The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openly available news and information from media sources outside the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Its headquarters was in Rosslyn, later Reston,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, and it maintained approximately 20 monitoring stations worldwide. In November 2005, it was announced that FBIS would become the newly formed

Open Source Center The Open Source Enterprise (OSE) is a Federal government of the United States, United States Government organization dedicated to open-source intelligence. Initially part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it is now part of th ...

, tasked with the collection and analysis of publicly available intelligence.

History

On 26 February 1941, President Roosevelt directed that $150,000 be allocated for creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS) under the authority of the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

. The mandate of the FBMS was to record, translate, transcribe and analyze

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

propaganda radio programs that were being beamed at the United States by the

Axis powers The Axis powers, originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis and also Rome–Berlin–Tokyo Axis, was the military coalition which initiated World War II and fought against the Allies of World War II, Allies. Its principal members were Nazi Ge ...

. Its first monitoring station was established in October 1941 in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service

The year following the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

in December 1941, the system gained importance and changed its name to the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service partly to make it sound more like a war agency. At four different listening centers it recorded shortwave broadcasts on plastic disks. Selected material was transcribed and translated and then sent to War agencies with weekly reports. These special reports included special titles such as ''Radio Tokyo's Racial Propaganda to the United States, Underground Movements and Morale in Japan,'' and ''New Nazi Portrait of the American Soldier.'' Monitored stations included official stations in many countries, and "black" stations that were not what they pretended to be. These black stations broadcast attacks on President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

while pretending to be stations in the American Midwest. This tactic was used to stir up racial tensions and other issues. Foreign Broadcast Information Service equipment 1945

Foreign Broadcast Information Service equipment 1945

Multiple speeches and recording were monitored including speeches by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...

Joachim von Ribbentrop Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician and diplomat who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs (Germany), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. ...

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain (; 24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), better known as Marshal Pétain (, ), was a French marshal who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of the Collaboration with Nazi Ger ...

Pierre Laval Pierre Jean Marie Laval (; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. He served as Prime Minister of France three times: 1931–1932 and 1935–1936 during the Third Republic (France), Third Republic, and 1942–1944 during Vich ...

, and others; broadcasts over German radio by American citizens, including Fred W. Kaltenbach, Douglas Chandler, and Edward Leo Delaney; and broadcasts from Japan or Japanese-held territory, including news reports and commentary by " Tokyo Rose." The FBIS kept track of a total of sixty black stations, which included a German-language station that pretended to represent an anti-Nazi army group, an anti-Nazi "Catholic" station, and an English-language station that attacked

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

Foreign Broadcast Information Service

With the termination of the OSS following the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the service was transferred to the

Department of the Army The United States Department of the Army (DA) is one of the three military departments within the United States Department of Defense. The DA is the federal government agency within which the United States Army (U.S.) is organized. It is led ...

. Like many other wartime organizations, the service was threatened with disbandment. The possibility of its disbandment was roundly criticized in many different quarters, which helped ensure its survival. When President

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a Director of Central Intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946, the FBIS became part of that group. In 1946, the service was renamed the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), and became a part of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

(CIA) as that organization was formed following the National Security Act of 1947. Its original mission revolved around radio and press agency monitoring, built on what was already becoming an “almost mature, trained and disciplined” organization from the war experience. In response to the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

and START Treaty, FBIS was tasked with monitoring for clandestine and encoded messages from all nations and coordinating broadcast media contact points who could instantly broadcast urgent messages on "All Channels" and "All Calls". In 1967, the Service's mission was expanded to cover foreign mass media transmitted by radio, television, and print. Fbis

In 2007, Readex announced its plans to create a digital edition entitled Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports, 1941–1996. , this collection is available online via a paid subscription to Readex, as are Daily Report Annexes for 1974–1996. The FBIS became the Open Source Center (OSC) within the CIA in 2005; the CIA discontinued public access to OSC in 2013.

Services

FBIS had approximately 20 stations, commonly called bureaus, that were located around the world. These stations operated as an adjunct of a U.S. embassy/consulate or military command. Bureaus opened and closed at various times depending on the world situation and local circumstances. These stations were not covert and operated with the consent of the host government. In addition, a few of the bureaus were located on territory belonging to or administered by the U.S. such as

Key West, Florida Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, at the southern end of the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Islan ...

, Bahia Sucia, Puerto Rico, the

Panama Canal Zone The Panama Canal Zone (), also known as just the Canal Zone, was a International zone#Concessions, concession of the United States located in the Isthmus of Panama that existed from 1903 to 1979. It consisted of the Panama Canal and an area gene ...

, etc. The personnel in the stations were both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals who were responsible for the collection, translation, and dissemination of foreign open source material. Depending on location, and the availability of print media, these personnel may have been responsible for translation of more than one language. Because of the large number print/radio/TV/satellite sources worldwide FBIS did not collect all open source material, but only those sources that met the requirements of the Intelligence Community. Besides the translations done overseas a large volume of less-time sensitive material was sent to FBIS headquarters in Rosslyn and Reston where a more detailed translation could take place. Not only were translations provided by in-house FBIS personnel, but approximately 700 independent contractors were also employed.

Joint Publications Research Service

The Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) was a

government defense-funded organization that was absorbed into FBIS but its funding and personnel did not transfer. For all practical purposes it ceased its massive operations (80,000 reports since 1957) in 1970. JPRS translations were merged with daily reports of the FBIS in 1995, then wound down to virtually nothing under FBIS by 1997. According to FBIS, access to current and past JPRS reports is possible via World News Connection. In 2012, Readex, a division of NewsBank, began releasing its digital edition entitled ''Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957–1994''. , access to this material is available through some university libraries. According to the

Imperial War Museum The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civ ...

, JPRS was a CIA operation operating out of the

Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business ...

Customers

Material provided by FBIS was disseminated to over 700 recipients in not only the U.S. Intelligence Community, but also a large number of government, diplomatic and military organizations. The material provided by FBIS, although it came from openly available, public radio and TV broadcasts, was not made freely available to the American people, frequently due to copyright laws.

In the news

Saving FBIS from budget cuts

The Federation of American Scientists launched a successful campaign in 1997 to save FBIS from planned budget cuts. During its campaign, FBIS was described by academicians at the time as the "biggest bang for the buck in the American intelligence community."

The Larry Chin spy incident

Larry Wu-tai Chin worked for FBIS from 1952 to 1981 and sold classified documents to China.

Similar organizations

Australia

* Office of National Intelligence Open Source Centre

Britain

BBC Monitoring BBC Monitoring (BBCM) is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide using open-source intelligence. Based at New Broadcasting House, the BBC's headquarters in central London, it has o ...

References

Fighting a War of Words

Australian Office of National Assessments

* ttps://fas.org/irp/fbis/riddel.html Remarks by J. Niles Riddel D/Director FBIS at the 1st Int'l Symposium "National Security & National Competitiveness: Open Source Solutions" 2 Dec 92 *

Specified references

External links

FBIS homepage

World News Connection

Readex online edition of FBIS Daily Report

Readex index of Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1994

Readex digital edition of Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, 1957-1994

Federation of American Scientists webpage on FBIS

* ttp://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0k40329q/ Inventory of the United States Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service Miscellaneous Recordsan
selected sound recordings online
at the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.
Guide to JPRS (Joint Publications Research Service) Reports

Research guide from Harvard's library

Foreign Broadcast Information Service : History
(Part 1: 1941-1947) {{Authority control Central Intelligence Agency Open-source intelligence in the United States Government agencies established in 1941