Special Intelligence Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For a number of other organisations with similar names see SIS.

Special Intelligence Service is usually the name for a branch of a government's intelligence apparatus that is organized for a specific purpose. For example, the British MI6 overseas espionage agency was previously known as the Special Intelligence Service or Secret Intelligence Service.

[edit] United States

The Special Intelligence Service was a branch of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation established during the term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to monitor Axis activities in Central and South America.

In 1934, President Roosevelt began to grow concerned about activities of Nazi groups within the United States. The FBI was ordered to begin investigating these groups operating within the country. The goal of this work was to determine of foreign agents were working within these American Nazi groups.

In 1940, the government decided to expand the scope of this mission. There were more than 1.5 million expatriate Germans living in South America, including Argentina and Brazil. As a result this area had become an active area of Axis espionage, propaganda and sabotage. In June of 1940, President Roosevelt ordered the formation of the Special Intelligence Service to monitor these activities.

The headquarters of this organization was located on the 44th floor of the International Building, in the Rockefeller Center plaza, New York. The front for the organization was actually an operating law firm. It took some time to become fully operational, due to language and cultural differences, but within a year the SIS had a number of agents in place under various covers.

This organization placed more than 340 undercover agents in regions of Latin America. They operated for seven years, and by 1946 a total of 887 axis spies had been discovered. Also found were 281 agents of axis propaganda, 222 smugglers shipping important war materials, and more than 100 saboteurs and other operatives. They also discovered a couple of dozen radio stations operating for the Axis, along with many transmitters and receivers.

Following the war the SIS was disbanded, having been in operation in the years 1940-1946. After it was disbanded, its region of operation was incorporated in those of the newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency.