Talk:Central Intelligence Agency

1956 Bruce-Lovett Report

The section has minimal value and is not encyclopedic. I propose to delete it. Richard Jensen 06:57, 16 May 2008 (CDT)

Now, I'm a new editor, but one of the differences I see between WP and CZ is that more of the author's experience comes through. Certainly, and I'm not objecting to this because it is a useful difference, I see evaluations and judgments of personalities, in historical context, in your work. It is a Good Thing (TM) that, in material clearly coming from your experience and research, you described Mao as willing to bring catastrophe to China, or Omar Bradley as weak and vacillating. WP would demand a secondary source for that.

I see value in the Bruce-Lovett report precisely in the confusion it shows. Now, there is no question that the CIA has done unwise and outright illegal things, although sometimes at the orders of the White House. Gottlieb's work approved in channels strikes me as some of the worst that could be considered rogue, or Casey's actions, clearly in violation of the Boland Amendment, but with his role really that of an individual rather than DCI.

This article had a fairly substantial edit before even coming up; it's definitely not the WP version. As it was, I spent 6 months or so at WP, bringing down the tinfoil-hat quality and looking more inside the Agency, to help people better understand its actual culture, giving a context for evaluating actions.

As you may have noticed, I have another article on Directors of Central Intelligence, which goes less into the individual biographies and more into the role they played in Agency culture. Perhaps a compromise here would be moving not just the Bruce-Lovett report, but the other major reports, into that section, redirecting it into more of an article on cultural and organizational influences on how the Agency developed its operating mode.

The Bruce-Lovett report, I believe, is historically significant because, in a slightly humorous way, it is a vivid example of how informal policy guidance, and internal/external review, could be in the fifties. I freely admit that I wrote with slight tongue in cheek, but in no way changing or inventing facts, or injecting substantive opinion.

I do not think it should be deleted. Now, I will be doing substantial additional editing here, to get out what were a number of WP political compromises with conspiracy theorists. To me, the Bruce-Lovett history is extremely relevant to people assuming a Secret Government cabal, when the reality may have been far more one of tolerance of individuals, and a lack of a review system. What does it say about a Presidential review process when an apparently significant report can't even be found? Howard C. Berkowitz 08:26, 16 May 2008 (CDT)

Encyclopedias have to start with the big picture, and leave the minutiae for last. The Bruce Lovett report section is full of tedious detail about trivial matters and yet gets more coverage than the Bay of Pigs or any other episode! There are no serious historical facts in the section that readers need to know. This is a general article about the MAIN EVENTS in CIA history, so let's please start with the main events. I dread the though that some poor student will think the report is somehow important just because it is in CZ. We have a rule that CZ material has to be "edited mercilessly" and in my opinion that means it does not make the cut.Richard Jensen 08:33, 16 May 2008 (CDT)

On "Mao as willing to bring catastrophe to China" that was a main assumption of US intelligence, but it was wrong. Later episodes such as the Great leap forward and the near-nuclear attack by BOTH the US and USSR on China, and the cultural revolution were not available to analysts in 1950-- nor was Mao's quote to the effect that after a nuclear attack there would be hundreds of millions of Chinese left. Richard Jensen 08:36, 16 May 2008 (CDT)

On Bradley as weak and vacillating-- that's pretty standard history: "Both Chairman Omar Bradley and Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins seem weak and unwilling to confront MacArthur,"

Weintrab assessment; Bradford Lee's refers to "several months of vacillation" Reader's Companion Military History p 276 Richard Jensen 08:48, 16 May 2008 (CDT)