administration, Combat Intelligence, G2 Air, Security, and Auxiliary Agencies. This staff provided situational awareness and devek)ped targets for p&ttQn and his headquarters. It also coordinated the intelligence collection efforts within the army, and exchanged tactical information with subordinate and higher headquarters. Finally, it supervised the MIS and CIC teams that it received from the theater. Although the G2 itself was relatively small, with only 19 officers and 25 enlisted men, it ballooned to over 400 officers and men with its MIS and CIC attachments. Koch's G2 team moved to France in early July and became operational in August 1944.
Koch and his staff relied heavily on the Third Army's corps and division G2s to develop the enemy situation in their own sectors. They also had a variety of sources available at the Army level to take a broader and deeper look at the German forces facing Patton.
Prisoners of war were by far the most important single intelligence source. By one estimate, over one-third of all combat intelligence came from prisoners of war during WW II. This success partly stemmed from the great number of German prisoners (four army interrogator teams could handle over 5,000 prisoners a day). An incident in December 1944 proved the value of prisoner interrogation. As the Third Army prepared to assault the Siegfried Line, the G2 learned that a captured German general knew details about the defenses facing the Third Army. After Koch discovered the German was cooperative, he arranged to question him. As it turned out, not only did the general know about the defenses, he had helped construct them. Working with maps and aerial photographs supplied by Koch's section, the German officer located enemy defenses and weak spots. Once verified, the G2 placed this data on overprinted maps and prepared to distribute them to all units. Unfortunately, the Battle of the Bulge interrupted the Third Army's use of this intelligence; instead, the G2 gave it to the Seventh Army, which employed it to great advantage.
The Third Army's deep collection asset was the 1 0th Reconnaissance Group of the XIX Tactical Air Command (TAC), the Third Army's air component. This asset was coordinated by the G2 Air, under COL Harold M. Forde. With only a small planning group at Army Headquarters, the rest of Forde's staff served with the XIX TAC. At TAC's command post, the air reconnaissance coordinating officer consolidated corps and army air reconnaissance requests. At the airfields, ground liaison officers briefed and debriefed pilots and disseminated the results. At the photo squadron's airfield, MIS photo interpreter teams manned the photo center, interpreting photographs and preparing reports.
Through the G2 Air, Koch sent aerial reconnaissance missions out to 150 miles in front of the Army. Aerial observation brought in information on enemy movements and troop concentrations. During the Third Army's dash across France, this observation was so effective that the Germans were never able to mass forces to threaten the army's exposed flank. Aerial photography provided detailed information about terrain and enemy defenses. It was especially useful in locating artillery positions. In one case, before a XII Corps attack in November 1944, photo intelligence was so accurate it pinpointed 221 enemy artillery positions, allowing Third Army preparatory fire to obliterate them.
After prisoners of war and aerial reconnaissance, radio intelligence was the most profitable collection source. Working with smaller corps companies, the 300-man 118th Signal Radio Intelligence Company intercepted German radio traffic, located outstations, and conducted limited traffic analysis and cryptanalysis. The 118th also coordinated the work of the corps companies and disseminated combat information to the G2. Their information proved especially useful in fluid situations such as the breakout across France in August 1944. Using intercepted radio messages from panzer and panzer grenadier divisions, the Third Army's radio intelligence companies pieced together their order of battle and followed their movements. As the campaign progressed, the G2 improved at integrating this knowledge into the general intelligence picture.
The Third Army's window into strategic SIGINT was MAJ Melvin C. Heifers, its Special Security Officer. He evaluated the Ultra intelligence, presented it to Patton and Koch, and helped fuse it with other intelligence. Although Ultra gave several dramatic warnings of German counterattacks, it mainly acted as a guide to the mass of information coming from other sources. It fit in well with Koch's concept of all-source intelligence.
Heifers presented the Ultra intelligence in daily 0900 briefings. Besides Patton and Koch, only six other officers were authorized to attend. Using a special situation map, Heifers spoke from notes using frequent map references. He used information from other G2 sources to develop the most complete intelligence picture possible. Patton was so impressed by the value of Ultra that he never passed up a special briefing. Koch incorporated Heifer's information into his estimates of the enemy. The major could bring an urgent Ultra message to Koch at any time. If necessary, Koch called it to the attention of the G3 or the chief of staff.
By 1944 each army had a special intelligence detachment from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). At Third Army, the G2 and the detachment had an excellent relationship. The OSS detachment recruited agents and inserted them behind German lines to gather information. The detachment successfully sent over 100 missions behind enemy lines and provided invaluable information to the G2.
For the Third Army G2, all sources of information were important. One asset's limitation was compensated for by another's strength. If poor weather grounded 10th Reconnaissance Group planes, the G2 could gather information from prisoners, Ultra, and troops in contact. Besides complementing each other, sources supplemented each other. For example, the 118th Signal Radio Intelligence Company obtained radio frequencies and call signs through interrogation and captured document teams. The result of this all-source effort was a balanced and flexible Third Army collection system.
This balanced collection effort helped Koch accurately estimate the enemy situation. But, more important, his thinking was always clear and detached. In late July 1944, the Allies broke out of the Normandy beachhead. In August and September, the American First and Third Armies raced across France. The Allies were optimistic the war would soon end, but Koch remained cautious. At the end of August 1944, he estimated r that despite huge losses, the Germans maintained a cohesive front and had not been routed. Koch reported they were still bringing new units into battle, although this did not give them new offensive power. With weather and terrain on their side, Koch believed the Germans would play for time and wage a last ditch struggle. For Koch, the war wasn't over.
As the Allies approached the German border, German resistance stiffened and the Allied advance slowed to a crawl. Yet, optimism remained. Other Allied intelligence officers believed the heavy fighting was sapping the Germans' strength and they would not have the force left for an offensive action.
Koch continued to watch throughout the autumn. By the end of October, he noticed the Germans were withdrawing panzer forces from the front and were building up forces in the Eifel area opposite the First Army, to the north of Patton's Third Army. Because those enemy forces in Eifel could threaten the Third Army's projected offensive southeast toward Frankfurt, Koch paid close attention to them. During November, the Army G2 planned aerial surveillance of Eifel's railroad marshalling yards and road intersections. Despite poor flying weather, photo interpreters traced the progress of hundreds of railroad trains carrying armor and vehicles.
During his December 9, 1944 briefing, Koch outlined German strength and capabilities in Eifel. By Koch's estimate, the Germans had nine divisions (four in contact) facing the First Army's VIII Corps. That force was two and a half more divisions in equivalent strength than stood against the entire Third Army. The G2 concluded that the German divisions could be used to meet threats from the First or Third Armies, divert Allied reinforcements to Eifel, or launch a spoiling or diversionary attack.
