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ABSTRACT
The National Security Act of 1947 gives insight into the value of intelligence to the proponents of the bill. The formation of the CIA capped two years of change in the existing intelligence agencies. The Office of Strategic Studies (OSS) closed shop after the war, and the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) was destined to fail even from the time of its creation in January 1946. Although President Harry S Truman may have had some interest in the formation of the CIA, there were other factors here. The fact that his administration established the most prominent intelligence agency in U.S. history does not necessarily mean that he was a keen authority on foreign intelligence. Truman had only a marginal role in the formation of the government’s foreign intelligence apparatus and showed only a limited understanding of the gathering and use of foreign intelligence during the first two years of his presidency.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Professor Donald Mrozek for his thorough review and insightful comments on this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The three service departments were the Department of the Army, Department of the Navy, and Department of the Air Force. The United States Marine Corp has statutory protection under the Department of the Navy.
2 Thomas F. Troy, Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, Inc., 1981), 402.
3 Michael Warner, “Wanted: A definition of ‘Intelligence’,” Center for the Study of Intelligence, Studies in Intelligence 46, no.3 (2002), last modified 27 June 2008, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no3/article02.html, (accessed April 27, 2017).This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
4 The traditional intelligence cycle is the method U.S. Government develops sensitive raw data. The stages are: the issuance of requirements by senior leaders, collecting information, processing the data, analyzing it to create intelligence, publicizing that intelligence in secret channels, and decision makers providing feedback. Then, the cycle repeats itself. The cycle helps turn raw data into relevant and actionable intelligence.
5 National Security Act of 1947, Amended through Public Law 114–328, f 1947, 114th Cong., 2nd sess. (2016), S. Doc. 503(e).
6 Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (New York: Free Press, 2011), 320.
7 Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1956), 56.
8 Harry S. Truman. Memorandum, 1 December 1963, SRF 24; Truman Library.
9 William J. Donovan, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 4 May 1945, SMOF: Rose Conway Files 10. Memorandum for the President, 4 May 1945, Truman Papers Truman Library.
10 William J. Donovan, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 25 August 1945, SMOF: Rose Conway Files 10; Memorandum for the President, 25 August 1945; Truman Papers, Truman Library.
11 Five of the most important agencies – Department of War, Department of the Navy, Department of State, Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – disapproved of his plan. It was partly due to Donovan’s reputation in the Executive branch and these agencies were also drafting plans of their own for a centralized intelligence service.
12 William J. Donovan, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 25 August 1945.
13 Ibid.
14 Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 4.
15 Ibid., 322.
16 Troy, Donovan and the CIA, 270.
17 Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Anchor Books, 2007), 8.
18 Donald R. McCoy, “Harry S. Truman: Personality, Politics, and Presidency,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, no.2 (Spring 1982): 216 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27547807.pdf, (Accessed April 20, 2017).
19 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 8.
20 Donovan, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 25 August 1945.
21 William J. Donovan, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 13 September 1945, SMOF: Rose Conway Files 10; Memorandum for the President, 13 September 1945; Truman Papers, Truman Library.
22 Harry S. Truman to General Donovan, 20 September 1945, Truman Library, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/atudy_collections/trumanpapers/psf/longhand/index.php?documentid=hst-psf_naid73521901&documentYear = 1945&documentVersion=both&pagenumber=1 (accessed March 16, 2017).
23 NYHT News Service, “Ike Was “Appalled” by Scope of New Job, Truman Recalls,” Washington Post, 22 November 1952.
24 It should be noted that historians David Alvarez and Eduard Mark filled a historiography gap in their book Spying through a Glass Darkly: American Espionage against the Soviet Union, 1945–1946 with their research of the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). They described the SSU as an ‘espionage services’ and ‘the country’s clandestine intelligence capability’ in the first year of peace (preface p. 10). It resided in the War Department with some of the remnants of OSS and was absorbed into the CIG in June 1946. It was an important strategic clandestine unit, but not a centralize intelligence service for the entire U.S. government as Truman’s administration desired.
25 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 14.
26 Harry S. Truman, White House Memorandum, 20 September 1945, SRF 24; Central Intelligence Agency, Truman Library.
27 Harry S. Truman, Untitled, North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., 11 December 1963, SRF 24; Truman Library. Truman wrote a series of newspaper articles in 1963 published country-wide probably as an attempt to state his administration’s legacy.
28 James F. Byrnes, Memorandum for the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy, 3 December 1946, SRF 24; Truman Library.
29 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 56–57.
30 ”Memorandum: Central Intelligence Services,” SRF 24; White House Memorandum, 7 November 1945, Truman Library.
31 Harold D. Smith, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 28 November 1945, PSF 98; Memorandum for the President: Developments in Intelligence Field, 28 November 1945, Truman Papers, Truman Library.
32 James F. Byrnes, Memorandum for the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy, 3 December 1946, SRF 24; Truman Library.
33 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 56–57.
34 James F. Byrnes, Kenneth C. Royall and James Forrestal, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 7 January 1946, SRF 24, Truman Library.
35 Harry S. Truman, White House Memorandum, 18 January 1946, Clark M Clifford Papers 11; Truman Library.
36 Harry S. Truman, Executive Order: Establishing a National Intelligence Authority to Coordinate Intelligence Activities, 22 January 1946, Clark M Clifford Papers 11; Truman Library.
