Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

During the Spanish-American War of 1898, the ONI provided vi-

tal information about Spanish fleet capabilities as well as details about

harbor defenses that had great value in shaping naval strategy. By the

time the nation entered World War I in 1917, the ONI was the rec-

ognized authority on technical information to help improve fleet ca-

pabilities. While the ONI had few responsibilities in war planning, it

took on new responsibilities for all aspects of physical security for in-

stallations, security checks for navy personnel, censorship, and ferret-

ing out spies and saboteurs. Following the war, the navy was scaled

down, but the primary duties for the collecting, evaluating, and dis-

seminating of information were retained on a temporary basis. The

Chief of Naval Operations in 1929 made these functions permanent.

As the world slid into another world war, the ONI assumed re-

sponsibilities in disseminating decrypted Japanese materials. The de-

coding function was controlled by navy’s Office of Communication,

but the translation, evaluation, and dissemination fell to the ONI. The

two functions eventually were combined into one unit. Breaking the

Japanese naval code was a major breakthrough, but it did not come

in time to prevent the surprise attack on the fleet in Pearl Harboron

the morning of 7 December 1941. The navy did use the Japanese in-

tercepts to score a major victory at Midway in June 1942. Despite

demobilization and downsizing following World War II, the ONI

continued to play an important role in the Cold Warand after, from

Korea all the way to the invasion of Iraq in 2004.

OFFICE OF POLICY COORDINATION (OPC). Established on 1

September 1948 by National Security Council Directive 10/2, a di-

rective of the National Security Council (NSC) issued on 18 June

1948, the OPC was given responsibility for organizing and managing

covert actions. NSC 10/2 specified that the OPC, although within the

bureaucratic structure of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),

was to take its guidance from the Department of Statein peacetime

and the Department of Defense(DOD) in wartime. The OPC’s rel-

atively autonomous existence continued until 1950, when the

arrangement was modified to ensure that policy guidance came

through the director of central intelligence (DCI). NSC 10/5, issued

in October 1951, reaffirmed the CIA’s covert action mandate, thereby

placing the OPC squarely within the CIA, and expanded the CIA’s

148 • OFFICE OF POLICY COORDINATION

05-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 148