Several factors favored the last possibility. The Germans had a tactical reserve of 105 tanks in two panzer divisions in Eifel. Of the nine divisions, the five in reserve were rested and refitted. To support ground forces, the Germans had marshaled 1,000 fighter planes. While the terrain was unfavorable for Allied winter operations, it favored a German offensive.
Based on Koch's briefing, Patton decided to continue the plans for the Third Army operation toward Frankfurt. However, he directed that limited preparations begin to meet the potential German spoiling attack. Later, Patton would use the outline planning to counter a German threat bigger than even Koch calculated. On December 19, Patton had his army shift the attack's direction and rip into the southern flank of a 20-division German counteroffensive. By Christmas, the Third Army had relieved the besieged city of Bastogne, a critical road junction, and had driven a salient into the German's exposed flank. The tide had finally swung against the Germans.
Patton did not change his offensive plans because Koch briefed him on a potential threat to the north. By telling Patton of the potential threat's capabilities, Koch started his commander and staff thinking about how to react to such a situation. It was the Third Army's rapid and unexpected shift of direction that broke the back of the German's counteroffensive in the south.
Although the Battle of the Bulge provides the most specific examples, the Third Army G2 was successful throughout the nine month campaign across Europe. Through the G2's all-source collection effort and objective assessments of the enemy's capabilities, the Third Army was never shocked into inaction and could often take advantage of the enemy's vulnerabilities.
Army Intelligence in WW II: The Pacific
Halfway around the world from the Third Army G2, MG Charles A. Willoughby operated in a different operational and geographical environment. Willoughby was the G2 for GEN Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), a vast underdeveloped region stretching from Australia through New Guinea to the Philippines. As chief intelligence officer for a theater, Willoughby 's intelligence organizations were multinational and inter-service, and like Koch's intelligence system, they relied on a variety of intelligence sources.
During the spring and summer of 1942, Willoughby organized his theater G2 staff. The Administrative Section managed the G2's personnel and financial matters, while the Operations, Order of Battle, and Plans and Estimates Sections provided intelligence analysis and managed the distribution of intelligence products. Together, the staff acted as a modest joint intelligence center, and participated in joint intelligence planning. Moreover, it coordinated the theater's collection agencies.
In mid- 1944, the G2 organization consisted of thirty-six officers and a hundred or so enlisted men. Despite being the intelligence staff for a joint, multi-national theater, Willoughby's G2-reflecting MacArthur's headquarters as whole-was largely organized along Army lines and led by American Army officers. Willoughby did maintain regular coordination with the chief intelligence officers for both the Navy and Army Air Force in the theater. The SWPA intelligence collection agencies, however, were both multi-national and inter-service.
The most important of these agencies was the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS). LTC (later COL) Sidney F. Mashbir commanded the ATIS for most of the war. Although Mashbir's men did interrogate captured Japanese soldiers, the section largely exploited vast amounts of captured documents and ensured that the resulting translations were available for use by the G2 and the other SWPA intelligence agencies. At its peak, the section had over two thousand officers and enlisted men; about one- third of whom provided direct support to tactical forces when it sent its interrogators to support army, corps, and division G2s in the field. Although Australians and Americans provided the bulk of the ATIS, British, Canadian, and New Zealander linguists also served with the section.
Over the course of the war, the ATIS translated over 20 million pages of captured documents. Without a doubt, however, the most important of these was the Japanese Army's "Register of Army Officers. " Captured in May 1943, this three-volume document presented the SWPA intelligence analysts, for the first time, with a complete picture of the organization of the Japanese armies in the field. Within a few weeks, the entire document had been printed and distributed to every Allied intelligence staff in the entire Pacific. It formed the basis for all subsequent order of battle analysis by the SWPA G2.
The Allied Geographical Section (AGS) was headed by Australian Col. William V. Jardine- Blake. It prepared the terrain information that MacArthur's and subordinate headquarters needed to conduct planning and operations. This was no small task because detailed geographic information and maps simply did not exist for much of the Southwest Pacific. Nevertheless, the AGS produced terrain studies for each operation. Supported by maps and photographs, these handbooks contained descriptions of terrain features, landing beaches, transportation conditions, and health conditions, and were widely distributed to commanders, staffs, and troops before each operation. Due to the great need for geographic information, Willoughby later judged that the AGS was, next to ATIS, the most important and productive of the G2's intelligence agencies.
The last of the agencies under the G2's direct control was the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB), which was an umbrella organization embracing a variety of intelligence and special operation groups. Another Australian, Brigadier C.G. Roberts, headed the bureau. By mid- 1944, it consisted of five major sections: two functional and three regional. The functional sections dealt with special operations, while the regional ones-the Northeast (eastern New Guinea and the surrounding islands), the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines-dealt mainly with gathering intelligence. Unfortunately, the dual function of gathering intelligence and conducting special operations and sabotage often competed with each other.
Despite the competing functions, the AIB made several valuable contributions to SWPA's intelligence operations. The Coastwatchers, the highly effective network of observation posts along the coasts of New Guinea and the Solomons established by the Australians in 1939, provided valuable information on Japanese air and naval movements. The AIB also sent out field parties to reconnoiter New Guinea's coastal areas and provide pre-assault reconnaissance and assault wave guidance.
Although Willoughby did not have operational control over the Central Bureau, SWPA's communications intelligence agency, he did benefit from its information. Like the other intelligence organizations, the Central Bureau was a multi-national and joint unit. Using communication interception from four American radio intelligence companies and ten similar British Commonwealth units, the bureau provided cryptanalysis initially from its main headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. As the war progressed, it sent an advance echelon to accompany MacArthur's headquarters in successive forward deployments. COL Spencer B. Akin, MacArthur's chief Signal officer, directed its operations with the technical assistance of one American and two Australian deputies. By 1943, the bureau consisted of over one thousand personnel.
Initially, the Central Bureau's intelligence came from traffic analysis rather than decryption of Japanese communications. Through the scrutiny of radio call signs, message addresses, and priorities, traffic analysts reconstructed Japanese radio networks, and deduced the lines of command. In 1942 and 1943, the Bureau made three major cryptanalytic breakthroughs. First, it solved the Japanese air-to-ground (pilot to ground controller) radio codes which allowed the SWPA G2 to detect the enemy's air force deployments in the theater. Then, in April 1943, the bureau, in conjunction with the SSA at Arlington Hall, broke the Japanese Army's Water Transportation Code, which provided detailed knowledge of Japanese convoy movements. Finally, it decoded the Japanese Army's mainline code. Not only did this intelligence provide MacArthur's forces with invaluable targeting data, it also gave precise information to Willoughby and his analysts on the location and movements of Japanese forces.
