Ulius Louis Amoss

Col. Ulius Louis Amoss (1895–1961) was a US intelligence officer who wrote the original essay on Leaderless Resistance in the 1950s after he retired and was upset with what he wrote was bad operational practices of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Career International Services of Information Foundation, Inc. Amoss operated a private intelligence organization called International Services of Information (ISI) Foundation, Inc. On October 30, 1962, its official periodical INFORM described ISI as "a private, non-profit foundation that has been providing independent intelligence from other lands for over sixteen years."

Amoss: "we do not need 'leaders'; we need leading ideas. These ideas would produce leaders. The masses would produce them and the ideas would be their inspiration. Therefore, we must create these ideas and convey them to the restless peoples concerned with them."

In 1961 leaflets were airdropped over Cuba by anti-Castro Cuban exiles and their allies with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. The leaflets used the concept of Leaderless Resistance and called for the creation of "Phantom Cells" (Celulas Fantasmas).

There was no apparent connection between Amoss and the leaflets, according to Michael Paulding, who is writing a book on an early OSS figure and has studied Amoss and his work. Amoss died in November 1961, a few months after the failed CIA-orchestrated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Amoss's Leaderless Resistance essay is republished posthumously in 1962 in the INFORM newsletter, having been rewritten from the 1953 original by a freelancer, according to Paulding.

Personal life Amoss married Mary Veronica Amoss.

Works Leaderless Resistance: New Tactics for an Old War. . Originally published in Inform, no. 6205 (Apr. 17, 1962).