US Army Military Intelligence History: A Sourcebook - Fort Huachuca ...

U.S. Army Intelligence History: A SourcebookThe Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) used as many as 2,000 American Nisei soldiers toprovide interrogation and translation services from headquarters level down to the front lines. During thewar the ATIS language teams translated 350,000 captured documents and debriefed 10,000 prisoners.The unit’s duties carried over into the postwar disarming of Japan and her colonies. The section washeaded by Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir, himself a student of Japanese and former undercover agent inTokyo.Technical intelligence (TI) teams began to be deployed to the Pacific in December 1942 to speedilyexamine captured enemy equipment in order to make use of its technical characteristics.The Office of the Coordinator of Information was established on 11 July 1941 to conduct covert operationsand supply information necessary to the national security. At its head was William J. Donovan, aNew York lawyer and World War I Medal of Honor winner. Exactly one year later President Rooseveltordered that the office be renamed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and placed under control of theJoint Chiefs of Staff. According to Allen Dulles, the agency recruited some of the nation’s best historiansand scholars to man its research and analysis desks. The OSS was given a charge “to collect and analyzestrategic information and to plan and operate special services.” Some of its special services includeddropping teams behind enemy lines to support resistance movements, gather intelligence, spreaddisinformation, carry out sabotage missions, and undertake counterespionage work. OSS conductedespionage and partisan operations which captured the public’s imagination, largely because of the descriptionsof their colorful exploits published by their literary members after the war. The ranks of the OSSwere filled with some 8,000 Army personnel. One of the most notable of these special operatives was Col.Carl Eifler who commanded the famed Detachment 101 in Burma and secured the vital Stilwell Road.Maj. Gen. George V. Strong was chief of the Military Information Division in 1942 when the OSS camealong and was determined to have his own foreign intelligence unit. He created what became known asthe Grombach Organization, named after its head, Colonel John V. “Frenchy” Grombach, to run highlysecret operations in Europe from 1942 to about 1947. Little is known about this shadowy Army unit andits competition with the OSS.The Army Security Agency was formed under the command of the Director of Intelligence, U.S. Army,on 15 September 1945. It absorbed the missions of the former Signal Security Agency and its operatingarm, the 2d Signal Service Battalion. It was also responsible for signals intelligence and communicationssecurity of all Army assets in the field. The first head of the Army Security Agency was Brig. Gen. W.Preston Corderman who, as a first lieutenant, was the sole instructor at the Signal Intelligence Service’sfirst formal school in 1934. Its all-encompassing mission was diminished toward the end of the decade assome of its functions were turned over to the Air Force Security Service and the joint-service Armed ForcesSecurity Agency, which would become the National Security Agency in 1952.Acting on a proposal of William Donovan of the old OSS, President Truman called for the establishmentof a permanent central intelligence agency that would operate as an arm of the executive branch ofgovernment to counteract Communist tactics of “coercion, subterfuge, and political infiltration.” Congresspassed the National Security Act of 1947. It created the Central Intelligence Agency which would beresponsible for coordinating the intelligence activities of the various government departments and makeevaluations and recommendations to the National Security Council. In 1947 the CIA vowed “Bigger ThanState by ’48,” and it would succeed, receiving a larger budget allocation than the State Department a yearlater.While Donovan succeeded in winning over the administration to his recommendations concerning theneed for a national intelligence apparatus, the CIA did not do away with the Military Intelligence Division.But recommendations from within the Army for a Military Intelligence Corps failed to convince theWar Department of its need in peacetime and intelligence functions would continue to be performed byofficers drawn from other branches. A Strategic Intelligence School was opened in 1947 as part of theArmy’s school system.164