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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
COL. SMITH BECOMES ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-2
On 3 January 1931, Col. Alfred T. Smith became the eighth person to hold the position as the Army’s senior intelligence officer. Promoted to brigadier general halfway through his tenure, he served as the assistant chief of staff (ACoS), G-2, longer than any other officer between 1917 and 1977.
Born in Washington, D.C., in November 1874, Smith enlisted in the U.S. Army upon completing high school. In 1897, then Sgt. Smith received a direct commission with the infantry. He served in the Spanish-American War in Cuba, three tours in the Philippines, and a variety of posts in the continental United States. In 1908, he was assigned as a topographer with the War Department’s Military Information Division.
During World War I, Smith did not deploy to France but instead sailed to Argentina as military attaché. While the South American country was ostensibly neutral, it was a haven for German espionage and sabotage, which Smith dutifully reported to the Military Intelligence Division (MID). He returned to the United States in May 1919 and, over the next twelve years, successively commanded the 54th Infantry, Camp Grant, Illinois, and the 34th Infantry at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
In January 1931, a 57-year-old Colonel Smith became the War Department’s ACoS G-2. The War Department was still firmly entrenched in the austere interwar years and fiscal problems were further exacerbated by the Great Depression. Smith’s most pressing concern was an increased threat of domestic disturbances due to the economic crisis and suspected communist activity. In 1932, when 20,000 veterans marched on the nation’s capital demanding early payment of the bonuses Congress had promised them for their service in the war, Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur directed Smith to report daily on the protest’s progress. Smith augmented his staff with officers from the Military Intelligence Officers Reserve Corps, who circulated among the Bonus Marchers and took notes on speeches. [See "This Week in MI History" #42 25 May 1932] This would not be the last time the Army’s intelligence organization became involved in domestic disturbances, nor the first time it would have to defend its actions.
In 1934, Smith became the first ACoS G-2 to appear at an Un-American Activities Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. He testified his agents did not collect information on U.S. citizens but instead liaised with federal, state, county, and municipal authorities to keep informed of potentially subversive activities. The MID, he stressed, only conducted active investigations against un-American activities directly affecting the Army. Outside the U.S., Smith was also responsible for investigating potential sabotage in the Panama Canal Zone and sent an MID officer specifically to advise the Panamanian governor on military security matters. Concern about sabotage also allowed Smith to reinstate the military attaché in Colombia.
Despite an increase in domestic threats and sabotage against American interests abroad, in 1934, Smith had to cut his twenty-eight-man Corps of Intelligence Police to just fifteen non-commissioned officers to conduct counterintelligence work throughout the nation and its territories. Additional cuts were made to the number of military attachés and the overseas language training program. His headquarters lost six officers, bringing the MID’s strength to a third what it had been in 1920. Likewise, his budget was less than a tenth of that authorized thirteen years earlier. The lack of funds prevented the training of Reserve intelligence personnel, particularly disturbing as most Reserve officers with combat intelligence experience were retiring and their replacements lacked any experience at all.
In this period of unrest and austerity, the MID did make some advancements in the field of signals intelligence. Under Smith’s administrative control, the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS), formed in 1930, opened a school for training cryptography [see This Week in MI History #202 8 September 1931] and had established six intercept field stations in the U.S., Hawaii, the Philippines, and the Panama Canal Zone.
Smith left his ACoS G-2 position on 2 January 1935. He closed out his career as the commander of the Third Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington, and retired in May 1938. General Smith passed away on 27 November 1939.
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| Date Taken: | 01.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 01.02.2024 09:17 |
| Story ID: | 461177 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 94 |
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