The United States lacked an intelligence agency prior to World War II beyond small offices in the Departments of the Army and the Navy. Even the fabled Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that performed a wide range of intelligence gathering and analysis during WWII was disbanded soon after the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. In 1947, however, the US created the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. By the end of the 1950s the intelligence community (IC) with the CIA in a central role was well on its way to becoming a major center of power and influence within the federal bureaucracy. How do such institutions grow so rapidly with virtually no precedent?
In fact, is not entirely accurate to say that the US had no experience with intelligence prior to this massive growth of the IC after WWII. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) played a small but significant role as both a domestic and foreign intelligence service prior to the creation of the CIA. Much of the intelligence the FBI gathered, and its key personnel involved in foreign intelligence collection transferred to the CIA. This is important because institutions often follow a path-dependent development process. That is, the institutional culture that is created at the start affects what comes later. It is not that developments are predetermined, but rather patterns of action, bureaucratic practices, and institutional priorities are shaped by the past.
The FBI, however, is a particularly interesting case because its origins and development were dominated by one man, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was not only the Director of the FBI at its creation in 1935 remaining in the position until 1972, he was the director of the now-forgotten office that preceded the FBI known as the General Intelligence Division (GID) (later the Radical Division).
As a young Department of Justice attorney in 1917, Hoover was tasked with creating the GID, the purpose of which was to collect intelligence on groups and individuals who might harm the American war effort. Hoover and a small force of dedicated individuals collected a large database on suspected radicals, many of whom were foreign-born. After the war ended, however, the Radical Division became far more active in the wake of anarchist bombings that captured public attention. The resulting raids and deportations of left-wing radicals eventually became an embarrassment, however, and the Radical Division was closed in 1924.
Despite this unpromising start, Hoover was picked ten years later to lead the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation). Hoover brought with him many of the same personnel who had worked with him in the Radical Division, as well as the extensive intelligence database that has been collected and filed by them. Hoover maintained an extraordinary level of personal control over the FBI through his tenure that reflected his strong anti-communist sentiment. It permeated the culture of the FBI, its hiring practices, and the intelligence gathering priorities of the new bureau.
The fact that the FBI had many intelligence veterans from the Radical Division made the FBI a natural candidate for intelligence collection and analysis soon after it was founded. As Europe slid toward war, President Roosevelt asked Hoover to collect information on potential Nazi sympathizers in the US. By 1940, Roosevelt was particularly concerned about Nazi influence in South America and directed the FBI to create a foreign intelligence collection service across the Western Hemisphere known as the Special Intelligence Service (SIS).
The SIS rapidly became entrenched in every embassy in Latin America, whose agents were designated as “legal attaches” while running networks of informants. The SIS also introduced false information into Nazi networks through the targeted use of double agents. These SIS personnel stationed in embassies under diplomatic cover became in some ways the model for CIA station chiefs in American embassies.
The SIS expanded its operations into Europe after the US entered World War II and became involved in intelligence collection and analysis on a wide range of issues. With the expansion of its remit, the SIS grew as a bureaucratic force to the extent that the FBI was considered as the logical home for what would be the post-war American intelligence community. This clearly did not occur, but when the SIS was disbanded it transferred all of its files, networks, and communication systems to the newly established CIA. More importantly, however, by 1950 every CIA station chief in Latin America had previously served as an SIS “legal attache.” The CIA did not simply spring into existence in 1947. Instead, it was built on a foundation that incorporated the FBI’s institutional culture based on Hoover’s priorities.
University of Florida
USA
