Naval Intelligence History Project

In 2016, former NIP Chairman Tony Cothron initiated Project 2032, an updated history of Naval Intelligence for its 150th anniversary. In 2023 Lynn Wright took over the effort, now referred to as the Navy Intelligence History Project, which builds on the authoritative work A Century of Naval Intelligence by Captain Wyman Packard. The new vision will include a recapitulation of the remarkable history of the oldest continuously-serving intelligence organization in the U.S. Government, with a focus on post-Cold War activities.

NIP Chair VADM (Ret) Bob Sharp and COMONI, RADM Mike Brookes, sign the Naval Intelligence History Project MOA at ONI, 30 October 2024 (ONI/Chris McGinity)

This volume will highlight the function, operations, and impact of Naval Intelligence through an engaged story-telling style, not to simply “talk about ourselves” but to provide a publication suitable and appropriate as assigned reading for all warfare schools, war colleges, and institutions of higher learning.

By focusing on the evolution, successes, challenges, and shortfalls of a single community and function within the Navy, this 150-year history of Naval Intelligence can provide valuable lessons for the development for any organizational function.

Two new Project MOAs were signed in October 2024, between NIP and ONI, and between NHHC and ONI. The previous MOA, signed in 2016 with ONI and NHHC, was only in effect for five years.

Rear Admiral Bob Sharp, RADM (Ret) Sam Cox and RDML (Ret) Tony Cothron sign the MOA for Project 2032 between NIP, ONI, and NHHC, 20 December 2016

As of summer 2025, all 22 chapters have volunteer researchers and writers who have started work on their share of the history. Many of the researchers and writers are longtime naval intelligence officers and a few are also professors at the Naval War College and the Joint Forces Staff College. The Box Review Team has reviewed all stored history boxes at ONI and has begun to process documents for declassification.

DR Chris Nelson is helping our new Knowledge Manager, Madelyn Heaston (a Liberty University graduate student) manage the shared drive, which is rapidly being filled with the personal stashes of unclassified or declassified intelligence and cryptologic history (approximately 70 GB so far). It will be an eye watering resource for the entire NHP team and will be available for the NIP membership in the future.

Follow-on steps will be to continue identifying documents for declassification at ONI and delving into the approximately 3000 boxes held at NARA (National Archives) Suitland. George Fedoroff will join the BRT this summer to help identify key documents for declassification requests and serve as a resource for the researchers and writers.

If you have any questions, please send us a note at nip.project.2032@gmail.com.

Latest Updates

Naval Intelligence History Project Update
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Here are some of the historical documents we have started compiling (members must login to access documents):

  1. And Mac Was There: A Special 25th Anniversary issue of the Naval Intelligence Professionals Quarterly 1985-2010
  2. Oral History/Interview with RADM Mac Showers provided by National Museum of the Pacific War
  3. A History of the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1882-1942
  4. Melding Operational Aviators with Intelligence: Introducing SPEAR (from Sep 2016 issue of “The SEXTANT” US Navy History and Heritage Command)
  5. Book Review – Proceed to Peshawar: The Story of a U.S. Navy Intelligence Mission on the Afghan Border, 1943
  6. The Essence of Intelligence Work is Preparation for War: How “Strategy” Infiltrated the Office of Naval Intelligence, 1882-1889 (from the International Journal of Naval History, Dec 2015)
  7. Stealing the Japanese Codebooks, or One Peek is Worth Two Finesses by RADM T. A. Brooks, USN (Ret.)
  8. The War on the Pacific Coast of South America between Chile and the Allied Republic of Peru and Bolivia 1879 - 1881, by LT Theodorus B. M. Mason

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