In addition to these four intelligence agencies, Willoughby also received and used intelligence obtained through Navy and Army Air Forces channels. Both services ran their own communications intelligence networks and provided the information to the SWPA G2. Naval intelligence proved particularly useful in the earlier parts of the war since the Japanese Navy initially controlled enemy forces in the Southwest Pacific. Throughout the war, Willoughby relied on the Fifth Air Force for aerial reconnaissance and photography. Although the SWPA G2 never had anything as sophisticated as Koch's G2 Air system for coordinating and processing aerial intelligence, Willoughby was able to regularly receive aerial and photo reconnaissance reports.
By the spring of 1944, Willoughby's G2 staff was capable of gathering, integrating, and evaluating all forms of intelligence. The SWPA intelligence analysts collaborated with the agencies and the agencies with each other to produce better intelligence. For its terrain studies, AGS relied heavily on information from the Fifth Air Force's reconnaissance flights. The long-range reconnaissance parties also provided terrain information for the AGS. The ATIS regularly forwarded its material to the G2's Order of Battle Section, allowing the order of battle team to maintain and improve its data base. This task was aided immeasurably by the capture of the Japanese army register. Mashbir's unit also developed standing instructions to expedite sending captured cryptologie materials back to the Central Bureau. On its part, the Central Bureau regularly exchanged information with the naval radio intelligence organization. It also had authority to forward any order of battle information obtained from decoded messages directly to the SWPA G2.
In 1943, Australian and American forces advanced northwestward through the jungles of New Guinea. MacArthur planned to move along the island's northern coast to advance toward the Philippines, his ultimate objective. He envisioned a series of amphibious operations that would bypass and then entrap the Japanese defenders. Unfortunately, the amphibious landings of 1943 proved too shallow, and Japanese forces were able to escape to the west. Assisted by the formidable New Guinea terrain, the battered Japanese were able to continue to block MacArthur's route and frustrate his plans for a rapid return to the Philippines. In the early months of 1944, Willoughby used SWPA's intelligence system to look for ways to accelerate the advance.
Initially, Willoughby and his staff examined the possibility of an operation against Aitape, about 250 miles behind enemy lines. In February, the G2 began to look 100 miles deeper, at Hollandia. For his assessments, Willoughby benefitted greatly from the capture of the entire code library of a Japanese division in mid- January. These codebooks brought a huge windfall to the SWPA intelligence agencies. The Central Bureau began reading the thousands of Japanese messages that yielded order of battle data and planning information to the G2 analysts.
In his February 1944 estimate on the enemy at Hollandia, Willoughby noted that the Japanese continued to develop their coastal defenses in the center of New Guinea. He estimated that the enemy had about 42,000 troops defending from the front lines near Madang to about 150 miles to the west at Wewak, but fewer than 3,000 at Hollandia. With the Japanese relatively weak at Hollandia, Willoughby suggested an amphibious landing there. Largely based on this estimate, MacArthur told his staff to begin planning for an operation against the Japanese at Hollandia in April 1944.
In March and April, with the operational planning in motion, the SWPA G2 kept MacArthur and the rest of the staff apprised of the enemy situation in central New Guinea as well as developing a detailed disposition and strength at Hollandia. In late March, Willoughby detected the enemy shifting forces westward. He also noted an increase in the strength of enemy forces at Hollandia, although they remained mostly base defense and support units. He continued to believe that the greatest threat to the landings would be from the Japanese air forces. Still, the G2 noted that the Japanese continued to assume that the next Allied attack would come in the Wewak area, well to the east of Hollandia.
On 22 April, American troops landed at Hollandia to the surprise of the Japanese defenders, and within four days achieved a significant victory. Intelligence played a large role in this success. It was the G2 that found the weak point in the Japanese defenses, deep behind the front lines. When Willoughby warned of the threat of the enemy air forces, MacArthur launched his bombers in a devastating raid that destroyed the Hollandia airfields. As the ground forces prepared for the operation, MacArthur increased his assault troop strength based on his G2's assessment of the increased strength of the enemy garrison.
To fuel these estimates of the enemy situation in New Guinea, the Central Bureau provided invaluable SIGINT; however, the other theater intelligence agencies also supplied meaningful information to the G2 on the enemy and terrain. The AGS provided important terrain information to G2 planners as well as Terrain Handbooks to the companies and platoons that made the landings. Captured documents from the ATIS also furnished important information for the operation. Without the divisional codebooks found in January 1944, the Central Bureau might not have had its great success against the Japanese Army's communications. Both Fifth Air Force's aerial reconnaissance and the AIB's Coastwatchers were the best sources for information on enemy barge locations and traffic, which had become as important as any other indicator of Japanese troop disposition and activity in early 1944. In short, the Allies achieved victory at Hollandia using intelligence from every source.
The successful landings at Hollandia showed Willoughby's intelligence operation at its most effective. The SWPA G2 and its intelligence agencies continued to serve MacArthur and his forces until the end of the war. Willoughby himself continued as MacArthur's intelligence officer through the occupation of Japan and into the Korean War.
Army Intelligence in the Cold War and Korea
In the decades after WW II, Army Intelligence lost some of the scope and authority that it had held since 1918. Between 1947 and 1961, the U.S. established a series of intelligence agencies: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947, the Armed Forces Security Agency (later the National Security Agency [NSA]) in 1949, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1961. Each of these agencies acquired responsibilities and resources for intelligence direction and production from the Army. To DIA, the Army surrendered one of its longest held intelligence functions, the control of the military attaché system, which had an important source of foreign intelligence since 1889.
While Army Intelligence was relinquishing most of its national-level intelligence responsibilities, it was also losing its position and status on the Army Staff. As a result of a reorganization in 1956, the Army Staff had deputy chiefs of staff for the personnel, operations, and supply functions, each with the rank of lieutenant general. The chief of Army Intelligence, however, remained a major general with the title of assistant chief of staff for intelligence (ACSI).
During the 1950s and early 1960s, the largest Army intelligence organization was the Army Security Agency (ASA). On September 15, 1945, it had replaced the SSA as the Army's SIGINT element. The agency's primary collection assets were a number of large fixed field stations that stretched from the U.S. to Germany to Turkey and Africa to the Pacific. Supplementing these resources, smaller mobile formations operated from semi-fixed locations. Through large regional headquarters in Germany and the Pacific, the ASA exercised tight control of these overseas elements, but it centralized direction and processing at its Arlington Hall headquarters. After 1951, a major general commanded the ASA, and after 1955, he reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff.
The Chief, CI was also a major general, but, unlike the ASA commander, he never obtained control over operations in the field. The CIC Center remained largely an administrative and training organization. The CIC's largest mission was supporting the Army's occupation forces. More than half of its strength was deployed overseas in two over-sized units: the 66th CIC Detachment in Germany and the 441st CIC Detachment in Japan. The demands of security during the Cold War, with the constant threat of espionage by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, meant the corps had a significant role in the U.S. as well. By the end of the decade, six tailored CIC detachments provided support to the geographically-based army areas while another supported the Military District of Washington. Overall, the CIC's operations were decentralized and controlled by area and theater commanders.
