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Authors: Allen W. Dulles
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Budget, Harold D. Smith. He had got into the act in connection with the preparation of the new budget and had his own ideas about how intelligence should be organized. He had already sent President Roosevelt a memorandum, in which he pointed out, as President Truman reports, 3 “that a tug of war was going on among the FBI, the Office of Strategic Services, the Army and Navy Intelligence, and the State Department.” President Truman added in his memoirs:
3 Harry S. Truman, Years of Decision (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1955), p. 98.
I considered it very important to this country to have a sound, well-organized intelligence system, both in the present and in the future. Properly developed, such a service would require new concepts as well as better-trained and more competent personnel. Smith suggested, and I agreed, that studies should be undertaken at once by his specially trained experts in this field. Plans needed to be made, but it was imperative that we refrain from rushing into something that would produce harmful and unnecessary rivalries among the various intelligence agencies. I told Smith that one thing was certain—this country wanted no Gestapo under any guise or for any reason.
For the next few months the issue was hotly debated, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff playing an important role. They instructed their Joint Intelligence Committee, on which all the military and civilian foreign Intelligence agencies, including OSS, were represented, to study the proposals Donovan had earlier submitted to President Roosevelt, as well as those of other interested agencies.
Meanwhile the Bureau of the Budget continued its own activities and prepared an Executive Order for President Truman’s signature putting the Office of Strategic Services into liquidation. When the Joint Chiefs heard of this, they urged the President to defer action until their views could be presented. However, this word reached the White House too late. The President, on the 20th of September, 1945, issued an Executive Order providing for the termination of the OSS and placing its research unit in the Department of State and the other remaining units under the Secretary of War. These latter were put together in an organization known as the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). SSU was not combined with G-2 but was put under the Under Secretary of War, and it is only fair to say that throughout the ensuing struggle for control and until SSU was taken over by the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), SSU was left largely autonomous in its operations and received complete administrative support from the Army.
The tug of war had continued between the Department of State, which desired to take over the postwar leadership of foreign intelligence, and the military services, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which wished to continue the domination they had exercised during the war.
To help resolve these conflicts of interest, the President called on an old friend, Sidney W. Souers, who had been serving the Navy Department in an intelligence capacity. He had been promoted to flag rank in 1945 and made Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence. Souers worked closely with Admiral Leahy and James S. Lay, Jr., who had been secretary of the JIC and later became Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.
Of the many studies and proposals, probably the most influential was that of the so-called Lovett Committee, headed by Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air. This contemplated a Central Intelligence Agency supported by an independent budget which would be responsible only to a National Intelligence Authority composed of the Secretaries of State, War and Navy and a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Finally, on January 22, 1946, President Truman reached his own decision and acted. In a directive to the Secretaries of State, War and Navy, he ordered that they, together with a personal representative of the President (Admiral
3 Harry S. Truman, Years of Decision (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1955), p. 98.
I considered it very important to this country to have a sound, well-organized intelligence system, both in the present and in the future. Properly developed, such a service would require new concepts as well as better-trained and more competent personnel. Smith suggested, and I agreed, that studies should be undertaken at once by his specially trained experts in this field. Plans needed to be made, but it was imperative that we refrain from rushing into something that would produce harmful and unnecessary rivalries among the various intelligence agencies. I told Smith that one thing was certain—this country wanted no Gestapo under any guise or for any reason.
For the next few months the issue was hotly debated, with the Joint Chiefs of Staff playing an important role. They instructed their Joint Intelligence Committee, on which all the military and civilian foreign Intelligence agencies, including OSS, were represented, to study the proposals Donovan had earlier submitted to President Roosevelt, as well as those of other interested agencies.
Meanwhile the Bureau of the Budget continued its own activities and prepared an Executive Order for President Truman’s signature putting the Office of Strategic Services into liquidation. When the Joint Chiefs heard of this, they urged the President to defer action until their views could be presented. However, this word reached the White House too late. The President, on the 20th of September, 1945, issued an Executive Order providing for the termination of the OSS and placing its research unit in the Department of State and the other remaining units under the Secretary of War. These latter were put together in an organization known as the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). SSU was not combined with G-2 but was put under the Under Secretary of War, and it is only fair to say that throughout the ensuing struggle for control and until SSU was taken over by the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), SSU was left largely autonomous in its operations and received complete administrative support from the Army.
The tug of war had continued between the Department of State, which desired to take over the postwar leadership of foreign intelligence, and the military services, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which wished to continue the domination they had exercised during the war.
To help resolve these conflicts of interest, the President called on an old friend, Sidney W. Souers, who had been serving the Navy Department in an intelligence capacity. He had been promoted to flag rank in 1945 and made Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence. Souers worked closely with Admiral Leahy and James S. Lay, Jr., who had been secretary of the JIC and later became Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.
Of the many studies and proposals, probably the most influential was that of the so-called Lovett Committee, headed by Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air. This contemplated a Central Intelligence Agency supported by an independent budget which would be responsible only to a National Intelligence Authority composed of the Secretaries of State, War and Navy and a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Finally, on January 22, 1946, President Truman reached his own decision and acted. In a directive to the Secretaries of State, War and Navy, he ordered that they, together with a personal representative of the President (Admiral
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