37 Harry S. Truman, Executive Order: Establishing a National Intelligence Authority to Coordinate Intelligence Activities, 22 January 1946.
38 Arthur Krock, “The President’s Secret Daily Newspaper,” The New York Times, 16 July 1946.
39 Ibid.
40 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 58.
41 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 15.
42 Rear Admiral Sidney W Souers, USNR, Memorandum Submitted to the National Intelligence Authority, 7 June 1946, Clark M Clifford Papers 11; Progress Report on the Central Intelligence Group, Truman Library.
43 Ibid.
44 Harry S. Truman, Memorandum for Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of War, 16 May 1946, Clark M Clifford Papers 11; Truman Library.
45 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 58.
46 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 15.
47 Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 352.
48 George M. Elsey, White House Memorandum for File, 17 July 1946, Clark M Clifford Papers 11; Truman Library.
49 Ibid.
50 George M. Elsey, White House Memorandum of Conversation on 8 January 1947, SRF 24, Truman Library.
51 George M Elsey, Memorandum for Mr. Clifford, 14 March 1947, SRF 24; Truman Library.
52 George C. Marshall, Memorandum for Harry S. Truman, 7 February 1947, SRF 17; Memorandum for the President: Comments of the Secretary of State on Draft of Bill to Promote the National Security (Fourth Draft, dated 28 January 1947). Truman Papers, Truman Library.
53 Senator Robertson and “During Questioning of Vice Adm. Forrest Sherman, U.S. Navy,” in Legislative History of the Central Intelligence Agency as Documented in Published Congressional Sources, ed. Grover S. Williams (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 1975), 33.
54 Lt. Gen.Vandenberg and “Statement of Lt. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Director of Central Intelligence,” in Legislative History of the Central Intelligence Agency as Documented in Published Congressional Sources, 35.
55 Representative Dorn and “Statement of Vice Adm. Arthur W. Redford, in Command of the Second Task Fleet, Department of the Navy,” in Legislative History of the Central Intelligence Agency as Documented in Published Congressional Sources, 123.
56 David M. Barrett, The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 22.
57 Ibid., 23.
58 US Congress, Senate, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law 252. 80th Cong., 1st sess., 1947. S. Doc. 758.
59 Representative Manasco and “Discussion of Amendments to H.R. 4214,” in Legislative History of the Central Intelligence Agency as Documented in Published Congressional Sources, 144.
60 Ibid., 24. Truman could not reach his mother before she passed away.
61 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 26.
62 US Congress, Senate, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law 252.
63 Ibid.
64 Harry S. Truman, Untitled, North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., 11 December 1963.
65 Oral history interview, Clark M. Clifford, 19 April 1971, Truman Library, 130, accessed 16 March 2017. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/cliford3.htm.
66 Ibid., 132–3.
67 Troy, Donovan and the CIA, 409.
68 In his later book Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson, and the Origins of CIA the official CIA historian very much gives credit to Donovan stating that he ‘did leave behind an institutional legacy, for the CIA, arguably the most important new American agency spawned by the war, was very much his creation.’ (p. 210) This official view of CIA origins has some merit considering Donovan’s ideas and practices of covert operations dominated CIA doctrine in the Cold War compared to Truman’s initial thoughts on what the CIA should be. Caution must be taken with Troy’s version of the origins of CIA. Historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones argues in his piece ‘Antecedents and Memory as Factors in the Creation of the CIA’ that accepting Donovan’s OSS as the father of the CIA ignores pre-1940 s antecedents such as the Department of State’s U-1 in World War I and the 1920 s (p. 140). The debate of which organization or person outside the White House should deserve credit as the source of CIA’s creation is not central to the argument of this article. But, Truman’s role as a driving force is what is questioned here.
69 Ibid., 410.
70 Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, 3.
71 Krock, “The President’s Secret Daily Newspaper,”, A1.
72 Harry S. Truman, Untitled, North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., 11 December 1963.
73 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 58.
74 Harry S. Truman, Untitled, North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., 11 December 1963.
75 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 55.
76 NYHT News Service, “Ike Was “Appalled” by Scope of New Job, Truman Recalls,” 22 November 1952.
77 Harry S. Truman, Memorandum, 1 December 1963, SRF 24; Truman Library.
78 Truman, Memoirs, Vol. 2, Years of Trial and Hope, 56.
79 Troy, Donovan and the CIA, 270.
80 Harry S. Truman, President’s Special Conference with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Truman Library. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid = 1528&st = &st1 =, (accessed March 16, 2017).
81 Harry S Truman, Memorandum, 1 December 1963, SRF 24; Truman Library.
82 Ibid.
83 Harry S. Truman, Untitled, North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc., 11 December 1963.
84 Troy, Donovan and the CIA, 412.
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Scott A. Moseman
Scott A. Moseman is a Ph.D. Graduate Student in History at the Kansas State University. His research interests include Intelligence Studies, American Military Policy, Military Intelligence, Early Twentieth Century European History and Early Twentieth Century American History. Moseman was a naval intelligence officer in the United States Navy from 1996 until 2016.