Central Intelligence Agency is founded, July 26, 1947
The Central Intelligence Agency was founded on this day when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 into law.
Truman had found his desk buried under a pile of foreign intelligence reports from the State Department, the Pentagon and the FBI, which at that time held jurisdiction over Latin America. With strong congressional support, the president determined that he required a centralized outlet to organize the information that reached him.
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Truman was not alone in reaching that conclusion: In the aftermath of World War II and the advent of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, it became increasingly clear in professional government circles that there was a pressing need for a group to coordinate intelligence efforts. At the time, the War Department, the State Department, the FBI and even the Post Office were all jockeying for those new powers.
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