Photo By Erin Thompson | Lt. Col. Paul F. Lawson (1918--2007)... read more read more
by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian
ARCHIVE DIVE
The U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE) is lucky to house a wide variety of special collections, donated over many years from miscellaneous organizations and individuals. These collections contain significant materials that exemplify the rich history of Military Intelligence throughout American history. Let’s dive into the Paul F. Lawson Collection and explore the evolution of intelligence training in the mid-twentieth century.
Lt. Col. Paul Frederick Lawson entered the service as a reserve officer in 1940, serving briefly as a rifle platoon leader. He was later assigned as a regimental communications officer, and upon U.S. entrance into World War II, Lawson helped organize a communications sector in Iceland to support reconnaissance operations along the west coast. He later served in the Army’s campaigns in North Africa and Italy from 1943 to 1944, during which he received three Bronze Stars and a Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action.
Upon returning to the U.S., he served as assistant S-3 at Camp Howze, Texas, and Camp Livingston, Louisiana. Around this time, he became involved with the planning committee for the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Riley, Kansas, which opened in 1946. Lawson helped create the intelligence training program for the school throughout the late 1940s, set up and administered a large map library, and participated in worldwide conferences on intelligence and security training. He was commissioned as an intelligence officer in 1950 and, in 1952, he served as the deputy G-2 and chief of security in Japan during the Korean War. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in December 1954 and became chief of the Training Section, Training Division, in the office of the assistant chief of staff, intelligence. He later served as the chief of staff, G-2, 24th Infantry Division and, after the Army reorganization in the mid-1950s, as chief of staff, G-2, 1st Cavalry Division in Korea. He retired from the Army in 1961 and passed away in 2007.
The Lawson Collection contains materials donated to USAICoE between 1995 and 1997. The collection’s materials cover much of Lawson’s career in intelligence training, overseeing conduct and operations of the U.S. Army Intelligence School, the Army Language School, the Army Military Attaché Training Program, the Foreign Area Specialist Training Program, and the Strategic Intelligence School (SIS). These materials include several working drafts of papers Lawson wrote pertaining to signals intelligence, reconnaissance agencies, ground observation posts, photo interpretation, and numerous notes taken at combat intelligence conferences across the country in the 1940s and 1950s. Lawson’s collection also includes primary sources on the Joint Peace Negotiations of the United States and Japan at the end of American occupation in 1952, at which Lawson was a participant; numerous books from the 1930s and 1940s on anti-American activities, communism, and the Soviet Union, which were most likely used as a foundation for intelligence training early in the Cold War; pamphlets, training materials, and handbooks on warfare, intelligence analysis, and foreign nations; and instructor outlines for courses and activities planned for the SIS in Washington, D.C., from his time on the governing board.
Lawson’s collection gives us a glimpse into the early evolution of intelligence training, as the materials contain the outline and planning instructions for the majority of the courses taught during the SIS’s first term [see "This Week in MI History" #109 October 1945]. Through these course archives, we can trace the level of skill and education required of the first fully trained generation of U.S. Army intelligence officers. Lawson’s collection provides a unique perspective on the formation of Army intelligence training as it exists today and serves as a great resource for historical research on one of the earliest military intelligence schools in the U.S.
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| Date Taken: | 08.25.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2023 17:25 |
| Story ID: | 452197 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 82 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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