Following the dissolution of the Information Service and Military Police, Servicio de Información y Policía Militar (SIPM) at the end of the civil war, the intelligence organizations of the Francoist period were the Central Documentation Service, Servicio Central de Documentación (SECED), the Political-Social Brigade, Brigada Político-Social (BPS)—a special branch of the plainclothes corps later renamed Brigada de Investigación Social (BIS) (Social Investigation Brigade)—and the Intelligence Service of the Civil Guard.

Keeping files on the rural and urban population of every part of Spain, these bodies carried on close surveillance and political intimidation on behalf of the Francoist government.

Liaison was maintained with a number of intelligence services of North African and Middle Eastern nations, as well as with the Israeli agency, Mossad.

Although CESID was the senior agency, it did not have a firmly established coordinating function over other intelligence bodies, which included the General Headquarters of Information of the Ministry of Defense; the second sections of the army, the air force, and the navy staffs; and the Civil Guard Information Service (SIGC), dedicated to criminal and terrorist intelligence.

In addition, the National Police Corps had a General Commissariat of Information (CGI), with an antiterrorist mission that included a Foreign Intelligence Brigade to investigate international terrorism aimed against Spain.