The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was officially established as an agency of the Department of Defense under the authority and control of the Secretary of Defense on this day in history by a Department of Defense Directive.
The directive, as summarized by the George Washington University National Security Archive, made DIA responsible for:
(1) organization, direction, management, and control over all DoD resources assigned to or included within the DIA; (2) review and coordination of those DoD intelligence functions retained by or assigned to the military departments; (3) supervision over the execution of all approved plans, programs, policies, and procedures for intelligence functions not assigned to the DIA; (4) the exercise of maximum economy and efficiency in the allocation and management of DoD intelligence resources; (5) responses to priority requests by the United States Intelligence Board; and (6) fulfillment of the intelligence requirements of major DoD components. As a consequence of DIA’s creation, the Joint Staff Director of Intelligence (J2) was abolished (although subsequently re-established), as was the Office of Special Operations, the small intelligence arm of the Secretary of Defense.”
Since that time, the DIA has undergone a large number of major organizational changes. Interestingly, DIA is one of several agencies that has been given discretionary authority by Congress to refuse to provide even unclassified information about its organizational structure and personnel in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.
You can read a detailed history of the DIA and learn about its changing mandate at the George Washington University website, here.
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