Central Intelligence Agency: Difference between revisions

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
imported>Hayford Peirce
m (removed parenthesis in favor of commas)
m (Text replacement - "compartmented control system" to "compartmented control system")
 
(76 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{subpages}}
{{subpages}}
The '''Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)''' is an organisation that was established by President Harry S. Truman to advise the president of the United States on matters relating to national security. Established by the [[National Security Act of 1947]], the CIA was given wide powers to gather information ("intelligence"), and some limited powers to act, in the interests of national security.
{{TOC|right}}
The '''Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)''' is a part of the United States intelligence community ,  established in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman to advise the president of the United States on matters relating to national security. Established by a [[National Security Act of 1947|National Security Act]], the CIA was given wide powers to gather information ("intelligence"), and some limited powers to act, in the interests of national security. It had an overall coordinating role until passage of the ''Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004'', which created the office of the [[Director of National Intelligence]]; the office of [[Director of Central Intelligence]] became the office of the [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency]] (DCIA); see [[#DNI Reorganization|DNI reorganization]] below.


The present present functions include [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] collection, intelligence analysis, and covert action. [[Leon Panetta]] is the DCIA. Many CIA reports are [[classified information]], and, further, under compartmented control system additional controls. CIA produces a wide range of intelligence analysis studies for government policymakers, and to some extent these incorporated information gained by [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] i.e. by espionage. Gathering information is generally considered a legitimate and indeed an essential role of governments, although the legitimacy of the means of gathering information may be questioned. Far more controversial, however, was the covert action role of the CIA, which included black propaganda, subversion, political warfare, sabotage, and other actions of which the U.S. government could deny knowledge. Some of these capabilities were used to overthrow governments and other missions that, in hindsight, may not have been in the long-term interest of the United States.
==Background==
During [[World War II]], the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had been established by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] to conduct espionage on behalf of the USA. It established a very large team of agents behind enemy lines, and gave substantial help to the resistance movements in areas of Europe occupied by the Axis powers, and also to Mao Zedong's Red Army in China and to the Viet Minh in French Indochina who were fighting the Japanese. At the end of the war, President Truman ordered the OSS to be closed, leaving only a small intelligence organization, the Strategic Services Unit, within the War Department.  
During [[World War II]], the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had been established by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] to conduct espionage on behalf of the USA. It established a very large team of agents behind enemy lines, and gave substantial help to the resistance movements in areas of Europe occupied by the Axis powers, and also to Mao Zedong's Red Army in China and to the Viet Minh in French Indochina who were fighting the Japanese. At the end of the war, President Truman ordered the OSS to be closed, leaving only a small intelligence organization, the Strategic Services Unit, within the War Department.  


The role of the new CIA, which took over the intelligence gathering and analytical activities of the OSS, was to evaluate intelligence reports and coordinate the intelligence activities of the various government departments in the interest of national security. At first it was not given the [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] or [[covert action]] capabilities of the OSS - these activities, popularly understood as "spying", were at first undertaken by other agencies, but in 1952 such missions came under the CIA. The legislation that created the CIA gave it no domestic authority. <ref name=Warner1006>{{citation
The role of the postwar CIA, which took over the intelligence gathering and analytical activities of the OSS, was to evaluate intelligence reports and coordinate the intelligence activities of the various government departments in the interest of national security. At first it was not given the [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] or covert action capabilities of the OSS - these activities, popularly understood as "spying", were at first undertaken by other agencies, but in 1952 such missions came under the CIA. A restriction against "police, law enforcement or internal security functions" first appeared in President Truman's order establishing the Central Intelligence Group in 1946.  <ref name=Church-II>{{citation
| title = Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. Book II
| author = Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, United States Senate ("Church Committee")
| url = http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIb.htm
| date = April 26, 1976
}}</ref> <ref name=Warner1006>{{citation
  | title = Salvage and Liquidation: The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group  
  | title = Salvage and Liquidation: The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group  
  | first = Michael | last = Warner
  | first = Michael | last = Warner
Line 17: Line 25:
| pages=p.6
| pages=p.6
|date=1993-09-22
|date=1993-09-22
}}</ref> Also, see [[clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action]] for some of the organizational thinking that went into the new organization.
}}</ref>Also, see clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action for some of the organizational thinking that went into the new organization.
 
==DNI reorganization==
From the beginning, the CIA produced a wide range of [[intelligence analysis]] studies for government policymakers, and to some extent these incorporated information gained by [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] i.e. by espionage. Gathering information is generally considered a legitimate and indeed an essential role of governments, although the legitimacy of the means of gathering information may be questioned. Far more controversial, however, was the covert action role of the CIA, which included black propaganda, subversion, political warfare, sabotage, and other actions of which the U.S. government could deny knowledge. Some of these capabilities were used to overthrow governments and other missions that, in hindsight, may not have been in the long-term interest of the United States.
Until 2004, the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] headed both the CIA and the wider United States intelligence community . Partly as a result of recommendations from the [[9-11 Commission]] ("9/11 Commission")<ref name=911CommRpt>{{Citation
 
Until 2004, the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] headed both the CIA and the wider [[United States intelligence community]]. Partly as a result of recommendations from the [[National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States]] ("9/11 Commission")<ref name=911CommRpt>{{Citation
  | author = National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
  | author = National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
  | title = Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
  | title = Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
  | date = 26 July 2004
  | date = 26 July 2004
  | url =http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf}}</ref> and the [[Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction]]<ref name=WMDcommPage>{{citation
  | url =http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf}}</ref> and the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding weapons of mass destruction<ref name=WMDcommPage>{{citation
  | url = http://www.wmd.gov/report/index.html
  | url = http://www.wmd.gov/report/index.html
  | title = Report to the President
  | title = Report to the President
  | author = The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
  | author = The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding weapons of mass destruction
  | date = 31 March 2005}}</ref>, the [[Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004]] created a new [[Director of National Intelligence]], with the DCI renamed the [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency]]. The CIA remained responsible for a wide range of analysis functions, as well as being the central [[human-source intelligence]] organization of the U.S. government, sharing resposibility for covert action with military organizations.
  | date = 31 March 2005}}</ref>, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created a new [[Director of National Intelligence]], with the DCI renamed the [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency]]. The CIA remained responsible for a wide range of analysis functions, as well as being the central [[human-source intelligence]] organization of the U.S. government, sharing responsibility for covert action with military organizations.


When discussing the CIA, it is thus important to distinguish between the older responsibilities and its present responsibilities. The effectiveness of the intelligence community of the USA is still thought to be adversely affected by inter-agency rivalries, <ref name=Theoharis2007>{{cite book
When discussing the CIA, it is thus important to distinguish between the older responsibilities and its present responsibilities. The effectiveness of the intelligence community of the USA is still thought to be adversely affected by inter-agency rivalries, <ref name=Theoharis2007>{{cite book
Line 39: Line 45:
| id =ISBN 1-56663-697-3
| id =ISBN 1-56663-697-3
}}</ref> and an increasing number of interagency "centers", as well as the [[Intellipedia]] information sharing mechanism, have been established to resolve differences.
}}</ref> and an increasing number of interagency "centers", as well as the [[Intellipedia]] information sharing mechanism, have been established to resolve differences.
 
==Budget==
The overall U.S. intelligence budget has been considered classified until recently. There have been numerous attempts to get general information.<ref name=Aftergood2002budget>{{citation
| plaintiff=Steven Aftergood
| defendant=Central Intelligence Agency
| court = U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
| title = Declaration of Steven Aftergood
| id = Case No. 02-1146 (RMU)
| date = 5 May 2003
| url = http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/aftergood.html}}</ref>There have been accidental disclosures. <ref name=NYT2005-11-08>{{citation
| date = 8 November 2005
| journal = New York Times
| title = Official Reveals Budget for U.S. Intelligence
| first = Scott | last = Shane
| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/politics/08budget.html?pagewanted=print}}</ref> Mary Margaret Graham, a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.
==Organization==
==Organization==
In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:
In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:
:*The ''Directorate of Intelligence'', responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
:*The '''Directorate of Intelligence''', responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
:*The ''National Clandestine Service'', formerly the Directorate of Operations  
:*The '''National Clandestine Service''', formerly the Directorate of Operations, which does clandestine intelligence collection and covert action
:*The ''Directorate of Support''
:*The '''Directorate of Support'''
:* The ''Directorate of Science and Technology''
:* The '''Directorate of Science and Technology'''
===Executive Office===
===Executive Office===
The  Director of the CIA now reports to the DNI; in practice, he deals with the DNI, Congress, and White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight, although that is principally a guidance role. Historically, its budget, as well as that of the entire intelligence community, was [[classified]], but the total intelligence budget is now made public, and there is a strong drive to have the next level of detail, at the major agency level, published.  
The  Director of the CIA now reports to the DNI; in practice, he deals with the DNI, Congress, and White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight, although that is principally a guidance role. Historically, its budget, as well as that of the entire intelligence community, was [[classified information]], but the total intelligence budget is now made public, and there is a strong drive to have the next level of detail, at the major agency level, published.  


Strong Directors of the CIA  have had a considerable influence on the Agency's culture; see [[Director of Central Intelligence]]. <ref name=Painter2000>{{citation
Strong Directors of the CIA  have had a considerable influence on the Agency's culture; see [[Director of Central Intelligence]]. <ref name=Painter2000>{{citation
Line 63: Line 82:
}} </ref>
}} </ref>


The CIA supports the military with information it gathers, receives information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperates on field activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between CIA and the [[Unified Combatant Command]]s, who produce regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to all branches of the military<ref name = OMA> {{cite web
The CIA supports the military with information it gathers, receives information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperates on field activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to all branches of the military<ref name = OMA> {{cite web
| title = CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War
| title = CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War
| publisher = Central Intelligence Agency
| publisher = Central Intelligence Agency
Line 70: Line 89:
}} </ref>
}} </ref>


In the National Clandestine Services, an Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Military Affairs<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/directors-of-central-intelligence-as-leaders-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community/glossary.htm CIA Abbreviations and Acronyms]</ref> deals with specific [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] and [[covert action]] in support of military operations.  
In the National Clandestine Service, an Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Military Affairs<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/directors-of-central-intelligence-as-leaders-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community/glossary.htm CIA Abbreviations and Acronyms]</ref> deals with specific [[clandestine human-source intelligence]] and covert action in support of military operations.  


The CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group. <ref name=Reiss>{{citation
The CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group. <ref name=Reiss>{{citation
Line 90: Line 109:
}} </ref>  
}} </ref>  


In 2002, CIA's Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis began publishing the unclassified ''Kent Center Occasional Papers'', aiming to offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance the theory and practice of [[intelligence analysis]]."<ref name="Kent Center papers">{{citation
In 2002, CIA's Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis began publishing the unclassified ''Kent Center Occasional Papers'', aiming to offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance the theory and practice of intelligence analysis."<ref name="Kent Center papers">{{citation
| url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications//Kent_Papers/index.html  
| url=https://www.cia.gov/library/publications//Kent_Papers/index.html  
| work=cia.gov
| work=cia.gov
| title=Kent Center Occasional Papers
| title=Kent Center Occasional Papers
}}</ref>
}}</ref>
====General Counsel and Inspector General====
====General Counsel and Inspector General====
Two offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The Office of the [[General Counsel]] advises the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA.<ref name = "GC"> {{cite web
Two offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The Office of the General Counsel advises the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA. One particular General Counsel, Lawrence (Larry) Houston, was a key advisor several DCIs on both legal and broader issues.
| title =Office of the General Counsel
| work =cia.gov
| url =https://www.cia.gov/ogc/index.htm
|date=2006-07-16
}} </ref>


The Office of [[Inspector General]] promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA. The Office conducts inspections, investigations, and audits at Headquarters and in the field, and oversees the Agency-wide grievance-handling system. It provides a semiannual report to the Director of the CIA which the Director is required by law to submit to the Intelligence Committees of Congress within 30 days.
The Office of [[Inspector General]] promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA. The Office conducts inspections, investigations, and audits at Headquarters and in the field, and oversees the Agency-wide grievance-handling system. It provides a semiannual report to the Director of the CIA which the Director is required by law to submit to the Intelligence Committees of Congress within 30 days.


In February 2008, the Director of the CIA, [[Michael V. Hayden]], sent a message to employees that Inspector General John L. Helgerson will accept increased control over the investigations by that office, saying "John has chosen to take a number of steps to heighten the efficiency, assure the quality and increase the transparency of the investigation process".<ref name=WaPo2008-02-02>{{citation
In February 2008, the [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|Director of the CIA]], [[Michael Hayden]], sent a message to employees that Inspector General John L. Helgerson will accept increased control over the investigations by that office, saying "John has chosen to take a number of steps to heighten the efficiency, assure the quality and increase the transparency of the investigation process".<ref name=WaPo2008-02-02>{{citation
  | title = CIA Sets Changes To IG's Oversight, Adds Ombudsman
  | title = CIA Sets Changes To IG's Oversight, Adds Ombudsman
  | first =  Joby Warrick
  | first =  Joby Warrick
Line 117: Line 130:
  | first = Mark | last = Mazetti
  | first = Mark | last = Mazetti
  | date = February 2, 2008
  | date = February 2, 2008
  | journal = New York Times}}</ref> There was congressional concern that restrictions on the OIG might adversely affect its effectiveness. [[Senator]] [[Ron Wyden]] , a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, did not disagree with any of Hayden's actions, said the inquiry “should never have happened and can’t be allowed to happen again.”...“I’m all for the inspector general taking steps that help CIA employees understand his processes, but that can be done without an approach that can threaten the inspector general’s independence
  | journal = New York Times}}</ref> There was congressional concern that restrictions on the OIG might adversely affect its effectiveness. Senator [[Ron Wyden]], a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, did not disagree with any of Hayden's actions, said the inquiry “should never have happened and can’t be allowed to happen again.”...“I’m all for the inspector general taking steps that help CIA employees understand his processes, but that can be done without an approach that can threaten the inspector general’s independence
 
====Public Affairs====
====Public Affairs====
The Office of [[Public relations|Public Affairs]] advises the Director of the CIA on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role, and is the CIA’s principal communications focal point for the media, the general public and Agency employees.<ref name = "PA"> {{cite web
The Office of Public Affairs advises the Director of the CIA on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role. See [[CIA influence on public opinion]] for developments in the means by which the Agency, among other functions, works with the entertainment industry.
| title =Office of Public Affairs
| work =cia.gov
| url =https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/pas.html
|date=2006-07-16
}} </ref> See [[CIA influence on public opinion]].
===Directorate of Intelligence===
===Directorate of Intelligence===
The '''Directorate of Intelligence''' produces all-source intelligence [[intelligence analysis management| analysis]] on key foreign issues.<ref name = "fifty"> {{cite web
The '''Directorate of Intelligence''' produces all-source intelligence [[intelligence analysis management| analysis]] on key foreign issues.<ref name = "fifty"> {{cite web
Line 131: Line 140:
| url =https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/index.html
| url =https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/index.html
|date=2006-07-16
|date=2006-07-16
}} </ref>.  It is organized into four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and two support units.<ref name=CIA-DI-ORG>{{cite web
}} </ref>.  It has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and two support units.<ref name=CIA-DI-ORG>{{cite web
  | author = Central Intelligence Agency
  | author = Central Intelligence Agency
  | title = Intelligence & Analysis
  | title = Intelligence & Analysis
Line 138: Line 147:


====Regional groups====
====Regional groups====
There is an Office dedicated to [[Iraq]], and regional analytical Offices covering:
There is an Office dedicated to Iraq, and regional analytical Offices covering:
:*[[Near East]], [[North Africa]] and [[South Asia]]:  The Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NESA)
:*The Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis (NESA). See details of work of this area in [[CIA activities in the Middle East and South Asia]]
:*[[Russia]] and [[Europe]]: The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA)
:*The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA). See details of work of this area in CIA activities in Europe and Russia
:*[[East Asia|Asian]]-[[Pacific]], [[Latin America]], and [[Africa]]: The Office of East Asian, Pacific, Latin American and African Analysis (APLAA)
:*The Office of East Asian, Pacific, Latin American and African Analysis (APLAA). See [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific]], [[CIA activities in Africa]] and [[CIA activities in the Americas]]
 
====Transnational groups====
====Transnational groups====
The ''Office of Terrorism Analysis''<ref>{{citation
The '''Office of Terrorism Analysis'''<ref>{{citation
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/ota.html  
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/ota.html  
  | title = Office of Terrorism Analysis}}</ref> supports the [[National Counterterrorism Center]] in the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]].
  | title = Office of Terrorism Analysis}}</ref> supports the National Counterterrorism Center in the [[Director of National Intelligence|Office of the Director of National Intelligence]]. See [[CIA transnational counterterrorism activities]].


