Office of the Coordinator of Information

Common card · No. 416496

The Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) was the first civilian non-departmental intelligence agency of the federal government of the United States. It was founded on July 11, 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to US involvement in the Second World War. Directed by Wild Bill Donovan for its duration, COI was focused on intelligence and propaganda operations, as well as sabotage, guerrilla warfare, irregular warfare, and other activities. Heavily influenced by the British MI6 (and the Soviet moles planted in MI6 to create a more effective anti-Nazi machine there) and British Naval Intelligence, COI was intended to overcome the lack of coordination between existing US federal agencies which, in part, it did by duplicating some of their functions. As the name "coordinator" implies, COI was intended to coordinate all of the efforts of the intelligence field in the United States. However, many leaders of the military, other federal agencies, and especially the FBI became...

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