Catalogue description Ministry of Defence: Directorate of Scientific Intelligence: Joint Intelligence Bureau: Division of Scientific Intelligence and Division of Atomic Energy Intelligence and Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence: Registered Files

Records relating to scientific intelligence. The files in this series include a number directly related to the activities of the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch (STIB) which worked in the British Zone, Germany, under the technical direction of DSI and JTIC. Subjects include German scientists, liaison with other countries and the Soviet atomic energy programme.

The papers of RV Jones, who was Director of Scientific Intelligence between 1952 and 1953, are in DEFE 40

Reports of DSI, DAEI and the later DSTI, are in DEFE 44

Registered files of STIB can be found in DEFE 41

Ministry of Defence, Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence, 1964-1991

Ministry of Defence, Directorate of Scientific Intelligence, 1950-1964

From 1992 Ministry of Defence

The Directorate of Scientific Intelligence (DSI) was created in the Ministry of Defence in 1950 with the object of bringing scientific intelligence under unified control. Co-located with the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB), it became part of JIB in 1954 as the Division of Scientific Intelligence. The Division of Atomic Energy Intelligence (DAEI) was formed within the JIB in 1957, atomic energy intelligence having previously been handled, for reasons of security, under separate and special arrangements. In 1964 DSI and DAEI were merged with the previously separate but largely co-located single-Service technical intelligence branches to form the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI) of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). The collection of overt intelligence, and the collation and dissemination of all intelligence of a scientific and technical nature, were the responsibility of specialist sections within the three Service intelligence directorates and the DSI of the JIB. Their work was co-ordinated by sub-committees of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) known as the Joint Scientific and Joint Technical Intelligence Committees (JS/JTIC). They were also responsible for advising the JIC on all scientific and technical developments by foreign powers which were important to UK national defence or of significance to UK research and development.