The ''Office of Transnational Issues''<ref>{{ citation  
The '''Office of Transnational Issues'''<ref>{{ citation  
| url= https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/oti.html  
| url= https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/oti.html  
| title =Office of Transnational Issues}}</ref> applies unique functional expertise to assess existing and emerging threats to US national security and provides the most senior US policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support.
| title =Office of Transnational Issues}}</ref> assesses existing and emerging threats to US national security and provides the most senior policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support.


The ''CIA Crime and Narcotics Center''<ref>{{citation | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/the-cia-crime-and-narcotics-center.html  
The '''CIA Crime and Narcotics Center'''<ref>{{citation | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/the-cia-crime-and-narcotics-center.html  
| title = CIA Crime and Narcotics Center}}</ref> researches information on [[illicit drug trade|international narcotics trafficking]] and [[organized crime]] for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has no domestic police authority, it sends its analytic information to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]].
| title = CIA Crime and Narcotics Center}}</ref> researches information on international crime for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has no domestic police authority, it sends its analyses to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration of the [[United States Department of Justice]].


The ''Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center''<ref>{{citation  
The '''Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center'''<ref>{{citation  
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/winpac.html  
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/winpac.html  
  | title =Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center}}</ref> provides intelligence support deals with national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It receives the output of [[National Technical Means of Verification]]
  | title =Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center}}</ref> provides intelligence support related to national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It receives the output of [[national technical means of verification]].


The ''Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group''<ref>{{ citation
The '''Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group'''<ref>{{ citation
  | url =https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/cic-ag.html  
  | url =https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/cic-ag.html  
  | title = Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group}}</ref> identifies, monitors, and analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and non-national, against US interests. It works with FBI personnel in the National Counterterrrorism Center.
  | title = Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group}}</ref> identifies, monitors, and analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and non-national, against US interests. It works with FBI personnel in the National Counterintelligence Executive of the [[Director of National Intelligence]].


Threats to U.S. computer systems fall under the ''Information Operations Center Analysis Group''.<ref>{{citation
The '''Information Operations Center Analysis Group'''.<ref>{{citation
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/ioc-ag.html  
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/intelligence-analysis/organization-1/ioc-ag.html  
  | title = Information Operations Center Analysis Group}}</ref>
  | title = Information Operations Center Analysis Group}}</ref> deals with threats to U.S. computer systems. Again, this unit supports DNI activities.
 
====Support and general units====
====Support and general units====
The ''Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis'' provides comprehensive intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national policymakers.
The '''Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis''' provides comprehensive intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national policymakers.


The ''Office of Policy Support'' customizes Directorate of Intelligence analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement, military, and foreign liaison recipients.
The '''Office of Policy Support''' customizes Directorate of Intelligence analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement, military, and foreign liaison recipients.


===National Clandestine Service===
===Directorate of Operations===
With the creation of the ODNI, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many consider the core of the agency, although its analytical work may be equally important. As a compromise for having given up most of its [[HUMINT]] capabilities, the [[United States Department of Defense was given additional budget for special operations. There has been more of an emphasis on the military running larger paramilitary operations.   
With the creation of the ODNI, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many consider the core of the agency, although its analytical work may be equally important. As a compromise for having given up most of its [[HUMINT]] capabilities, the [[United States Department of Defense]] was given additional budget for special operations. There has been more of an emphasis on the military running larger paramilitary operations.   


The ''[[National Clandestine Service]]'' (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is responsible collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from [[clandestine HUMINT]] sources, and [[covert operation|covert action]]. The new name reflects its having absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets, which collected strategic human intelligence [[HUMINT]] for the Department of Defense (which retained HUMINT directly related to military). The NCS was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the [[United States Department of Defense]] and the CIA. The Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service,<ref name=GWUEBB46>{{citation
The '''[[National Clandestine Service]]''' (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is responsible collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from [[clandestine HUMINT]] sources, and [[covert operation|covert action]]. The new name reflects its having absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets, which collected strategic human intelligence [[HUMINT]] for the Department of Defense (which retained HUMINT directly related to military). The NCS was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the [[United States Department of Defense]] and the CIA. The Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service,<ref name=GWUEBB46>{{citation
  | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/
  | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/
  | title = The Pentagon's Spies
  | title = The Pentagon's Spies
  | date = May 23, 2001
  | date = May 23, 2001
  | editor = Richelson, Jeffrey
  | editor = [[Jeffrey Richelson]]
  | work = George Washington University National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 46
  | publisher = [[National Security Archive, George Washington University]]
| volume =  Electronic Briefing Book No. 46
}}</ref> which, with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.
}}</ref> which, with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.


[[Counter-intelligence#Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations|Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations]], directly related to the protection of military forces and facility, stay under military authority. Another HUMINT area that remains with Department of Defence is direct support to special operations, by an organization, originally called the [[Intelligence Support Activity]] (ISA) are part of the [[United States Special Operations Command]], where their classified names and special access program designations are changed frequently.<ref name=GWUEBB46-14>{{citation
[[Counterintelligence#Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations|Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations]], directly related to the protection of military forces and facility, stay under military authority. Another HUMINT area that remains with Department of Defence is direct support to special operations, by an organization, originally called the [[Intelligence Support Activity]] (ISA) are part of the U.S. Special Operations Command, where their classified names and special access program designations are changed frequently.<ref name=GWUEBB46-14>{{citation
  | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/document14.pdf
  | url = http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB46/document14.pdf
  | title = The Pentagon's Spies
  | title = The Pentagon's Spies
Line 188: Line 198:
  | date = March 31, 1989
  | date = March 31, 1989
  | editor = Richelson, Jeffrey
  | editor = Richelson, Jeffrey
  | work = George Washington University National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 46
  | volume = Electronic Briefing Book No. 46
| publisher = [[National Security Archive, George Washington University]]
}}</ref>
}}</ref>


Line 204: Line 215:
The ''[[Directorate of Science & Technology]]'' was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services. Albert D. "Bud" Wheeler (1963-66) and Carl E. Duckett (1966-76) built the directorate into a strong component of the CIA and then guided it through its golden age of technical innovation. By contrast, decisions by Ruth David (1995-98) contributed, Richelson (2001) argues, to a decline in the importance and status of the directorate as it lost control over key responsibilities, including the analysis of satellite photography.
The ''[[Directorate of Science & Technology]]'' was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services. Albert D. "Bud" Wheeler (1963-66) and Carl E. Duckett (1966-76) built the directorate into a strong component of the CIA and then guided it through its golden age of technical innovation. By contrast, decisions by Ruth David (1995-98) contributed, Richelson (2001) argues, to a decline in the importance and status of the directorate as it lost control over key responsibilities, including the analysis of satellite photography.


Richelson (2001) explains the major DS&T's achievements, especially reconnaissance airplanes and a series of increasingly sophisticated surveillance satellites, with cameras that could photograph Soviet bomber bases and missile sites with startling clarity from orbits deep in space. In 1960, the first effective satellite produced coverage of more than one million square miles, surpassing all previous U-2 photography combined. This imagery revealed that the Soviets had far fewer bombers and (later) [[ICBM|ICBMs]] than the Pentagon expected. The worst-case estimates of the U.S. Air Force proved wildly exaggerated, and the myths of the bomber and missile "gaps" were punctured by empirical data.  
Richelson (2001) explains the major DS&T's achievements, especially reconnaissance airplanes and a series of increasingly sophisticated surveillance satellites, with cameras that could photograph Soviet bomber bases and missile sites with startling clarity from orbits deep in space. In 1960, the first effective satellite produced coverage of more than one million square miles, surpassing all previous U-2 photography combined. This imagery revealed that the Soviets had far fewer bombers and (later) [[intercontinental ballistic missile|ICBMs]] than the Pentagon expected. The worst-case estimates of the U.S. Air Force proved wildly exaggerated, and the myths of the bomber and missile "gaps" were punctured by empirical data.  


The development of the [[U-2]] high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was done in cooperation with the [[United States Air Force]]. The U-2's original mission was clandestine [[imagery intelligence]] over denied areas such as the Soviet Union.  It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and [[measurement and signature intelligence]] capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.


The development of the [[U-2]] high-altitude [[reconnaissance]] aircraft was done in cooperation with the [[United States Air Force]]. The U-2's original mission was clandestine [[imagery intelligence]] over denied areas such as the Soviet Union.  It was subsequently provided with [[signals intelligence]] and [[measurement and signals intelligence]] capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.
Imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and [[reconnaissance satellite]]s was analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] (NGA).  
 
Imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and [[reconnaissance satellite]]s was analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the [[National Geospatial Intelligence Agency]].  


The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness.<ref>{{cite web
The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness.<ref>{{cite web
Line 226: Line 236:
| author=Rick E. Yannuzzi  
| author=Rick E. Yannuzzi  
| publisher=Central Intelligence Agency, with permission from the Defense Intelligence Journal  
| publisher=Central Intelligence Agency, with permission from the Defense Intelligence Journal  
}}</ref>
}}</ref> It has long been the IC practice to contract for major development, such as reconnaissance aircraft and satellites.
 
===Directorate of Support===
===Directorate of Support===
The Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications, and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of highly sensitive operations. Significant units include  
The Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications, and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of highly sensitive operations. Significant units include  
:* The ''Office of Security'', responsible for with personnel and physical
:* The '''Office of Security'''
:* The ''Office of Communications''
:* The '''Office of Communications'''
:* The ''Office of Information Technology''=
:* The '''Office of Information Technology'''
====Logistics and proprietaries====
====Logistics and proprietaries====
Under the original NSC 10/2 authorization, the CIA was made responsible not just for covert action during the cold war, but for such action during major wars, in collaboration with the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]. When DCI [[Walter Bedell Smith]] created the Directorate of Plans and ended the autonomy of the OPC and OSO, he also recommended, in 1952, that the CIA could obtain logistical support from the [[Department of Defense]], making internal budget transfers to repay the Department of Defence. <ref name=Basing>{{citation
Under the original NSC 10/2 authorization, the CIA was made responsible not just for covert action during the cold war, but for such action during major wars, in collaboration with the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]. When DCI [[Walter Bedell Smith]] created the Directorate of Plans and ended the autonomy of the OPC and OSO, he also recommended, in 1952, that the CIA could obtain logistical support from the [[Department of Defense]], making internal budget transfers to repay the Department of Defence. <ref name=Basing>{{citation
Line 244: Line 253:
While some support functions still were unique to CIA requirements, Smith proposed that wherever possible, those functions could be tenant organizations on military bases. He wrote, <blockquote>A major logistical support base will consist of a CIA base headquarters, training, communications, medical accommodation for evacuees and storage for six months’ hot war requirements as well as provide logistical support for CIA operational groups or headquarters... Informal planning along the lines indicated has been carried out by elements of CIA with ... the Joint Chiefs of Staff ...</blockquote>
While some support functions still were unique to CIA requirements, Smith proposed that wherever possible, those functions could be tenant organizations on military bases. He wrote, <blockquote>A major logistical support base will consist of a CIA base headquarters, training, communications, medical accommodation for evacuees and storage for six months’ hot war requirements as well as provide logistical support for CIA operational groups or headquarters... Informal planning along the lines indicated has been carried out by elements of CIA with ... the Joint Chiefs of Staff ...</blockquote>


When military transportation would be too obvious, CIA needed an alternative, which led to the creation of the CIA proprietary airlines, whose relationship to the US government was not public.<ref name=Prouty1973>{{cite book
When military transportation would be too obvious, CIA needed an alternative, which led to the creation of the CIA proprietary airlines, whose relationship to the US government was not public.<ref name=Prouty1973>{{cite book
  | author =Prouty, L. Fletcher  
  | author =Prouty, L. Fletcher  
  | year =1973
  | year =1973
Line 252: Line 261:
}}</ref> These consolidated them into Air America, which was was heavily involved in support with the war in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in the 1960s.
}}</ref> These consolidated them into Air America, which was was heavily involved in support with the war in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in the 1960s.
====Training====
====Training====
This directorate includes the ''Office of Training'', which starts with a Junior Officer Training program for new employees. So that the initial course might be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.
The ''Office of Training'', begins Junior Officer Training program for new employees, but conducts courses in a wide range of specialized professional disciplines. So that the initial course might be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.