In June 1950, the outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula caught Army Intelligence flatfooted, and it initially struggled to meet requirements and demands. To support the field commanders CIC and ASA units had to be hastily organized and sent to Korea in the early months of the war. By the end of the war, intelligence operations had been generally conducted on the same lines as those of 1944-1945. Augmented with teams of intelligence specialists, unit G2s and S2s, from field army to battalion, gathered and provided intelligence to their commanders. Instead of small independent companies or detachments, however, the Army began to employ larger intelligence formations in the field.
The Korean War marked the first time that intelligence personnel were organized into groups and battalions. During the war, the Army fielded two types of intelligence units specifically to meet the needs of combat forces: Military Intelligence Service and Communication Reconnaissance. The Military Intelligence Service (not to be confused with the WW II's MIS) organizations gathered intelligence specialists, such as photo interpreters, interrogators, and order of battle technicians, into larger administrative units. The Army established three such groups at the theater level: the 500th in Japan, the 513th in Germany, and the 525th at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. These groups attached their specialists in tailored battalions, companies and platoons to support G2s down to division level.
The ASA also fielded group-sized formations to directly support units in the field. By the end of the war, the 501st Communication Reconnaissance Group was supervising the operations of three attached battalions, and five companies in support of the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea. Following suit, the CIC upgraded its large detachments to group status, including the 66th CIC Group in Germany (1952) and the 111st CIC Group in Fort McPherson, Georgia (1958). Additionally, the 902d CIC Group (1952) became responsible for specialized and high-level activities under the ASCI's direct control.
At the Army level, successive ACSIs sought to centralize Army Intelligence, concentrating their efforts at Fort Holabird. In 1954, the CIC Center became the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, with MG Boniface Campbell as its Commanding General. Over the next few years, Campbell assumed control of several important intelligence organizations, including the Army Photographic Interpretation Center and the Army's investigative files in the G2 Records Facility (later known as the Investigative Records Repository). In January 1961, MG John N. M. Willems, the ACSI, established a consolidated Intelligence Corps, ending the CIC's four decades of service. Commanded by MG Richard G. Prather, the 5,000-man corps was to supply administrative supervision of both Army CI and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) assets.
Six months later, however, the establishment of the Army Intelligence and Security Branch eclipsed the formation of the Intelligence Corps. MG Alva R. Fitch, the ACSI, had vigorously campaigned for a separate intelligence branch to ensure that the Army would have enough qualified intelligence officers to meet its needs. Despite opposition, Fitch persevered and the Army Chief of Staff signed the order creating the Army Intelligence and Security Branch on July 1, 1962. Although initially limited to about 4,000 officers, the branch encompassed all fields of intelligence, including signals, strategic, imagery, combat, human and CI. This critical first institutional step would be built upon over the next five years, culminating in the branch's re-designation as the Military Intelligence Branch on July 1, 1967. By that time, Army Intelligence was involved in the conflict in Vietnam.
Army Intelligence in the Vietnam Era
Until 1965, the Army's involvement in Vietnam had largely been advisory and thus the scope of its intelligence activities had been limited. The U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) received intelligence support from several Army Intelligence detachments and some two hundred officers serving as advisors with South Vietnamese troops. In addition, the ASA's 3d Radio Research Unit provided cryptologie support, with both aerial and ground-based assets. As the number of U.S. combat troops grew after 1965, the need for operational intelligence increased.
MG Joseph A. McChristian, the MACV Assistant Chief of Staff, J2, oversaw the build-up of intelligence organizations and operations. At the theater level, his enlarged J2 staff directed operations in both the joint and multi-national arenas. Moreover, he realized that it was essential that American intelligence operations were combined with those of South Vietnam. While the Americans could provide manpower, money, equipment, and organization, the South Vietnamese knew the terrain, enemy, and, most of all, the language.
With this in mind, by late 1966, McChristian and Colonel Ho Van Loi, his Vietnamese counterpart, established four multi-national intelligence organizations: Combined Military Interrogation Center, Combined Document Exploitation Center, Combined Materiel Exploitation Center, and Combined Intelligence Center. Both American and South Vietnamese intelligence personnel manned each of the centers, often working side-by-side. To further the integration of the combined intelligence effort, South Vietnamese intelligence detachments served with American divisions and separate brigades, meanwhile American detachments served with the South Vietnamese divisions.
To plan, direct, and conduct general (non-cryptologic) intelligence operations in Vietnam, the Army deployed over 3,500 intelligence soldiers by June 1967. Working directly under the J2's operational control, the 525th MI Group supplied the command and control headquarters for two other groups and two battalions. The 136th MI Group provided CI support while the 149th MI Group directed collection in the field. The 1st MI Battalion (Aerial Reconnaissance Support) oversaw the Army's aerial reconnaissance assets as well as interpreting, reproducing, and delivering Air Force imagery to Army units. The 519th MI Battalion provided personnel and support for the four combined intelligence centers. Later in the war, the 136th and 149th MI Groups were inactivated and their operations divided among six provisional battalions stationed throughout South Vietnam. Each of these battalions performed CI, collection, and direct support functions.
Over six hundred American advisors supplemented these intelligence activities. Working with their South Vietnamese opposite numbers at the district level, they were a source of tactical MI and increasingly became involved in uncovering the Viet Cong infrastructure. This was done through a network of District Intelligence and Operations Coordinating Centers in the countryside.
For SIGINT support to forces in Vietnam, the ASA, commanded by MG Charles Denholm, deployed about one-fifth of its total strength to Southeast Asia. After 1966, the 509th Radio Research Group commanded two radio research battalions, an aviation battalion, and a fixed field station. To provide direct support to tactical units, the ASA attached specially tailored companies and detachments to American divisions and brigades. These direct support units' primary mission was to respond to the needs and desires of their tactical command with a secondary mission to support the theater and national communications intelligence efforts. Divisional special security officers additionally disseminated the most sensitive intelligence derived from nationallevel systems. Consequently, intelligence only available to the highest level commanders in WW II now could be put to tactical use.
The basis for intelligence support to the tactical commanders remained the interdependent G2/S2 framework. A companysized MI detachment augmented the division G2 staff. These divisional detachments included CI, order of battle, imagery interpretation, and interrogation sections. The latter section was the largest of the four, since a division was likely to take a substantial number of prisoners. At the brigade level, smaller 30 man MI detachments supported the S2s. South Vietnamese intelligence detachments complemented both division and brigade MI detachments, supplying critical linguistic expertise.
