| Preceding1: | Office of Strategic Services |
| Superseding1: | Central Intelligence Agency |
| Jurisdiction: | National Intelligence Authority |
| Chief1 Name: | Rear Admiral Sidney Souers |
| Chief1 Position: | Director of Central Intelligence |
The Central Intelligence Group (CIG) was the direct successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and the direct predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.[1] The official duties of CIG are quoted by Assistant Executive Director Shields:
The supervising authority of the CIG was the National Intelligence Authority.[2]
With the official end of World War II, newly elected President Truman and members of the US Congress decided to officially dissolve the vast intelligence agency of the OSS.[3] The OSS has been specifically a wartime organization, and the war was over.[4] [5]
Wild Bill Donovan is noted as having "exploded" upon the news that he only had two weeks to dissolve the OSS, and pressured the government to maintain some of the organization's strategic structures.
CIG formally came into being with 1181/5, the President's directive of 22 January 1946, wherein the President authorized CIG to: "...perform for the benefit of said intelligence agencies, such services of common concern as the National Intelligence Authority determines can be more efficiently accomplished centrally."[6]
The activation ceremony of this intelligence agency two days later involved the President of the United States of America, Harry Truman, calling Rear Admiral Sidney Souers and Fleet Admiral Willian D. Leahy to the White House, and presenting them both with black cloaks, black hats, and wooden daggers, before reading aloud the Presidential directive outlining their new duties.
Source:[7]