Photo By Lori Stewart | Students at the U.S. Army Pacific Intelligence School discuss a map exercise in the...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
23 MAY 1958
On 23 May 1958, Lt. Col. John K. MacIntyre assumed command of the newly established Army Liaison School on the island of Okinawa. First organized by the U.S. Army Command Reconnaissance Activity Pacific (USARCRAPAC) detachment, the school provided intelligence instruction to officers of friendly Far East countries. It evolved into the U.S. Army Pacific Intelligence School (USARPACINTS), which operated through 1975.
In early 1958, Col. John Stanley, USARCRAPAC commander, conducted a tour of countries in the Army Pacific Command (USARPAC) area of responsibility. Representatives from several of those countries inquired about having their personnel attend the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, Maryland. For security reasons, this was prohibited at that time. Seeing an opportunity to foster better relations with these countries, Colonel Stanley asked Maj. Grover King, commander of the CRAPAC Detachment on Okinawa, to develop a school to provide basic intelligence instruction to foreign students. King gathered lesson plans from other Army intelligence schools and went to work building curricula for the new Army Liaison School.
On 23 May 1958, Colonel MacIntyre assumed command of the school and its four staff officers. Together, they wrote a combat intelligence lesson plan for the first Vietnamese officers scheduled to arrive in July. When the Vietnamese cancelled, MacIntyre’s staff quickly developed a technical intelligence course for three Filipino students who arrived in July, the school’s first official class. For the first year, the Army Liaison School provided on-demand combat intelligence and intelligence collection courses to nearly one hundred students from Burma, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Korea. Classes were country-specific and taught using translators from the represented country.
On 15 December 1960, the school was redesignated the U.S. Army Pacific Intelligence School. Throughput steadily increased, requiring a regular schedule and class size limits to ensure available billeting. Instead of developing new curricula, faculty revised instructional materials from the Holabird school with information relevant to each country. Additionally, the school turned its focus to turning out graduates qualified to teach their own ground, air, and naval personnel to build self-sufficient intelligence organizations within participating countries.
Over time, the school began teaching courses tailored to specific needs, such as counterintelligence and security, interrogations, and orientation courses for non-intelligence staff officers and commanders. In 1967, although still offering basic intelligence courses on a case-by-case basis, the school primarily offered advanced courses covering intelligence requirements, organizations, and functions from battalion to division level. The school also required students to be able to speak some English before arriving. Given the mixed level of proficiency, however, the use of translators continued, and a fifty-hour American Language Enhancement Program was offered.
From 1958 to 1975, sixteen countries took advantage of the school’s offerings, albeit at various times and to varying degrees. In addition to those countries previously mentioned, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Iran, Malaysia, Sudan, and Singapore sent students. Initially, the majority of students came from China; by 1964, Vietnamese students dominated, with Koreans close behind. Eventually, the classes themselves became multinational and coed; the first female student, a Thai naval officer, attended in 1965. Two years later, civilian students were accepted. Annual throughput averaged about 450. By 1970, the school staff numbered fifty-four military and civilian personnel.
In 1970, the school received a Meritorious Unit Citation for its role in developing the intelligence capabilities of the Republic of Vietnam. Early the next year, however, the school faced uncertainty. Because Japan did not allow the training of third country nationals on its soil, USARPACINTS could not continue operations once Okinawa reverted to Japanese sovereignty. New locations were considered, as was instruction by mobile training teams. Ultimately, USARPAC closed the school in 1975, arguing most of the countries it supported had already developed self-sustaining intelligence training.
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| Date Taken: | 05.22.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.22.2023 11:04 |
| Story ID: | 445214 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 105 |
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