For a later stage of training of student operations officer, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary, Virginia, near Williamsburg. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book ''Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the office of Strategic Services''.  
For a later stage of training of student operations officer, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary, Virginia, near Williamsburg. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book ''Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the office of Strategic Services''.  
Line 272: Line 281:


==Organizational history==
==Organizational history==
The CIA was created by Congress with the [[National Security Act of 1947]], signed into law by President [[Harry S. Truman]].  It is the descendant of the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) of [[World War II]], which was dissolved in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments. Eleven months earlier, in 1944, [[William J. Donovan]], the OSS's creator, proposed to President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] creating a new organization directly supervised by the President: "which will procure intelligence both by overt and [[covert]] methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies."<ref name=CIAfact>{{cite book
The CIA was created by Congress with the [[National Security Act of 1947]], signed into law by President [[Harry S. Truman]].  It is the descendant of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of [[World War II]], which was dissolved in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments. Eleven months earlier, in 1944, [[William J. Donovan]], the OSS's creator, proposed to President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] creating a new organization directly supervised by the President: "which will procure intelligence both by overt and [[covert operation|covert]] methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies."<ref name=CIAfact>{{cite book
| title=Factbook on Intelligence
| title=Factbook on Intelligence
| publisher=Central Intelligence Agency  
| publisher=Central Intelligence Agency  
Line 278: Line 287:
| month=December
| month=December
| pages= 4–5
| pages= 4–5
}}</ref> Under his plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services. He also proposed that this agency have authority to conduct "subversive operations abroad," but "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."<ref TrumanCIA />
}}</ref> Under his plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services. He also proposed that this agency have authority to conduct "subversive operations abroad," but "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."<ref name=TrumanCIA />


From the start isolationists warned of the danger that the CIA might become an out-of-control "American Gestapo" like the Nazi secret police, which could trample American civil liberties On the other side was fear of a nuclear Pearl Harbor without warning. In general Congress defered to the White House until the 1970s on intelligence matters. Only a few members of a few select committees had any legislative oversight; they kept floor debate and written records to a minimum. Congress supported covert action, even though Roscoe Hillenkoetter (DCI 1947-50) and Walter Bedell Smith (DCI 1950-53), both military men, showed little interest. President Eisenhower, by contrast, demanded more covert activities and Allen Dulles (DCI 1953-61) obliged. Congressional support for more aggressive policies increased throughout the 1950s.  Congress took its oversight responsibilities seriously and even challenged the CIA when an alarming intelligence failure, such as when the CIA failed to predict the Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb (1950), the Korean War (1953), the Hungarian uprising (1956), or the U-2 downing (1960). Eisenhower discouraged Congressional probes of agency activities, but Dulles, sometimes gained Congressional support by leaking bits of information to influential conngressmen.<ref>David M. Barrett, ''The CIA & Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy'' (2005)</ref>
From the start isolationists warned of the danger that the CIA might become an out-of-control "American Gestapo" like the Nazi secret police, which could trample American civil liberties On the other side was fear of a nuclear Pearl Harbor without warning. In general Congress deferred to the White House until the 1970s on intelligence matters. Only a few members of a few select committees had any legislative oversight; they kept floor debate and written records to a minimum.  


===Deaths on duty===
Both the OSS and its British counterparts, as do other agencies worldwide, struggle with finding the right organizational balance among [[clandestine human-source intelligence|clandestine intelligence collection ]], counterintelligence, and covert action. See clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action for a historical perspective on this problem. These issues also bear on the reasons that, in the history below, some "eras" overlap.  
CIA personnel have died on duty, some in accidents and some by deliberate hostile action. On the memorial wall at CIA headquarters, some of the stars have no name attached, because it would reveal the identity of a clandestine officer. <ref name=RollOfHonor>{{citation
| url = http://www.specialforcesroh.com/browse.php?mode=viewc&catid=53
| title = Special Forces Roll of Honour: Central Intelligence Agency
}}</ref>Both the OSS and its British counterparts, as do other agencies worldwide, struggle with finding the right organizational balance among clandestine intelligence collection, counterintelligence, and covert action. See [[clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action]] for a historical perspective on this problem. These issues also bear on the reasons that, in the history below, some "eras" overlap.  


===Immediate predecessors, 1946-1947===
===Immediate predecessors, 1946-1947===
In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was relying on intelligence information provided by British intelligence (and slanted by them to favor their position.) In 1941 he created the [[Office of Strategic Services]], which was the first independent US intelligence agency. The OSS was broken up shortly after the end of the war, by President Truman, on September 20, 1945. The rapid reorganizations that followed reflected the routine sort of bureaucratic competition for resources, but also trying to deal with the proper relationships of clandestine intelligence collection and covert action (i.e., paramilitary and psychological operations). See [[Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action]] for a more detailed history of this problem, which was not unique to the US during and after World War II. In October 1945, the functions of the OSS were split between the Departments of State and War:
In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was relying on intelligence information provided by British intelligence (and slanted by them to favor their position.) In 1941 he created the Office of Strategic Services, which was the first independent US intelligence agency. The OSS was broken up shortly after the end of the war, by President Truman, on September 20, 1945. The rapid reorganizations that followed reflected the routine sort of bureaucratic competition for resources, but also trying to deal with the proper relationships of clandestine intelligence collection and covert action (i.e., paramilitary and psychological operations). See Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for a more detailed history of this problem, which was not unique to the US during and after World War II. In October 1945, the functions of the OSS were split between the Departments of State and War:
{| class="wikitable"
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|-
Line 296: Line 301:
! OSS Functions Absorbed
! OSS Functions Absorbed
|-
|-
| [[Strategic Services Unit]] (SSU)
| Strategic Services Unit (SSU)
| War Department
| War Department
| Secret Intelligence (SI) (i.e., clandestine intelligence collection) and Counter-espionage (X-2)
| Secret Intelligence (SI) (i.e., clandestine intelligence collection) and Counter-espionage (X-2)
Line 306: Line 311:
| Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) (not uniquely for former OSS)
| Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) (not uniquely for former OSS)
| War Department, Army General Staff
| War Department, Army General Staff
| Staff officers from Operational Groups, [[Operation Jedburgh]], Morale Operations (black propaganda)
| Staff officers from Operational Groups, [[Jedburgh]]s, Morale Operations (black propaganda)
|}
|}
This division lasted only a few months.Despite opposition from the military establishment, the [[United States Department of State]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI),<ref name=CIAfact /> President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946 which was the direct predecessor to the CIA.<ref>{{cite web  
This division lasted only a few months.Despite opposition from the military establishment, the [[U.S. Department of State]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI),<ref name=CIAfact /> President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946 which was the direct predecessor to the CIA.<ref>{{cite web  
| url=https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/96unclass/salvage.htm  
| url=https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/96unclass/salvage.htm  
| work=cia.gov
| work=cia.gov
Line 316: Line 321:


===Early CIA, 1947-1952===
===Early CIA, 1947-1952===
Americans, still mesmerized by the intelligence failure at Pearl Harbor, welcomed the new spy agency because it seemed to promise the nation would always stay on alert. The CIA's Ivy League intellectuals and scions of high society contrasted sharply with the Pentagon brass; an adversarial relationship was born that still sours relations between the two.  The CIA's budget was minuscule ($5 million) until NSC-68 in 1950 provided blueprints for an active Cold War.
In September 1947, the [[National Security Act of 1947]]  established both the [[National Security Council]] and the CIA.<ref>{{cite news
 
In September 1947, the [[National Security Act of 1947]]  established both the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] and the CIA.<ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-zegart23sep23,0,7737105.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
| url=http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-zegart23sep23,0,7737105.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
| title=The CIA's license to fail
| title=The CIA's license to fail
Line 324: Line 327:
| publisher=The Los Angeles Times
| publisher=The Los Angeles Times
|date=2007-09-23
|date=2007-09-23
}}</ref> Rear Admiral [[Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]] was appointed as the first [[Director of Central Intelligence]].   
}}</ref> Rear Admiral [[Director of Central Intelligence#Roscoe Hillenkoetter|Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]] was appointed as the first [[Director of Central Intelligence]].   


The National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948 (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons."<ref name="NSC10/2">{{cite web
The National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948 (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons."<ref name="NSC10/2">{{cite web
Line 333: Line 336:
}}</ref>
}}</ref>


In 1949, the [[Central Intelligence Agency Act]] ([[Public Law]] 81-110) authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempting it from most of the usual limitations on the use of Federal funds. It also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." It also created the program "PL-110", to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fall outside normal immigration procedures, as well as giving those persons [[Cover (intelligence)|cover stories]] and economic support.<ref name = "GEORGE"> {{cite web
In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempting it from most of the usual limitations on the use of Federal funds. It also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." It also created the program "PL-110", to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fall outside normal immigration procedures, as well as giving those persons identity documentation and economic support.<ref name = "GEORGE"> {{cite web
| title =George Tenet v. John Doe
| title =George Tenet v. John Doe
| work =Federation of American Scientists
| work =Federation of American Scientists
| url =http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/tenetvdoe-petresp.pdf
| url =http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/tenetvdoe-petresp.pdf
|date=2006-07-16}}</ref>
|date=2006-07-16}}</ref>
===The structure stabilizes, 1952===
===The structure stabilizes, 1952===
Then-DCI [[Walter Bedell Smith]], who enjoyed a special degree of Presidential trust, having been [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s primary Chief of Staff during World War II, insisted that the CIA -- or at least only one department -- had to direct the OPC and OSO. Those organization, as well as some minor functions, formed the euphemistically named [[Directorate of Plans]] in 1952.
Then-DCI [[Director of Central Intelligence#Walter Bedell Smith|Walter Bedell Smith]], who enjoyed a special degree of Presidential trust, having been [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s primary Chief of Staff during World War II, insisted that the CIA -- or at least only one department -- had to direct the OPC and OSO. Those organization, as well as some minor functions, formed the euphemistically named Directorate of Plans, in 1952.


Also in 1952, [[United States Army Special Forces]] were created, with some missions overlapping those of the Department of Plans. In general, the pattern emerged that the CIA could borrow resources from Special Forces, although it had its own special operators.  
Also in 1952, [[United States Army Special Forces]] were created, with some missions overlapping those of the Department of Plans. In general, the pattern emerged that the CIA could borrow resources from Special Forces, although it had its own special operators.  
===Early Cold War, 1953-1964===
[[Director of Central Intelligence#Allen Dulles|Allen Dulles]], who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during the Second World War, took over from Smith, at a time where US policy was dominated by intense anticommunism. Various sources were involved, the most visible being the investigations and abuses of Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], and the more quiet but systematic [[containment policy]] developed by George Kennan, and the [[Korean War]]. Dulles enjoyed a high degree of flexibility, as his brother, [[John Foster Dulles]], was simultaneously Secretary of State.


===Early Cold War, 1953-1966===
This arbitrary period is defined as being between the Eisenhower Administration taking office, and the first overt U.S. combat role in Vietnam following the [[Gulf of Tonkin incident]]. See [[SIGINT from 1945 to 1989#Early days: American and Operational Perspective|declassified signals intelligence]] about that incident.
[[Allen Dulles]], who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during the Second World War, took over from Smith, at a time where US policy was dominated by a containment policy, with serious discussions of roll-back policies going on, especially in the State Department. Dulles enjoyed a high degree of flexibility, as his brother, [[John Foster Dulles]], was simultaneously Secretary of State.  


Allen Dulles (head 1953-61) became the trusted advisor on what was going to happen in the world to President Eisenhower and to his brother John Foster Dulles. The CIA gathered information and provided written assessments of the capabilities and intentions of all world leaders. Its regular briefings gave each president the sense that he knew exactly what was happening across the globe. Like ingenious prognosticators through the ages, the CIA's predictions seemed highly explicit yet never could quite be pinned down. They failed to predict any of the major surprises of the postwar era. On the other hand, estimates of the performance of the Soviet economy proved much more accurate than the information Moscow itself possessed, and forecast the failure of that economy in the 1980s.
The main headquarters complex in Langley, Virginia, consolidating many temporary facilities in the Washington metropolitan area, was built in this period. . On the memorial wall at CIA headquarters, stars memorialize CIA personnel who have died on duty, some with no name attached, because it would reveal the identity of a clandestine officer. <ref name=RollOfHonor>{{citation
 
| url = http://www.specialforcesroh.com/browse.php?mode=viewc&catid=53
Concern regarding the Soviet Union and the difficulty of getting information from its closed society, which few agents could penetrate, led to solutions based on advanced technology. Among the first success was with the [[Lockheed U-2]] aircraft, which could take pictures and collect electronic signals from an altitude above Soviet air defenses' reach.[[SR-71]].
  | title = Special Forces Roll of Honour: Central Intelligence Agency
 
}}</ref>
===Covert operations===
====Intelligence on Soviet affairs====
Dulles devoted 80% of his much enlarged budget ($82 million) to covert (secret) operations to contain Communism. On the other side was the Soviet KGB; as the the retired head of the K.G.B.'s first chief directorate, Leonid Shabarshin, later explained, "The essence of the KGB's active undertakings was to inflict political and moral damage on our basic opponent, the United States. . . . [so] We compromised political figures, organs of the press, and Americans whose activities were in some way unwelcome [to the Soviets]." The KGB veteran revealed that every "active measure" against the enemies of the Soviet Union abroad was submitted by KGB to the Politburo “and was implemented only with its permission. The results of the action were also reported to the Politburo."<ref> See [http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.139/news_detail.asp Herbert Romerstein, "Divide and Conquer: The KGB disinformation campaign against Ukrainians and Jews," ''Ukrainian Quarterly'' Fall 2004 online edition]</ref> Which side performed better remains an open question. CIA money subsidized anti-communist intellectuals and strengthened liberal political parties across Europe and the Third World. Striking low-cost successes early on reinforced the CIA's mastermind image. CIA-supported parties defeated the Communists in Italy and France in the late 1940s. A handful of agents provided assistance to opposition groups which forced anti-American prime ministers out of office in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973). CIA counterintelligence tried to neutralize the KGB and other hostile agencies, like the GRU (Soviet military intelligence), East Germany's Stasi and Cuba's DGI.
During this period, there were much intelligence analysis of Soviet intentions, as well as covert actions against perceived Communist expansion, some more reflexive than calmly assessed both for probability of success and for the significance that a success could have.  Some Soviet [[counterintelligence#defector-in-place| defectors in place]], such as Oleg Penkovsky<ref name=Saved>{{citation
 
In Guatamala in 1954 the CIA operation was marked by chronic lapses in security, the failure to plan beyond the operation's first stages, the Agency's poor understanding of the intentions of the Guatemalan Army, the local communist party (the Guatemalan Labor Party), and the government, the hopeless weakness of invasion leader Carlos Castillo Armas's troops, and the failure to make provisions for the possibility of defeat. Just as the entire operation seemed hopeless, and before there were any significant violentattacks on it, the leftist Guatemalan government suddenly, inexplicably collapsed and a pro-American government took over.<ref> Nick Cullather, ''Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.'' (1999)</ref>  
 
Numerous covert actions were launched to neutralize perceived Communist expansion. Some of the largest operations were aimed at [[Cuba]] after the coming to power of the communists in early 1960. In 1960-61 the CIA organized Cuban exiles, whose invasion came to grief at the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]]. There have been suggestions that the Soviet attempt to put missiles into Cuba came, indirectly, when they realized how badly they had been compromised by a US-UK defector in place, [[Oleg Penkovsky]].<ref name=Saved>{{citation
  | title = The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War
  | title = The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War
  | first1 = Jerrold L. | last1 =Schecter | first2= Peter S. | last2 = Deriabin
  | first1 = Jerrold L. | last1 =Schecter | first2= Peter S. | last2 = Deriabin
  | publisher =Scribner
  | publisher =Scribner
  | year = 1992
  | year = 1992
  | ISBN = 0684190680}}</ref>
  | ISBN = 0684190680}}</ref> and Pyotr Popov <ref name=>{{citation
 
    | title = Superpower under Pressure: The Secret Speech of Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov in East Berlin, March 1957
The CIA, working with the military, formed the joint [[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO) to operate reconnaissance aircraft such as the [[SR-71]] and later satellites. "The fact of" the United States operating reconnaissance satellites, like "the fact of" the existence of NRO, was highly classified for many years.
    | first1 = Svend Aage |last1=Christensen |first2=Frede P. | last2=Jensen
 
    | url = http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/coll_zhukov/zhukov.cfm?navinfo=14861
====Assassinations====
    | publisher = Cooperative History Project on Cooperative Security, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich}}</ref>. See the specific entries in CIA activities in Europe and Russia.
 
