Changes

The Continental Congress established the Committee of Secret Correspondence to communicate with sympathetic Britons and other Europeans early in the American Revolution. The committee coordinated diplomatic functions for the Continental Congress and directed transatlantic communication and public relations. The Committee of Secret Correspondence became the Committee of Foreign Affairs in April 1777 but retained its intelligence functions. As the first American government agency for both foreign intelligence and diplomatic representation, it may be regarded as a forerunner of both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as Congress’s current intelligence oversight committees.

Congress initially established the Committee of Correspondence on November 29, 1775, to communicate with colonial agents in Britain and “friends in ... other parts of the world.” On the committee were Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Johnson, John Dickinson, and John Jay. Robert Morris, the revolutionary financier, soon joined them. Congress granted the committee extensive authority to conduct international diplomacy, including the negotiation of clandestine shipments of arms and other similar activities. Owing to the nature of the correspondence, the members began to add the word “secret” to the committee’s title, and soon it was known as the Committee of Secret Correspondence. The Committee's diplomatic duties grew, and Congress renamed it the Committee for Foreign Affairs on April 17, 1777.