In Vietnam, Army Intelligence continued to rely heavily on tried and true sources of information such as prisoner interrogation, captured documents and aerial photography. SIGINT saw widespread use at both tactical and theater levels. However, new technical innovations came to the fore. Divisions and brigades productively used devices like unattended ground sensors and airborne personnel detectors ("people sniffers") . More important, technological advances greatly enhanced the Army's aerial reconnaissance assets. Infrared and side-looking airborne radars complemented the more traditional visual and photographic aerial surveillance methods. Likewise, ASA field units increased their effectiveness with newly developed airborne radio direction finding. This increasing use of technology in Vietnam was one of the lasting effects on Army Intelligence.
At the same time that Army Intelligence was engaged in combat operations in Vietnam, it was also actively involved in activities on the American home front. The U.S. Army Intelligence Command (USAINTC) was the main player in these operations. Formed in July 1965, USAINTC held centralized direction over all CI elements in the continental U.S. (CONUS). Commanded by a major general, it consisted of seven MI Groups and controlled a nationwide network of 300 resident and field offices.
Initially, the agents from the command began to gather security and other information to support the potential use of Federal troops to restore order in civil disturbances, especially urban riots. Eventually, however, the command relapsed to the counter-subversion missions of WW I and early WW II, and started to collect information on the growing anti-war movement. When the domestic intelligence program became public knowledge in 1970, the political and public backlash quickly ended the program and, ultimately, USAINTC itself. Within two years, the command had lost much of its responsibilities and resources and was commanded by a colonel.
During the period immediately after the Vietnam War, Army Intelligence, like the rest of the Army, faced reductions, but it also faced public indignation over the perceived abuses of the domestic intelligence programs. In 1974, the Army replaced USAINTC with the smaller U.S. Army Intelligence Agency (USAINTA) stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland. Intended as a low-profile organization with narrowly mandated missions, it had just two MI groups, the 902d and the 525th, and a variety of other CI activities such as polygraph and technical countermeasures. Meanwhile, the ASA was undergoing retrenchment as well. As a result, the agency inactivated more than 25 percent of its units, closed its two regional headquarters in Europe and the Pacific, and shut down long established field stations. At the top, the ACSI staff was reduced by onethird. In short, Army Intelligence stood at low ebb.
Army Intelligence and the IOSS
Facing more cutbacks, the Army undertook a major reorganization of its intelligence components. At the end of 1974, GEN Frederick C. Weyand, the Army Chief of Staff, commissioned the Intelligence Organization and Stationing Study (IOSS) to reconfigure the Army's intelligence structure that had grown somewhat haphazardly since World War II. For eight months, a panel of senior officers headed by MG James J. Ursano conducted the study. In August 1975, the Ursano panel released its report which was critical of Army Intelligence.
At the top, it found that the ACSI did not facilitate proper supervision of all intelligence agencies, especially SIGINT. The report also concluded that the Army's intelligence production was fragmented among too many agencies. Finally, it sharply criticized the ASA. The agency, it stated, was not able to adequately meet the requirements of tactical commanders. Moreover, the ASA had developed its own personnel, training, and research and development systems and, in many ways, was functionally independent of the Army. This independence created "a stovepipe" of SIGINT that worked against the effective development of allsource intelligence.
To correct these problems, the IOSS recommended a radical change in Army Intelligence structure. First and foremost, it proposed dismembering the ASA to bring SIGINT operations and organizations more in line with the rest of the Army. The agency's training center should fall under the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and its research and development activities should move to U.S. Army Materiel Command. Next, ASA's tactical units would be resubordinated to the field commanders, specifically at the corps and divisional levels. These units would merge with other MI assets to form units with all-source capabilities. The Army began implementing the IOSS proposals in 1976. The proposals would lead to a more sweeping reorganization of Army Intelligence and result in the formation of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command and the Combat Electronic Warfare and Intelligence (CEWI) organizations.
On January 1, 1977, the ASA was re-designated as the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) with MG William I. Rolya as the first commanding general. Headquartered at Arlington Hall Station in Virginia, INSCOM was considerably smaller than its ASA predecessor, but it still controlled a vast array of diverse assets. Initially, these included four theater MI groups, a variety of CI and HUMINT functional units, and eight fixed field stations. Initially, USAINTA operated as a separate command under INSCOM, but the two headquarters merged on October 1, 1977, thus completing the integration of Armylevel intelligence organizations. In broad terms, this new organization was to perform multidisciplinary intelligence, security, and EW functions at the echelons above corps.
Theater intelligence groups were INSCOM's centerpiece. These groups were multidisciplinary elements, formed by integrating former ASA assets into existing intelligence units. Originally, INSCOM had four such units: the 66th MI Group in Germany, the 470th MI Group in Panama, the 500th MI Group in Japan, and the 501st MI Group in Korea. INSCOM tailored the four groups to meet theater-specific requirements, and each of them varied in size, mission, and composition.
In 1982, INSCOM added another theater intelligence group-the 513th MI Group at Fort Monmouth. The 513th MI Group's primary mission was to support possible operations of the newly organized U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which had been set up to defend American interests in the Middle East. In case of war in Europe, the 513th would deploy to Germany to support U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR). The 513?'8 activation signified INSCOM's commitment to provide déployable support to the Army. Regardless of size, composition, or location, the Army theater commanders largely retained operational control of these groups.
By bringing together the full spectrum of intelligence disciplines, INSCOM provided the Army with a single instrument to conduct and coordinate intelligence operations at the level above corps and to provide finished intelligence adapted to meet the Army's needs. The new command established a framework for the various elements of the Army's intelligence system to cross-cue one another, resulting in a collective effort where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. It also provided a central organization for the administration of personnel and logistics in support of national agencies and theater commanders. Moreover, INSCOM provided a base on which the Army could build an expanded intelligence program.
The second part of the IOSS reforms was the creation of CEWI tactical units. Since the mid-1970s, each Army division had contained an organic MI company which combined interrogators, CI specialists, and imagery interpreters with remote sensors and ground surveillance assets. Under the IOSS proposal, this company would be consolidated with a tactical ASA company to place all intelligence and EW assets into a single unit organic to a division.
In October 1976, the Army activated the first of these battalions, the 522d MI Battalion (CEWI), for testing under the 2d Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas. Based upon this testing, the Army adopted a battalion that provided the division commander with operational control over a variety of collection assets from all of the intelligence fields. In addition, the battalion afforded the division's headquarters with a single element to receive the bulk of its intelligence information. By 1988, each of the Army's eighteen divisions had an organic CEWI battalion.
Although the focus of the CEWI concept was the divisional battalions, it was quickly expanded to both the corps and separate brigade levels. At the corps level, the Army established CEWI groups (later brigades) of three components: an operations battalion, an interrogation and exploitation battalion, and a newly organized aerial exploitation battalion (AEB). In 1978, the first such group, the 504th MI Group (CEWI), was formed to support III Corps at Fort Hood. Four more groups followed: the 525th for the XVIII Airborne Corps (1979); 205th for V Corps (1983); 207th for VII Corps (1983), and the 201st for I Corps (1987). Additionally, separate brigades and armored cavalry regiments received CEWI companies.