====Intelligence and covert action in Indochina====
The CIA sent hundreds of agents to Vietnam and Laos to build up anticommunist guerrilla groups. The CIA assisted (but did not operate) the "Phoenix" program by which South Vietnamese police forces identified and arrested Viet Cong leaders (torturing many and killing several thousand of them). In the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, it planned several assassinations, with Fidel Castro a target of "Operation Mongoose." Fidel survived the exploding cigars; indeed, as a hostile Senate committee concluded, the agency did not in fact assassinate anyone. Congress has never passed a law forbidding assassinations, but every president since Ford has issued executive orders that prohibit direct (or indirect) attempts at assassination.
From 1954 onwards, [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#Vietnam|CIA personnel were involved with Indochina/Vietnam]]. CIA's predecessor, the OSS, had interacted with Ho Chi Minh immediately after the end of World War II, but Ho's offer to work with the U.S. was rejected. <ref name=Patti>{{cite book
 
===Soviet estimates===
The CIA began systematic estimates of the Soviet economy during Max Millikan's tenure as the founding director of the Office of Research and Reports (1951-1952). The strategy was to start with an "inventory of ignorance" and then reduce the list of unknowns through successive approximations.  Soviet military expenditures were estimated by the "building-block method," which began by estimating the number ships, planes, jeeps, barracks and even soldiers in use, then estimating the procurement and operating costs of each, and adding them up using estimated prices. The building blocks had advantages in that published data on physical units seemed accurate and in any case were easier to verify through covert means. The elaborate reports of the 1990s included almost 1800 such categories. Since the Soviets lackd computers and had rudimentary accounting procedures, the CIA had a better overall picture of Soviet military spending than did the Kremlin. The reports emphasized physical units, realzing that expenditures alone could not predict what sort of military threat in the future would be presented by the Red Army. To estimate costs the CIA used analogs--using Soviet trucks or American tanks, for instance, to estimate the costs of Soviet tanks--and then adjusted for differences in weight and performance. Analog-based data, far shakier than direct-cost data, accounted for over half of earlier estimates, dropping to about one-third by the late 1980s. In the 1960s the CIA increasingly used quantitative techniques, of the sort promoted in American business schools.  A crisis in the mid-1970s was caused by as a combination of external pressures, new data (some from a key Russian who defected to the West) and internal works forced a major revision of the defense burden, showing the proportion of of the overall Soviet economy devoted to the military. The crisis sparked heated public debate when the CIA announced that their earlier estimates of Soviet defense spending at 6-8% of GNP was too low by as much as half; the revised estimated burden ranged from 11-13%, indicating a severe economic burden that slowed Soviet growth.<ref> Noel E. Firth and James H. Noren, ''Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990.'' (1998)</ref>
 
===Complications from Indochina and the Vietnam War (1954-1975)===
As the US military and electorate were affected by Vietnam, so was the CIA. The OSS Patti mission had arrived near the end of the [[Second World War]], and had significant interaction with the leaders of many Vietnamese factions, including [[Ho Chi Minh]].<ref name=Patti>{{cite book
  | title = Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's albatross  
  | title = Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's albatross  
  | author = Patti, Archimedes L. A  
  | author = Patti, Archimedes L. A  
Line 381: Line 374:
}}</ref> While the Patti mission forwarded Ho's proposals for phased independence, with the French or even the United States as the transition partner, the US policy of [[containment]] opposed forming any government that might be Communist.  
}}</ref> While the Patti mission forwarded Ho's proposals for phased independence, with the French or even the United States as the transition partner, the US policy of [[containment]] opposed forming any government that might be Communist.  


The first CIA mission to Indochina, under the code name [[CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific#Vietnam 1954|Saigon Military Mission]] arrived in 1954, under [[Edward Lansdale]]. US-based analysts were simultaneously trying to project the evolution of political power, both if the scheduled referendum chose merger of the North and South, or if the South, the US client, stayed independent. Initially, the [[CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific#Southeast Asia 1962|US focus in Southeast Asia]] was on [[Laos]], not [[Vietnam]].
The first CIA mission to Indochina, under the code name [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#Vietnam 1954|Saigon Military Mission]] arrived in 1954, under [[Edward Lansdale]]. US-based analysts were simultaneously trying to project the evolution of political power, both if the scheduled referendum chose merger of the North and South, or if the South, the US client, stayed independent. Initially, the [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#Southeast Asia 1962|US focus in Southeast Asia]] was on [[Laos]], not [[Vietnam]].
 
====Latin America====
During the period of American combat involvement in the [[Vietnam War]], there was considerable arguments about progress among the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] under [[Robert S. McNamara]], the CIA, and, to some extent, the intelligence staff of the [[Military Assistance Command Vietnam]].<ref name=Adams1998 /> In general, the military was consistently more optimistic than the CIA. Sam Adams, a junior CIA analyst with responsibilities for estimating the actual damage to the enemy, eventually resigned from the CIA, after expressing concern, to [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Richard Helms]] with estimates that were changed for interagency and White House political reasons, writing the book ''War of Numbers''.
In a general trend to support any anticommunist, CIA was involved in the [[CIA activities in the Americas#Guatemala 1954|overthrow of the president of Guatemala]], Jacobo Árbenz, in 1954.
 
==Image and reputation==
Cloak and dagger stories became part of the popular culture of the Cold War in both East and West, with innumerable novels and movies that showed how polarized and dangerous the world was.  Soviet audiences thrilled at spy stories showing how their KGB agents protected the motherland by foiling dirty work by America's nefarious CIA, Britain's devious MI 6, and Israel's devilish Mossad. After 1963, Hollywood increasingly depicted the CIA as clowns (as in the comedy TV series "Get Smart") or villains (as in Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1992). Leftists around the globe routinely blamed the mysterious CIA for events that displeased them, putting the image of the USA as a champion of freedom and democracy in disrepute. The CIA lost influence after 1963. President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] disliked its pessimistic forecasts about Vietnam; President [[Richard M. Nixon]] and his national security advisor [[Henry Kissinger]] did not seek its advice. After Watergate (1974) it came under heavy attack for promoting right-wing governments, hampering the success of genuinely democratic protest movements, illegally monitoring dissent inside the USA, and frustrating democracy at home by its secrecy and lack of  accountability. Was it needed in an age of detente? With 15,000 employees in 1973, it had a budget of about $740 million, of which $440 went to clandestine operations. Congressional committees began to monitor the agency closely. Employment and budgets were cut sharply (the totals are secret), and most covert operations were abandoned. Morale plummeted as the agency retreated to a mission of collecting and interpreting information about the Soviets.
===Abuses of CIA authority, 1970s-1990s===
Things came to a head in the early 1970s, around the time of the [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]] political burglary affair. A dominant feature of political life during that period were the attempts of Congress to assert oversight of U.S. Presidency, the executive branch of the U.S. Government. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations. Hastening the Central Intelligence Agency's fall from grace were the burglary of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party by ex-CIA agents, and President [[Richard Nixon]]'s subsequent use of the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary. In the famous "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, [[H.R. Haldeman]], to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]] of Cuba, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".<ref>{{cite web
| url=http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=92
| work=hpol.org
| title= Transcript of a recording of a meeting between President Richard Nixon and H. R. Haldeman in the oval office
|date=1972-06-23
}}</ref>
 
In 1973, then-DCI [[James R. Schlesinger]] commissioned reports — known as the "Family Jewels" — on illegal activities by the Agency. In December 1974, journalist [[Seymour Hersh]] broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in a front-page article in ''The New York Times'', revealing that the CIA had assassinated foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the antiwar movement ([[Operation CHAOS]]).
 
Congress responded to the charges in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the [[Church Committee]], chaired by Senator [[Frank Church]] (D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the [[Pike Committee]], chaired by Congressman [[Otis Pike]] (D-NY). In addition, President [[Gerald Ford]] created the [[United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States|Rockefeller Commission]], and issued an Executive Order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.
 
Repercussions from the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] arms smuggling scandal (1987) included the creation of the [[Intelligence Authorization Act]] in 1991. It defined covert operations as secret missions in geopolitical areas where the U.S. is neither openly nor apparently engaged. This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, presidential finding report and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".
==Since 1980==
In 1981 President Reagan appointed his campaign manager Bill Casey to run the CIA; Casey, a veteran of OSS. espionage, made the CIA a powerful instrument of rollback policy. With nuclear deterrence tying the Kremlin's hands, Casey used the CIA to attack the weak links in the Soviet empire. In Afghanistan, it funded and trained Mujahidin guerrillas who deliberately created "another Vietnam" to weaken the Soviet invaders, and indeed finally did defeat the Soviet invasion. Anti-Soviet operations in Afghanistan and Cambodia received strong support from Congress, but operations in Angola and especially Nicaragua became the focus of intense political controversy. When Congress one year prohibited the CIA from operating in Nicaragua, Reagan's White House exploited a loophole by sending its own staffer, Oliver North, to funnel arms and money to the Contra guerrillas.
 
With the end of the [[Cold War]] in 1991, intelligence operations became a natural target for budget cutters. Defenders (including ex-CIA head George Bush) argued that absence of a main enemy meant it was necessary to keep watch on many small potential enemies.  Critics responded that it was one thing to spy on Soviet intercontinental missile capability, and quite another to figure out how many AK-47 assault rifles were loose in Somalia. 
 
===2004, Director of Central Intelligence takes over CIA top-level functions===
Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence oversaw the Intelligence Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, additionally serving as head of the CIA. The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (DCIA), serving as head of the CIA.
 
==Mission-related failures==
For the media, the failures are most newsworthy, and the CIA has, at times, either performed poorly or violated laws. Some of the violations were in response to White House orders.
 
=== Security and counterintelligence failures ===
While the names change periodically, there are two basic security functions to protect the CIA and its operations. There is an Office of Security in the Directorate for Support, which is responsible for physical security of the CIA buildings, secure storage of information, and personnel [[security clearance]]s. These are directed inwardly to the agency itself.
 
In what is now the National Clandestine Service, there is a [[counter-intelligence]] function, called the Counterintelligence Staff under its most controversial chief, [[James Jesus Angleton]]. This function has roles including looking for staff members that are providing information to foreign intelligence services (FIS) as [[Counter-intelligence#Mole|moles]]. Another role is to check proposals for recruiting foreign [[HUMINT]] assets, to see if these people have any known ties to FIS and thus may be attempts to penetrate CIA to learn its personnel and practices, or as a provocateur, or other form of [[Counter-intelligence#Double Agent|double agent]].
 
This agency component may also launch [[Counter-intelligence#Offensive Counterintelligence Operations|offensive counterespionage]], where it attempts to interfere with FIS operations. CIA officers in the field often have assignments in offensive counterespionage as well as [[Clandestine HUMINT operational techniques|clandestine intelligence collection]].
 
The "Family Jewels" and other documents reveal that the Office of Security  violated the prohibition of CIA involvement in domestic law enforcement, sometimes with the intention of assisting police organizations local to CIA buildings.
Perhaps the most disruptive period involving counterintelligence was [[James Jesus Angleton]]'s search for a mole,<ref name=WiseMole>{{citation
| title = Molehunt: The Secret Search for Traitors That Shattered the CIA
| first1 = David | last1 = Wise 
| publisher = Random House
| year = 1992
}}</ref>based on the statements of a Soviet defector, [[Anatoliy Golitsyn]]. A second defector, [[Yuri Nosenko]], challenged Golitsyn's claims, with the two calling one another Soviet double agents.<ref name=BaerEvil>{{citation
| title =See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
| first = Robert | last = Baer
| publisher = Three Rivers Press
| year = 2003
| ISBN = 140004684X}}</ref> Many CIA officers fell under career-ending suspicion; the details of the relative truths and untruths from Nosenko and Golitsyn may never be released, or, in fact, may not be fully understood. The accusations also crossed the Atlantic to the British intelligence services, who also were damaged by molehunts.<ref name=Wright>{{citation
| title = Spycatcher
| first1 = Peter | last1 = Wright
| coauthor = Greengrass, Paul
| publisher = William Heinemann | year = 1987
}}</ref>
 
On February 24, 1994, the agency was rocked by the arrest of 31-year veteran case officer [[Aldrich Ames]] on charges of spying for the Soviet Union since 1985.<ref>{{cite web
| url=http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/ames/ames.htm
| publisher = Federal Bureau of Investigation
| title= FBI History: Famous Cases - Aldrich Hazen Ames
}}</ref>


Other defectors have included [[Edward Lee Howard]], a field operations officer, and William Kampiles, a low-level worker in the CIA 24-hour Operations Center. Kampiles sold the Soviets the detailed operational manual for the [[KH-11]] reconnaissance satellite.<ref name=McKinleyKH11>{{citation
There was intense interest in Cuba after the overthrow of the [[Fulgencio Batista|Batista]] government, including assassination attempts against [[Fidel Castro]] and the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]].
| title = When the Enemy Has Our Eyes
====Imagery intelligence====
| first1 = Cynthia A. S. | last1 = McKinley
The CIA, working with the military, formed the joint [[National Reconnaissance Office]] (NRO) to operate reconnaissance aircraft such as the [[SR-71]] and later [[reconnaissance satellite]]s, and the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC) to analyze the photography. "The fact of" the United States operating reconnaissance satellites, like "the fact of" the existence of NRO, was highly classified for many years. NPIC later became part of the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] (NGA).
| url = http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/mckinley.htm
}}</ref>


See [[US intelligence involvement with World War II Japanese war criminals]] and [[U.S. intelligence involvement with World War II Nazi war criminals]].
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, however, involved extensive CIA intelligence analysis, particularly of imagery. There have been suggestions that the Soviet attempt to put missiles into Cuba came, indirectly, when they realized how badly they had been compromised by a US-UK defector in place, Oleg Penkovsky.
====Counterproliferation====
There was no immediate prediction of the [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#China|Chinese first test in October 1964. To put this in perspective, if there are no HUMINT assets in an area where a nuclear test is being prepared, the specific warning is more likely to come from SIGINT and IMINT, with the actual detection through MASINT.


