Special Intelligence Service

Federal Bureau of Investigation
Common name	Federal Bureau of Investigation
Abbreviation	FBI
Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Badge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Flag of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Motto	Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity
Agency overview
Formed	July 26, 1908; 108 years ago (1908-07-26)
Employees	35,104 (October 31, 2014)
Annual budget	US$8.3 billion (FY 2014)
Legal personality	Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
Federal agency (Operations jurisdiction)	United States
Legal jurisdiction	As per operations jurisdiction.
Governing body	U.S. Department of Justice
Constituting instrument	United States Code Title 28 Part II Chapter 33
General nature	Federal law enforcement Civilian agency
Operational structure
Headquarters	J. Edgar Hoover Building Northwest, Washington, D.C.
Sworn members	13,260 (October 31, 2014)
Agency executives	James B. Comey, Director Andrew G. McCabe, Deputy Director List of FBI Directors, Other directors
Child agencies	FBI Academy FBI Laboratory Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) Counterterrorism Division (CTD) FBI Police (FBIP)
Major units	5 Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) Law Enforcement Bulletin Unit (LEBU) Hostage Rescue Team (FBI) (HRT) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) FBI Police National Security Branch (NSB)
Field offices	56 (List of FBI Field Offices)
Notables People John Edgar Hoover, Director, for being the founding director William Mark Felt, former Federal Agent, for whistle blowing, Watergate scandal Joseph Leo Gormley, Forensic Scientist, for expert testimony Significant Operations COINTELPRO Special Intelligence Service
Website
www.fbi.gov

The Special Intelligence Service was a covert counterintelligence branch of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) located in South America during World War II. It was established during the term of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to monitor Axis activities in Central and South America.

In 1934, President Roosevelt began to grow concerned about activities of Nazi groups within the United States. The FBI was ordered to begin investigating these groups operating within the country. The goal of this work was to determine if foreign agents were working within these American Nazi groups.

In 1940, the government decided to expand the scope of this mission. There were more than 1.5 million expatriate Germans living in South America, including Argentina and Brazil. As a result, this area had become an active area of Axis espionage, propaganda and sabotage. In June 1940, President Roosevelt ordered the formation of the Special Intelligence Service to monitor these activities.

The SIS allied with the BIS (Basque Intelligence Service) in Latin America.

It is presumptive that Assistant Director Percy E. "Sam" Foxworth was the first chief of the SIS. He died in a plane crash on 15 January 1943 with agent Harold Dennis Haberfeld. The second chief appears to have been Jerome Doyle.

The headquarters of this organization was located on the 44th floor of the International Building, in the Rockefeller Center plaza in New York City. The front for the organization was actually an operating law firm. It took some time to become fully operational, due to language and cultural differences, but within a year the SIS had a number of agents in place under various covers.