DGSE (General Directorate for External Security), France
France’s convoluted history of foreign espionage dates back to 1871, following their stunning upset in the Franco-Prussian War. Poor intelligence and a vast underestimation of the enemy’s capabilities played a monumental role in their loss, and the French high command authorized creating a military intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, DB) less than a month afterward. The Deuxième Bureau’s responsibilities expanded quickly, and counter-espionage and military statistics sections soon followed. In the wake of 1894’s Dreyfus Affair, however, counter-intelligence shifted to the Ministry of the Interior, the Sûreté générale handled counter-espionage and the pursuit of foreign spies, and the Deuxième Bureau retained only a statistical section, which was disbanded in 1899.
Reactivated in 1907, the Deuxième Bureau primarily worked with counter-espionage units belonging to Interior Ministry or mobile special operations units along France’s border. Four years later, the government divided foreign and interior operations between the Ministry of War, and therefore DB, and the Ministry of Interior. This clear division of responsibilities ended in 1915, and things get a little… weird thereafter.
1915: Section de Centralisation du Renseignement (Central Intelligence Section, SCR) created.
1917: Sûreté Nationale commissioner placed at the head of criminal police, general intelligence, propaganda, and counter-espionage, including the Section de renseignements (Intelligence Section, SR) and SCR.
1934: Organization renamed Direction Générale de la Sûreté nationale (DGSN).
1935: Police de l’Air, the territorial police, and the police carrier-pigeon service, placed under the DGSN.
1936: Service de centralisation des renseignements (Central Intelligence Service, CE) established.
1937: Government declares territorial surveillance the sole responsibility of police. New organization, the Bureau central de Renseignements (Central Intelligence Bureau, BCR) established, includes an SCR special section devoted to preventative defense.
1940: Vichy France established Bureau des Menées Antinationales (Bureau of Anti-National Activities, BMA). Free French government-in-exile in London established Service de Renseignements (SR).
1941: SR renamed Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action Militaire (BCRAM).
1942: BCRAM renamed Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA).
1944/45: Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, SDECE) established, successor to BCRA.
1965/66: SDECE placed under the Ministry of Defense following their role in the kidnapping, and probable murder, of Mehdi Ben Barka.
1982: Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (General Directorate for External Security, DGSE), established.