===Failures in intelligence analysis===
===Complications of Indochina and the Vietnam War (1966-1972)===
The agency has also been criticized for ineffectiveness as an intelligence gathering agency. Former DCI [[Richard Helms]] commented, after the end of the [[Cold War]], "The only remaining superpower doesn't have enough interest in what's going on in the world to organize and run an espionage service."<ref>[http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9644588 The CIA: On top of everything else, not very good at its job], Review of ''Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA'' by Tim Weiner in ''[[The Economist]]'', [[16 August]] [[2007]]</ref>  The CIA has come under particular criticism for failing to predict the [[collapse of the Soviet Union]].
As the US military and electorate were affected by Vietnam, so was the CIA and intelligence community. There were tensions over allowing political views to impact on analysis and formal estimates, and on the role for covert action.
====Analytical arguments over Southeast Asia====
American intervention in Southeast Asia began in [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#Laos|Laos]], not Vietnam as is widely believed. Over 100 National Intelligence Estimates (NIE), and literally thousands of intelligence reports, were issued on the region.


See the [[intelligence analysis management#Information Technology| information technology]] section of the [[intelligence analysis management]] for discussion of possible failures to provide adequate automation support to analysts, and [[US intelligence community A-Space]] for a IC-wide program to collect some of them. [[Cognitive traps for intelligence analysis]] also goes into areas where CIA has examined why analysis can fail. 
During the period of American combat involvement in the [[Vietnam War]], there was considerable arguments about progress among the [[Department of Defense]] under [[Robert S. McNamara]], the CIA, and, to some extent, the intelligence staff of the [[Military Assistance Command|Military Assistance Command for Vietnam (MAC-V)]].<ref name=Adams1998>{{citation
 
Among the first analytic failures, before the CIA had its own collection capabilities, it assured [[President]] [[Harry S Truman]] on October 13, 1950 that the Chinese would not send troops to Korea. Six days later, over one million Chinese troops arrived.<ref>{{cite web
| url=http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/NewsBriefs/2006/0605/KerberArticle.cfm
| work=American Historical Association
| title=Protecting the Nation's Memory
| first =Linda K. | last = Kerber
| date=2006-05-15
}} </ref> See [[Intelligence on the Korean War | an analysis of the failure]]; also see surrounding text for the two Koreas and China, and the time period before the Korean War.  Earlier, the intelligence community failed to detect the North Korean invasion, in part because resources were not allocated to [[communications intelligence]] of the Korean peninsula.
 
The history of US intelligence, with respect to French Indochina and then the two Vietnams, is long and complex. The [[Pentagon Papers]] often contain pessimistic CIA analyses that conflicted with White House positions. It does appear that some estimates were changed to reflect Pentagon and White House views.<ref name=Adams1998>{{cite book
  | title = War of Numbers: an Intelligence Memoir
  | title = War of Numbers: an Intelligence Memoir
  | first = Sam | last = Adams
  | first = Sam | last = Adams
  | publisher = Steerforth Press
  | publisher = Steerforth Press
  | year = 1994
  | year = 1994
  | isbn = 188364223X}}</ref>. See [[CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific]] for detailed discussions of intelligence and covert operations from 1945 (i.e., before the CIA) onwards.
  | isbn = 188364223X}}</ref> In general, the military was consistently more optimistic than the CIA. Sam Adams, a junior CIA analyst with responsibilities for estimating the actual damage to the enemy, eventually resigned from the CIA, after expressing concern, to [[Director of Central Intelligence]] [[Director of Central Intelligence#Richard Helms|Richard Helms]] with estimates that were changed for interagency and White House political reasons, writing the book ''War of Numbers''.
====Domestic activities====
Another criticism is the failure to predict [[Operation Shakti|India's nuclear tests]] in 1974. The Agency did predict some aspects of the test, such as a 1965 report saying, correctly, that if India did develop a bomb, it would be explained as "for peaceful purposes".
Questionable domestic actions became public from 1972 onwards, as a result of disclosures surrounding the [[Watergate burglary]], when it became known that some of the burglars had CIA connections, and that the [[Richard M. Nixon|Nixon Administration]] political operatives had, until Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Vernon Walters cut it off, requested and received technical support from the CIA.
A major criticism is failure to forestall the [[9-11 Attack]] in 2001 because of three organizational deficiencies: the inability of multiple American intelligence agencies to work together, organizational incentives to take the wrong analytical actions, and resistance to new technologies and ideas.<ref>Amy B. Zegart, "CNN with Secrets": 9/11, the CIA, and the Organizational Roots of Failure." ''International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence'' 2007 20(1): 18-49. Issn: 0885-0607 </ref> The ''9/11 Commission Report'' identifies failures in the IC as a whole. One problem, for example, was the FBI failing to "connect the dots" by sharing information among its decentralized field offices. The report, however, criticizes both CIA analysis, and impeding their investigation.  The CIA Inspector General in 2007 concluded that former DCI [[George Tenet]] failed to adequately prepare the agency to deal with the danger posed by [[Al Qaeda]] prior to the [[9-11 Attack]].  <ref>{{cite news
| url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21cnd-cia.html
| title=Tenet’s C.I.A. Unprepared for Qaeda Threat, Report Says
| publisher=The New York Times
| first1 =David | last1 = Stout | first2 = Mark | last2 =Mazzetti
|date=2007-08-21
}} </ref>  Tenet disagreed with the report's conclusions, citing his planning efforts vis-a-vis al-Qaeda, particularly from 1999.<ref name=BBC2007-08022>{{citation
| url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6957839.stm
| title = CIA criticises ex-chief over 9/11
| journal = BBC News online
| date = 22 August 2007}}</ref>


===Internal/presidential studies, external investigations and document releases===
There were also activities directed at possible Communist infiltration of the antiwar movement. Some of these activities were conducted by Federal agencies not authorized to participate in domestic law enforcement, such as the CIA and Army intelligence.
Several investigations (e.g., [[Church Committee]], [[United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States|Rockefeller Commission]], [[Pike Committee]]), as well as released declassified documents, reveal that the CIA, at times, operated outside its charter. In some cases, such as during [[Watergate]], this may have been due to inappropriate requests by White House staff. In other cases, there was a violation of Congressional intent, such as the [[Iran-Contra affair]].
====Americas====
====1949 Eberstadt Report (First Hoover Commission)====
Cuba remained a subject of intense interest, but a new focus was on the leftist Allende government in [[Chile]]. CIA provided covert political support to selected parties before and after the 1964 elections and after Allende’s 1970 election. Once Allende was elected, the CIA assisted various coup plotters in both kidnapping Army Commander Rene Schneider, and then overthrowing President Salvador Allende. Both Schneider and Allende died in the separate attacks, although there is no strong evidence that either death was planned. It is, however, hard to credit that Nixon himself did not very specifically intend for Allende to be overthrown. <ref name=NSAEBB8-01-01>{{cite web
The first major analysis, following the [[National Security Act of 1947]], was chaired by former [[President]] [[Herbert Hoover]], with a Task Force on National Security Organization under [[Ferdinand Eberstadt]], one of the drafters of the National Security Act and a believer in centralized intelligence.
| title =Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976
 
| work =National Security Archives Online
The task force concluded that the system of the day led to an adversarial relationship, with little effective coordination, among the CIA, the military, and the State Department. "In the opinion of the task force, this produced duplication on one hand, and, on the other, departmental intelligence estimates that "have often been subjective and biased."  In large measure, the military and State Department were blamed for their failure to consult and share pertinent information with the CIA.  The task force recommended "that positive efforts be made to foster relations of mutual confidence between the [CIA] and the several departments and agencies that it serves."
| contribution = Report of CIA Chilean Task Force Activities, 15 September to 3 November 1970
 
| date = November 18, 1970
This report stressed that the CIA "must be the central organization of the national intelligence system." It recommended a "...top echelon [of] an evaluation board or section composed of competent and experienced personnel who would have no administrative responsibilities and whose duties would be confined solely to intelligence evaluation."  It also favored a civilian DCI with a long term in office.
| url =http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch01-01.htm
}}</ref>


<blockquote>"In the arena of covert operations and clandestine intelligence, the Eberstadt Report supported the integration of all clandestine operations into one office within CIA, under NSC supervision.  To alleviate concerns expressed by the military who viewed this proposal as encroaching upon their prerogatives, the report stated that clandestine operations should be the responsibility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in time of war."</blockquote>
After Allende was overthrown, the CIA cooperated with the increasingly authoritarian leader of Chile, General Augusto Pinochet. <ref name=CIA-Chile>{{citation
  | title = CIA Activities in Chile
| date = September 18, 2000
| author = National Intelligence Council
| url = https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/chile/index.html#4}}</ref> See [[CIA activities in Chile]].


The report declared that the failure to appraise scientific advances (e.g.,  biological and chemical warfare, electronics, aerodynamics, guided missiles, atomic weapons, and nuclear energy) in hostile countries might have more immediate and catastrophic consequences than failure in any other field of intelligence. It urged the US to develop a centralized capability for tracking these developments.
===Actions leading to collapse of Soviet Union and abuses of CIA authority, 1972-1991===
This period had successes, successes with unexpected consequences, and successful and unsuccessful intelligence analysis.
====Soviet-related issues====
Actions against the Soviets include proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert support of the [[mujahedin]]. Some of the people in the supported groups later joined anti-American groups such as Al-Qaeda.


====1949 Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report====
The CIA predicted problems with the Soviet system, but did not predict the collapse in the form in which it came. <ref name=MacEachin1996>{{citation
The Eberstadt report was soon eclipsed by what may have been the most influential policy paper. "On January 8, 1948, the National Security Council established the Intelligence Survey Group (ISG) to "evaluate the CIA's effort and its relationship with other agencies."<ref name=IC21 />The Jackson-Dulles-Correa report held an opposite view on clandestine collection to the Eberstadt Report, interesting in that Dulles was a clandestine collection specialist.
  | title = CIA Assessments of the Soviet Union: The Record Versus the Charges
 
  |first=Douglas J. |last=MacEachin
Like the Hoover Commission, this group was chartered at the request of President Truman, and was made up of [[Allen W. Dulles]], who had served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War and would become DCI in 1953, [[William Harding Jackson|William Jackson]], a future Deputy DCI, and [[Matthias Correa]], a former assistant to Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal when the latter had served as Secretary of the Navy during the war.  Chaired by Dulles, the ISG presented its findings, known as the Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report, to the National Security Council on January 1, 1949. Partially declassified in 1976, it "contained fifty-six recommendations, many highly critical of the CIA and DCI. In particular, the report revealed problems in the agency's execution of both its intelligence and operational missions.  It also criticized the quality of national intelligence estimates by highlighting the CIA's--and, by implication, the DCI's--"failure to take charge of the production of coordinated national estimates."  The report went on to argue that the CIA's current trend in clandestine intelligence activities should be reversed in favor of its mandated role as coordinator of intelligence."  It was "particularly concerned about the personnel situation at CIA, including internal security, the high turnover of employees, and the excessive number of military personnel assigned to the agency."  See the continuing concern about personnel in the [[#1954 Doolittle Report on Covert Activities| 1954 Doolittle Report]] To add "continuity of service" and the "greatest assurance of independence of action," the report argued that the DCI should be a civilian and that military appointees be required to resign their commissions.
  | date = May 1996
 
As with the Eberstadt Report, the Dulles Report also expressed concern about the inadequacies in scientific intelligence and the professionalism of the service intelligence organizations, and urged that the CIA provide greater coordination.  This led to a recommendation for increased coordination between the DCI and the Director of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) in the arena of counterespionage.  In turn, the report recommended that the Director of FBI be elevated to membership in the committee to help the DCI coordinate intelligence and set intelligence requirements.
 
The report proposed a large-scale reorganization of CIA. Even though it emphasized intelligence analysis and coordination over operations, it  
<blockquote>"suggested incorporating covert operations and clandestine intelligence into one office within CIA.  ... the Office of Special Operations (OSO), responsible for the clandestine collection of intelligence, and the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), responsible for covert actions, be integrated into a single division within CIA. [It] recommended replacing existing offices with four new divisions for coordination, estimates, research and reports, and operations."</blockquote>
 
The heads of the new offices would be included in the immediate staff of the DCI so that he would have "intimate contact with the day-to-day operations of his agency and be able to give policy guidance to them."  These recommendations would become the start of the model for the future organization and operation of the present-day CIA. Until the DNI creation, estimates were in a separate office reporting to the DCI, coordination was a job of the DDCI (later assisted by the Intelligence Community Staff), research and reports became the Directorate of Intelligence, and operations was first, euphemistically, called the Directorate of Plans. Directorates for Support (originally called Administration), and Science & Technology, were also created.
 
====1954 Doolittle Report on Covert Activities====
Gen. [[Jimmy Doolittle|James Doolittle]] did an extensive report on covert actions, specifically for President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]].<ref name=CIADoolitle>{{citation
| first =James | last = Doolittle
  | title = Report on the Covert Activities of the Central Intelligence Agency
| url = http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp
| date = 30 September 1954
| comment=There is no direct link. At the CIA FOIA reading room page, search on COVERT OPERATIONS|DOOLITTLE REPORT
}}</ref>
The report's first recommendation dealt with personnel. It recommended releasing a large number of current staff that could never be more than mediocre, aggressively recruit new staff with an overall goal of increasing the workforce, and intensify training, with 10% of the covert staff time spent in training. The Director should  be nonpolitical.
Security was the next concern, starting with a drive to reduce interim and provisional [[security clearance]]s. The report strongly endorsed use of the [[polygraph]] both for initial recruits and existing staff. [[Counter-intelligence#offensive counterintelligence| Counterespionage]] needed to be strengthened, and field stations needed both to report on their staff and periodically be inspected. Consolidating the Washington workforce, which was scattered among buildings, into one or a few main buildings was seen as a way of improving the security of classified information.
Coordination in the [[intelligence community]] was seen as a problem, especially agreeing on clear understandings between CIA and military intelligence organizations. The overall IC program for eliciting information from defectors needed improvement, with contributions from multiple agencies.
 
As far as organization and management, the report described the structure of the Directorate of Plans (i.e., the clandestine service) as too complex and in need of simplification. The Inspector General needed an agency-wide mandate. The role of the Operations Coordinating Board, the covert and clandestine oversight staff of the [[National Security Council]] needed to be strengthened, with operations clearly approved and guided from the highest levels of government.
 
The report addressed the classic problem of increasing performance while reducing costs. This meant better review of the budgets of covert and clandestine activities by a Review Board, except for the most sensitive operations. It meant providing the Comptroller with enough information, even if sanitized, to do a thorough job.
====1956 Bruce-Lovett Report====
In his biography of the late Robert Kennedy, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr in briefly discussed a report he said was located in the Kennedy papers. There is no such report in the Kennedy papers, the CIA archives, the National Archives, the Eisenhower Library or other likely archives, and no documentation exists that an actual report ever existed. Schlesinger said that soon after [[President]] [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] created the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board|President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Actitivites]], that Board requested that [[Robert A. Lovett]] and [[David K.E. Bruce]] examine CIA's covert operations.<ref name=RFKtimes>{{citation
| title = Robert Kennedy and His Times
  | first = Arthur Jr. | last = Schlesinger
| year = 1978
| pages = 454-458
| url = http://cryptome.org/ic-black5602.htm
}}</ref>. This information comes from [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.|Arthur Schlesinger]]'s book about [[Robert F. Kennedy]], cited by cryptome.org. ""Bruce was very much disturbed," Lovett told the Cuba board of inquiry in 1961. "He approached it from the standpoint of 'what right have we to go barging into other countries buying newspapers and handing money to opposition parties or supporting a candidate for this, that or the other office?' He felt this was an outrageous interference with friendly countries. . . . He got me alarmed, so instead of completing the report in thirty days we took two months or more.""
 
