COI

Abbreviation of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, the first U.S. central intelligence agency, which was founded on July 11, 1941 to overcome the lack of coordination between existing intelligence agencies. In 1942, the COI was split into two agencies, with covert operations coming under the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), America’s World War II-period strategic intelligence, and propaganda operations transferred to the Office of War Information (OWI).