Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

Central Intelligence Group (CIG), America’s first post–World War

IIcentral intelligence processing organization. DCI Souers served a

mere five months, but in that time, he set some important precedents

for U.S. intelligence. As former deputy chief of naval intelligenceand

one of the authors of the directive establishing the CIG, Souers was

aware of the need for central coordination of intelligence. He gathered

a cadre of experienced intelligence professionals, mostly from the

military, around him, and he successfully engineered to acquire the

substantial foreign intelligence capability the Office of Strategic Ser-

vices (OSS) had built up during World War II.

At President Truman’s request, the CIG collated the vast amounts

of army, navy, and Department of State cables, dispatches, and re-

ports that arrived daily and produced a comprehensive intelligence

summary for the White House. Souers was unable to get much coop-

eration from the State Department, and the military services refused

even to provide the CIG with information on their capabilities and in-

tentions. Lieutenant General Hoyt Vandenbergsucceeded Souers

as DCI in June 1946.

SOURCES AND METHODS.See PROTECTING SOURCES AND

METHODS.

SOUTHERN AIR TRANSPORT.Southern Air Transport was a pro-

prietary companyof the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ac-

quired in August 1960 to support CIA’s covert actions. Southern Air

Transport grew quickly to have semiautonomous corporate divisions

for Atlantic and Pacific operations. It also won an air force contract

to move cargo and passengers on interisland routes to the Far East.

The company absorbed many of the personnel and aircraft of Air

America, another CIAproprietary, which had supported CIAopera-

tions in the 1950s and early 1960s.

In 1972, a director of central intelligence directive(DCID) ordered

that Air America be retained only until the end of the Vietnam War.

The same directive ordered that Southern Air Transport be sold off im-

mediately, which was done to private concerns at the end of 1973.

SOVIET UNION (SSSR/Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Re-

spublik).Established officially in 1922, the Soviet Unionwas the first

state to be based on Marxist principles. Until 1989, the Communist

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