Introduction


The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) became operational on 1 October 1961 as the Nation's primary producer of foreign military intelligence. It filled a critically important need for a central intelligence manager for the Department of Defense (DoD) to support the requirements of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and the military forces, as well as other policymakers.

During the period following World War II until the Agency's establishment, the three Military Departments separately collected, produced, and disseminated intelligence for their individual use. The system proved duplicative, costly, and ineffective as each Service provided their estimates to the Secretary of Defense, the Unified and Specified (U&S) Commands, or other governmental agencies.

The Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 sought to correct these shortcomings by assigning responsibility for U&S Command intelligence support to the J-2 of the JCS. However, DoD intelligence responsibilities remained unclear, coordination poor, and products lacked dependability and national focus. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, therefore, appointed the Joint Study Group in 1960 to determine better ways of effectively organizing the nation's military intelligence activities.

Acting on the recommendations of the Joint Study Group, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara in February 1961 advised the JCS of his decision to establish a Defense Intelligence Agency and tasked them with developing a concept plan that would extensively integrate the military intelligence efforts of all DoD elements. The JCS completed this assignment by July, and published DoD Directive 5105.21, "Defense Intelligence Agency" on 1 August, effective 1 October 1961.





According to the plan for the new Agency, DIA reported to the Secretary of Defense through the JCS. It was a union--not a confederation of Defense intelligence and counterintelligence activities, and it did not add administrative layering within the Defense intelligence community. The Agency's mission was the continuous task of collecting, processing, evaluating, analyzing, integrating, producing, and disseminating military intelligence for the DoD. Other objectives included more efficiently allocating scarce intelligence resources, more effectively managing all DoD intelligence activities, and eliminating redundancies in facilities, organizations, and tasks.

During the summer of 1961, as Cold War tensions flared over the Berlin Wall, Air Force Lieutenant General Joseph F. Carroll, soon to become DIA's first director, planned and organized this new agency. It began operations with a handful of employees in borrowed office space on 1 October 1961.

Following DIA's establishment, the Services transferred intelligence functions and resources to it on a time-phased basis to avoid rapidly degrading the overall effectiveness of defense intelligence. Specifically, DoD assigned DIA the mission of collecting, processing, evaluating, analyzing, integrating, producing, and disseminating military intelligence for the Department.

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