To correct the IOSS criticism of fragmented intelligence production, the Army established the Army Intelligence Agency (AIA) in July 1984. Operating as a field agency under the ACSI, the AIA combined the Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center (ITAC), the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC) and the Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC) . Together, these organizations gave the Army a single production capability with over 1,500 personnel, making it the largest Army intelligence production organization since 1961 and the creation of DIA.
By the end of the 1980s, the Army had fully implemented the IOSS reforms. Army Intelligence had dedicated assets to support every level in the Army; INSCOM's brigades supported the national and theater level while the organic CEWI brigades and battalions supported every corps and division. The Army had a consolidated production organization in the AIA. To provide overall oversight for these assets, the Army upgraded its intelligence position on the Army Staff, and the major general ACSI became a lieutenant general with the title, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (DCSINT). LTG Sidney T. Weinstein became the first DCSINT in May 1987. Two months later, on July 1, 1987, the Army established the MI Corps as a "whole-branch" regiment, under the newly implemented U.S. Army Regimental System. The integration of the noncombat arms into this system provided a means to enhance esprit de corps and emphasize the Army's heritage and traditions. The Corps signified that Army Intelligence had become a single, cohesive community in the Army's mainstream.
As Army Intelligence solidified its position in the Army, it scored two significant CI triumphs. In 1988, Army CI agents in Europe tracked down Clyde Conrad, a retired Army NCO who was a key figure in an espionage ring that betrayed the war plans of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the Hungarian intelligence service. Later, INSCOM's Foreign CI Activity arrested Army Warrant Officer James Hall, who had sold American secrets to the Soviets.
Army Intelligence in Operations Just Cause and Desert Shield/ Desert Storm When the Army designed CEWI units, it did so largely to fight on a conventional battlefield, most likely in Europe. Ironically, their first operational use occurred in the unconventional environment of the Caribbean. In October 1983, CEWI elements from Fort Bragg deployed to Grenada as part of Operation URGENT FURY to rescue American medical students after a military coup on the island. Six years later, when the U.S. launched Operation JUST CAUSE to depose Panamanian strongman Manuel Noreiga, the Army deployed elements of a corps CEWI brigade and two divisional CEWI battalions. Brigade soldiers interrogated key members of Noreiga's Panamanian Defense Force, screened documents, and served as the nucleus of the Joint Task Force (TF) Panama J2. Although the divisional intelligence battalions employed their Low Level Voice Intercept Teams and other SIGINT assets, it was their limited teams of interrogators and CI specialists that yielded the most intelligence.
INSCOM's 470th MI Brigade immeasurably helped the Just Cause intelligence operations. The brigade had been in place in Panama for decades. As American TFs fought Noriega's forces, the 470th deployed its assets to support the operation. Intimately familiar with both the terrain and the disposition of Panama's armed forces, brigade teams provided spot reports throughout Panama City. Using their sources, 470th Soldiers obtained critical information on troop movements and locations of weapons caches. After the fighting, they helped identify and apprehend a number of Noriega's top aides. For the operations during and after the fighting, in- theater assets combined with deployed tactical MI units to provide effective intelligence support.
Less than a year later and halfway across the world, American ground, naval, and air forces under the control of CENTCOM deployed to Saudi Arabia in reaction to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. To support these forces, Army Intelligence would make one of its largest single efforts since WW II. The Army deployed two corps and eight divisions with their organic MI units, amounting to two brigades and fourteen battalions. INSCOM additionally deployed its 513th MI Brigade and other elements to provide support at the theater level. Finally, the AIA concentrated its efforts to produce tactical intelligence for the American ground forces in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (KTO) . Within the KTO, the U.S. Army Central Command (ARCENT) G2 acted as the fulcrum for Army Intelligence.
Throughout the fall of 1990, Army planners thought that XVIII Airborne Corps G2 and the 525th MI Brigade could coordinate intelligence operations for the defense of Kuwait. However, when CENTCOM changed the Army's mission to a two-corps offensive, ARCENT needed a larger intelligence headquarters. In December 1990, BG John F. Stewart became the ARCENT G2. Under Stewart, the G2 was energized and expanded. The growth of the G2 was accomplished largely with personnel from the 513th MI Brigade. In December, the G2's strength was about 700, but on the eve of the ground offensive, it was close to 1,900.
Despite becoming functional only in the weeks before the ground offensive kicked off, the ARCENT G2 made tre mendous strides in establishing an oper ational intelligence system. Stewart had the G2 synchronize intelligence collec tion, products, and dissemination with the planned operations, and provided « key reads of the enemy situation for the tactical commanders. The G2 also assumed the sometimes contentious role of making battle damage assess ments BDA of the CENTCOM bomb mg campaign. Although challenged with conflicting reports and analysis from the air forces and the national agencies, the G2 s BDA was generally correct. Finally, the ARCENT G2 established a series of communication links which allowed the G2 to quickly exchange battlefield re ports with the corps, and to connect with the Army analysts and databases at AIA The connection between ARCENT and AIA was particularly valuable. The agency's analysts produced a series of tactical 1:50,000 scale templates that depicted every Iraqi division in the KTO. Accurate to 400 meters, the template showed weapons locations and fortifications and provided field commanders with a blueprint of the Iraqi obstacle system. Digitally transmitted to the ARCENT G2, the template overlays were transferred to maps and produced into overprinted map sheets and sent to division and brigades. Afterwards, AIA delivered daily updates to ARCENT. The agency also augmented ARCENT G2 with specialists and technicians and provided analysts to the Department of Defense's Joint Intelligence Center, which was set up to support CENTCOM's operations. In short, AIA provided deployed intelligence assets the capability to "reach back" to expertise and information.
During Operations Desert Shield/ Desert Storm, several factors hampered the efforts of Army Intelligence. Foremost, the requirement to build up military power in KTO meant that intelligence assets were deployed after the combat units that they were meant to support. Once in place, the collection assets were limited to behind the border operations to mask the intentions of CENTCOM's ground forces. This was a critical issue because Army Intelligence normally depended on the information from forces in contact to develop the disposition of enemy forces along the front. Also, the Army lacked enough Arabic linguists-a deficiency it had to make up by creatively using nearly 300 Kuwaiti volunteers, mostly college students, who were quickly trained and sent to the KTO by the Army.
