Page 145 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

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ActA
The idea of creating a Police Force was increasing in power and as a consequence
it was instituted in 1927: a special Police Inspectorate, with the main purpose of
fighting the communist activity and not only. In December 1930 this office was given
the name of OVRA (or Special Inspectorate of Public Security), equipped with almost
unlimited funds and surely over staffed. Always in the same period, to demonstrate a
general revision of the whole informative apparatus in the various bodies of the State,
8
with a Royal Decree-law of January 10, 1929, no. 27, the Stenographic Service of
the Presidency of the Council of Ministers was abolished and it was set up a ‘special
reserved Service’, the institutional tasks of which, however were not clearly defined in
the decree. It was however dissolved in 1946, June 28.
It has not to be forgotten that in 1933 also the Presidency of the Council had
reorganized its informative Service, present since 1861, officially constituting a Press
Office directed by Galeazzo Ciano. The Press Office expanded its activities up to become
in 1937 the Ministry of Popular Culture. 9
One more interesting note: within the Ministry of Interior, in 1936, a Directorate-
General of Statistical Services was established, a true Information Service concerning
national and international issues, such as the so-called ‘Statistical Sections’ of SIM
located in many cities of Italy. In 1944, in the territory no longer under the fascist yoke,
the Office of the Political Police was abolished and the General and Reserved Affairs
Division was split up in two: the Reserved Affairs became the Special Information
Service (SIS – not to be mislead with the Information Service of the Navy).
After April 25, 1945, the reconstruction of the Italian State began; Italy made the
‘Atlantic choice’ and in 1949 it finally succeeded in launching the creation of a true
joint Service, SIFAR(Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate); after it became Defense
Information Service (in Italian Servizio Informazioni Difesa, SID).
The Ministry of Interior re-established in 1946 the Directorate-General of Public
Security and, two years after, it restored the General and Reserved Affairs Division that
in 1965 became part of the Security Police Directorate-General. In the following years
many changes were implemented as a result of the historical internal changes and event
of the Republic.
The turmoil in the Italian society, more than twenty years after the end of the war,
imposed to the Government to review the organization of this particular sector still
suffering from an obsolete post-war mentality. In fact, the two separate structures,
military and civilian ones, had different dependencies; their powers had not been
sufficiently delineated giving rise to many overlaps of aims and operational activities.
There was no institution responsible for the coordination with a clear waste of human
and financial resources for a sector requiring instead an optimization, in order to obtain those
results necessary to maintain stability and security of a young but well firm democracy.

8 Converted on 24 June in L. no. 1165 published in O.J. July 19, 1929, no. 167. As a matter of fact , the
Stenographic Service was a service of the Ministry of Interior depending ever since 1925 on the Presidency
of the Council, i.e. the Head of the Government.
9 The Press Office, then Under-secretariat under the direct responsibility of the President of the Council was
raised to the ministerial dignity with the Royal Decree no. 1009 of June, 24 1935; the R. D. no. 752 of May
27, 1937 ordered the new name.