MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Army

Interwar

Challener, Richard D., ed. United States Military Intelligence, 1917-1927. 30 vols. New York: Garland, 1977.

Petersen: "Photo reproduction of documents."

Glantz, David M.

1. Observing the Soviets: Army Attachés in Eastern Europe During the 1930s. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: CAC, [1990].

2. "Observing the Soviets: U.S. Army Attachés in Eastern Europe During the 1930s." Journal of Military History 55 (Apr. 1991): 153-183.

Hannah, Theodore M. "Frank B. Rowlett: A Personal Profile." Cryptologic Spectrum (Spring 1981): 4-22. [Petersen]

In 1930, Rowlett was the first junior cryptanalyst hired by William F. Friedman into the newly established Signal Intelligence Service of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He had a long and distinguished career in the Army, with the CIA, and with NSA. He retired from NSA in 1965 after a brief stint as head of the National Cryptologic School. O'Toole, Encyclopedia, p. 398.

Hoffman, George F. "The Tactical and Strategic Use of Attache Intelligence: The Spanish Civil War and the U.S. Army's Misguided Quest for a Modern Tank Doctrine." Journal of Military History 62, no. 1 (Jan. 1998): 101-133.

ProQuest: "Tank warfare in the Spanish Civil War, military analysis of those operations and doctrinal decisions made as a result of a defective analysis caused by a military cultural bias rooted in the traditional branch chief organization dominated by the combatant arms and controlled by the infantry are examined."

Linn, Brian M. Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

Dunnavent, History 26.1, praises Guardians of Empire as "the definitive work on the U.S. Army in the Pacific from the Philippine wars to World War II."

Mahnken, Thomas G. Uncovering Ways of War: U.S. Intelligence and Foreign Military Innovation, 1918-1941. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.

According to Bacevich, FA 82.1 (Jan.-Feb. 2003), the author reassesses the performance of the U.S. Army's MID and the Navy's ONI during the interwar period. Mahnken "finds that those two largely neglected institutions performed with considerable effectiveness" in that time. He "also explores why authorities in Washington -- skeptical of evidence that departed from their own conception of warfare -- failed in too many instances" to give intelligence about the innovations that would prove decisive when war came "the credence that it deserved."

Campbell, NIPQ 18.2/3, sees this as a "work of first-rate scholarship.... Mahnken concludes that American military intelligence during the Interwar period succeeded to obtain information on established ways of war -- such as tank warfare, airplanes, and amphibious warfare -- but failed to grasp the emerging ways of war, such as carrier strikes, radar and rockets."

For Mercado, IJI&C 16.3, the author's "historical review and subsequent conclusions are based on solid archival research and on extensive reading of secondary sources.... Uncovering Ways of War thoughtfully revises the conventional view of interwar military intelligence." Avant, Journal of Cold War Studies 6 (2004), says that the author "provides excellent case studies, telling us what the [U.S. military and naval] attachés actually did and how they contributed to U.S. preparations, and will be a great resource for future scholars."

Peake, Studies 46.4, finds that Mahnken "examines the primary sources and evaluates nine cases of 'innovation,' wherein Army and Navy intelligence elements tried to do, and in several instances accomplished, just what they were supposed to do.... This is a very valuable study. Conventional wisdom has been refuted and some practical guidance for the future provided." To Hanyok, I&NS 18.3, this work "is an important step in evaluating the effectiveness of intelligence." Mahnken "considers the entire context of how the intelligence was gathered," and "[h]is arguments and discussions are clear and comprehensive."

Mashbir, Sidney F. I Was An American Spy. New York: Vantage, 1953.

See "Sidney F. Mashbir and Some Lessons in Joint Intelligence" at the Huachuca History Program under "Masters of the Intelligence Art": http://www.huachuca.army.mil/sites/History/PDFS/MMASHBIR.PDF.

In 1920, Mashbir went to Japan as assistant military attaché. He resigned his commission in 1923 and went to work for a Japanese engineering company, but continued to work unofficially for Army Intelligence. When the firm for which he was working was destroyed in September 1923, Mashbir returned to the United States and entered civilian life. In 1937, he undertook an intelligence mission in Japan at the behest of Ellis Zacharias and ONI. He later served at headquarters, Far East Command, and established and headed the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section. Constantinides suggests that this autobiography's "contents ... are much less dramatic than the title implies."

Parker, Frederick D. Pearl Harbor Revisited: United States Communications Intelligence, 1924-1941. Ft. George Gordon Meade, MD: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 1994.

According to Sexton, this is a "[v]aluable history of the evolution of Army and Navy Comint agencies" in the interwar years. Kruh, Cryptologia 19.1, says that "[t]his excellent work" provides a "detailed examination and analysis of the U.S. Navy's communications intelligence (COMINT) efforts" in the interwar years. For Wilford, Northern Mariner 12.1/22, "Parker's work constitutes one of the most meticulous examinations" of intercepted JN-25 messages.

Schwien, Edwin E. Combat Intelligence: Its Acquisition and Transmission. Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1936.

Pforzheimer identifies Schwien as an instructor at the Army's Command and General Staff School. The book "reflects combat intelligence concepts as taught in the early '30s," and discusses subjects that demonstrate that "the basic principles, practices, and concepts of combat intelligence ... have changed little in 50 years."

Sweeney, Walter C. Military Intelligence: A New Weapon in War. New York: Stokes, 1924. [Petersen]

Talbert, Roy, Jr. Negative Intelligence: The Army and the American Left, 1917-1941. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1991.

Surveillant 1.6, says Talbert tells the "story of military counterintelligence on the home front, based on recently declassified military intelligence archives.... The Negative Branch of Military Intelligence, created by Lt. Col. Ralph H. Van Deman in 1917, spied on American[s] ... in a program of civilian surveillance.... [A]ttempts over the years to restrain MI's work failed until WWII brought Hoover's FBI into the supreme position of chief domestic counterspies."

According to Dorwart, I&NS 8.2, this book concerns pre-World War II Army surveillance activities or "negative intelligence -- as opposed to positive intelligence about the warmaking assets of potential foreign enemies." The "fundamental concepts of negative intelligence [were] developed fully during this period." The author "concludes that until documentary evidence becomes available ... it is premature to draw conclusions about army surveillance in America after 1941."

MI 19.2 calls the book a "well-crafted, superbly researched history of how the Negative Branch of MI ... conducted surveillance operations against radicalism from World War I through the Red Scare and the Great Depression." The author "does not romanticize the radicals nor underrate their domestic threat.... Yet, Talbert believes the threat was never as strong as the Army perceived." This is a "top-notch description of the historical development of the first modern MI organization" and a "valuable, well-written addition to American intelligence history."

Thomas, Shipley. S-2 in Action. Harrisburg, PA: Military Service Publishing, 1940.

Petersen: "Former AEF intelligence officer."

Tuchman, Barbara W. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45. New York: Macmillan, 1970.

Petersen notes that this work includes Stillwell's "1930s China duty as a military attaché." Clark comment: Beginning on p. 229, Tuchman covers World War II and its immediate aftermath (Stillwell died in 1946).

U.S. Army Security Agency. Historical Background of the Signal Security Agency. Vol. III. The Peace, 1919-1939. Washington, DC: 1946.

U.S. Army Security Agency. Ed., Wayne G. Barker.

1. History of Codes and Ciphers in the United States During the Period Between the World Wars. Part I: 1919-1929. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1979.

2. History of Codes and Ciphers in the United States During the Period Between the World Wars. Part II: 1930-1939. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1989.

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