History
Originally, the SNI was a civilian agency under the retired General Golbery do Couto e Silva. It provided Castelo Branco with an alternative intelligence source.
After the political dominance of Brazilian hard-liners, the SNI came under military control. The agency was the backbone of the regime's anti-communist actions. Although there have been secret police in Brazil since at least the Vargas era, military involvement reached new heights with the creation of the SNI. It grew out of the Institute for Research and Social Studies (Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Sociais or IPES), which Couto e Silva had established to undermine the former Goulart government (1961-64).
In 1973, control over the domestic intelligence community with the opening of the Escola Nacional de Informações (EsNI or National Intelligence School) was established. The following year, the EsNI absorbed the Escola Superior de Guerra postgraduate intelligence course.
Supposedly, the EsNI did not train police agents and selected its own students. By 1980 some officers were saying that the EsNI would be as useful as the ESG to their careers.
Read more about this topic: National Intelligence Service Of Brazil
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)