Schlesinger went on to argue that, "The 1956 report, written in Bruce's spirited style, condemned
<blockquote>the increased mingling in the internal affairs of other nations of bright, highly graded young men who must be doing something all the time to justify their reason for being.... Busy, moneyed, and privileged [the CIA] likes its "King Making" responsibility (the intrigue is fascinating -- considerable self-satisfaction, sometimes with applause, derives from "successes" -- no charge is made for "failures" -- and the whole business is very much simpler than collecting covert intellignece on the USSR through the usual CIA methods!).</blockquote>
 
According to cryptome's account of the Schlesinger book, "Bruce and Lovett could discover no reliable system of control. "there are always, of course, on record the twin, well-born purpose of 'frustrating the Soviets' and keeping others 'pro-western' oriented. Under these almost any [covert] action can be and is being justified.... Once having been conceived, the final approval given to any project (at informal lunch meetins of the OCB [Operations Coordinating Board] inner group) can, at best, be described as pro forma." One consequence was that "no one, other than those in the CIA immediately concerned with their day to day operation, has any detailed knowledge of what is going on." With "a horde of CIA representatives" swarming around the planet, CIA covert action was exerting "significant, almost unilateral influences... on the actual formulation of our foreign policies... sometimes completely unknown" to the local American ambassador." Bruce and Lovett concluded with an plea about taking control of covert operations and their consequences:
 
<blockquote>Should not someone, somewhere in an authoritative position in our government, on a continuing basis, be... calculating... the long-range wisdom of activities which have entailed a virtual abandonment of the international "golden rule," and which, if successful to the degree claimed for them, are responsible in a great measure for stirring up the turmoitl and raising the doubts about us that exist in many countries of the world today?... Where will we be tomorrow?
|  "Bruce was very much disturbed," Lovett told the Cuba board of inquiry in 1961. "He approached it from the standpoint of 'what right have we to go barging into other countries buying newspapers and handing money to opposition parties or supporting a candidate for this, that or the other office?' He felt this was an outrageous interference with friendly countries.... </blockquote>
 
The CIA itself would like more detail on this so-called report, a copy of which could not be found, in 1995, by the Agency's History Staff.<ref name=CIAhistBruce>{{citation
| journal = Center for the Study of Intelligence Newsletter
  | date = Spring 1995
  | publisher = Central Intelligence Agency
  | publisher = Central Intelligence Agency
  | url = http://cryptome.org/ic-black5601.htm#report
| comment=Originally an unclassified Intelligence Monograph published by CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI 96-001, May 1996)
| title = The Elusive "Bruce-Lovett Report"
  | url = https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/soviet.html}}</ref>
}}</ref> Referring to reports such as the Dulles-Jackson-Correa, Doolittle, Pike, Church, and Rockefeller reports, the Staff "recently ran across a reference to another item, the so-called "Bruce-Lovett" report, that it would very much like to read--if we could find it! The report is mentioned in Peter Grose's recent biography ''Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles''. According to Grose, [Bruce and Lovett] prepared a report for President Dwight Eisenhower in the fall of 1956 that criticized CIA's alleged fascination with "kingmaking" in the Third World and complained that a "horde of CIA representatives" was mounting foreign political intrigues at the expense of gathering hard intelligence on the Soviet Union.
====Congress increases oversight====
 
During that period were increased attempts of Congress to assert oversight. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations. Intensifying the demand for external oversight were the burglary of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party by ex-CIA personnel, and President [[Richard Nixon]]'s subsequent use of the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary. In the "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff,  H.R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion]], and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".<ref>{{cite web
The History Staff checked the CIA files on the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities (PBCFIA). They checked with the Eisenhower Library. They checked with the National Archives, which holds the PBCFIA records. They checked with the Virginia Historical Society, the custodian of David Bruce's papers. None had a copy.
| url=http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=92
 
| work=hpol.org
<blockquote>"Having reached a dead end, we consulted the author of the Dulles biography, Peter Grose. Grose told us that he had not seen the report itself but had used notes made from it by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger for ''Robert F. Kennedy and His Times'' (1978). Professor Schlesinger informed us that that he had seen the report in Robert Kennedy's papers before they were deposited at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. He had loaned Grose his notes and does not have a copy of these notes or of the report itself.</blockquote>
| title= Transcript of a recording of a meeting between President Richard Nixon and H. R. Haldeman in the oval office
|date=1972-06-23
}}</ref>


<blockquote>"This raises an interesting question: how did a report on the CIA written for President Eisenhower in 1956 end up in the RFK papers? We think we have the answer. Robert Lovett was asked to testify before Gen. [[Maxwell Taylor]]'s board of inquiry on the 1961 [[Bay of Pigs]] operation. Robert Kennedy was on that board and may have asked Lovett for a copy of the report. But we do not have the answer to another question: where is the "Bruce-Lovett" report? The JFK Presidential Library has searched the RFK papers without success. Surely the report will turn up some day, even if one government agency and four separate archives so far haven't been able to find it. But this episode helps to prove one of the few Iron Laws of History: the official who keeps the best records gets to tell the story."</blockquote>
In 1973, then-DCI [[Director of Central Intelligence#James Schlesinger|James R. Schlesinger]] commissioned reports — known as the "Family Jewels" — on illegal activities by the Agency. In December 1974, journalist [[Seymour Hersh]] broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in ''The New York Times'', revealing that the CIA had attempted or supported the assassination of foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the antiwar movement ([[Operation CHAOS]]).  


Schlesinger himself said the "report" had no influence on the CIA or on Eisenhower at the time; indeed no one at the time ever mentioned it.
Congress responded to the charges in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the Church Committee,<ref name=ChurchComm>{{citation
| title = Church Committee Reports
| publisher = the Assassination Archives and Research Center
| url = http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm}}</ref> chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike(D-NY). The Pike Committee report was not accepted by the House. In addition, President [[Gerald Ford]] created the [[United States Commission on CIA activities within the United States]],<ref name=RockComm>{{citation
| author = United States Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States
| title = Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States
| year = 1975
|url=http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=United%20States%20Commission%20on%20CIA%20Activities%20Within%20the%20United%20States}}</ref> usually called the [[Rockefeller Commission], and issued an Executive Order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.


====1975 investigations====
No immediate warning of the [[CIA activities in the Middle East and South Asia#India|Indian nuclear test on 18 May 1974 was given, although earlier analytical reports correctly predicted the way in which India would present it. Again, CIA would provide the immediate warning if it had a HUMINT source in the relevant organization. Otherwise, IMINT or SIGINT are more likely to give warning, while MASINT would detect the event.
The 1975 [[United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States]], better known as the Rockefeller Commission investigated questionable practices including assassination attempts and inappropriate domestic operations. Larger Congressional investigations followed in 1975, first the [[Church Committee]] of the [[United States Senate]], followed by the [[Pike Committee]] of the [[United States House of Representatives]]. Eventually, these interim committees were replaced by the [[U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] and the [[U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]].
===1991-2004, the post-Cold War environment===
====1996 reports====
Following the Cold War, the priority of operations against the Soviet Union obviously disappeared when the U.S.S.R. was dissolved on 25 December 1991. The Agency had been following the growth of terrorism since the 1970s, and that received more attention. The complex issue of foreign governmental and corporate scientific & technical intelligence collection became more a matter of concern.
In 1996, the [[U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] issued a congressional report estimating that: "Hundreds of employees on a daily basis are directed to break extremely serious laws in countries around the world in the face of frequently sophisticated efforts by foreign governments to catch them. A safe estimate is that several hundred
====Economic and scientific intelligence in a multipolar world====
times every day (easily 100,000 times a year) DO officers engage in highly illegal activities (according to foreign law) that not only risk political embarrassment to the US but also endanger the freedom if not lives of the participating foreign nationals and, more than occasionally, of the clandestine officer himself."<ref name = "memoryhole"> {{cite web
[[Director of Central Intelligence#James Woolsey| DCI James Woolsey]], shortly after his appointment, publicly announced, in 1993 that economic intelligence was now a CIA program. French intelligence had been aggressively going after information from American executives. Woolsey said "No more Mr. Nice Guy." <ref name=Weiner1996-03-13>{{citation
| title =The CIA Commits Over 100,000 Serious Crimes Per Year
| journal = New York Times
| publisher =www.thememoryhole.org
| title= C.I.A. Confirms Blunders During Economic Spying on France
| url =http://www.thememoryhole.org/ciacrimes.htm
| author = Weiner, Tim
|date=2006-07-16
|date=March 13, 1996
| url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406EFD81639F930A25750C0A960958260
}}</ref>
}}</ref>


In the same document, the committee wrote, "Considering these facts and recent history, which has shown that the [Director of the Central Intelligence Agency], whether he wants to or not, is held accountable for overseeing the [Clandestine Service], the DCI must work closely with the Director of the CS and hold him fully and directly responsible to him."
In a statement in 1995 entitled "A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement", President [[Bill Clinton]] detailed just what his administration expected from American intelligence with regard to protecting or pursuing American economic interests <ref name=Clinton1995>{{citation
<ref name=IC21>{{citation
| title = A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement
| chapter = "IX. Clandestine Service"
| author = Clinton, William J.
| title =The Intelligence Community in the 21st Century,
| authorlink = Bill Clinton
| author = Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, 104th Congress
| publisher = Executive Office of the President
| url =http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel/ic21_files/ic21009.html
| url = http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA297197 
| date=2006-07-16
| date = February 1995
}} </ref>
}}</ref>          
====2007 documents ====
====Counterterrorism====
On [[27 June]] [[2007]] the CIA released  two collections of previously classified documents which outlined various activities of doubtful legality. The first collection, the "[[Family jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)|Family Jewels]]," consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence [[James Schlesinger]] requesting information about activities inconsistent with the Agency's charter.<ref>{{cite news
Given increasing awareness of transnational terror, including the 1983 attack on US and French troops, observers for the United Nation, and the increasing awareness of possible militant Islamist groups as "blowback" from support of the Afghan rebels against the Soviet-controlled government, developing intelligence on such movements received a [[CIA transnational counterterrorism activities#Intelligence and terrorism in the 1990s|new emphasis.]]
|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/washington/27cia.html?pagewanted=all
====Counterproliferation====
|title=Files on Illegal Spying Show C.I.A. Skeletons From Cold War
In the context of transnational terrorist groups with access both to significant financial resources, and both weapons and expertise left over after the fall of the Soviet Union, [[WMD]] proliferation was a special concern. Efforts were not limited to transnational groups, but such issues as transfers from [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#China 1996|China to Pakistan]], and eventually from Pakistan to other nations.
|author=Mark Mazzetti and Tim Weiner
====Justification and oversight of covert action====
|publisher=The New York Times
Repercussions from the [[Iran-Contra Affair]] included the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991's prohibition of covert action without authorization. The Act defined covert operations <blockquote>"an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political,
|date=2007-06-27}}</ref>
economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the
United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.</blockquote>  


The second collection, the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of research from 1953 to 1973 relating to Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, and Sino-Soviet relations.<ref name=TwoColl>{{citation
This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, presidential finding report and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".
|url=http://www.foia.cia.gov/
|author=Central Intelligence Agency
|title=CIA Releases Two Significant Collections of Historical Documents
}}</ref>


There was a general drive to understand and refine covert action. With respect to the CIA and NCS, the term must be understood to reflect a continuum, from bribes and black propaganda at the least intrusive end, through various kinds of support of overt political groups in a given country, to noncombat support of insurgents, to paramilitary action.<ref name=Banks>{{citation
|  id =ADA280541
| title =  Covert Action: An Instrument of Foreign Policy
| publisher = U.S. Air War College
| first =Chuck| last = Banks
| year = 1994
| url = http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA280541}}</ref>


===2004, Director of Central Intelligence takes over CIA top-level functions===
Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence oversaw the Intelligence Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, additionally serving as head of the CIA. The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (DCIA), serving as head of the CIA.


==Notes==
{{reflist |2}}


==Bibliography==
[[Category:Reviewed Passed if Improved]][[Category:Suggestion Bot Tag]]
* Barrett, David M.  ''The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy.'' (2005). 542 pp. 
* Coll, Steve.  ''Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.'' (2004) 695 pp.  [http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210940048&sr=1-4 excerpt and text search]
* Conboy, Kenneth and Morrison, James.  ''The CIA's Secret War in Tibet.'' (2002). 301 pp.  Covers the entire history of CIA support for armed Tibetan opposition to Chinese rule: from the seizure of Lhasa in August 1951 and subsequent flight of the Dalai Lama, to the rout of the last Tibetan guerrilla redoubt by the Royal Nepalese Army in 1974. It is a record of almost unmitigated failure. [http://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Secret-War-Tibet/dp/0700611592/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210940048&sr=1-10 excerpt and text search]
* Cullather, Nick.  ''Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954.'' (1999). 142 pp. 
* Firth, Noel E. and Noren, James H.  ''Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990.'' (1998). 291 pp.  [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=23072924018698 online review]
* Haines, Gerald K. "An Emerging New Field of Study: U.S. Intelligence." ''Diplomatic History,'' June 2004, Vol. 28 Issue 3, p441-449, in [[EBSCO]]
* Kessler, Ronald. ''The CIA at War: Inside the Secret Campaign Against Terror,''  (2003), 496 pp [http://www.amazon.com/CIA-War-Inside-Campaign-Against/dp/0312319320/ref=sid_dp_dp excerpt and text search]
* Powers, Thomas. ''Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda'' (2004)  [http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Wars-American-Al-Qaeda-Collections/dp/1590170989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210939963&sr=1-1 excerpt and text search]
*  Prados, John.  ''Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby.'' (2003). 380 pp. 
* Prados, John.  ''Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA.'' (2006). 696 pp
* Richelson, Jeffrey T.  ''The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology.'' (2001). 386 pp. 
* Rositzke, Harry. ''The CIA's Secret Operations: Espionage, Counterespionage, and Covert Action'' (1988) [http://www.questia.com/library/book/the-cias-secret-operations-espionage-counterespionage-and-covert-action-by-harry-rositzke.jsp online edition]
* Russell, Richard L.  ''Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong and What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right.'' (2007). 232 pp. [http://www.amazon.com/Sharpening-Strategic-Intelligence-Wrong-Needs/dp/0521702372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211037989&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]
* Saunders, Frances Stonor.  ''The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.'' (2000). 509 pp. 
* Scott-Smith, Giles.  ''The Politics of Apolitical Culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and Post-War American Hegemony.'' (2002). 233 pp. [http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Apolitical-Culture-Routledge-Political/dp/0415244455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211038208&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search]  
* Taubman, Philip.  ''Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage.'' (2003). 441 pp
* Woodward. Bob. ''Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987'' (2005)
* Zegart, Amy B.  ''Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC.'' (1999). 317 pp. 
 
