Miles' suggestions to set up an espionage service were ignored until June 1941,[4][5] when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed William J. Donovan as Coordinator of Information.

The decoded "Magic" messages were top-secret and circulated only in a very select circle of ten people comprising the General Staffs of the Army and the Navy, the Secretary of War, and the President.

[4] The warnings that the General Staff sent to Hawaii failed to stress the urgency because MID themselves did not consider the contents of the "Magic" intercepts received prior to the attack as particularly significant at that time.

[7][10] Ten days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Miles was sent on an inspection tour through South America to survey installations there and to make recommendations for military assistance to the Latin American countries;[11] Brigadier General Raymond E. Lee became Acting Assistant Chief of Staff G-2 .

[13] Initially, the MID included: In May 1942, Colonel Alfred McCormack, established the Special Branch of MIS which specialised in COMINT.