Brief History of Army MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

A BRIEF HISTORY OF U.S. ARMY MILITARY INTELLIGENCEIn August 1903 the Military InformationDivision became the SecondDivision, one of the three maindivisions of the new General Staff, theothers being the First Division incharge of all Army administration andthe Third Division in charge of plans.One of the new chief of staff’s earlyactions was to issue a call for qualifiedofficers to assist the Second Divisionin translating Russian, German,French, Italian, Spanish, Portugueseand Japanese documents.The job of the Second Divisionwas spelled out as “collection, arrangement,and publication of historical,statistical, and geographical information;War Department Library; systemof war maps, American and foreign;general information regardingforeign armies and fortresses; preparationfrom official records of analyticaland critical histories of importantcampaigns.” It was also responsiblefor the system of military attaches.The first chief was Major WilliamDorrance Beach who was supportedby only five officers and the same fourrooms in the State, War and NavyBuilding. He organized the divisioninto six sections: 1. Military Attacheand Manila Office Section; to be controlledby the Division Chief, assistedby Capt. J.C. Oakes. 2. Classification,Card Indexing and LibrarySection; to operate under the supervisionof Capt. H.C. Hale, the DivisionSecretary. 3. Map and PhotographsSection; directed by Capt.H.M. Reeve. 4. Historical Section;to which any officer of the Divisionmay be assigned as required. 5.Monograph Section; to which all officersof the Division will be automaticallyassigned and provided withappropriate work projects of a continuingnature. 6. Publication Section;headed by Capt. C.T. Mencher.One of the early successes of thenew Second and Third Divisions actingjointly was anticipation of insurrectionin Cuba and the preparationof a plan for U.S. Army intervention.The Cuban Pacification plan was putinto effect after requests for aid fromthe new Cuban government in 1906.As part of the occupation forces, abranch office of the Second Divisionwas created in Havana and “engagedin collecting valuable statistical andtopographical information.”The Third Division planners, essentiallythe members of the ArmyWar College, relied extensively on informationprovided by the SecondDivision and worked closely withthem. So when the Third Divisionmoved into its new quarters in theWar College Building at WashingtonBarracks, D.C., it recommended thatthe Second Division move there tooto facilitate coordination between thetwo staffs. While objected to by themilitary information people, theChief of Staff approved the move andit was completed in May 1908. Amonth later the chief directed themerger of the Second and Third Divisionsinto a Second Section. Itschief would be the president of theWar College. A Military InformationCommittee was created in this neworganization, along with a War CollegeCommittee. The mission of theMilitary Information Committee wasnot much different from the one assignedto the second division in 1903,but centralization followed and theintelligence function was virtuallyabsorbed into the War College. Amission statement issued in February1912 showed fewer true intelligencetasks and more work related to theeducation of the Army. By May 1915the Military Information Section ofthe Army War College had even lessto do with intelligence duties, insteadbeing charged with doing “currentGeneral Staff work.”In 1898 an Insurgent RecordsOffice was created in the Manila headquartersof the Expeditionary Forcein the Philippines to sift through andtranslate the boxes of captured documentsthat could furnish valuable informationto the field commanders.The importance and scope of the officegrew and so did the staff, finallybecoming the Military InformationDivision of the Adjutant General’sOffice, Headquarters, Division of thePhilippines, on 13 December 1900.The new agency was performing alltactical and counter intelligence tasksfor the Philippines, recruiting Filipinoagents and working closely with theMID in the War Department. It waseventually merged with the War DepartmentMID on 18 June 1902, receivingits funding from Washingtonand serving as a branch of the MIDin the War Department. This had thedisadvantage of excluding the localcommander from the direction ofintelligence work.Its first chief was Lt. Colonel JosephT. Dickman, who would laterbe a major general and lead the ThirdU.S. Army over the Rhine to occupyGermany in November 1918. Hewas seconded by Captain John R.M.Taylor who would be assisted byCapt. Ralph Van Deman. It was VanDeman who set up a Map Section andordered terrain reconnaissances.Unlike Cuba, where informantswere plentiful, little was known aboutthe Philippines at the time of theSpanish American War. The researchersin MID seemed to have neglectedthese far-away Pacific islands and theirWrite Fort Huachuca Museums; U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca; ATTN: ATZS-PAM; Fort Huachuca, AZ 85613-6000.13