Ministry of Defence - Defence Intelligence Staff: Director General of Intelligence,...

This series contains registered files from various offices.

From the Director-General of Intelligence (DGI), later (1984) Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), and his deputy (until 1984), the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Intelligence) (DCDS(I)).

From the Directorate of Management and Support of Intelligence (DMSI) which was responsible, from 1964-82 and from 1984-88, for the general organisation and administration of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), for the co-ordination of DIS policy concerning intelligence collection and resource allocation, and for DIS support functions both within and outside the MOD Central Staffs (during the period 1982-84 the post of DMSI was dis-established and the Directorate split into two Deputy Directorates, the Deputy Directorate of Intelligence (Collection), responsible to the newly-created post of Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Intelligence) (ACDS(I)), and the Deputy Directorate of Intelligence (Administration and Security) responsible to either DGI or ACDS(I) depending on the topic).

From the DIS Secretariat (or Central Staff or Central Secretariat) charged with providing general staff support to DGI/CDI and DCDS(I) and acting as a focal point for requests to the DIS on substantive intelligence business and in this respect acting as a front office for the DIS as a whole.

In the listings there are both operations and aliases of operatives both of which appear in capitals, to distinguish between them the word 'operation' has been inserted before the names of operations

FCO and MOD liaison branch, registered files in DEFE 41

(Air Ministry: Director of Intelligence Papers), AIR 40

(Director of Military Intelligence), WO 208

(Naval Intelligence Papers), ADM 223

Papers, reports, etc, of the single-service intelligence directorates can be found in:

JIB DSI reports and memoranda in DEFE 44

Joint Intelligence Bureau, DSI registered files in DEFE 21

Military intelligence material for the period up to 1939 can be found in, Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence, WO 106

Ministry of Defence , from 1993

Topics

Intelligence

Armed Forces (General Administration)

On 1 April 1964 the Defence Intelligence Staff [DIS] was created to group together the pre-1964 service intelligence departments and the Joint Intelligence Bureau under a Director-General of Intelligence.

Broadly speaking, the new DIS carried out the same duties as its predecessors, albeit within a tri-service framework: that is, to provide the Ministry of Defence with a central unified intelligence organization which could provide objective all-source assessments of defence intelligence matters in peace, crisis and war. Its primary function is to give warning of preparations for war or attack by a potential enemy.

Much of the DIS's work is devoted to military subjects such as doctrine, tactics, force organizations and orders of battle (generally known as ORBATS), weapons and capabilities. In addition, other issues are covered so as to achieve a more complete picture: defence industries; economic aspects of defence; science and technology; nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities; arms traffic, control and verification.