Ralph Van Deman Ralph Henry Van Deman ( 1865 – 1952 ) was a United States Army officer , sometimes called " The Father of American Military Intelligence . " General Van Deman is in the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame . Early career . Van Deman was born in Delaware , Ohio , and graduated from Harvard in 1888 . He was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry in 1891 after attending law school , and enrolling in medical school . He received his medical degree from the Miami University Medical School in Cincinnati , Ohio in 1893 . Van Deman then entered the Army as a , before attending the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth in early 1895 . There he met Arthur L . Wagner who became head of the War Department ' s Military Information Division in 1896 . In June 1897 Van Deman followed Wagner to Washington to work for MID . Military Intelligence Division . During the Spanish - American War Van Deman collected information on the military capabilities of Spain in Cuba , Puerto Rico and the Philippines and had charge of the White House war map . At the end of hostilities he went to Cuba and Puerto Rico to collect cartographic data . He was reassigned to the Philippines in April 1899 as aide to Brigadier - General Robert Patterson Hughes . After two years he was promoted to Captain and was moved to the Bureau of Insurgent Records in Manila , which he helped transform into the Philippine Military Information Division . He organized a counter - intelligence group using locally - recruited agents . ( See Philippine - American War ) . He returned to the U . S . in late 1902 , where he served as aide to the Commanding General , California , and then commanded Company B , 22nd Infantry , based at Fairbault , Minnesota . In 1904 he was one of nine officers selected for the first class of the Army War College ( Another was John J . Pershing . ) After graduation in 1906 , he and Captain Alexander Coxe were sent on a covert mission to China to reconnoiter and map lines of communication around Peking . He returned to Washington in 1907 to become the Chief of the Mapping Section in the Second Division of the new General Staff . ( On 26 October 1909 his wife became the first American woman to fly from American soil , being piloted by Wilbur Wright ) . He returned to the Philippines in 1910 . There he resumed his project to map Chinese railways , roads and rivers until Japanese protests led to his expulsion in 1912 . Re - formation of MID . Back in the United States he taught cartography , then became Inspector - General with the 2nd Division . Now a major , he returned to the War College Division in July 1915 . He found that there was a general apathy about intelligence - gathering , and the MID had been downgraded from the second division of the General Staff , and merged with the third division , ending its separate identity . Van Deman wrote a history of MID detailing its beginnings in 1885 , its rise in 1903 , and fall in subsequent years . He was convinced that the Army must have a coordinated intelligence organization if it were to avoid defeat in the near future , especially as it was now obvious that the U . S . would soon be involved in the war in Europe . Eventually Van Deman was able to get an audience with the Secretary of War to present his case . There he convinced the War Department to accept his idea of an intelligence department for U . S . forces . A crucial role was played by Colonel Claude Dansey of the British Security Service in proposing similar ideas to Colonel Edward M . House , a member of an American liaison mission to Britain and one of President Wilson ' s advisors . World War I . As the result of these efforts the Military Intelligence Section , War College Division , War Department General Staff , was created on 3 May 1917 , with Van Deman , now a Colonel , at its head . His friend and colleague Alexander Coxe was the first officer appointed . By the war ' s end in 1919 , it had grown to 282 officers and 1 , 159 civilians , most of them specialists . One of these was Herbert Yardley , a cipher clerk with the State Department who Van Deman made a first lieutenant and put in charge of codes and ciphers . Van Deman modelled his new organization on British Army intelligence , and divided it into several departments : As well as military intelligence gathering , MID was also tasked with preventing sabotage and subversion by enemy agents or German sympathizers on US soil . Short of manpower , Van Deman relied on private groups which he organized into the American Protective League . He also provided security to government offices , defense plants , seaports , and other sensitive installations . He created a field organization in eight US cities which employed mobilized civilian policemen to perform security investigations . In France , MID provided operational intelligence to the American Expeditionary Force , and Van Deman created the Corps of Intelligence Police ( forerunner of the Counter Intelligence Corps ) , recruiting fifty French - speaking Sergeants with police training . Thus , within a few months , he had created an intelligence organization that could support both domestic and tactical intelligence requirements . Post - war activities . In 1918 Van Deman went to France to work for Colonel Dennis Nolan , G2 of the AEF , handing over control of the MID to Brigadier - General Marlborough Churchill . After overseeing security at the Paris Peace Commission , he returned to Washington in August 1919 to briefly serve as Deputy Chief of the MID . In March 1920 he returned to the army and commanded the 31st Infantry in the Philippines . He also spent three months on detached service with the British Army in India . He returned to the US and had a series of tours with the National Guard . He worked in the Washington headquarters of the Militia Bureau , then served as an instructor with the 159th Infantry Brigade in Berkeley , California . As a Brigadier - General he commanded the 6th Infantry Brigade at Fort Rosecrans , San Diego , California from 1927 . He was promoted to Major - General in May 1929 , and commanded the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis , Washington . He retired in September 1929 after 38 years of service . After retiring he used the contacts he had established during World War I in the American Protective League to privately compile files on suspected subversives and foreign agents . During World War II he acted as a consultant on intelligence matters to the War Department , for which he received a Legion of Merit . Notable among his recommendations was that he sent a passionate defense of Japanese - American citizens to President Roosevelt ; the advice that they were not a threat was , however , ignored ( leading to the Japanese American internment ) . In January 1952 , at the age of 86 , he died in his home in San Diego .