Office of Naval Intelligence

The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the intelligence office of the United States Navy. It was created on March 23, 1882, by General Order No. 292 of the Navy Department, signed by Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt: "An 'Office of Naval Intelligence' is hereby established in the Bureau of Navigation for the purpose of collecting and recording such naval information as may be useful to the department in the time of war, as well as in peace." The order combined the department library with the new office under the chief of the Bureau of Navigation and directed "commanding and all other officers" to "avail themselves of all opportunities which may arise to collect and forward to the 'Office of Intelligence' professional matter likely to serve the object in view."¹

The office's own 1920 history groups it with the Naval War College and the naval apprentice system as institutions created "by general order of the Navy Department, with no legislative action by Congress and no appropriation to make them effective."¹

Directors, 1882 to 1898

Lieutenant Theodorus B. M. Mason "reported for duty June 15, 1882, and until his death, on October 15, 1899, was its leading spirit." The 1920 history lists the Directors of Naval Intelligence as follows:¹

• Theodorus B. M. Mason, June 15, 1882, to April 2, 1885
• Raymond P. Rodgers, April 2, 1885, to July 22, 1889
• Charles H. Davis, September 16, 1889, to August 31, 1892
• French E. Chadwick, September 2, 1892, to June 20, 1893
• Frederic Singer, June 30, 1893, to April 4, 1896
• Richard Wainwright, April 4, 1896, to November 15, 1897
• Richardson Clover, November 15, 1897, to May 1, 1898
• John R. Bartlett, from May 1898

Organization and the First World War

In 1920 Rear Admiral Albert P. Niblack, then Director of Naval Intelligence, described the office as "simplicity itself in that it consists of four sections: Section A, administrative; Section B, intelligence (or manufacturing department); Section C, compiling (or manufacturing department); Section D, historical section (or by-products)." At the beginning of the First World War it had 18 civil service clerks and messengers. "When the armistice came there were 306 reservists in the Office of Naval Intelligence additional to the 18 civil service clerks and messengers serving at the beginning of the war, or a total of 324. This force will be reduced on July 1, 1920, to 18 of the statutory roll and 24 former reservists, or a total of 42."¹

The Second World War and After

During World War II the office employed Karl Baarslag, who afterward "worked as a professional anti-communist researcher for Senator Joseph McCarthy, the American Legion, and the Church League of America" and transferred many of his research files to the Wackenhut Corporation.² Morse Allen, who had set up the Civil Service Commission's first security files on communists in the late 1930s, served in wartime naval intelligence "pursuing leftists in New York" before landing with the Marines on Okinawa; he later joined the CIA's Office of Security and in late 1950 was made head of BLUEBIRD.³ In the summer of 1952 "a Naval Intelligence man" traveled to Frankfurt with Samuel Thompson and Wendt to join the ARTICHOKE team led by Allen and his superior Paul Gaynor.⁴

Hal Puthoff wrote that the two CIA officers who visited him at Stanford Research Institute in 1972 "knew of my previous background as a Naval Intelligence Officer and then civilian employee at the National Security Agency."⁵ When the Defense Intelligence Agency sought to fund a unified Defense Department remote viewing effort in 1978, the commander of the Naval Intelligence Command replied on September 14 that it was "unable at this time to pledge a specific level of funding support." Rear Admiral S. Shapiro, commander of the Naval Intelligence Command, sat on the Grill Flame oversight committee formed on November 28, 1978.⁶

Letitia Long joined the staff of the Director of Naval Intelligence in 1988 to manage its research and development programs. From 1994 to 1996 she was "on rotational assignment from ONI to the Defense Intelligence Agency" as director of the Military Intelligence Staff, and in that capacity signed, in March 1995, the DIA transmittal of its Star Gate review to the CIA. She was Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence from 2000 to 2003 and later director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.⁷⁸

Peter Zokosky claimed to have served in ONI in submarines during the Second World War; the claim is recorded by Cheri Seymour alone.⁹ Marion Pettie told the Washington City Paper in 1996 that he had studied intelligence agencies since the 1930s, following the line from ONI through the Office of Strategic Services to the CIA.¹⁰

Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

In early 2017, while an unpaid consultant to ONI, Christopher Mellon was introduced by Jim Semivan to Luis Elizondo, who was then running the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The UAP Task Force, established in 2020 as the successor to that program under Jay Stratton, was a program within ONI.¹¹