 
====Notes====
{{reflist |2}}

Latest revision as of 10:42, 2 September 2024

This article is developing and not approved.
 Main Article
 Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Central_Intelligence_Agency&printable=yes
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a part of the United States intelligence community , established in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman to advise the president of the United States on matters relating to national security. Established by a National Security Act, the CIA was given wide powers to gather information ("intelligence"), and some limited powers to act, in the interests of national security. It had an overall coordinating role until passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the office of the Director of National Intelligence; the office of Director of Central Intelligence became the office of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCIA); see DNI reorganization below.

The present present functions include clandestine human-source intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and covert action. Leon Panetta is the DCIA. Many CIA reports are classified information, and, further, under compartmented control system additional controls. CIA produces a wide range of intelligence analysis studies for government policymakers, and to some extent these incorporated information gained by clandestine human-source intelligence i.e. by espionage. Gathering information is generally considered a legitimate and indeed an essential role of governments, although the legitimacy of the means of gathering information may be questioned. Far more controversial, however, was the covert action role of the CIA, which included black propaganda, subversion, political warfare, sabotage, and other actions of which the U.S. government could deny knowledge. Some of these capabilities were used to overthrow governments and other missions that, in hindsight, may not have been in the long-term interest of the United States.

Background

During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had been established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to conduct espionage on behalf of the USA. It established a very large team of agents behind enemy lines, and gave substantial help to the resistance movements in areas of Europe occupied by the Axis powers, and also to Mao Zedong's Red Army in China and to the Viet Minh in French Indochina who were fighting the Japanese. At the end of the war, President Truman ordered the OSS to be closed, leaving only a small intelligence organization, the Strategic Services Unit, within the War Department.

The role of the postwar CIA, which took over the intelligence gathering and analytical activities of the OSS, was to evaluate intelligence reports and coordinate the intelligence activities of the various government departments in the interest of national security. At first it was not given the clandestine human-source intelligence or covert action capabilities of the OSS - these activities, popularly understood as "spying", were at first undertaken by other agencies, but in 1952 such missions came under the CIA. A restriction against "police, law enforcement or internal security functions" first appeared in President Truman's order establishing the Central Intelligence Group in 1946. [1] [2] [3]Also, see clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action for some of the organizational thinking that went into the new organization.

DNI reorganization

Until 2004, the Director of Central Intelligence headed both the CIA and the wider United States intelligence community . Partly as a result of recommendations from the 9-11 Commission ("9/11 Commission")[4] and the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding weapons of mass destruction[5], the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created a new Director of National Intelligence, with the DCI renamed the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA remained responsible for a wide range of analysis functions, as well as being the central human-source intelligence organization of the U.S. government, sharing responsibility for covert action with military organizations.

When discussing the CIA, it is thus important to distinguish between the older responsibilities and its present responsibilities. The effectiveness of the intelligence community of the USA is still thought to be adversely affected by inter-agency rivalries, [6] and an increasing number of interagency "centers", as well as the Intellipedia information sharing mechanism, have been established to resolve differences.

Budget

The overall U.S. intelligence budget has been considered classified until recently. There have been numerous attempts to get general information.[7]There have been accidental disclosures. [8] Mary Margaret Graham, a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.

Organization

In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:

  • The Directorate of Intelligence, responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
  • The National Clandestine Service, formerly the Directorate of Operations, which does clandestine intelligence collection and covert action
  • The Directorate of Support
  • The Directorate of Science and Technology

Executive Office

The Director of the CIA now reports to the DNI; in practice, he deals with the DNI, Congress, and White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight, although that is principally a guidance role. Historically, its budget, as well as that of the entire intelligence community, was classified information, but the total intelligence budget is now made public, and there is a strong drive to have the next level of detail, at the major agency level, published.

Strong Directors of the CIA have had a considerable influence on the Agency's culture; see Director of Central Intelligence. [9]

In 2006, the third-ranking position in the CIA, Executive Director, who was more hands-on than the Deputy Director, was replaced with an Associate Deputy Director.[10]

The CIA supports the military with information it gathers, receives information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperates on field activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to all branches of the military[11]

In the National Clandestine Service, an Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Military Affairs[12] deals with specific clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action in support of military operations.

The CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group. [13]

Executive Staff

There are an assortment of staff offices that report to the executive offices.

General Publications

The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence maintains the Agency's historical materials and promotes the study of intelligence as a legitimate discipline.[14]

In 2002, CIA's Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis began publishing the unclassified Kent Center Occasional Papers, aiming to offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance the theory and practice of intelligence analysis."[15]

General Counsel and Inspector General

Two offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The Office of the General Counsel advises the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA. One particular General Counsel, Lawrence (Larry) Houston, was a key advisor several DCIs on both legal and broader issues.

The Office of Inspector General promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA. The Office conducts inspections, investigations, and audits at Headquarters and in the field, and oversees the Agency-wide grievance-handling system. It provides a semiannual report to the Director of the CIA which the Director is required by law to submit to the Intelligence Committees of Congress within 30 days.

In February 2008, the Director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, sent a message to employees that Inspector General John L. Helgerson will accept increased control over the investigations by that office, saying "John has chosen to take a number of steps to heighten the efficiency, assure the quality and increase the transparency of the investigation process".[16] The Washington Post suggested this was a response to senior officials who believe the OIG has been too aggressive in looking into counterterrorism programs, including detention programs. The changes were the result of an investigation, begun in April 2007, by one of Hayden's assistants, Robert L. Deitz. [17] There was congressional concern that restrictions on the OIG might adversely affect its effectiveness. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democratic member of the Intelligence Committee, did not disagree with any of Hayden's actions, said the inquiry “should never have happened and can’t be allowed to happen again.”...“I’m all for the inspector general taking steps that help CIA employees understand his processes, but that can be done without an approach that can threaten the inspector general’s independence

Public Affairs

The Office of Public Affairs advises the Director of the CIA on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role. See CIA influence on public opinion for developments in the means by which the Agency, among other functions, works with the entertainment industry.

Directorate of Intelligence

The Directorate of Intelligence produces all-source intelligence analysis on key foreign issues.[18]. It has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and two support units.[19]

Regional groups

There is an Office dedicated to Iraq, and regional analytical Offices covering:

Transnational groups

The Office of Terrorism Analysis[20] supports the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. See CIA transnational counterterrorism activities.

The Office of Transnational Issues[21] assesses existing and emerging threats to US national security and provides the most senior policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support.

The CIA Crime and Narcotics Center[22] researches information on international crime for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has no domestic police authority, it sends its analyses to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice.

The Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center[23] provides intelligence support related to national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It receives the output of national technical means of verification.

The Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group[24] identifies, monitors, and analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and non-national, against US interests. It works with FBI personnel in the National Counterintelligence Executive of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Information Operations Center Analysis Group.[25] deals with threats to U.S. computer systems. Again, this unit supports DNI activities.

Support and general units

The Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis provides comprehensive intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national policymakers.

The Office of Policy Support customizes Directorate of Intelligence analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement, military, and foreign liaison recipients.

Directorate of Operations

With the creation of the ODNI, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many consider the core of the agency, although its analytical work may be equally important. As a compromise for having given up most of its HUMINT capabilities, the United States Department of Defense was given additional budget for special operations. There has been more of an emphasis on the military running larger paramilitary operations.

The National Clandestine Service (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is responsible collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources, and covert action. The new name reflects its having absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets, which collected strategic human intelligence HUMINT for the Department of Defense (which retained HUMINT directly related to military). The NCS was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the United States Department of Defense and the CIA. The Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service,[26] which, with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.

Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations, directly related to the protection of military forces and facility, stay under military authority. Another HUMINT area that remains with Department of Defence is direct support to special operations, by an organization, originally called the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) are part of the U.S. Special Operations Command, where their classified names and special access program designations are changed frequently.[27]

The precise present organisation of the NCS is classified.[28].

Directorate of Science and Technology

The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services. Albert D. "Bud" Wheeler (1963-66) and Carl E. Duckett (1966-76) built the directorate into a strong component of the CIA and then guided it through its golden age of technical innovation. By contrast, decisions by Ruth David (1995-98) contributed, Richelson (2001) argues, to a decline in the importance and status of the directorate as it lost control over key responsibilities, including the analysis of satellite photography.

Richelson (2001) explains the major DS&T's achievements, especially reconnaissance airplanes and a series of increasingly sophisticated surveillance satellites, with cameras that could photograph Soviet bomber bases and missile sites with startling clarity from orbits deep in space. In 1960, the first effective satellite produced coverage of more than one million square miles, surpassing all previous U-2 photography combined. This imagery revealed that the Soviets had far fewer bombers and (later) ICBMs than the Pentagon expected. The worst-case estimates of the U.S. Air Force proved wildly exaggerated, and the myths of the bomber and missile "gaps" were punctured by empirical data.

The development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force. The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union. It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.

Imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites was analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness.[29]It had two primary goals

  1. harnessing techniques for its own use
  2. countering any new intelligence technologies the Soviets might develop.

In 1999, the CIA created the venture capital firm CIA-Outside#In-Q-Tel to help fund and develop technologies of interest to the agency.[30] It has long been the IC practice to contract for major development, such as reconnaissance aircraft and satellites.

Directorate of Support

The Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications, and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of highly sensitive operations. Significant units include

  • The Office of Security
  • The Office of Communications
  • The Office of Information Technology

Logistics and proprietaries

Under the original NSC 10/2 authorization, the CIA was made responsible not just for covert action during the cold war, but for such action during major wars, in collaboration with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When DCI Walter Bedell Smith created the Directorate of Plans and ended the autonomy of the OPC and OSO, he also recommended, in 1952, that the CIA could obtain logistical support from the Department of Defense, making internal budget transfers to repay the Department of Defence. [31]

While some support functions still were unique to CIA requirements, Smith proposed that wherever possible, those functions could be tenant organizations on military bases. He wrote,

A major logistical support base will consist of a CIA base headquarters, training, communications, medical accommodation for evacuees and storage for six months’ hot war requirements as well as provide logistical support for CIA operational groups or headquarters... Informal planning along the lines indicated has been carried out by elements of CIA with ... the Joint Chiefs of Staff ...

When military transportation would be too obvious, CIA needed an alternative, which led to the creation of the CIA proprietary airlines, whose relationship to the US government was not public.[32] These consolidated them into Air America, which was was heavily involved in support with the war in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in the 1960s.

Training

The Office of Training, begins Junior Officer Training program for new employees, but conducts courses in a wide range of specialized professional disciplines. So that the initial course might be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.

For a later stage of training of student operations officer, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary, Virginia, near Williamsburg. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the office of Strategic Services. [33] Roger Hall's You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger for an accurate but amusing account of Hall's OSS duty, which included finding unexpected solutions to things in the assessment process as well as his experience in real operations. [34] He described a specific assessment period at a rural facility called "Station S". Hall said he tried to find out why it was called Station S, and finally decided the reason was that "assess" has more "S" letters than any other.

Organizational history

The CIA was created by Congress with the National Security Act of 1947, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. It is the descendant of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War II, which was dissolved in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments. Eleven months earlier, in 1944, William J. Donovan, the OSS's creator, proposed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt creating a new organization directly supervised by the President: "which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies."[35] Under his plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services. He also proposed that this agency have authority to conduct "subversive operations abroad," but "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad."[3]

From the start isolationists warned of the danger that the CIA might become an out-of-control "American Gestapo" like the Nazi secret police, which could trample American civil liberties On the other side was fear of a nuclear Pearl Harbor without warning. In general Congress deferred to the White House until the 1970s on intelligence matters. Only a few members of a few select committees had any legislative oversight; they kept floor debate and written records to a minimum.

Both the OSS and its British counterparts, as do other agencies worldwide, struggle with finding the right organizational balance among clandestine intelligence collection , counterintelligence, and covert action. See clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action for a historical perspective on this problem. These issues also bear on the reasons that, in the history below, some "eras" overlap.

Immediate predecessors, 1946-1947

In 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt was relying on intelligence information provided by British intelligence (and slanted by them to favor their position.) In 1941 he created the Office of Strategic Services, which was the first independent US intelligence agency. The OSS was broken up shortly after the end of the war, by President Truman, on September 20, 1945. The rapid reorganizations that followed reflected the routine sort of bureaucratic competition for resources, but also trying to deal with the proper relationships of clandestine intelligence collection and covert action (i.e., paramilitary and psychological operations). See Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for a more detailed history of this problem, which was not unique to the US during and after World War II. In October 1945, the functions of the OSS were split between the Departments of State and War:

New Unit Oversight OSS Functions Absorbed
Strategic Services Unit (SSU) War Department Secret Intelligence (SI) (i.e., clandestine intelligence collection) and Counter-espionage (X-2)
Interim Research and Intelligence Service (IRIS) State Department Research and Analysis Branch (i.e., intelligence analysis)
Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) (not uniquely for former OSS) War Department, Army General Staff Staff officers from Operational Groups, Jedburghs, Morale Operations (black propaganda)

This division lasted only a few months.Despite opposition from the military establishment, the U.S. Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),[35] President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) in January 1946 which was the direct predecessor to the CIA.[36] The CIG was an interim authority established under Presidential authority. The assets of the SSU, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence was transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO).

Early CIA, 1947-1952

In September 1947, the National Security Act of 1947 established both the National Security Council and the CIA.[37] Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was appointed as the first Director of Central Intelligence.

The National Security Council Directive on Office of Special Projects, June 18, 1948 (NSC 10/2) further gave the CIA the authority to carry out covert operations "against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons."[38]

In 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency Act authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempting it from most of the usual limitations on the use of Federal funds. It also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed." It also created the program "PL-110", to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fall outside normal immigration procedures, as well as giving those persons identity documentation and economic support.[39]

The structure stabilizes, 1952

Then-DCI Walter Bedell Smith, who enjoyed a special degree of Presidential trust, having been Dwight D. Eisenhower's primary Chief of Staff during World War II, insisted that the CIA -- or at least only one department -- had to direct the OPC and OSO. Those organization, as well as some minor functions, formed the euphemistically named Directorate of Plans, in 1952.

Also in 1952, United States Army Special Forces were created, with some missions overlapping those of the Department of Plans. In general, the pattern emerged that the CIA could borrow resources from Special Forces, although it had its own special operators.

Early Cold War, 1953-1964

Allen Dulles, who had been a key OSS operations officer in Switzerland during the Second World War, took over from Smith, at a time where US policy was dominated by intense anticommunism. Various sources were involved, the most visible being the investigations and abuses of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the more quiet but systematic containment policy developed by George Kennan, and the Korean War. Dulles enjoyed a high degree of flexibility, as his brother, John Foster Dulles, was simultaneously Secretary of State.

