Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa

Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa (Spanish for: Superior Center of Defense Information) (CESID) was the Spanish intelligence agency before the current Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) took over as its successor in 2002.

History

Was once the principal intelligence agency of Spain, created in 1977 to replace the intelligence organizations of the Francoist period (SECED). These included the Political-Social Brigade—a special branch of the plainclothes corps—and the Intelligence Service of the Civil Guard. With their files on every part of the rural and urban population, these bodies carried on close surveillance and political intimidation on behalf of the Franco regime.

By a royal decree of January 1984, CESID was defined legally as the intelligence agency of the prime minister. Nevertheless, it was fundamentally military in nature, and its head in 1988 was an army lieutenant general, Emilio Alonso Manglano. Observers speculated, however, that Manglano, who had held the post since 1981, eventually would be succeeded by a civilian.