Courtesy Photo | Students in training at USAICS in the 1980s (courtesy photo).... read more read more
by Fiona G. Holter, USAICoE Staff Historian
In November 1984, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School (USAICS) at Fort Huachuca held the first Intelligence in Terrorism Counteraction (ITC) Course in response to increased terrorist activity around the world. The course, which was offered to all intelligence and Department of Defense (DoD) personnel, remained in the Department of Human Intelligence’s (DHI) course catalog through 1992.
The rise in terrorist activities and threats in the early 1980s triggered the need for DoD personnel to be more informed about those threats and how to counteractive them. Dr. Rudolf Levy, an ITC course developer and instructor at USAICS, explained that, because intelligence concerns itself with the questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why, its role in terrorism counteraction meant gaining full knowledge of terrorism and its actors. By doing so, intelligence personnel would “improve the overall terrorism counteraction effort” and support both individual and organizational security against terrorist strikes.
In November 1984, USAICS taught the first two-week ITC course. To prepare both military and civilian personnel for possible threats they could encounter when assigned to high-risk areas, the course provided working knowledge of terrorist movements, trends, targets, and modus operandi. The course had three phases, each of which included briefings on current terrorist situations and threats as well as the analysis of case studies with an emphasis on intelligence operations.
In the first phase of ITC, students focused on the terrorist threat. They studied contemporary terrorism including terrorists and their organizations, took a primer on Marxism and analyzed its ideologies within terrorism, and examined the development and dynamics of international terrorism. Phase two highlighted terrorist strategies, tactics, and indicators. This section of the course continued to offer briefings on contemporary terrorist groups and organizations and introduced case studies on terrorism in Latin America and in democratic societies. Instructors also briefed lessons learned from the 1981 kidnapping of Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier, the assistant chief of staff for administration and logistics, Allied Land Forces Southern Europe, by the Italian Red Brigades terrorist organization. Lastly, phase three of the ITC prepared students for terrorism counteraction intelligence work by concentrating on the proper techniques and analytical procedures intelligence personnel should apply to counteract terrorism.
USAICS received unanimous positive feedback on its first two courses in 1984. Students praised the content and practical nature of the course. Maj. Gen. Sidney T. Weinstein, the commanding general of USAICS, also praised the new training initiative, explaining it would “bear fruit in the increased capability of [MI] personnel to assess indicators, and thereby provide advanced warning of terrorist activities,” minimizing “potentially devastating effects of terrorist incidents.”
By the end of its first year, the course had run ten iterations and graduated more than 300 students. USAICS also incorporated the ITC instruction in resident courses throughout the schoolhouse, including the CI Officer, CI Agent, CI Assistant, Allied Officer, MI Officer Advanced, MI Officer Basic, the MI Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer, the Pre-Command, and the Senior Intelligence Officer Tactical Orientation courses. DHI’s Counterintelligence Branch also conducted nine mobile training team missions to train intelligence personnel in the Far East, Southern Command, U.S. Army Europe, the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and various Army MI units across the country.
The ITC course remained on the DHI course catalog until 1992, after which USAICS’ records lose track of the course and its evolution in the 1990s. If you are familiar with the course and its more contemporary versions, the Command History Office would love to hear from you! Please contact us at usarmy.huachuca.icoe.mbx.command-historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 11.07.2022 11:21 |
| Story ID: | 432781 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 190 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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