This arbitrary period is defined as being between the Eisenhower Administration taking office, and the first overt U.S. combat role in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident. See declassified signals intelligence about that incident.

The main headquarters complex in Langley, Virginia, consolidating many temporary facilities in the Washington metropolitan area, was built in this period. . On the memorial wall at CIA headquarters, stars memorialize CIA personnel who have died on duty, some with no name attached, because it would reveal the identity of a clandestine officer. [40]

Intelligence on Soviet affairs

During this period, there were much intelligence analysis of Soviet intentions, as well as covert actions against perceived Communist expansion, some more reflexive than calmly assessed both for probability of success and for the significance that a success could have. Some Soviet defectors in place, such as Oleg Penkovsky[41] and Pyotr Popov [42]. See the specific entries in CIA activities in Europe and Russia.

Intelligence and covert action in Indochina

From 1954 onwards, CIA personnel were involved with Indochina/Vietnam. CIA's predecessor, the OSS, had interacted with Ho Chi Minh immediately after the end of World War II, but Ho's offer to work with the U.S. was rejected. [43] While the Patti mission forwarded Ho's proposals for phased independence, with the French or even the United States as the transition partner, the US policy of containment opposed forming any government that might be Communist.

The first CIA mission to Indochina, under the code name Saigon Military Mission arrived in 1954, under Edward Lansdale. US-based analysts were simultaneously trying to project the evolution of political power, both if the scheduled referendum chose merger of the North and South, or if the South, the US client, stayed independent. Initially, the US focus in Southeast Asia was on Laos, not Vietnam.

Latin America

In a general trend to support any anticommunist, CIA was involved in the overthrow of the president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz, in 1954.

There was intense interest in Cuba after the overthrow of the Batista government, including assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Imagery intelligence

The CIA, working with the military, formed the joint National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to operate reconnaissance aircraft such as the SR-71 and later reconnaissance satellites, and the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC) to analyze the photography. "The fact of" the United States operating reconnaissance satellites, like "the fact of" the existence of NRO, was highly classified for many years. NPIC later became part of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, however, involved extensive CIA intelligence analysis, particularly of imagery. There have been suggestions that the Soviet attempt to put missiles into Cuba came, indirectly, when they realized how badly they had been compromised by a US-UK defector in place, Oleg Penkovsky.

Counterproliferation

There was no immediate prediction of the [[CIA activities in Asia-Pacific#China|Chinese first test in October 1964. To put this in perspective, if there are no HUMINT assets in an area where a nuclear test is being prepared, the specific warning is more likely to come from SIGINT and IMINT, with the actual detection through MASINT.

Complications of Indochina and the Vietnam War (1966-1972)

As the US military and electorate were affected by Vietnam, so was the CIA and intelligence community. There were tensions over allowing political views to impact on analysis and formal estimates, and on the role for covert action.

Analytical arguments over Southeast Asia

American intervention in Southeast Asia began in Laos, not Vietnam as is widely believed. Over 100 National Intelligence Estimates (NIE), and literally thousands of intelligence reports, were issued on the region.

During the period of American combat involvement in the Vietnam War, there was considerable arguments about progress among the Department of Defense under Robert S. McNamara, the CIA, and, to some extent, the intelligence staff of the Military Assistance Command for Vietnam (MAC-V).[44] In general, the military was consistently more optimistic than the CIA. Sam Adams, a junior CIA analyst with responsibilities for estimating the actual damage to the enemy, eventually resigned from the CIA, after expressing concern, to Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms with estimates that were changed for interagency and White House political reasons, writing the book War of Numbers.

Domestic activities

Questionable domestic actions became public from 1972 onwards, as a result of disclosures surrounding the Watergate burglary, when it became known that some of the burglars had CIA connections, and that the Nixon Administration political operatives had, until Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Vernon Walters cut it off, requested and received technical support from the CIA.

There were also activities directed at possible Communist infiltration of the antiwar movement. Some of these activities were conducted by Federal agencies not authorized to participate in domestic law enforcement, such as the CIA and Army intelligence.

Americas

Cuba remained a subject of intense interest, but a new focus was on the leftist Allende government in Chile. CIA provided covert political support to selected parties before and after the 1964 elections and after Allende’s 1970 election. Once Allende was elected, the CIA assisted various coup plotters in both kidnapping Army Commander Rene Schneider, and then overthrowing President Salvador Allende. Both Schneider and Allende died in the separate attacks, although there is no strong evidence that either death was planned. It is, however, hard to credit that Nixon himself did not very specifically intend for Allende to be overthrown. [45]

After Allende was overthrown, the CIA cooperated with the increasingly authoritarian leader of Chile, General Augusto Pinochet. [46] See CIA activities in Chile.

Actions leading to collapse of Soviet Union and abuses of CIA authority, 1972-1991

This period had successes, successes with unexpected consequences, and successful and unsuccessful intelligence analysis.

Soviet-related issues

Actions against the Soviets include proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert support of the mujahedin. Some of the people in the supported groups later joined anti-American groups such as Al-Qaeda.

The CIA predicted problems with the Soviet system, but did not predict the collapse in the form in which it came. [47]

Congress increases oversight

During that period were increased attempts of Congress to assert oversight. Revelations about past CIA activities, such as assassinations and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders, illegal domestic spying on U.S. citizens, provided the opportunities to execute Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations. Intensifying the demand for external oversight were the burglary of the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party by ex-CIA personnel, and President Richard Nixon's subsequent use of the CIA to impede the FBI's investigation of the burglary. In the "smoking gun" recording that led to President Nixon's resignation, Nixon ordered his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to tell the CIA that further investigation of Watergate would "open the whole can of worms" about the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and, therefore, that the CIA should tell the FBI to cease investigating the Watergate burglary, due to reasons of "national security".[48]

In 1973, then-DCI James R. Schlesinger commissioned reports — known as the "Family Jewels" — on illegal activities by the Agency. In December 1974, journalist Seymour Hersh broke the news of the "Family Jewels" in The New York Times, revealing that the CIA had attempted or supported the assassination of foreign leaders, and had conducted surveillance on some seven thousand American citizens involved in the antiwar movement (Operation CHAOS).

Congress responded to the charges in 1975, investigating the CIA in the Senate via the Church Committee,[49] chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), and in the House of Representatives via the Pike Committee, chaired by Congressman Otis Pike(D-NY). The Pike Committee report was not accepted by the House. In addition, President Gerald Ford created the United States Commission on CIA activities within the United States,[50] usually called the [[Rockefeller Commission], and issued an Executive Order prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.

No immediate warning of the [[CIA activities in the Middle East and South Asia#India|Indian nuclear test on 18 May 1974 was given, although earlier analytical reports correctly predicted the way in which India would present it. Again, CIA would provide the immediate warning if it had a HUMINT source in the relevant organization. Otherwise, IMINT or SIGINT are more likely to give warning, while MASINT would detect the event.

1991-2004, the post-Cold War environment

Following the Cold War, the priority of operations against the Soviet Union obviously disappeared when the U.S.S.R. was dissolved on 25 December 1991. The Agency had been following the growth of terrorism since the 1970s, and that received more attention. The complex issue of foreign governmental and corporate scientific & technical intelligence collection became more a matter of concern.

Economic and scientific intelligence in a multipolar world

DCI James Woolsey, shortly after his appointment, publicly announced, in 1993 that economic intelligence was now a CIA program. French intelligence had been aggressively going after information from American executives. Woolsey said "No more Mr. Nice Guy." [51]

In a statement in 1995 entitled "A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement", President Bill Clinton detailed just what his administration expected from American intelligence with regard to protecting or pursuing American economic interests [52]

Counterterrorism

Given increasing awareness of transnational terror, including the 1983 attack on US and French troops, observers for the United Nation, and the increasing awareness of possible militant Islamist groups as "blowback" from support of the Afghan rebels against the Soviet-controlled government, developing intelligence on such movements received a new emphasis.

Counterproliferation

In the context of transnational terrorist groups with access both to significant financial resources, and both weapons and expertise left over after the fall of the Soviet Union, WMD proliferation was a special concern. Efforts were not limited to transnational groups, but such issues as transfers from China to Pakistan, and eventually from Pakistan to other nations.

Justification and oversight of covert action

Repercussions from the Iran-Contra Affair included the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991's prohibition of covert action without authorization. The Act defined covert operations

"an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political,

economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the

United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.

This also required an authorizing chain of command, including an official, presidential finding report and the informing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which, in emergencies, requires only "timely notification".

There was a general drive to understand and refine covert action. With respect to the CIA and NCS, the term must be understood to reflect a continuum, from bribes and black propaganda at the least intrusive end, through various kinds of support of overt political groups in a given country, to noncombat support of insurgents, to paramilitary action.[53]

2004, Director of Central Intelligence takes over CIA top-level functions

Previously, the Director of Central Intelligence oversaw the Intelligence Community, serving as the president's principal intelligence advisor, additionally serving as head of the CIA. The DCI's title now is "Director of the Central Intelligence Agency" (DCIA), serving as head of the CIA.

Notes

  1. ↑ Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, United States Senate ("Church Committee") (April 26, 1976), Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. Book II
  2. ↑ Warner, Michael (expanded from Fall 1995), "Salvage and Liquidation: The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group", Studies in Intelligence
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Troy, Thomas F. (1993-09-22). Truman on CIA p.6. Center for the Study of Intelligence.
  4. ↑ National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (26 July 2004), Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
  5. ↑ The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding weapons of mass destruction (31 March 2005), Report to the President
  6. ↑ Theoharis, Athan (2007). The Quest for Absolute Security; The Failed Relations Among U.S. Intelligence Agencies. Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 1-56663-697-3. 
  7. ↑ Declaration of Steven Aftergood, 5 May 2003, Case No. 02-1146 (RMU)
  8. ↑ Shane, Scott (8 November 2005), "Official Reveals Budget for U.S. Intelligence", New York Times
  9. ↑ Painter, Charles N. (2002), Early leader Effects on the Process of Institutionalization Through Cultural Embedding: The Cases of William J. Donovan, Allen W. Dulles, and J. Edgar Hoover, Doctoral dissertation, University of Vermont
  10. ↑ Statement by Director of the Central Intelligence Agency General Michael V. Hayden, 2006-07-16
  11. ↑ CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War. Central Intelligence Agency (1997-06-16).
  12. ↑ CIA Abbreviations and Acronyms
  13. ↑ Reiss Jr, Robert J. Jr. (2006 Summer Edition), "The C2 puzzle: Space Authority and the Operational Level of War", Army Space Journal
  14. ↑ Center for the Study of Intelligence. cia.gov (2006-07-16).
  15. ↑ Kent Center Occasional Papers
  16. ↑ "CIA Sets Changes To IG's Oversight, Adds Ombudsman", Washington Post: A03, February 2, 2008
  17. ↑ Mazetti, Mark (February 2, 2008), "C.I.A. Tells of Changes for Its Internal Inquiries", New York Times
  18. ↑ Fifty Years of Service to the Nation. cia.gov (2006-07-16).
  19. ↑ Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence & Analysis.
  20. ↑ Office of Terrorism Analysis
  21. ↑ Office of Transnational Issues
  22. ↑ CIA Crime and Narcotics Center
  23. ↑ Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center
  24. ↑ Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group
  25. ↑ Information Operations Center Analysis Group
  26. ↑ Jeffrey Richelson, ed. (May 23, 2001), The Pentagon's Spies, vol. Electronic Briefing Book No. 46, National Security Archive, George Washington University
  27. ↑ Richelson, Jeffrey, ed. (March 31, 1989), Commander, USAISA, Subject: Termination of USAISA and "GRANTOR SHADOW", The Pentagon's Spies, vol. Electronic Briefing Book No. 46, National Security Archive, George Washington University
  28. ↑ Martin, Thomas S. & Michael L. Evans (July 17, 2000), Defense HUMINT Service Organizational Chart, The "Death Squad Protection" Act: Senate Measure Would Restrict Public Access to Crucial Human Rights Information Under the Freedom of Information Act
  29. ↑ Science, Technology and the CIA. National Security Archive, The George Washington University (2001-09-10).
  30. ↑ Rick E. Yannuzzi. In-Q-Tel: A New Partnership Between the CIA and the Private Sector. Central Intelligence Agency, with permission from the Defense Intelligence Journal.
  31. ↑ Memorandum from Director of Central Intelligence to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Overseas CIA Logistical Support Bases, vol. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950-1955: The Intelligence Community, December 12, 1952, FRUS document 140
  32. ↑ Prouty, L. Fletcher (1973). The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World. Prentice Hall. 
  33. ↑ The OSS Assessment Staff (1948), Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services, Rinehart and Company, Inc.
  34. ↑ Hall, Roger (1957), You're Stepping on my Cloak and Dagger, W. W. Norton & Co.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 (December 1992) Factbook on Intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency, 4–5. 
  36. ↑ Warner, Michael. The Creation of the Central Intelligence Group. cia.gov.
  37. ↑ Zegart, Amy B.. The CIA's license to fail, The Los Angeles Times, 2007-09-23.
  38. ↑ U.S. Department of State: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment. state.gov Document 292, Section 5.
  39. ↑ George Tenet v. John Doe. Federation of American Scientists (2006-07-16).
  40. ↑ Special Forces Roll of Honour: Central Intelligence Agency
  41. ↑ Schecter, Jerrold L. & Peter S. Deriabin (1992), The Spy Who Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War, Scribner, ISBN 0684190680
  42. ↑ Christensen, Svend Aage & Frede P. Jensen, Superpower under Pressure: The Secret Speech of Minister of Defense Marshal Zhukov in East Berlin, March 1957, Cooperative History Project on Cooperative Security, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
  43. ↑ Patti, Archimedes L. A (1980). Why Viet Nam?: Prelude to America's albatross. University of California Press. 
  44. ↑ Adams, Sam (1994), War of Numbers: an Intelligence Memoir, Steerforth Press, ISBN 188364223X
  45. ↑ Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents relating to the Military Coup, 1970-1976. National Security Archives Online (November 18, 1970).
  46. ↑ National Intelligence Council (September 18, 2000), CIA Activities in Chile
  47. ↑ MacEachin, Douglas J. (May 1996), CIA Assessments of the Soviet Union: The Record Versus the Charges, Central Intelligence Agency
  48. ↑ Transcript of a recording of a meeting between President Richard Nixon and H. R. Haldeman in the oval office. hpol.org (1972-06-23).
  49. ↑ Church Committee Reports, the Assassination Archives and Research Center
  50. ↑ United States Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States (1975), Report to the President by the Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States
  51. ↑ Weiner, Tim (March 13, 1996), "C.I.A. Confirms Blunders During Economic Spying on France", New York Times
  52. ↑ Clinton, William J. (February 1995), A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, Executive Office of the President
  53. ↑ Banks, Chuck (1994), Covert Action: An Instrument of Foreign Policy, U.S. Air War College, ADA280541
Retrieved from "https://citizendium.org/wiki/index.php?title=Central_Intelligence_Agency&oldid=976232"