The organization was preceded by the
Deuxième Bureau, which had been the French external
military intelligence agency since 1871. Following the defeat of France in 1940, the
Vichy France regime's intelligence service was organized within the
Centre d’information gouvernemental (
Center for Government Information, CIG), under the direction of Admiral
François Darlan. According to General , head of the Deuxième Bureau since 1936, shortly following the defeat of France in June 1940, he, Captain
Paul Paillole, and various members of the counter-intelligence service met at the Seminary of Bon-Encontre near
Agen. With the assistance of General
Maxime Weygand, they planned to revive French
counter-intelligence against
German domination. General Rivet's memoirs remain controversial, but according to his account the official Vichy
Bureau des Menées Antinationales (
Bureau of Anti-national Activities, BMA), officially an organization opposing
communist activities and
resistance efforts and accepted by the Germans under the terms of the
armistice, was in reality a cover for the pursuit of collaborators with the Germans. The main vehicle for such operations was "L’entreprise des Travaux Ruraux" (The Rural Work Enterprise), supposedly an agricultural engineering program, which performed clandestine counter-espionage under the command of Captain Paillole. In August 1942, the BMA was dissolved and recreated clandestinely as the Military Security Service by
Pierre Laval and Admiral Darlan, who needed such an organisation to try to preserve Vichy French sovereignty. Paillole was given control of this new organization. Meanwhile, on 1 July 1940, the
Free French government-in-exile in
London created its own intelligence service. General
Charles de Gaulle assigned
Major Dewavrin to command the organization. Initially known as the
Service de Renseignements (SR), the agency would change its name to
Bureau central de renseignements et d’action militaire (BCRAM) on 15 April 1941, and again change to
Bureau central de renseignements et d’action (BCRA) on 17 January 1942. Initially, it consisted of a single section: •
Renseignement (R): commanded by Captain (aka "Pallas"), which worked closely with British intelligence agency
MI6. Subsequently, other sections were added: •
Action militaire (A/M) (Military action): created 15 April 1941, commanded by Captain Raymond Lagier (aka "Bienvenüe") and , working with the British
Special Operations Executive. •
Contre-espionnage (CE) (Counterintelligence): created 16 December 1941, commanded by Roger Warin (aka ) and , working with the British
MI5. •
Évasion (E) (Escape): created February 1942, commanded by Lieutenant Mitchell, working with the British
MI9. •
Politique (N/M for non militaire) (Non-military operations): August 1942, commanded by
Jacques Bingen,
Jean Pierre-Bloch, and
Louis Vallon Upon the reconciliation between General
Henri Giraud and
Charles de Gaulle in 1943, the French national liberation committee ordered the fusion of the BCRA and the clandestine intelligence services of Rivet into a new structure, the (DGSS ,
General Directorate of Special Services). Louis Rivet resigned in opposition to the new organization. In 1944 the DGSS became the
Direction générale des études et recherches (DGER,
General Directorate for Study and Research), which became the
Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage (SDECE,
External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service) in 1945. ==See also==