1947: The Year the American Intelligence Trade Found Its First Institution

Collectors of Cold War Americana trace the modern intelligence apparatus to a single founding year, when the agency that would define postwar espionage took formal shape and began building the paper trail — badges, seals, declassified memoranda — that now surfaces in archives and specialist sales. That 1947 origin point remains the fixed date against which collectors authenticate early agency material.

With reporting from The Collector.