Because of the slow build up of intelligence elements, the Army forces initially relied heavily on national sources. While it never lost its reliance on those assets, as forces arrived, the Army did deploy its own collection means. As their SIGINT assets became available, theater, corps, and divisional MI units deployed them along the fronts. Initially hindered by Iraqi radio silence, once the allied attack started and forced the Iraqis to reposition, Army SIGINT picked up some useful intelligence on movement and identification of Iraqi units. Also, some Army electronic jamming operations drove the Iraqis to use less secure communication methods that were intercepted. These operations allowed analysts to develop one of the more accurate methods for targeting Iraqi mobile surface-to-surface missiles. In addition to the division and corps prisoner confinement centers, the Army established two Joint Interrogation Facilities to process and glean intelligence from prisoners, deserters, and other line crossers. Together the facilities processed over 70,000 enemy prisoners by the end of the war. In some cases, the interrogations obtained important tactical information.
Throughout the campaign, Imagery Intelligence remained the most demanded intelligence source. Tactical commanders had an insatiable demand for imagery. This desire was understandable because diagrams and analysis on maps were only poor substitutes for actual overhead pictures. Two imagery systems were pressed into service, although they were only in developmental stages: Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, an airborne system that could detect moving targets on the ground, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), drones with television cameras or other sensors. Both systems proved extremely successful, but only VII Corps, as the main effort, had use of the UAVs. To disseminate other imagery, Army Intelligence established four satellite links to the corps and ARCENT. Nevertheless, despite these noteworthy efforts, imagery dissemination still required a huge amount of manpower with daily couriers from ARCENT carrying 200 pounds of annotated photographs, overprinted maps with templates, and other intelligence documents to the headquarters throughout the theater.
In the end, GEN John J. Yeosock, ARCENT commander, noted that "The enemy was exactly where intelligence said he was, disposed as intelligence described... tactical intelligence was superb." While Army Intelligence was ultimately successful, Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm pointed to new challenges that it would face in the future. No longer would the Army have the advantage of facing a familiar enemy on familiar terrain on a European battlefield. Consequently, Army intelligence would need to be able to project itself into a theater of operations quickly and effectively with improved dissemination capabilities to focus intelligence down to the tactical commanders.
Army Intelligence in the 1990s
After Operation Desert Storm, the Army began to feel the effects of the end of the Cold War in 1989. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, it began to withdraw much of its presence in Europe and became largely based in CONUS. The Army became concerned with force projection, deploying from numerous bases over long distances. Army Intelligence had to adapt to this new environment.
In the 1990s, Army Intelligence developed new concepts to support the Army in its strategic power projection. Intelligence operations would be conducted with a flexible, tailorable "system of systems." The cornerstone of this structure was the fact that no echelon had all the intelligence assets it needed to fully support the commander's intelligence requirements. Consequently, the structure needed to be seamless where national and theater assets provided meaningful tactical information for the field as well as strategic intelligence for the national decision makers. With reliable, automated communications, tactical units could pull what information they needed from the system, while strategic and theater assets could push critical intelligence downward. These communications also allowed split-based intelligence operations, where some intelligence assets deployed forward into the active theater while others remained in the U.S. or other sanctuaries. This reduced the necessity to deploy all essential intelligence assets and, at the same time, allowed for continuity of intelligence coverage.
A key element of this concept was the Déployable Intelligence Support Element (DISE). The DISE was an intelligence team that brought together a suite of communications and automation capable of deploying with the Army's early entry forces. Its size depended on its mission. A DISE could be part of a divisional battalion deploying to support one of its brigades or a team of INSCOM theater analysts supporting a joint TF. Later, if necessary, the elements could be expanded into full intelligence production and dissemination activities. The DISE would allow deployed commanders at every level to tap into the larger intelligence system.
Not everything changed, however, under the emerging concepts. G2s and S2s continued to manage intelligence collection, production, and dissemination within their units. They set priorities and synchronized intelligence with tactical operations. MI brigades and battalions remained at the corps and division levels to perform situation and target development and force protection with a variety of collection assets. Likewise, INSCOM still provided tactical support through its theater brigades and leveraged strategic assets to meet the needs of the Army Service Component Commands. INSCOM also continued to provide important functional intelligence support for the Army. The 902d MI Group was the Army's principal CI organization, providing polygraph examinations, technical services countermeasures and counterespionage operations in CONUS. Meanwhile, the 704th MI Brigade provided Army cryptologie personnel to the NSA.
Army Intelligence put these concepts into effect in a series of contingency operations throughout the 1990s. A number of these occurred in the Balkans where NATO led a series of peace-enforcing and peacekeeping operations into remnants of the former Yugoslavia. In Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995-2004), the Army provided forces for the division- sized TF Eagle, which first enforced a cease fire, then helped stabilize the country as part of Operations Joint Endeavor and Joint Forge. In Kosovo (1999-2012), the Army's brigade-sized TF Falcon established a secure environment as part of Operation Joint Guardian. The Army conducted similar peace operations in Somalia (1992-1994) and Haiti (1994 and 2004).
In all of these operations, the participating units deployed with their organic intelligence assets to perform indications and warnings, situation development and force protection. Meanwhile, the higher echelons provided DISEs that varied in size and capabilities. During Operations Restore Hope and Uphold Democracy in 1994, INSCOM's 513th MI Brigade provided a robust Corps MI Support Element to supplement the XVIII Airborne Corps' Analysis and Control Element (ACE) in its analytical, collection, and production operations. In Bosnia, INSCOM's 66th MI Group deployed analysts, links to national assets, and communication systems to support the multi-national force headquarters as well as the American TF Eagle in 1995. The group's DISE became the core for the U.S. National Intelligence Cell with the addition of teams from the national agencies. Four years later, the 1st Infantry Division G2 sent much of its ACE to support the commander of U.S. Kosovo Force (KFOR). The division also deployed Analysis and Control Teams to support the U.S. and allied battalions in the American sector. Backing all these DISEs were larger theater intelligence capabilities in sanctuary and national intelligence centers in the U.S.
Besides developing techniques and systems to support force projection, Army Intelligence honed its experience in the post-Cold War world. The distinction between strategic and tactical intelligence faded with the presence of DISEs and teams from the national agencies. These elements meant that intelligence from national and theater agencies was more readily available for tactical use. Furthermore, intelligence of tactical value may have strategic consequence as well. In this new environment, Army Intelligence also tackled the problems of sharing information with multi-national partners, some of whom had previously been enemies only a few years before, like the Russians and Poles. MI leaders and Soldiers had to adapt to a new problem set, analyzing political elections, treaty compliance, and unauthorized movements. Instead of databases of order of battle and target folders, deployed intelligence analysts created lists of high- value personalities, weapons storage sites, and even license plates.
Intelligence for this new type of analysis came from an odd mixture of old and new sources. Always important, SIGINT collection normally had to be adapted, frequently with off-the-shelf commercial equipment. UAVs proved to be excellent intelligence assets in peace operations. With a low-profile presence, they were flexible and accurate, and often provided verification of treaty violations or extralegal activities. Remote sensors made a comeback after falling into disuse after Vietnam. They were useful in detecting treaty violations or smuggling routes as well as force protection. Most of all, tactical HUMINT became increasingly important. MI leaders task organized CI/HUMINT teams to provide information about individuals, groups, and in their areas of interest. New G2X staff elements began to manage CI/HUMINT resources and coordinate their efforts. Linked to the increasing use of HUMINT, Army Intelligence used non- traditional sources more and more. These sources included international and non-governmental organizations who had established contacts and relationships in the local communities.
