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Article: CIA, Formation and History
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- Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, andSecurity
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CIA, Formation and History
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MICHAEL J. O'NEAL
United States military planners had always relied on intelligence during wartime, but it was not until World War II that the U.S. government began collecting intelligence systematically. Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been having doubts about the effectiveness of the nation's intelligence-gathering efforts because they were scattered among the various branches of the military. To correct this deficiency, he appointed William J. Donovan, a New York lawyer who had won the Congressional Medal of Honor as an Army colonel in World War I, to put together a ...