Army Technical Intelligence Chronology
Preface

Robert L. Bolin
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE
2005

This document is part of a larger web document.
For more information, see the Title Page and Contents.

Background

In the 1970s, I worked for the Army Foreign Science and Technology Center (FSTC) in Charlottesville, Virginia. From taking with old hands there, I became aware that FSTC had an interesting history and that FSTC was one of several technical intelligence agencies of the Army.

When I tried to learn about the history of Army technical intelligence, I ran into the same basic problem: No one had a broad perspective.

The people I talked to had narrow prospectives. Written sources were just as bad. Most books on the US intelligence community dismissed all of "Army intelligence" with a few sentences as if it were a single office in the Pentagon rather than a complex set of organizations.

I decided to write a comprehensive article on the organizational history of Army technical intelligence.

After studying the subject for several years, I realized that I had been very naïve to set such an ambitious goal. I see that I need to understand a number of very complex matters such as:

  • The evolution of the concept of military intelligence.
  • The professionalization of the intelligence profession.
  • The evolution of the U.S. intelligence community.
  • The changing role of Army intelligence in the intelligence community.
  • The evolution of intelligence organizations within the Army.
  • The evolution of the U.S. military establishment.
  • The changing role of the Army in the military establishment.
  • The evolution of the national Army headquarters (called the War Department and later the Headquarters, Department of the Army)
  • The evolution of the relationship of the national Army headquarters with the forces in the field.
  • The evolution of the Army General Staff and the relationship of the General Staff and the Army technical services.
  • The relationship of the technical services to each other and to the major commands.

The Purpose of this Chronology

When the World Wide Web appeared, I became interested in the application of hypertext to scholarship. I decided to try to use hypertext to organize the material I had collected on Army technical intelligence. Originally, I intended to create only a chronology linked to a bibliography. After I had worked on it for a while, I realized that a hyperlinked glossary would be helpful. The glossary has proven very useful in helping me to understanding the concepts I am struggling with.

I worked on this chronology intermittently for a few years and then left it alone for a few years. When I resumed work on it, I had learned a lot more about hypertext and had better tools to work with it. I had also collected more material on Army technical intelligence.

I feel that I have as much material as I am going to get so I should wrap up this project. I intend to incorporate the material I have gathered and then write the article I envisioned twenty years ago.

I look on this as an ongoing project. I hope that by publishing an article and making this Web document available, I will shake loose more material which I can add.

I think this is an interesting subject. I hope that someone will write a thesis on Army Technical Intelligence. I would be very supportive of anyone who wanted to.

Bob Bolin
January 2000

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  University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-4100
      © 2000 by Robert L. Bolin. All rights reserved
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        Version 2.03, Revised, 23 March 2005

Please send comments and suggestions to Bob Bolin at

rbolin2@unl.edu.