At the Army level, INSCOM reorganized some of its assets. The command regained the Army's intelligence production agencies when the AIA was inactivated and merged them to form the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) in 1995. INSCOM also became the executive agent for two new mission sites with cutting-edge technologies in Bad Aibling, Germany and Menwith Hill, United Kingdom. At Fort Gordon, Georgia, INSCOM set up a Regional Security Operations Center (RSOC) comprising personnel of the newly organized 702d MI Group (later redesignated the 116th MI Group). The 513th MI Brigade moved to Fort Gordon, and collocated with the RSOC, allowing the theater brigade personnel to take part in national missions.
Army Intelligence in the 21st Century
The terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, propelled the U.S. and its allies into the Global War on Terrorism. The war demanded a truly global intelligence effort. As a result, INSCOM, with its ability to draw on Soldiers and information around the world, played a major role. Combat operations began when coalition forces deployed to Afghanistan in October 2001 to launch Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Osama bin Laden, leader of the AI Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the attacks, was believed to be based in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan.
The scope of combat expanded in March 2003 when the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq with the object of deposing its leader, Saddam Hussein, who was thought to be harboring weapons of mass destruction. To support this operation, known as IRAQI FREEDOM, the 513th MI Brigade initially manned joint intelligence centers and supported Army tactical commanders with intelligence. INSCOM's other theater intelligence brigades tracked terrorist activities in their areas, established new priorities to better support worldwide operations, and provided individual Soldiers and team reinforcement to both Afghanistan and Iraq. From the U.S., NGIC sent customized intelligence products to the field; of particular note, it worked on counter-improvised explosive device (IED) techniques and technologies. Furthermore, after December 2003, INSCOM acted as the executive agent for contracting linguists, providing over 14,000 interpreters and translators proficient in 30 languages worldwide by 2010.
In the active theaters, Army Intelligence fielded new technologies that assisted intelligence gathering and reporting. In some cases, the technology permitted new intelligence fields to emerge. Biometrics, the identification of humans by their unique characteristics or traits, became usable at the tactical level to recognize and track individuals of security interest, a critical capability in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. At the same time, the emergence of geospatial intelligence, a combination of imagery and geospatial information, gave tactical commanders new ways of visualizing the battlefield. Meanwhile, more established sources continued to provide useful information. SIGINT provided information on insurgent networks and operations, while imagery, often from UAVs, furnished situation awareness and important targeting assets at all levels. Document and media exploitation augmented these efforts. However, the Army became more and more dependent on HUMINT in the form of interrogations and interaction with the community to gather information on the intangible factors of COIN.
Until 2007, corps and divisions rotating through Iraq or Afghanistan deployed with their organic intelligence units, usually supplemented by theater and national resources. As operations continued, the Army began to convert to a brigade-based force. Now, it needed a more robust intelligence collection and analysis capability at the brigade combat team (BCT) level. The new BCTs had an organic MI company with HUMINT, SIGINT, UAVs, and analytical assets. Because the brigade and its battalion intelligence officers needed to better detect, track, and target enemy activities, the brigade and battalion S2 sections grew in size. Part of the growth included a S2X to coordinate the increased HUMINT assets.
Even with the significant increase in BCT intelligence capabilities, past experiences indicated that the brigade would sometimes need additional intelligence resources. This would not come from the division level, however, since the last divisional MI battalion had been inactivated in March 2007. Instead, reinforcement would corne from the new corps-level Battlefield Surveillance Brigades (BfSB), the core of which was two MI battalions. These battalions contained ground-based SIGINT assets, but were heavily weighted with CI/HUMINT teams. One of the two CI/HUMINT companies was designed specifically to reinforce the BCTs' operations. The 525th MI Brigade converted to a BfSB in September 2007, later two more such brigades followed.
As the Army began organizing these new corps-level brigades, the Army Vice Chief of Staff authorized the assignment of all AEBs to INSCOM. This allowed INSCOM to assign the battalions with its theater MI brigades. The command then implemented a "capabilitiesbased" rotation of the low-density, high-demand aviation assets. This rotation allowed for centralized decision making at the aircraft fleet level, but decentralized execution for those battalions supporting both Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Assignment of the AEBs to a single command allowed increased readiness through consolidation of linguists and analysts and more efficient use of regionally focused expertise, national resources, and funding.
In addition to pushing significant MI assets to the BCT level and the restructuring of the corps intelligence brigades, Army Intelligence fielded several new organizations to better support the field. With HUMINT a vital-perhaps the most vital-source of intelligence in COIN operations, the Army activated its first interrogation and debriefing battalion, the 201st MI Battalion, in April 2005. Three more followed in the next few years. Army Intelligence designed these battalions specifically to operate within a joint interrogation and debriefing center (JIDC). The battalion's personnel and equipment formed the JIDC nucleus, and could easily be augmented with resources from other services.
To detect IEDs, the Army fielded TF ODIN (observe, detect, identify, and neutralize) in October 2007. Relying heavily on a variety of new non-standard imagery technologies, the TF used both manned and unmanned aerial assets to detect and counter IEDs. Organized into three companies, it had its own teams of imagery and all-source analysts to provide real-time examination of the TF-produced imagery. Initially used in Iraq, TF ODIN was later successfully used in Afghanistan.
Finally, in October 2011, the 780th MI Brigade activated at Fort Meade. Its mission was to support U.S. and Army Cyber Commands with their missions to provide proactive cyber defense. With its two battalions, the brigade was capable of conducting SIGINT, computer network operations, and when directed, offensive operations, in support of Army and joint operations worldwide. It also had a defensive capability. The 780th MI Brigade, TF ODIN, and the 201st MI Battalion are all examples of how Army Intelligence continually innovates and adapts to meet the intelligence needs of the Army.
Conclusion
In 1776, GEN George Washington wrote "As it is of great consequence to gain intelligence of the enemy's intended operations, I cannot but recommend your attention to this subject, and that you will concert some measures... for establishing a channel of information." In 2012, the Army has incorporated its first Commanding General's recommendations. MI Soldiers serve at every level from national agencies in the U.S. to tactical units in the field. G2/S2 from the Army to battalion staffs direct the intelligence effort at their levels. The Army has fifteen MI brigades or groups, forty MI battalions, seventy- three MI companies, and one intelligence production center. In short, MI remains a vital part of the Army and Army operations.
by Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Michael E. Bigelow, Command Historian, U.S. Array Intelligence and Security Command
Copyright Superintendent of Documents Jul-Sep 2012