The earliest antecedent of the National Delegation for Documentary Services (hereinafter referred to as DNSD) is the Department of Anti-Communist Information and Propaganda (hereinafter referred to as OIPA), established by Order of the General Secretariat of the Head of State issued in Salamanca on 20 April 1937. It was directly reliant upon the General Secretariat and its aim, on the basis of the foregoing Order, was the collection of documents related to Marxist propaganda and activities (also, the propaganda pertaining to Masonic societies and other like-minded societies), and their subsequent dispatch to the Head Office of Salamanca, housed in the Centre for Anti-communist Investigation and Propaganda. It was chaired by Laureano Armas Gourié, Head of State of the OIPA. The OIPA would later become a subordinate unit within the Service for Documentation Recovery. Another precedent of the DNSD was the National Delegation for Special Services, established under the provision of 29 May 1937. It was reliant upon Generalissimo's Particular Secretariat and led by Marcelino Ulibarri Eguilaz. Its functions were confined to the collection of documentation from secret societies, such as Freemasonry and other correlative or like-minded societies. The Service for Documentation Recovery was set up in July 1937 as an entity dependent on the Generalissimo¿s Headquarters; this service was led by Marcelino Ulibarri Eguilaz, too. The service was set up as a Government body for the recovery, organization, storage and study of the enemy¿s documents and propaganda materials, as a single Government body responsible for holding documents related to Marxist activities and for supplying information to other State bodies, such as the War Auditorium and the OIPA. The Service for Documentation Recovery forwarded the captured documentation related to the activities of secret societies to the National Delegation for Special Services. The State Delegation for Documentation Recovery (hereinafter referred to as DERD) was established by Decree issued by the Ministry of the Interior on 26 April 1938. It was reliant upon the ministry and its former president was also Marcelino Ulibarri Eguilaz. The DERD encompassed a Social-Political Department, precedent of the subsequent department within the DNSD. Moreover, the DERD also encompassed a Special Department or a Department for Special Services, which was basically the National Delegation for Special Services, dependent on Generalissimo¿s Particular Secretariat. On the other hand, while the DERD was operative (1938-1944) and prior to the establishment of the DNSD, the institutional situation was rather unclear, with two bodies entrusted the recovery of documents with different organizational units, yet under the direction of the same person, Marcelino Ulibarri Eguilaz. This situation ended upon the issuance of a Decree by the Head of the State on 30 September 1944, which laid down the abolition of the State Delegation for Documentation Recovery and the National Delegation for Special Services, replaced with the National Delegation for Documentary Services under the Head of Government as a General-Directorate. Ever since its establishment, the National Delegation for Documentary Services, structured in a Special Department and a Political-Social Department, took on the responsibilities of the former institutions. It was entrusted the collection of documents seized from the republican army, the political and trade union organizations of the People's Front, as well as from the masonic lodges and other correlative or like-minded societies, the classification of this documentation and the elaboration of rates, files and other information tools on the political and social background of numerous individuals in order to spot the potential enemies of the new regime and supply such information to the State and Administration bodies, which conducted the suppression and political cleansing during post-war, chiefly the Court for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism, the courts with political responsibilities and the military courts which heard the war councils. The colonel Francisco Javier Planas de Tovas was appointed Director-General National Delegate of Documentary Services of the Head of Government, a position he held until his death in 1964, when he was replaced by the admiral Jesús Fontán Lobé. The presidential decree of 21 February 1958 established the incorporation of the Political-Social Department of the DNSD within the homonym department of the Directorate-General for Security and the handover of its archive was set off. In 1968, the DNSD lost its status of Directorate-General and was renamed as the Presidential Department for Documentary Services. The Department for documentary Services was eventually abolished by Royal Decree 2761/1977 of 28 October, which established in the first clause of its final provision the reorganization of the Head of Government, as well as the secondment of its funds to the Ministry of Culture.