Defense Intelligence Agency history

A year after its formation, in October 1962, the Agency faced its first major intelligence test during the superpower confrontation that developed after Soviet missiles were discovered at bases in Cuba by Air Force spy planes.

The Agency also added an Automated Data Processing (ADP) Center on 19 February, a Dissemination Center on 31 March, and a Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate on 30 April 1963.

Two years later, on 1 July 1965, DIA accepted responsibility for the Defense Attaché System - the last function the Services transferred to DIA.

Jerzy Strawa - a Polish engineer and an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Trade executed in 1968 at Mokotów Prison for passing industrial and defense information to DIA agents while on official trips in Austria and West Germany.

In November 1970, United States forces conducted a raid on the Son Tay prison camp in Vietnam to rescue American POWs.

Tragically, five DIA employees were killed during the operation when the first flight crashed on takeoff on April 4, 1975.

Special DIA task forces were set up to monitor crises such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the overthrow of Iranian monarchy, and the taking of United States hostages in the American embassy in Tehran in 1979.

DIA's publication in 1981 of the first in a series of whitepapers on the strengths and capabilities of Soviet military forces titled Soviet Military Power met with wide acclaim.

In April 1983, terrorists bombed the United States Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.

Davis transferred to DIA in 1984 where he coordinated the authorizing documents and budget for the new organization, and directed the operations of the program for the next six years.

Sharansky was released in 1986 following a spy exchange that took place on the Glienicke Bridge between the USSR and the Western allies.

In November 1989, following several weeks of unrest, the East German government announced that it would permit visits to West Germany and West Berlin.

In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, DIA set up an extensive, 24-hour, crisis management cell designed to tailor national-level intelligence support to the coalition forces assembled to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

In 1991, DIA received a Joint Meritorious Unit Award in recognition of its support to Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM.

The Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC), and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), associated with the Army for over 20 and 50 years respectively, became part of DIA in January 1992.

In 1996, terrorists bombed the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 United States troops.

Commissioned into the Australian Intelligence Corps in 1997, she spent her formative years at the tactical level leading and managing intelligence operations in human intelligence, interrogation and exploitation disciplines.

Edmond Pope - A retired intelligence officer-turned-"businessman", sentenced by a Russian court in 2000 to 20 years for buying-up and smuggling classified military equipment out of the country as scrap metal.

In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States launched Operation ENDURING FREEDOM on October 7, 2001, to destroy terrorist camps and topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

DIA was also involved with the intelligence build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was a subject in the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq.

The Defense Intelligence Analysis Center expansion was completed in summer 2005.

In 2006, at the height of Donald Rumsfeld's push to further expand the scope of military intelligence beyond tactical considerations, the DIA was estimated to receive up to $3 billion annually.

In 2008, the agency started expanding its polygraph program in an attempt to screen 5,700 prospective and current employees every year.

Kirchhofer was assigned as deputy of the Information Review Task Force in 2010, which was established by the secretary of defense in response to one of the largest compromises of military intelligence in history.

↑ Department of Defense Polygraph Program Process and Compliance Study Office of the Undersecretary of Defense of Intelligence, December 19, 2011, p 10

He was appointed to the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service in 2012 with duty as deputy chief, DIA Office of Counterintelligence, overseeing analysis, operations and strategies focused on detection and neutralization of foreign intelligence threats.

The detention center outlived the black sites ran by the Central Intelligence Agency, with the DIA allegedly continuing to use "restricted" interrogation methods in the facility under a secret authorization. It is unclear what happened to the secret facility after the 2013 transfer of the base to Afghan authorities following several postponements.

Suzanne White became the deputy director of DIA in October 2018.