SPECIAL GROUP (COUNTERINSURGENCY).Established on 18
January 1962 by National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM)
124, the Special Group (CI) was a committee of the National Secu-
rity Council (NSC) set up to coordinate counterinsurgency activities
separate from other covert actionmechanisms, previously estab-
lished by NSC directive 5412/2 on 28 December 1955. The Special
Group (CI) was to confine itself to establishing broad policies aimed
at preventing and resisting subversive insurgency and other forms of
indirect aggression in friendly countries. In early 1966, President
Lyndon B. Johnsonassigned responsibility for the direction and co-
ordination of counterinsurgency activities abroad to the secretary of
state, who established a Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) to as-
sist in discharging these responsibilities. See also5412 SPECIAL
GROUP; SPECIALGROUP(AUGMENTED).SPECIAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE (SIS).Mandated by order of
President Franklin D. Roosevelton 24 June 1940, the SIS was es-
tablished within the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI) on 1
July 1940 to engage in foreign intelligence collection activities in
Latin America. FBI Director J. Edgar Hooverfound the mandate far
removed from the bureau’s main mission of fighting crime and inter-
nal subversion and tried on repeated occasions, without success, to
divest the FBI of foreign intelligence responsibilities. Resigned to
having to conduct espionagein Latin America, Director Hoover de-
manded and received assurances that the SIS would be unfettered in
its activities abroad. Consequently, SIS agents, who numbered in the
hundreds during the course of World War II, became experts in
tracking down Axis agents, breaking up Axis signals intelligence
(SIGINT) channels, and identifying laundered Axis funds. SIS agents
were also highly successful in tracking down German clandestine ra-
dio stations that were used to send wartime intelligence back to Ger-
many. The Central Intelligence Group (CIG), established on 22
January 1946, assumed the responsibilities of the SIS, which were
then transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947.SPECIAL NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE (SNIE).
SNIEs are national intelligence estimates (NIEs) that focus on a spe-
cific policy issue or intelligence problem within a short time frame.190 • SPECIAL GROUP (COUNTERINSURGENCY)05-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 190